I don’t know what the going odds are on whether or not there’s a God. Tyler Cowen once had the chance that there are aliens at less than 5%, though I can’t quite find where he said it. I don’t know if the recent tone change from the Pentagon has moved him off his estimate. Among the card carrying Substackers I suspect there’s some bias to believe that the existence of Aliens is more likely than the existence of God. This is a rational bunch after all; religiously so. And a god is not an entirely rational thing to consider.
From what we actually know through observed physics (not theoretical), the likelihood that organic beings have traveled to our planet is near zero. We’re simply too far away from everything for the things that we have actually observed to be true about life to allow for it. It is not impossible within the realm of what we know for there to be non-organic things that have been sent here over a long enough time horizon. But we don’t really understand exactly how that technology would work. And so belief in alien or alien sent visitors requires us to take some things on faith: That something somewhere can do something that we can’t or that the universe behaves differently than what we’ve been able to observe.
Nothing we’ve observed allows for God either. But we believe the Big Bang. Things get fuzzier when we ask what came before it. Or caused it. And so God and aliens both fall kind of into the same bucket of “requires faith to believe.” Religion is your grandfather’s superstition though. Aliens are the lure of laser eyed techno-futurists.
I don’t know if there’s a God. Or aliens. But I go to church. And I choose to believe in God. At face value this makes me some part of a structure of orthodoxy. And this takes me to a bit of a nuanced point. There is some less than clearly defined tension between the existence of a god and the existence of aliens that can’t be so easily defined by saying one refutes the other. The tension comes from whether or not one believes in an orthodox view of something or whether one is rebelling in some way against it. The existence of God should upset our epistemological worldview as much as the existence of aliens. That there’s sorting of belief among the orthodox and the unconventional is why there’s sorting in belief in gods or aliens.
Better put. We have scientists looking for aliens. We have no scientists looking for God.
Some part of our political debate is formed by orthodoxy and rebellion. Some part of the startup culture in the Valley is too. Within the orthodoxy there is always a bit of theater required to pave over the parts of the orthodox narrative that don’t square with reality. There’s something wrong with every complex idea after all. And so some flexibly truthful patchwork is required. And so one form of rebellion against that orthodoxy is against hypocrisy. There’s more than a few “truth” crusaders pulling on the lesser important truths. And boy do they generate some heat. Rebellion in the name of truth is a wellspring online. One wonders what happens when the dog actually catches the car…
A closer look at orthodoxy splits things up in a way that gets messy. My belief in God is less about orthodoxy and more about rebelling against the erudite elite who I view to have more narrow life experience than me and tell me I’m dumb for believing in God. I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe after all. The Roy Batty in me wants to tell my technological handlers that they have no right. Roy’s fight against his god for life was more human than human. But that’s another essay all together. That’s a great rebellion…
The winding point I’m trying to make (maybe) is that there is energy in rebellion against orthodoxy. But that which we call orthodox is relative. Contemporary political orthodoxy is a progressive mainstream and a conservative rebellion. And so you get rebellious (purposely insane sounding) conservatives and boring old progressives. In this I’m orthodox. I want boring right now. But it’s important for me to realize why that’s the case. The current American power structure is aimed at the corporate employed suburban, home owning college graduate. Confirming that I’m the orthodoxy allows me to open my mind a bit to why others might be rebelling. Living in denial that I’m a progressive crusader doesn't.
It’s a worthwhile exercise to ask ourselves what’s we’re rebelling against. And what we’re fighting to keep in place. And to give painfully honest answers.
In the words of the great Patrick Stickles…
It's still us against them
Still us against them
And they're winning
Long live the right rebellions. Fast death to the wrong ones. Honest debate about all the ones in between.