1. Esther says:

    BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

    Thanks for the laugh this morning, Fred.

  2. Fred, way to give this scenario a twist. I didn’t know where you were headed until I got to the picture of earth. You embedded some thought-provoking ideas in with an enjoyable story.

    BTW, I just finished re-reading Out of the Silent Planet. It’s been … decades. But the point is, certainly Lewis would have enjoyed your post. 😉

    Becky

  3. Cute! I like twists like this. I wonder how many post-Baby Boomers are going to get it though.
    More seriously, I believe that God could quite definitely have created intelligent life on other planets and I have no doubt that His son would have visited them as well-perhaps at the very instant He came here.

    Under the Mercy,
    SherryT

  4. Great stuff yet again, Fred. Your posts are quite the discussion starters, as well as imagination-inspiring.

    About whether Christ has died for extraterrestrial life in similar ways to His known sacrifice for humans — I do think this can be shown from Scripture to be one of the few theological limits to our speculation. Most of this next is from my column on the older site, copied to here: Are extraterrestrials and extra-fast travels alien to Christianity?. However, any discussion on this (related) issue could take place there and not here, so as not to sideline the topic!

    [A]ny speculation outside of Scripture needs to be clearly disclaimed for what it is. But I would argue that even Christians speculating — even in fiction — must conform to God’s Word.

    The second answer would of course be no, God didn’t create alien life. I’m sure we’ve heard that response before, especially by those Christians who aren’t too fond of science fiction or a lot of speculation about space travel and science. However, even more-imaginative Christians find indirect, though clear, Biblical basis for disbelieving the existence of aliens.

    Gary Bates, author of Alien Intrusion, runs down the reasons with a quick logical overview […] Scripture is clear that if aliens were to exist, God must have created them, Bates writes. But the original creation was both a) centered on God’s creation of man in His image on day 6, and b) corrupted by the sin of Adam and Eve sometime afterward. Thus, the whole universe was affected by the resulting disease and death. However, the Bible tells us repeatedly that Christ died for the sins of human beings. The entire Biblical narrative of sin and redemption has humans as its focus. No mention is made of something literally “out there” such as the inevitable question: how would some form of sentient alien race be redeemed from sin?

    An excerpt from Bates’ book — and readers can be reassured that he’s not another reflexive “any imagining aliens is bad!” type guy, but instead loves Biblical truth and science fiction:

    When God, in the form of Jesus Christ (the second person of the Trinity), stepped out of heaven, He came to the earth (this planet only) as a human being, not a Pleiadian or a Vulcan, and He came not only to redeem mankind (who are descendants of Adam) back to himself, but His creation also. God says He will ultimately destroy this cursed creation and restore (or return) it back to the way it was in the beginning. He is going to create a new heaven and a new Earth. If there is intelligent alien life, not only have they been subjected to the curse of death through no fault of their own, but also they have no chance of redemption because that event took place on Earth for the human race only (Heb. 9:26-28). And ultimately they would be destroyed at the end, through no fault of their own. The Scriptures are very clear that Christ did not, and will not, be visiting other plants to undergo crucifixion for alien races. 1 Peter 3:18 says:

    For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

    He died once. That’s it.

    (Boldface emphasis added)

    Sherry also said:

    I wonder how many post-Baby Boomers are going to get it though.

    So on a much more substantive note, I must admit I had to web-search the phrase “To the moon, Alice!” to pinpoint its origin. (Embarrassed grin) It did sound slightly familiar, though. … By the way, (sing-songing) that guy (Jackie Gleason) looks a lot like Fred Flintstone! I wonder why?

  5. For the record, I only know “To the Moon, Alice” as the name of a lovely whooshy sound effect in my music making software, but the pop-culture connection still works!

  6. Fred Warren says:

    I apologize for the obscure pop culture reference, but I figured people would google it if they didn’t understand it, and so they did. I thought about posting a link to a Family Guy scene where Ralph actually does give Alice one “right in the kisser,” but domestic violence just isn’t funny, even in cartoon form. One of the charms of The Honeymooners was that you knew Ralph and Alice loved each other fiercely. Ralph would never, ever, lay a hand on his wife in anger, and they were sure to kiss and make up in the end.

    Though I don’t take a position either way on the alien life issue, I don’t find Mr. Bates’ argument compelling, because it’s an argument from silence. The Bible doesn’t talk about alien life, and I wouldn’t expect it to because its focus is God’s dealings with mankind. Anything beyond that simply isn’t our story. It would be somebody else’s story. I certainly don’t think that it would be in God’s character to abandon anyone to Hell without providing revelation of His existence and an opportunity for redemption. Even in places the Gospel has not reached, the Bible tells us God has not left Himself without a witness (Acts 14:17).

    Anyhow, I don’t see this as a question that’s likely to get a definitive answer before our Lord’s return. Makes for a fun conversation, though.

  7. Loved the story.

    I didn’t find Mr. Bate’s argument compelling either. Why would people or creatures not descended from Adam be affected by Adam’s fall? Why would Christ have to die for them? What if they did fall? What would stop Christ from going as a vulcan (or whatever) and dying for them as the Son of Vulcan?

    I don’t think we will find other life here and now. But I certainly believe it’s possible that God has created life in other places. He’s so big. Why does he create neon colored fish to swim far under the waves where for centuries upon centuries no eye could see them but His? I don’t know why we would think he hasn’t created other pockets of life, purely for his own enjoyment.

  8. My apologies to Mr. Bates for calling him Mr. Bate. 🙂

What do you think?