Here’s an article about some really silly theologians MSNBC (Clara Moskowitz, October 2, 2011): “If intelligent extraterrestrials exist, what about God?: Experts say encountering E.T. would pose religious dilemmas, especially for Christians”:
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 to discuss issues surrounding traveling to other stars.
Right. Not like angels, devils, or the mysterious “sheep that are not of this flock.” Or the extinct race of giants, mentioned in Genesis. Naw. Christians could never have believed anything like that …
If the whole of creation includes 125 billion galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in each, as astronomers think, then what if some of these stars have planets with advanced civilizations, too? Why would Jesus Christ have come to Earth, of all the inhabited planets in the universe, to save Earthlings and abandon the rest of God’s creatures?
Abandon? These people watch too many Star Trek movies. Curiously, during the age of exploration, when we were first beginning to learn about the lands and peoples of our planet, many early explorers had explicit Christian missionary intentions. They didn’t think God had abandoned peoples, but that he had made them responsible for telling those peoples the Gospel. Serious Christians react that way today. But that would just plain end the discussion, which professional thinkers never like to do.
All this said, traditional Christians are less likely than others to credit space alien tales.