May 03, 2006

Horse 542 - Kangaroos, Radio Waves & Aliens

This is an answer to two people's questions. It is by no means definitive and may be inaccurate depending on whether there are or not.

In bible study on Monday night I was asked a question, and my answer I think scared people. The question was "Do you think aliens exist?" To which I answered, "I don't know I guess it's enitrely possible".

Now before you lynch me over roast coals and tell me that the idea of aliens is unbiblical, I ask you, is it?

Firstly the Bible itself is not a science textbook. This is by no means to say that it isn't true because even scientists will conceed that all scientific theory has a shelf life of 200 years. The Bible as a document can be verified and checked despite being thousands of years old, if you did that with science text, you'd be both wrong and barking mad.

Second, the Bible is not a conclusive guide to everything in the world. It's purpose is far different to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for instance. The Bible is a text that contains everything that God has to say to us. It even says itself that it's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

It is however not useful for telling you how to operate a forklift, or fill in your income tax return. These things simply did not exist when the Bible was written. Yet how accurate is it when it tells us that:
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
How accurate is this? 100% accurate I would suggest. The Bible's job primarily is to teach us how to relate to God and each other. It's as every bit useful now as it was when it was written. Neither God or people change, in fact only the technology we use (to blow ourselves up with amongst other things) ever seems to change.

Which brings me to the subject of Aliens, Kangaroos and Radio Waves. I have seen kangaroos and can tell you that they exist. We know radio waves exist because we can pick them up on the radio but as little as 120 years ago, no-one knew that they existed. Does this mean that they weren't there? Of course not, it means that we couldn't either detect or predict their existance. How about kangaroos? 400 years ago Europeans had never seen one, Asians had never seen one, Africans had never seen one... were there kangaroos 400 years ago?

About aliens themselves - When I look at the night sky I see a miriad of stars that most likely we'll never ever get to because of the vastness of space; we've only just started to discover planets around some of them recently. Is it impossible that if God made the universe at a command that He couldn't put life elsewhere in it also at a command? Don't be silly. The God who made the universe from nought could have very easily put things in it that we can't see, detect or find - aliens included.

Now for a more important question: If there are aliens, how does that affect my standing with God? Do aliens negate the existance of God? Are aliens even relevant with regards any question pertaining to God? Do I even care about aliens?
The answer to all of these is a resounding NO. The question of if there are or aren't aliens in the universe is as important to me as what colour the doorknob to the basement door is. Knowing either way won't make an iota of difference. God is still God, God still made everything with a spoken word and whether He chose to put other life in the universe was enitrely His decision. Actually so was His decision to put life on our own planet.

Do I think Aliens exist? I don't know I guess it's enitrely possible. Do I care? Not much.

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