Atheists don’t believe in God, but 55% believe in aliens. Photo from Marshall Space craft sun over the India ocean. NASA/Flickr
Just because atheists don’t believe in God, it doesn’t mean they don’t have faith.
In his recent book, Religions and Extraterrestrial life, Astronomer David Weintraub from Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University said 55% of atheists believe in aliens. According to the Daily Mail, in his book, Weintraub released the results of a poll on what different religious groups believe when it comes to little green men from mars.
Of course, atheists have solid scientific proof for their belief in aliens. I mean we have the government cover-up of Area 51 in Nevada, USA, where an alien space craft supposedly crashed. Depending on what conspiracy theory you subscribe too, some of the aliens were still alive after the crash and kept hidden by the government for years in a secret facility located miles below the surface of the earth.
And of course, these atheists can point to all those weather balloons, err UFOs, flying through the sky. Some were even captured on video and of course if it’s on YouTube, it must be true.
Then there is the solid rock testimonies of people who claimed they were abducted by aliens and taken up to their spacecraft for experimentation. Throw in a few episodes of Star Trek and a person doesn’t need much more scientific evidence than this to prove aliens exist.
Even famed physicist Stephen Hawking, who publicly said he doesn’t believe in God, admits he believes in aliens.
In a documentary released on the Discovery Channel, Hawking who suffers from a motor neuron disease said:
“If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.”
I realize I am having a bit of fun with this, but atheists need to demonstrate some modem of consistency when it comes to what they believe in and don’t believe in.
If the majority of atheists believe in Aliens when there is no scientific evidence to prove their existence, then we need to realize that science is not their real reason for refusing to believe in God.
But atheists are not alone. According to Weintraub of the groups surveyed, Muslims came in a distant second to atheists with 44% believing in aliens.
Jews were third at 37%, Hindus 36% and Christians filled out the last line on the list with only 32% believing in aliens.
Weintraub attributes the high rate of belief among Muslims to passages in the Qu’ran that suggests there are beings living on other planets. There is even a hint they may practice a different form of Islam. He added that some eastern religions believe humans are reincarnations of aliens.
Within the group that Weintraub classified as Christian, there is a wide spread of opinion.
On one side of the spectrum, 41% of Eastern Orthodox Christians believe in aliens, while only 29% of Baptists believe the same — they had the lowest percentage of belief. Weintraub added of all the religious groups surveyed, Evangelical Christians were the least likely to believe in aliens.
Other groups in the Christian subcategory that had a high percentage of belief in aliens were Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons. I cringed when he included Mormons as Christian. Weintraub said there is a belief among Mormons that when they die, some will be immortalized as gods and rule over other planets.
Years ago, I had my one and only encounter with a UFO. I had visited a friend in another city and was driving home late at night. A light suddenly appeared on the left of my car in the night sky and travelled along side of me. I was immediately wide awake. I was terrified. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins. My heart was racing.
I don’t know if I was imagining this light or not, but what I do know is when I prayed and rebuked it in Jesus’ Name, this mysterious light immediately disappeared.
No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14 NASV)
Read more:
OpentheWord.org 
Hi Dean,
I used to believe in aliens when I was a kid and when I wasn’t a christian. I remember that when I received Christ I realized that, for the people in general, it was easier to believe in aliens than in a loving God. Maybe because believing in Aliens doesn’t need our commitment and our heart and gives you a sense of …”we are not alone thing”. When i found Jesus and I found that I was never going to be alone… I completely forgot about aliens.
To be honest, I’m not going to say that I don’t enjoy a good sci-fi movie. In fact, I have read many Ray Bradbury’s novels and tales. But at the end, my heart remains pointed to the right place. Also, Bradbury has a book called “A Chapbook for Burnt-Out Priests, Rabbis, and Ministers”. I haven’t read it yet, but I read somewhere that Bradbury wrote that book because many pastors and rabbis told him that they felt inspired by his stories…
As always, I enjoyed reading you.
Best regards,
Diego
LikeLike
Hi Diego… I have to confess, I enjoy Science fiction as well. But I think you are right, it is easier to believe in aliens than a “loving” God. I like how you said “loving”, because a few years back a Catholic psychologist wrote how he believed a person’s atheistic views were due to an abusive and/or absent father. I wrote about his book in my post The fathers of atheism.
LikeLike
It would be interesting to see the original paper. I’m curious as to who his sample populations are (university students, people from a particular town, cross section nationally and ages).
I’d also be curious as to what the exact questions were; there is a big difference between “could there be aliens?”, “Are there aliens?” or “Do you believe in aliens?”. I’d also be curious to know if this included priming e.g. talking about the size and diversity of the universe…
For example, if an atheist accepts the possibility of aliens in response to the number of discovered exoplanets, and thus doesn’t reject aliens out of hand… If this person is recorded as “believing in aliens”, then the research doesn’t mean what you might expect.
LikeLike
Certainly valid points. I suspect the author goes into more detail in the book on questions and his survey sampling. But the point remains, they definitely say there is no possibility God exists (otherwise they would be agnostics), while at the same time with no scientific basis believe in the possibility of aliens.
LikeLike
Your comment suggests confusion about what atheism is and about how possibilities work. (And, for that matter, whether his book is nearly as relevant as anything he has had peer reviewed.)
LikeLike
There is no confusion. Can anyone definitely say that God doesn’t exist? No, that is impossible to do. But nevertheless that is what atheists do or as I had said earlier, they would be agnostics. Then according to the survey with no scientific basis, the majority of atheists believe aliens exist. It doesn’t seem consistent to me and that is the point of the article.
LikeLike
But that is not what atheists tend to claim. They do not claim to believe the proposition “God exists” is correct (often due to a lack of compelling evidence). That is not the same as believing the proposition “God does not exist” is true.
And until one of us bothers to look up whether the question was “do you believe…” or “do you accept the possibility…” neither of us can really say what the author discovered.
LikeLike
Thanks for your posts. The author is an university professor and I suspect due to his own peer group he would make sure his polling was objective. It is interesting that physicist Stephen Hawking who also believes in the existence of aliens actually warns of potential future problems with alien beings. It seems to be more than just a possibility to Hawking.
I enjoyed the conversation, and will be closing this thread. But you are certainly free to comment on other articles along this line if you drop by.
Dean
LikeLike