What would happen to religion if ET’s landed?

NASA granted a million dollars to the Center of Theological Inquiry to study this question. Really.

Here’s a NASA dot gov link talking about it. A “.gov” URL can’t be faked, so this must be real, not a hoax.

Two explanations come to mind…

1.) NASA needed to dump some “excess” year-end money.

At the Pettis VA Medical Center where I worked for 13 years as a pathologist, I was told that any department that didn’t deplete its budget money by fiscal year-end would have its budget cut the following year by the unspent amount. They said it’s like this in all government agencies. Congress funds NASA, too, of course.

If this budgeting habit is widespread, it might help explain why the US seems to be fading, like every other powerhouse nation in history, into a ghost of its former stature. Runaway debt is poison. Enjoying world-reserve-currency status merely prolongs the decline.

But the point is, NASA may have been dumping excess year-end money, feeling too rushed to consider the appearance of tax dollars going to a religious study.

Odd but right at home with the US spending shenanigans in The Death of Common Sense, by Phillip Howard.

2.) There’s also the remote possibility that NASA has a genuine concern for the fate of religion in a world where ET’s become real, no longer forgettable things that nearly all scientists agree must be out there somewhere.

As a sci-fi writer, I use the UFO literature as a muse. Endless ideas. But I’ve probably read too much of it because some of the UFO people don’t sound simple-minded, crazy or dishonest to me at all.

Two of the non-crazies are President Carter and Paul Hellyer (a former Canadian Minister of Defense).

Worldview anomalies from these people are hard to ignore. And they’re not alone. A few astronauts, along with hundreds of government and military personnel have given lengthy video interviews about UFO’s and ET’s.

For instance, here’s the late Edgar Mitchell (God rest his insightful soul), the sixth man to walk on the moon:

There’s also FAA Division Chief John Callahan who reports a UFO in Alaska, describing multiple witnesses, radar corroboration and CIA cover-up – “This meeting never happened.”

If that’s a little unnerving, a former ER doc, Steven Greer, MD, who left the emergency room to pursue “UFO disclosure” full-time, challenges both the UFO community and the general public with his detailed stories and documents.

Most MD’s I’ve known over the years would love to escape medical practice and its complex, risky and stressful routine. Some manage to get away, usually climbing the food chain to administration.

But doctors from the top ten percent of a medical school class (AOA), like Dr. Greer, don’t willingly accept a loss of prestige. And because they’re heavily in debt, they rarely opt for a lower income without a solid business plan.

As far as I can tell, there’s nothing prestigious or solid about UFO’s in the US. So Dr. Greer is difficult to ignore.

His Jewish wife of nearly four decades must be a saint to have followed and supported him in this unusual lifestyle. He thanks her publicly.

He says he’s seen UFO’s since childhood.

Stanton Freedman, PhD sounds a little edgy, highly intelligent, and happens to be a nuclear physicist who’s dedicated most of his life to studying UFO’s, even though he’s never seen one.

There’s no way I can ignore a person like him. Sorry, Mom.

Richard Dolan is a historian with an academic delivery that appeals to people who like objectivity. His level-headed views and philosophical analysis of UFO’s give him a unique voice in the spectrum of “experts.”

He’s never seen a UFO. Here’s his perspective. I find it riveting…

But for some reason the guy who sounds the most convincing to me is The Honorable Paul Hellyer of Canada. He’s 93 years old now but sharper in front of a panel of politicians than most younger people would be. Aside from his topic, he sounds as rational as a math teacher on Tuesday morning.

When he went public on UFO’s he hadn’t seen one. Then a few years later he said that he and his wife had finally seen one (twice).

While atheists are understandably upset that some of NASA’s tax dollars went to a religious outfit, there’s a group of well-educated religious people who think that the arrival of ET’s on Earth would support the theory of intelligent design.

I’d agree. “Coincidences” like Earth’s hypercomplex DNA codes showing up in a “mindless universe” can’t happen on one planet after another without spoiling science’s enthusiasm for the neo-Darwinian myth.

Spirituality provides meaning and purpose to most people today, and has done so for our ancestors throughout recorded history. Perhaps science demotes these facts to everyone’s peril.

Is it possible that the rocket scientists at NASA truly worry that religion might die if our world accepted ET’s as real?

I guess fundamentalism (both scientific and religious) would take a hit. But I don’t think most people’s appreciation of God would suffer. Mine wouldn’t.

How about yours?

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Morrill Talmage Moorehead, MD