God.... Aliens.... Root Canals.... and Church Membership?
There was a regular seeker I was speaking too on during church fellowship after the service, he certainly has an interest in aliens!
He wanted to know church doctrine on this, I said the church was pretty open as long as salvation for them wasn't involved- like animals basically.
He wanted to know my opinion and I just said there could be life out there, he then really pressed me on the likelihood of more advanced civilisations, I thought it was unlikely but I said if they did exist they would be inhuman, not made in God's image, I used the 2016 movie 'Arrival' as a perfect example.
Now onto root canals (you'll see where this is going shortly) I've found there's two stages- the antibiotics stage and then the actual root canal itself.
The first part of the spiritual root canal I gave him started- I had given a view of what our church thought of aliens.
When he kept going on and on about aliens, UFO files and that how this would possibly influence his decision about Christ, church membership, etc it was time for the second stage- the spiritual root canal itself.
Here's the spiritual root canal treatment- all of our thoughts, hobbies, etc need to be subject to God, we must fully submit these to Him (1 Corinthians 10:31, James 4:7). In the words of Matthew Henry, our thoughts are like words to God!
My seeking friend's struggle was my struggle for ages, even as a Christian, no not aliens, but a deep down fear of giving up something for God if He convicted me to do it.
To conclude- the root cause of my seeker friend's struggle isn't aliens but subjecting all things to Christ. When I struggled with this (and I'm sure I will again) my advice to you all and myself is to remember how infinitely glorious our Triune Thrice Holy God is- in the words of my pastor, even an eternity isn't enough to even scratch the surface of God's glory.
That doesn't make any sense. If humans are "made in God's image" in the sense that they bear a physical resemblance to God, then God is obviously not limited in terms of skin tone, gender, size, or bodily functionality, since those attributes vary enormously in humans. Those variations occur as a result of genetic mutations that prove better adapted to their environment, and there's no reason to assume that evolution on other planets would work differently.
Therefore, either "made in the image of God" doesn't apply ALL humans, or it would apply to other species as well.
More disturbing, however, is your statement about salvation being an issue, given that they (the aliens) wouldn't be "like animals". You ARE aware that sin is a matter of volition, yes? It's not genetic. If it was, then God would condemning people for the attributes that He gave them, which is evil as evil gets. Such a deity is unworthy of worship by any being who has the capacity to worship, as the only excuse for it would be "might makes right", which is antithetical to Christianity. As sin is a matter of choice and not inherent, it's entirely possible for a thinking being to simply not sin- which would logically make "salvation" unnecessary.
So no, what you delivered wasn't a spiritual root canal, but a spiritual amputation- of his frontal lobe. Please stop using your religion as an excuse to stop thinking.
