If I Could Ask One Question of G-d, I would ask “Are There People On Other Planets in the Universe”?

The great thinker Stephen Hawking suggests that any first contact with people outside of our planet will most likely be dangerous. He likes to point out that when Columbus came into contact with the populations native to the Americas, they were subject to a dominant culture that possessed superior technology and a world view that assessed them as inferior. However, Douglas Vakoch, the president of METI International (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) feels that any civilizations capable of interstellar travel would know about us already, so therefore they most likely will not be hostile.

However, Neil Degrasse Tyson, American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator, responding to a question about our ability to strike out and discover life elsewhere, says that we most likely will not make contact with other people who might look something like us for at least 50 years — probably much, much longer. He makes his assessment based on the challenges posed by traveling interstellar distances. It seems likely that if we progress in our abilities to travel through space faster than he’s predicting, he’ll be happy to have been proven wrong.

There are more than 100 billion planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone. There are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe. You do the math — math makes my head hurt. The possibility of there being a planet that sits in the “Goldilocks Region” with a sun to make it habitable is darn good, I would think. But should I think like this? Aren’t we, as Christians, supposed to believe that G-d made only us — that we are special to G-d and thus the only ones created by G-d? I will tell you there are many Christians who believe just that. There are all kinds of things people believe — some even believe the world to be flat and that the moon landing was faked. And that is fine. I am not here to argue. I just want to ask G-d that one question — are there other people, living creatures which G-d created who are alive and thriving on another world? 

There are 100 billion planets in the Milky Way — 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Once asked to draw the shape of the universe, a physicist drew a picture, and the picture he drew looked just like a brain cell — just like a brain cell. You tell me — are you interested in knowing if there are other people on another world in this universe?

That is the question I would ask G-d. What is your question?

Pastor Dave