Steven Spielberg has been furiously teasing the spiritual implications of his upcoming aliens movie, Disclosure Day, which opens on Thursday. He says “the movie takes the position of the church,” whatever that means. “What does this do to the fundamental beliefs that many of us have?”
A Daily Mail headline says, “Steven Spielberg sparks Christian fury amid claims his new movie will destroy beliefs.” I don’t know of any Christians who are “furious,” but the inevitable dark thread of commentary online notes the director’s ethnicity and asserts that the movie is “actually about subverting Christianity.”
I would say that Spielberg was being irresponsible if I didn’t feel confident that this is all hype, and nobody’s “fundamental beliefs” are going to be upset, as will be clear when we’ve seen the movie.
Solidifying the Case for Design
That’s just my prediction, but our colleague Casey Luskin brings home the science with a brilliant piece at the Daily Wire. He explains why humanoid intelligent aliens of the type Spielberg imagines would be far from subverting anyone’s religion but instead would further solidify the argument for intelligent design:
Spielberg wants us to believe. Trailers for his latest blockbuster “Disclosure Day” … feature humans in direct contact with extraterrestrials (ET) — the stereotypical “grays” from alien-abduction lore. He says the film is “more truth than fiction” and could “upend all established order.”
Whether by coincidence or design, the movie is timed just after the federal government started releasing UFO “disclosure” files, upon order by President Donald Trump. Like other hyped-up government document releases, this could ultimately change everything — or it might prove to be a nothingburger, revealing little more than grainy, cryptic, black-and-white videos.
I’m not expecting “aliens” to land on the White House lawn any time soon, but let’s consider a far-out thought experiment: If humanoid aliens were shown to exist, what would that mean for questions about evolution, origins, and intelligent design?
The stereotypical ET, familiar from media depictions, would have two arms, two legs, two eyes, and an oversized head — a humanoid body similar to our own. Some will be tempted to say that we “evolved” such biological similarities independently — the “Star Trek” version of aliens who inexplicably always look like humans. Evolutionary biologists call this “convergent evolution.” But under an evolutionary view, the existence of other humanoid life is highly improbable.
“Most People Call That God”
Dr. Luskin concludes:
If alien life does exist — and that’s still a very big “if” — and if it looks or works even remotely like human biology, then it did not arise by blind evolution, and those similarities didn’t occur by chance. Their complexity was intelligently designed, and their similarities trace to a common designer.
So, could aliens be the designers? No, because these aliens could not create themselves. Speaking philosophically, if we go back to the beginning, there can only be one ultimate designer: an unevolved, superintelligent, supernatural, transcendent being. Most people call that God.
Read the rest at, “Would Little Green Men Prove Evolution Wrong?” It’s not behind a paywall but you need to register, for free, to see the whole thing. If you care about other people’s faith, as I do, bring on the aliens!