Is Christianity ready for galactic civilization? You can argue well that one cause for the existence of the Mormon Church today is the discovery and entry into popular imagination of the Hopewell and Adena mounds of the Ohio Valley in the 19th Century as well as the discovery of a vast and complex culture here on this continent long before not only the white man, but the Shawnee, Iroquois or Cherokee. The myth of “Lost Hebrews” became so deeply imbedded in American thinking that it took until well into the 20th Century for us to finally understand that the mounds were made by a very real and discernable Native American people. Christian Europe swept many mysteries under the skirts of its long dresses. It got away with it; will 21st or 22nd Christianity be as fortunate? Finding cultures around this planet with civilizations and architecture greater than Rome’s; finding so called “primitive tribes” with codes of moral and sexual conduct and restrictions that made the Law of Moses read like an anarchist’s diatribe shocked the white man into a furtive sense of inferiority. What is going to happen when, not if, the civilization of another world is encountered and when we inquire of them concerning Jesus Christ and taking communion they answer with a collective: “Huh? Who? You mean to say you drink your god’s what?!” And what happens this time if the white man has the smaller musket? Or, I suppose some might suggest that there are forces in Rome today that, when we do encounter that other world, are going to make sure that cross and musket and star ship form a triad.

Not a problem, bring it on.

A great sci-fi concept already considered.

What happens if we encounter a alien race that had no "Jesus"...nor are even religious....yet are of a higher morality than us? with no crime, war, or poverty?

Honestly, I think the fundies (like Nano) would get suspicious and then paranoid of a superior (morally and technologically) race and start telling people they were "devils in disguise trying to turn us from The Truth".

I read a short story like that years ago. The humans wiped them out. Seems that they actually were a creation of the devil or some such.

We can probably surmise a little, very little, all things factored in, of how Christianity would react based on how it reacted to the Ohio Valley, Georgia, and other evidences of an unknown culture in pre-historic America. Take Fort Ancient in Ohio, (please visit if you can), the ancient walls looked like fortifications to the white men so, all such mountain top works are so named…may not have been forts at all, but a complex way of keeping in healing energies: concepts light years beyond Christians of the 19th Century. If only ruins were discovered on another world you might see another Joseph Smith pop up with a “Hey, guys, look what I found!” I don’t know though, that was way before Anthropology, hopefully once “exo- Anthropology” (?) gets out there humans will have learned to look at other cultures with the blinders off.

Well, any alien species THAT advanced...is capable of cellular (even molecular) manipulation to a point where..

they'd just appear to look just like us (aka "Day the Earth Stood Still", etc. style-aliens)....and likely never reveal themselves to us for just the reasons mentioned.

Oh those albino shape shifting lizards!

Considering that Jesus was the Savior of worlds created by God, I have full confidence that "if" we do find an alien civilization they will have full knowledge of him.

Of course-- from your perspective, this just means more illegal aliens to worry about :-)

Okay, now this is fascinating. Can you quote the exact text which supports the argument that Jesus was created the savior of multiple worlds? How do you account for Mayan and Aztec ignorance of him by name? Are you suggesting an image (archetype) of a king on an alien world which Christians will be able to accommodate and adapt? Animism which the church can mold into a system of saints? Please…these are not vindictive questions…but your assurance intrigues me! Do you suggest not only Jesus but a trans-galactic Hebrew culture with Adam and Noah as patriarchs? I am just asking you to use your imagination and flesh this out. I will not condemn the story, but I would like to hear it!

Christ is the Savior of all worlds his father has created. I have been taught this since I was young, so I will have to do a little searching to find the actual account. (I am LDS so you guess who it will come from.)

The Mayans and Aztecs did not know him by name because they had fallen from teh truth. Now, if you read the Book of Mormon (not believe it, but read it) you will find that all holy scripture, except that protected and translated by Mormon, was destroyed in the final battles. This having happened, 1500 years later it is not surprising that they did not know his name. (As an similar example I will refer you too English mythology. The Christian Church destroyed all the celtic records so even modern historians are not sure what they believed.) However, the figure of Quetzelcoatl fits the description of Christ, that of a Bearded White God, and is the only mythological figure to be found in both North and South America, as well as the surrounding Islands.

Now, Adam and Noah will not be found on the other planets. God called Adam by that name because he was the first of his children to receive a physical body, on any planet. While other planets have their first man and woman, the Adam of this Earth is the first of them all, and the greatest next to Christ. However, they will have their own partriarchs and church, which will be the same as Christ's church on this Earth.

I do not understand how it all works, nor do I know the languages or specifics of culture on other planets. I understand a simple concept that God, our Father, had many spirit children, far to many to live on this Earth in the few thousand years of it's existance. Because of this he made many worlds for them, butonly one saviour. We are the world that was both Righteous enough that he could fullfill his ministry, but also evil enough to kill him, and thus completing the atonement.

(This is why I like the theory that UFOs are Christians from other worlds coming to see the Holy Land, or the PLanet where Christ lived, just as many here on earth go to Israel.)

Reptilicus:

A great sci-fi concept already considered.

What happens if we encounter a alien race that had no "Jesus"...nor are even religious....yet are of a higher morality than us? with no crime, war, or poverty?

Maybe God is sending them to us PRECISELY so they can learn about Jesus and become saved. People sin in different ways, but we are all sinners. If you asked these aliens, I'm sure you'd find something they'd like to be doing better.

This dotrine is touched on in the First Chapter of the Book of Moses, contained in the Pearl of Great Price. It is not discussed in detail in this scripture, but does descuss it.

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Look at verses 27-41

Nice work! Keep building on that model; have fun with it! Interesting phrase: “All worlds his father has created.” Leaves open some tantalizing possibilities as good stories often do. Enjoy! I have read the transcriptions of the golden plates, those provided; Smith said there were many more left to translate. I have been as close biologically (use your imagination) as one can get to a direct descendant of Noel K. Whitney (see early Smith history); almost made it into the great and wonderful bloodline. I have read Orson Whitney’s prophesies about Baltimore and a “hundred unburied corpses”: something wrong with the bodies...bio-terror attack? I can get aggravated about what the Church’s concept of early Native American culture did to our understanding of the mounds and earthworks, then, the more I know of the Prophet the more I like him personally. (I love the whole story of the seeing stone in the hat and the words appearing across it...worthy of Tolkien!) In fact, the Church of Philip once entered into an “agreement” with missionaries of the LDS over a certain matter (see above). I once asked one of your people an honest question: “If the plates could be found in New York by God’s will, is it possible that other plates exist on other planets?” He said yes. The young man’s honest answer endeared me to both him and his prophet. We gave him of our food and water and let him pass on with a blessing from Phil.