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Aspect #4 and Aliens

Aspect #4 and Aliens
Photo by NASA / Unsplash

Happy New Year, everyone! Praying that all of you have a healthy year. I'm also trying out a new format—more bullet points.

Whatever way 2023 shakes out, it won't involve advanced species from distant planets coming to earth, but it's fun to think about them.

Physical Health is the 4th Aspect of Life.

  • We are stewards of our bodies to the glory of God.
  • Health is a gift from God.
  • Health, as a fixed amount of time, means our time is valuable.
  • While everyone has a different health situation over time, health grants everyone time and energy to serve others.
  • As Christians, it is best to steward health habits leading to long-term service in God's Kingdom.
  • Training in Godliness is of supreme value, but physical exercise still has some value. 1 Tim 4:8
  • God is honored when we get enough rest, execute a healthy diet, and pursue exercise. 1 Cor 10:31
  • Wearable technologies offer many fascinating ways to objectively measure and track health metrics.
  • Jesus' ministry involved a lot of physical healing. Luke 4:38-44
  • God regularly heals people in Jesus' name today.
  • Jesus' periodically demonstrated his willingness to heal in response to faith and being asked to heal. Luke 5:13
  • We should regularly ask God in expectant faith for bodily healing. Luke 11:10

Christianity and Aliens??

Here are my main notes from a thought-provoking podcast episode.

  • The widespread nature of sci-fi themes in media makes a conversation about ETs an excellent in-road to Gospel conversations.
  • Nearly everyone has an opinion on aliens, and aliens have theological implications.
  • Christian thinkers have considered extraterrestrials' theological implications since Gallileo and Keppler.
  • Galileo considered humans to be the only life in the universe.
  • Keppler thought that other planetary bodies each had their own life forms.
  • There are 6 theological possibilities for a universe containing intelligent aliens and humans (and none of the options require you to throw out your Bible).
  • Maybe a hypothetical, sentient alien species never rebelled against God and therefore does not require redemption.
  • Maybe some hypothetical aliens did rebel, but God gave them a different means of redemption than he did for us.
  • Maybe some aliens rebelled but were redeemed by Jesus on earth as a universal, one-time covering for sins.
  • Maybe some aliens rebelled, but Christ appeared to the aliens as a representative of their species and redeemed them in that image.
  • Maybe the aliens rebelled, and redemption was not available to those aliens. (It seems that angels, once they rebelled, were not given a second chance at redemption.)
  • Or, humans are the only sentient life in the universe.
  • Traveling through space to other planets, even in our solar system, takes a long time, even at high speeds.
  • High radiation exposure in space (that is typically blocked for us by the earth's protective atmosphere) makes travel in "cryosleep" to other solar systems (over hundreds of years or even decades) impossible.
  • The rarity and our distance from planets that could sustain life in the universe make it practically impossible for any first-contact situation between us and other sentient life.
  • Alien abduction stories, if people have them, seem most likely tied to mental health matters or demonic spiritual activity.

Do you believe aliens are out there or not?