by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Given the extremely weird development that the U.S. Military is like, “Oh, by the way, UFOs are real,” I’ve found myself given a bit more serious thought about what First Contact would be like in practical terms.
Now, obviously in the back of my mind I’m kind of couching this in a “JEWS IN SPACE” plot device for a hazy movie in my mind, but we shouldn’t sleep on the Religious Right in the United States getting really fucking worked up about converting any space aliens we might eventually encounter.
It would not happen right away. And how likely it was to happen would depend on the actual nature of the ETs. (I think it’s likely that any ETs we actually encounter would be machine intelligence, but, lulz, even that wouldn’t stop MAGA Religious Right people.)
It’s easy to imagine a situation where one the shock wore off that we Were Not Alone that the (white) MAGA Religious Right in the United States would see the aliens as Souls To Save. The only reason why I even suggest this is the fucked up religious logic that has made the absolute support of Israel a foundational aspect of the modern Christian Right.
If they can pull that out of their ass, they can definitely think up a reason to demand they get the opportunity save aliens souls, too. (I’m not picking on Israel, but, as I understand it, the American Religious Right’s love for it is for a kind of dark reason.)
It would be surreal that once we reached Alien Nation levels of indifference to aliens being in our presence that the aliens would start to complain about how pushy the American Religious Right was. (How the American Religious Right would get to the point where they finally came to believe that ETs had “souls” would also be pretty surreal.)
Anyway. lulz.
