The Theology of Martian Life

The latest Martian methane leaks - about a new piece of data that could point to life - have sent some atheists into a gleeful frenzy. They don't smell gas... they smell blood. And they're eager to shove this in the face of the theists, and watch their faith crumble to bits as they're finally confronted with proof that they've been wrong all along.

Ain't gonna happen.

First, there's the cynical rebuttal: Theists cling so tightly to their beliefs that they'll find some way to rationalize the discovery of extra-terrestrial life so that it fits in with their beliefs. They'll stick their heads in the sand and claim it's a hoax. Or they'll argue that it probably came from Earth somehow. Or that it's not really "life", it's just carbon-based molecules capable of reproducing themselves chemically.

There would probably be some of that happening. But it wouldn't be needed. Because there's nothing about bacteria on Mars that contradicts the holy scriptures of major modern religions. Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, and Shintos might be intrigued by the news, but it wouldn't threaten their beliefs in any way. Any polytheist or pantheist religion isn't going to be fazed by the existance of life elsewhere.

The only religions that might be threatened are the monotheist ones, specifically Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But as closed-minded as the priests of these faiths can be, at times rejecting or denouncing things like the equality of women, or the evil of slavery, or the notion of good clean recreational sex... this one wouldn't be a problem for them.

For one thing, it wouldn't have a direct impact on day to day life within the faith. Germs on another planet won't upset the status quo, so there's no sociopolitical motivation to freak out over it.

And theologically... it's a non-issue. There's nothing in the holy scriptures of these faiths that would be contradicted by it. Sure, there's nothing in the Torah, the Gospels, the Epistles, or the Quran that directly acknowledges the existence of life on other planets, but neither is there anything that denies it. It's not as if Genesis says, "and God said 'Let there be life, but only on this one world, for God wished it to be unique in all His Creation." For all we know from reading the Book, God spent the Eighth Day letting there be simple bacteria in underground fissures on Mars, where volcanic heat and saltwater would sustain them.

The Bible doesn't say anything about the existence of pineapples in Hawaii, but the discovery of them didn't shake anyone's faith. Likewise, the discovery of Martian bacteria would simply be another example of the wonders of God's Creation.

At worst, Orthodox rabbis would have to revisit (as they've had to do many times over the millennia... it's part of their lot in life) the interpretation of the Talmud to take the changing world around them into account. Are Martian lifeforms kosher or traif? (While they're at it, they might want to figure out how to deal with observance of the Sabbath on a planet with a 24.6-hour day.)

What would raise some theological eyebrows, and no doubt some crises of faith, would be the discovery of sentient life elsewhere in the universe. Not some lesser intelligence like the apes or cetaceans that we can brush off as "not quite there yet", or artificial intelligence that we can claim godhood over... but an alien culture that's obviously as advanced as (or more than) our own.

It wouldn't be a completely unique situation. Over the centuries, European Christians "discovered" a series of "new" civilisations that had never heard of Jesus (or even their ancestor Adam). There was sometimes debate about the theological implications of this. After all, these people had lived for generations without a chance at salvation through Jesus. But the Christians usually coped by converting, enslaving, and/or killing the people in question. Jesus did say "make disciples of all nations", after all. The Muslims followed a similar pattern in North African and Southwest Asia.

The Jews might not have a problem with ETs. Judaism really only has two fundamental precepts: G-d is the Creator of everything, and He has a special covenant with the children of Abraham. All others... Greek, Egyptian, Inuit, Chinese, Martian, Antarean... are just goyim, people not of the house of Abraham, with no theological significance.

There's a notion that already has a bit of traction in our society, that God might manifest Himself in different ways to different peoples. Jews, Christians, and Muslims (at least the non-xenophobic ones) allude to this as they accept that when a Muslim says "Allah" he's talking about "YHWH" or "Jehovah". The Jewish notion that G-d holds them to a different standard than to the gentiles fits with this. It would depend, I suppose on just how different ia!8&k/'4s is from the guy we call God.

Christianity (and Islam, I think) would be more troubled over the implications this would have on the doctrine of Original Sin. The idea there is that Creation was a perfect, peaceful place until Adam and Eve brought sin into it by disobeying a direct order from God. Since everyone on Earth is a descendent of Adam and Eve, it explains why sinfulness and suffering are part of the human condition. But what about the Antareans? Does their life suck because of what Adam and Eve did over here in the Sol system? Or did they have their own little spoilers? But what if theirs happened way before ours did? Does that mean Adam's sin wasn't all that original?

The thing is, this question is already before the jury. The whole question of Literal Creationism v. Darwinian Evolution puts Original Sin in the balance. After all, if there were T-Rexes fighting Triceratopses, and Brontos dying off while little mammals chomped on their eggs, epochs before the first man and woman came along, how can you blame all the death and dischord on their disobedience?

Anyway, most of this last bit is moot, as the odds of us discovering any definitively intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe - let alone learning anything about them - are rather slim. Maybe by then we'll be ready to cope with the theological implications of the encounter.