In his Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With It?, astronomer David Weintraub demonstrates the world’s religions, “great” and small, take a variety of approaches towards the existence of extraterrestrial life and how that existence impacts their respective religious beliefs. Here, I offer a brief, and therefore an overgeneralized, summary of what Weintraub found.
EVANGELICAL PROTESTANTS: WHAT PART OF “SPECIAL CREATION” DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?
Most evangelicals view our earth as super special: it and its humans are the singular focus of God's creative attention and Christianity is the universal religion. Such a view excludes the existence sentient extraterrestrial life.*
“Darmok and Tr**p on the Ocean” would radically upend their world view.
(*While many Protestants may be able to include intelligent life not on earth into their views, their theological doctrines preclude it. I speak here to the various religious doctrines and worldviews.)
HINDUS AND BUDDHISTS: IT’S TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN
Hindus and all the Dharmic religions have no problem with sentient extraterrestrial life.
For Hindus, multiple gods and multiple worlds are kinda their thing. Hindus could practice their religion anywhere in the universe, and any sentient being anywhere in the universe could practice Hinduism.
For Hindus, though, where Klingons would fit into their hierarchy of living beings, which extends from plants to animals to humans (Caste System!) to gods, would be a source of great debate. Because Caste System.
Whereas Buddists wouldn’t care, because they are not encumbered with the Caste System. Like Hindus, Buddhists for thousands of years have believed in a universe that is unimaginably expansive in all imaginable ways. Life forms, sentient or not, beyond the Earth easily fit into their world view and Buddhism works everywhere in the universe anyways.
MORMONISM: ALL ABORD THE SPACE BATTLESHIP SMITHMATO!
Mormon cosmology leaves no doubt that other worlds exist and are inhabited by sentient beings who are "begotten sons and daughters unto God.” Mormon doctrine is predicated on the existence of sentient alien life. And I seriously recommend you check out the link, and scroll down to Noncanonical statements by church leaders. 19th century Mormon cosmology is wild!
JUDAISM: SO, HE’S KLINGON, BUT IS HE JEWISH?
Judaism is more an orthoprax than an orthodox religion. That is, it primarily focuses on a set of rules to follow to encourage Jews in their relationship with God, the creator of the universe. As you can see, Judaism is for Jews, and only for Jews, so the existence of sentient alien life has as much impact on Jewish religious beliefs and practice as the existence of Sikhs, Christians and Muslims.
JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES: SEE NO ALIENS, HEAR NO ALIENS, SPEAK NO ALIENS
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Earth is unique, and is here to solely provide a place for the Elect to do their thing before Jehovah takes them on the express train to Heaven.
So, you see, extraterrestrial life, whether in advanced or primitive form, does not exist. “Biden and Dathon at El-Adrel” wouldn’t radically upend their world view.
They’d just ignore it.
ROMAN CATHOLICISM: THE CONCLAVE IS STILL OUT
Roman Catholic theologians are not of one mind on how to integrate sentient extraterrestrial life into the doctrine of Original Sin, redemption, how God will offer it to those in need, the nature of Christ, etc etc etc. Depending on how these issues are resolved, if ever, Worf could enter the embrace of the Holy Mother Church.
Note: This problem is nothing new: In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas argued for the existence of other worlds and started a dialogue about its theological implications in his Third Book of Sentences.
ISLAM: “All praise is for Allah—Lord of all worlds.” (Qur’an 1:2).
In multiple places, the Qur’an uses language that readily allows the possibility that other rational, intelligent beings exist on other worlds.
As said, “All praise is for Allah—Lord of all worlds.” (Qur’an 1:2). “And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and of whatever living creatures He has spread forth in both. And He has the power to gather them together whenever he pleases.” (Quran, 42:30). There’s also “Allah says that He created seven heavens. He created seven earths as well.”
Abdullah Yusuf Ali, for one but by no means is he alone, interprets these verses as follows:
…it is reasonable to suppose that life in some form or another is scattered through some of the millions of heavenly bodies scattered through space.”
— The Quran: Text, Translation and Commentary, Ad-Dar Al- ‘Arabiah, Beirut, 1938.
Like the Roman Catholics, there is a great range of opinion on the matter and the jury is still out. But, unlike Catholics, Islam has no Pope, so the jury will always be out.
Regardless, a common view is any sentient alien life would and should worship and are accountable to Allah. However, Islam is the the religion practiced by human followers of Mohammed, and other worlds would have their own prophets and their own prophetically revealed religions.
CONCLUSION: IT’S A BIG WORLD AFTER ALL
It is a mistake to believe that one particular branch of the Abrahamic religious tradition is the alpha and the omega of how religions approach the questions of the size of our universe and the existence of sentient extraterrestrial life. True, Evangelical Protestants have no framework to deal with those two issues, and make up about 8% of the world. However, Roman Catholics (18%) can and do, and Muslims (24%), theologically, definitely do. The Dharmic religions (21%) are all about it, Mormons (.2%) can’t wait for it, and Jews (.2%) don’t care.
In short, religions have not only been able to answer it, they’ve answered it many ways. It is a big world after all.