Religious Beliefs

[Jill_Ion]

If you were involved with the Stargate program and discovered that an extremely advanced race of aliens, not too dissimilar from us physiologically, which I suppose is debateable, seeded life on here on Earth, and the galaxy(s) for that matter, would that alter your belief in God, whichever one that may be?

Also, after making this discovery would you be able to do your job effectively.

No, it would only deepen my respect for God and the variety of life He created. So, it wouldn't affect my ability to do my job.

Have a nice day, now I need to put my tinfoil hat back on so they can't read my thoughts.

I hope you have a nice day too. Adding an antenna helps block the thought rays.

[Womble]

Then God wouldn't be condemning them to eternal damnation. He would merely be depriving them of the chance of paradise.

This is not a given. We know the conditions laid out for humans of Earth; we do not know what rules apply to other worlds and non-human races.

While the number of years is not specified, it does specifically state that God create Man in his image.

Yes, but it also states that God has no "earthly" form, leading to the conclusion that "in his image" doesn't refer to the bodily properties.

Of course it's up to when it suits the believers to interpret words and numbers non-literally.

It has nothing to do with what "suits" or doesn't "suit" you. Proper interpretation of the Bible is governed by very specific laws, and for an interpretation to be legitimate, it must comply with these laws and must produce a coherent picture in the context of the text. However, human interpretations are not God's word, and are subject to change when new information becomes available. There's nothing wrong, unusual or hypocritical about it.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." And the original Ancient planet was not called Earth.

Eh? I must have missed something, 'cause the Genesis quote talks about "the earth", as in land, solid matter under your feet, you know. It's kind of the same for all planets, unless the Ancients lived on a gas giant and floated around instead of walking.

Don't the Christian claim there can't be alien life and refer to some random verses in the Bible to back this up? As such, Creation cannot be about an alien planet since, well, there are no aliens.

I wouldn't know. Ask the Christians.

[FallenAngelII]

This is not a given. We know the conditions laid out for humans of Earth; we do not know what rules apply to other worlds and non-human races.

If they'd never heard of the Christian God or received any messenger from him, what the hell would their chances of going to Paradise be?

Yes, but it also states that God has no "earthly" form, leading to the conclusion that "in his image" doesn't refer to the bodily properties.

But it says that God created man. But we know that he didn't. The Alterrans (strictly not Man, but very similar) created Man.

Eh? I must have missed something, 'cause the Genesis quote talks about "the earth", as in land, solid matter under your feet, you know. It's kind of the same for all planets, unless the Ancients lived on a gas giant and floated around instead of walking.

The Ancients do not worship God (or any deity for that matter). The Ori do not worship God either (they consider themselves gods).

Are you saying God created the original Alterran homeworld, the Alterrans and then when they rejected his teachings sent messengers to Earth and had them preach there?

[AvatarIII]

The thing is that it'd make no sense if the Ancients were God. Why would they, after leaving the Milky Way after using the Dakarra device to reseed Earth have their Ascended breathren swoop down and dictate religion to the peoples of Earth, especially since they knew how awfully wrong it had gone with the Ori?

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. They wouldn't pass themselves off as gods and have people worship them. Ascend Ancients do not look like angels. For one thing, they do not have wings. And they would never create an Ancientci.

Also, if we have about 2,5+ billion people (Jews, Christians and Muslims) worshipping the Ancients, wouldn't they be way too strong for the Ori to take down?

i think you missed my point, because i didn't mean the ancients dictated religion or asked to be worshipped, just that it happened, for example, when the jews were enslaved in egypt, (by the goa'uld) the ancients gave them a helping hand in freeing them. in the form of empowering moses (like a prior)
and the ancients do not force people in believing in them, they give us free will, and free choice.

i also didn't mean ascended ancients look exactly like angels, but that are sort of humanoid, white glowing shapes with streamers that, on being described by someone thousands of years ago, equated to "a glowing person in white with white wings"

and the ancients may have a lot of followers but the Ori have a galaxyfull, and require a lot of followers in the milky way before being strong enough to trespass, where else would the ancients get their power from at all?

