I was thinking a bit more about alien life and the UFO/UAP observations. Although I am still very sceptical about the possibility that more advanced civilizations would have reached Earth, I started to wonder what it would mean if any of the thousands of UFO observations would be real aliens. I assume that >50% of the observations are pure nonsense and 90-100% of the rest are natural phenomena or human-made objects that have been misinterpreted as alien UFOs.
The likelihood that a sentient race has already sent ships or other type of vehicles to this solar system is so small that an advanced organization or culture on Earth would be an equally probable explanation for real observations. Even if there would be aliens behind some UFO observations, it is probable that the vehicles have been manufactured from the material of this solar system - it is easier to send blueprints than heavy material with unmanned vehicles.
Why would the UFOs let us see them? The simplest explanation is that they are preparing for the first open contact. Enough of observations and people start to adapt mentally to the possibility. The greatest threat would be military acting violently. A logical preparation would be to have lots of peaceful encounters with the military, showing that we have more advanced technology but we are not aggressive, not attacking you. Military seems to report more observations than any other organization, which fits to the hypothesis. Could also be simply because military is watching the territory.
If there would be an open contact with the aliens, how would it affect our lives and faith? Not much, at least initially. It is possible that God has created life on other planets of this galaxy. A contact would only confirm this hypothesis. The relationship between the aliens and God would be interesting to know but basically not our business. We have enough if we concentrate on the problems of humanity and the life on Earth.
The conclusion is that whether there are aliens or not in our solar system, we should just continue our life as there would be no aliens in this part of the galaxy.
Well I fall into the camp that I believe the end times has already happened as far as the story of revelation goes, but I believe that it’s a event of chaos and peace that comes back again and again. I don’t believe in the rapture or Christians dying and going to heaven. The afterlife plays zero role in my faith. I could care less if I die and remain dead forever or if I am spiritually or physically resurrected and so on.
Since we can see the cruelty that humans have done to others from from ancient indigenous human sacrifices, stronger African tribes catching and selling other African tribes, to Europeans purchasing them and using them as work animals for centuries or how ancient Roman’s use to toss other groups into arenas to fight to fight to death or how the Jews went through the holocaust or how they potentially done just as brutal of things to Canaanites and other small tribes to how Japan did grotesque things to Chinese men, women and kids. It just seems that the only thing that actually has stopped violence from one group against another is a stronger more violent group taking sides with the weaker side and together destroying their common enemies.
So I would not be surprised in anyways that a more dominate alien life force would just wipe out our planet and other planets they come across out of fear of that planet eventually wiping them out or sending their location out into space drawing the attention of a even more violent powerful civilization.
As far as what that would mean for God? To me it would just mean what he warns us against with ourselves already. Evil powerful people and kingdoms exist. We spread love not hate even in the face of persecution and that our God would also be there God as well even if he accommodated them with their own version of a savior that was the incarnation of God there. The only salvation I hope for in Christ is the possible salvation from the second death. I don’t expect God to keep me safe from those in the world anymore it less than what happens to the people that die everyday.
Just to be clear, I was using the Dark Forest Theory of an alien invasion to ask the question, what if earth and humans is the stepping stone of a greater cosmological Christ and we were wiped out in the same way many nations and species have been wiped out by another civilization, if that were to happen, how would that sit with us and our faith in our god? What if humans are the Canaanites and earth is the promise land for another species faith.
The Alcubierre warp drive is a scientific “possibility”. The one bugaboo is that it requires negative mass. This isn’t anti-matter since anti-matter has mass. Some think the Casimir effect might point towards the existence of negative mass, but it is still very speculative.
I also agree with your sentiment that there is little reason for such an advanced civilization to invade us. If they are capable of FTL travel then they should be able to find what they need on sterile planets. The analogy that comes to my mind is what I do when I need a shovel full of dirt for a potted plant. I certainly don’t go to the closest ant hill and grab a shovel full from the center of the mound. There is also the question of compatibility between alien species. A separate origin of life could lead to very different biochemistry. They may have to sterilize our planet just to make it useful, so might as well find a planet capable of holding liquid water that is already sterile.
Trade would make a lot more sense. We labor on the surface of a planet that is poisonous to them, and in return they teach us about their technology. Win-win.
As mentioned, the number one reason in DFT for an attack is not even really an invasion. It’s not about getting goods. It’s not about trade. It’s normally sending a little of at all manned ship to wipe out a planet on the fear that if they can intercept a signal from us and learn our location, than one day we may intercept their signal, learn their location, and transmit that information out into space leading another civilization to become aware of theirs.
It’s interesting to consider how our radio waves have traveled about 120 light years from Earth and yet we are capturing radio signals from 9 billion light years away. It’s a stretch to think other civilizations would be able to know to mask their presence well enough in advance.
All that dark space in the comic makes me think about how an unobservable/infinite being would appear.
I read a sci-fi book dividing sentient cultures to ‘sheep’ and ‘wolf’ based on their aggressivity (a book by Douglas E. Richards). The hypothesis behind this division was that aggressive ‘wolf’ species tend to self-destruct before they reach a critical point in space travel. Humans was calculated among the ‘wolf’ species, with the note that we will likely destroy ourselves before we spread to other planet systems.
‘Wolf’ species that get to the point where they have the ability to reach other planet systems have likely managed to get their aggressivity within a less dangerous zone.
If that hypothesis would be true, that would reduce the probability that we are attacked by human-type aggressive species. It is more likely that the sentient aliens with more advanced technology would not destroy us without a good reason. It would be a different story if the aggressive humans would reach the planet of another sentient species. Then we would be the dangerous aliens and the locals would probably try to defend themselves somehow.
Edit:
There are exceptions to basic rules and aggressive aliens that have the ability to travel through planet systems is a theoretical possibility. In the sci-fi book, there was a swarm-type aggressive, eusocial species coming towards Earth and threatening to wipe all life from this planet. Such exceptions are probably extremely rare because we still have life on Earth. In addition, the aggressive aliens would need to be somewhat stupid to destroy potential opportunities to reach something valuable.