NASA has reportedly hired priests and religious experts (theologians) to assess how humans will react if alien life is discovered on another planet.
Viral News: Needless to say, search for alien life has been a matter of fascination for humankind for centuries. There’s something really alluring about the unknown which teases our imagination. While conspiracy theories and alleged spotting of UFOs has become commonplace, what if humans come face-to-face with an alien? To answer such questions, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has reportedly hired priests and religious experts (theologians) to assess how humans will react if alien life is discovered on another planet. NASA also wants to assess how such discoveries could impact our ideas of gods and creation, New York Post reported.
According to reports, the agency is hiring 24 theologians to take part in its program at the Center for Theological Inquiry (CTI) at Princeton University in New Jersey, which NASA gave a $1.1 million grant to in 2014. The programme aims to assess how the world’s major religions would react to the news that life exists in worlds beyond our own. It also aims to answer questions that have been puzzling us for a long time, such as, What is life? What does it mean to live? Where do we draw the line between humans and aliens? Is it possible that life exists elsewhere?
Meanwhile, the news has sparked a lot of curiosity, humour and memes (of course) on Twitter. Many were excited at the possibility of human contact with aliens, while others didn’t support the idea of hiring priests and bringing religion in the picture.
Here are some reactions:
According to Daily Mail, Rev Dr Andrew Davidson, a priest and theologian at the University of Cambridge, was among 24 theologians who participated in Societal Implications of Astrobiology from 2016 to 2017. ‘Religious traditions would be an important feature in how humanity would work through any such confirmation of life elsewhere,’ Davidson shared in a blog post on the University of Cambridge site.
Davison is publishing a book next year, titled Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine, which notes he believes we are getting closer to finding life on other planets. According to the Times UK, Davison’s book notes that a “large number of people would turn to their religions traditions for guidance” if extraterrestrials were found, and what that means “for the standing and dignity of human life.”