[s09119]

I'm an atheist, so this would just reinforce my beliefs. But I would certainly find it interesting to see how the religious factions of the world reacted.

[FallenAngelII]

i think you missed my point, because i didn't mean the ancients dictated religion or asked to be worshipped, just that it happened, for example, when the jews were enslaved in egypt, (by the goa'uld) the ancients gave them a helping hand in freeing them. in the form of empowering moses (like a prior)
and the ancients do not force people in believing in them, they give us free will, and free choice.

i also didn't mean ascended ancients look exactly like angels, but that are sort of humanoid, white glowing shapes with streamers that, on being described by someone thousands of years ago, equated to "a glowing person in white with white wings"

and the ancients may have a lot of followers but the Ori have a galaxyfull, and require a lot of followers in the milky way before being strong enough to trespass, where else would the ancients get their power from at all?

According to the Bible, a whole myriad of people got visited by "messengers of God" who dictated to them the words of God (which were them woven into the Bible).

Even if the Ancients gave Earth Moses by interfering (which would break their most cardinal rule), that doesn't account for all of the angels and other times when God supposedly spoke to the peoples of Earth.

[Dutch_Razor]

As opposed to "the aliens did it"?


"Seeded by the aliens" is not an answer to the question of origins of life. It's a non-answer. One can simply go ahead and ask how these aliens themselves came to be.

As opposed to "the magic man did it"?

[Womble]

As opposed to "the magic man did it"?

What magic man?

[Dutch_Razor]

He. The alpha to the omega. *poof* there's a world!

[AvatarIII]

According to the Bible, a whole myriad of people got visited by "messengers of God" who dictated to them the words of God (which were them woven into the Bible).

Even if the Ancients gave Earth Moses by interfering (which would break their most cardinal rule), that doesn't account for all of the angels and other times when God supposedly spoke to the peoples of Earth.

that's according to the bible, and i wouldn't trust everything in there, at the beginning of the roman catholic era there were many many different versions of the bible, which were bought together, some sections vetoed out completely, other merged and mingled, you'd be better off talking about the torah, which has had practically none of that ever, but even then the stories would have been told orally for perhaps many generations, before being written down.
and perhaps many people were guided by ascended ancients thousands of years ago, just like little nuges here and there etc, even daniel hints that the tradition of fire being assiciated with the devil/evil was perhaps something the ancients passed onto us.
besides, they may have been more lenient in the past, this is many thousands of years ago we are talking about, or maybe there were other Oma type ancients who walked the line, helping us on the way to where we are now, protecting us from the goa'uld etc.

[Womble]

He. The alpha to the omega. *poof* there's a world!

No idea who you're talking about.

[FallenAngelII]

I doubt the Ancients were much more lenient on the rules a mere couple of thousand years ago. In fact, there's canon evidence that Rule of Non-Interference has been around for at least 10,000 years.

Chaya was an Ancient who Ascended. As all of the Ancients in the Pegasus Galaxy either died or evacuated over 10,000 years ago (as far as we know, there's no reason to speculate otherwise), Chaya must have Ascended around then or earlier.

Once Ascended, she immediately broke the rules by trying to protect Proculus and was therefore banished because she broke the rules.

Also, this doesn't even address the issue of all of the parts in the Bible where the authors claim God or an angel of God came to them. Even if the Ancients thought it important to break their own rules and help out us Lowers, they'd never send messengers to create a religion where we worship them because of what happened with the Ori.

[Atlantis1]

I am a christian and no it would not lessen my faith. The bible was written for humankind. If there were another race out there God with probably deal with them as if they were the only race.

[s09119]

I am a christian and no it would not lessen my faith. The bible was written for humankind. If there were another race out there God with probably deal with them as if they were the only race.

Why would God do that, though? Why would he purposeful try and prevent these two races from ever meeting by telling each of them that they were the only truly intelligent and worthy race?

[immhotep]

I dont think i could believe in a higher power, god, shaman, boogey man in the sky. Im a complete athiest and i just coudlnt imagine religion playing anything but a negative factor in my life. So would it stop me doing my job? We just discovered life on another planet, my job would be the last thing on my mind lol.