Roswell UFO: The truth would end religion!

Yes, that's actually the claim of Jan Harzan, chief executive of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), who told Forbes.com that the US government won't release the truth about Rozwell because,

He said: "One possible reason is because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that Earth’s population is not ready for such a revelation.

"Other thoughts are that the knowledge would create widespread panic, cripple the stock market and end religion as we know it.

"Another possible reason is that the technology these beings have is so far advanced - whether it be faster-than-light travel, time travel or other far-advanced technology - that it poses a national security threat to America, especially if these capabilities were to fall into enemy hands."

Cripple the stock market? Doubtlessly. End religion? Not a chance. Human beings are inherently religious. No doubt there would be a lot of religious reworking and some would pass, but new ones would rise.

But what of Christianity? The Church first faced the question of life on other worlds oh, more than 800 years ago.

There was a push from the University of Paris in the late 13th century to have the Church make it dogma that there are no worlds other than our own and that life cannot exist elsewhere. This push was condemned by Paris' Bishop Etienne Tempier and was condemned by France’s Council of Bishops in 1277. It never made it to the Vatican.

The Church has never held that God has not or could not bring forth life anywhere that God chooses, including other planets.

Here are some Some prominent Christians who embraced idea of life on other worlds:

• Giordano Bruno and Nicholas of Cusa (15th century)
• Johannes Kepler (16th century) 
• American Puritan Cotton Mather (17th century)
• Yale president/minister Timothy Dwight (18th century)

I have posted a lot about the possibility of life on other worlds but I am mostly pessimistic about the odds. As someone once said, exobiology is the only academic field without an actual subject content.

As far as I recall, I have posted about Roswell only once, "Git yer tinfoil hat on, folks," June 2013, relating what the late Army Lt. Col. Phillip Corso wrote in his book, The Day After Roswell. 

Corso served as a White House member of the National Security Council in the 1950s and as deputy of the US Army's Foreign Technology Office in the Pentagon from 1960-1963. He claims in the book that his personal office in the Pentagon held the cabinet in which was stored the Army's files of what really happened at Roswell and some actual artifacts from the UFO that crashed there. Exploiting alien technology for mass production for military and later civilian use was his main job there.

I am not affirming or debunking Corso's claims, but his book is fascinating - for me, the parts that explained the military-political tussles and sub-cultures in Washington, D.C. was far more engrossing than the Roswell stuff. 

More:

Christian faith and life on other worlds

Odds of finding life elsewhere getting smaller by the day

What are the odds of life? Beyond mere astronomical

Earth May Be a 1-in-700-Quintillion Kind of Place

Hello, universe, anyone home? Hello?

The answer to Fermi's paradox revealed - what caused the downfall of advanced alien civilizations? Socialism.