Did Jesus Die For Klingons Too?

From time to time, a bunch of science types like to get together. And from time to time they like to let the scope of their scientific speculation stray into areas out of their purview.  And from time to time, based purely upon wild speculation which often poses as science these days, a small minority of these science types like to think that they have discovered a deal breaker for religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Did Jesus die for Klingons too?

ORLANDO, Fla. — The discovery of intelligent aliens would be mind-blowing in many respects, but it could present a special dilemma for the world’s religions, theologians pondering interstellar travel concepts said Saturday (Oct. 1).

Christians, in particular, might take the news hardest, because the Christian belief system does not easily allow for other intelligent beings in the universe, Christian thinkers said at the 100 Year Starship Symposium, a meeting sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to discuss issues surrounding traveling to other stars.

In other words, “Did Jesus die for Klingons too?” as philosophy professor Christian Weidemannof Germany’s Ruhr-University Bochum titled his talk at a panel on the philosophical and religious considerations of visiting other worlds.

To be fair Weidemannof, a protestant Christian, treats this issue seriously and ponders some of the real considerations that might surround the discovery of intelligent life outside of our own.  But the article itself, from Live Science.com, says that among all the worlds religion, Christianity would be hardest hit because of our belief that Jesus died to redeem mankind and all of creation.  So ipso facto, if there is more to creation than we currently know about, our belief system is obviously a sham.

Umm. Why?

Let’s back up for one moment.  First this question, often posed by non-believers, as evidence against belief in God is itself based upon speculation that is itself a belief based on no proof.  With all the billions of galaxies and billions of stars and billions of planets, some have to have intelligent life, right?  Well.  No.  They don’t have to and currently there is not one shred of proof that they do.  That is a belief system based entirely upon supposition and some wishful thinking.  But the idea is certainly possible.

So you know what I would say if we discovered intelligent life somewhere in the universe?  Boy, isn’t God great?

But some like to insist that such a discovery would be a deal breaker for Christians.  Why, exactly?  Our religion teaches us certain things about God, creation, and other things necessary for our salvation.  It does not teach us everything there is to know about God and his creation.  In fact, our religion teaches us that God’s creation goes way beyond what we see.  What we generically call angels are creatures of almost infinite variety as different from us as they are from each other and what we know about them is very limited.

Sure, we would all probably like to know more about all of God’s creation and have the answers to all such questions.  But such things seem to be on a need to know basis and we don’t need to know.

So why is it that religion must answer every possible question to be true, but science does not?

So if there are Klingons out there somewhere (The old-school Klingons with goatees, not the ones with the funny foreheads) did Jesus die for their salvation too?  I have my ideas, but truth is I don’t know.  And I don’t need to know.  What I do know is that God knows and that is good enough for me.