[rufibarbatus]

It may be relevant precisely because not every living thing on earth is believed to go to heaven. "But these guys don't get to go to heaven" is part of the rationale behind a lot of modern genocides, and before that many cases of slaughter and slavery. If we or the aliens are to think that of each other, hey, that's enough premise for a real-life Hollywood classic.

[CWuestefeld]

Right. Even if these hypothetical aliens have souls, what happens when we discover that there was no Christ crucified on their world? From that, we'll have to conclude that either

1) They can't be absolved of their sins, since Jesus didn't die for them.

2) The Earthly Jesus died for all sentient beings across the universe, but the fact that he did so on Earth demonstrates that Earthlings have a special place in God's creation (also, note that the Old Testament Jews were God's chosen people).

In a religious context, no good can come of this.

[jimbokun]

As already referenced elsewhere in this thread, C.S. Lewis hypothesized

3) Extraterrestrials did not necessarily experience The Fall, and therefor have no need of a savior.

[CWuestefeld]

Extraterrestrials did not necessarily experience The Fall

I'm not aware of Lewis's argument, but I did think about this. It seems to me that we'd be able to determine this by simple inspection.

I assume that when we met these aliens, we'll be able to observe that they are sinful creatures: they will lie, steal, murder, etc., just like we do. This being the case, they'll need some mechanism for unloading those sins, won't they?

But: (1) maybe they won't be sinful; or (2) maybe there's some theological point that makes "The Fall" as such pivotal, so that other sins can be freely absolved, so long as one (or one's ancestors) haven't eaten from the tree of knowledge?

EDIT: As already referenced elsewhere in this thread, C.S. Lewis hypothesized -- a search through the thread for "Lewis" shows our interchange, and one other mention that doesn't reference aliens directly, but only the evil that humans could bring to them. And searching for "Fall" shows it nowhere else as a single word. So I think you're unfair in suggesting that my post was redundant.

[rufibarbatus]

Well, now you're reducing it to just Christianity. And within the context of Christianity, I don't see why people would jump to the conclusions that they have souls only to get stuck at the problem of "so what do we do with Jesus?"

I suppose people sooner call the aliens soulless demons or rethink their whole religion than go half way in one direction and then stop in the middle.