{"id":13215,"date":"2019-06-11T11:23:08","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T15:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=13215"},"modified":"2022-03-24T11:06:56","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T15:06:56","slug":"u-s-professor-claims-belief-aliens-soon-replace-faith-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2019\/06\/u-s-professor-claims-belief-aliens-soon-replace-faith-god","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Professor Claims Belief in Aliens Could Soon Replace Faith in God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shadow_figures\"<\/a><\/p>\n

More people are convinced that extraterrestrials do exist.<\/p>\n

More than half of Americans believe in God. Surprisingly, the number of people who believe in aliens is only slightly lower.<\/p>\n

As these numbers increase, Diana Pasulka, a professor at the University of North Carolina, claims that a belief in aliens could replace religious beliefs in the near future, according to Daily<\/em> Express<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This belief is expressed in her new book titled \u201cAmerican Cosmic.\u201d The book addresses why humans believe in the supernatural and how she believes we use God and aliens to explain the unexplainable.<\/p>\n

The reason she thinks the paradigm is shifting from one to another is because she claims no proof in God has been discovered in human history, while alien life could one day be confirmed.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Vox, Pasulka talks about this in more detail.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a historian of Catholicism, for instance, and what I find when I interact with people in Catholic communities is that they have faith that Jesus walked on water and that the Virgin Mary apparitions were true,\u201d Pasulka said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s something different about the UFO narrative. Here we have people who are actual scientists, like Ellan Stofan, the former chief scientist of NASA, who are willing to go on TV and basically make announcements like, \u2018We are going to find extraterrestrial life.\u2019\u201d Pasulka said. \u201cNow, she\u2019s not exactly talking about intelligent extraterrestrial life, but that\u2019s not how many people interpret her.\u201d<\/p>\n

The belief that UFOs and aliens are potentially true and can be proven makes this a uniquely powerful narrative, Pasulka said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it fair to call this a new form of religion? I think so,\u201d Pasulka said.<\/p>\n

We want to know what you think.<\/h3>\nTake Our Survey<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More people are convinced that extraterrestrials do exist. More than half of Americans believe in God. Surprisingly, the number of people who believe in aliens is only slightly lower. As these numbers increase, Diana Pasulka, a professor at the University of North Carolina, claims that a belief in aliens could replace religious beliefs in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":565,"featured_media":13216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2379],"tags":[2554,2557,2556,630,131,2555],"class_list":["post-13215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-aliens","tag-belief-in-god","tag-extraterrestrials","tag-god","tag-religion","tag-ufos"],"yoast_head":"\nU.S. Professor Claims Belief in Aliens Could Soon Replace Faith in God<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2019\/06\/u-s-professor-claims-belief-aliens-soon-replace-faith-god\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"U.S. Professor Claims Belief in Aliens Could Soon Replace Faith in God\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"More people are convinced that extraterrestrials do exist. More than half of Americans believe in God. Surprisingly, the number of people who believe in aliens is only slightly lower. As these numbers increase, Diana Pasulka, a professor at the University of North Carolina, claims that a belief in aliens could replace religious beliefs in the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2019\/06\/u-s-professor-claims-belief-aliens-soon-replace-faith-god\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-11T15:23:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-24T15:06:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lesli White\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2019\/06\/shadow_figures.jpg\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"U.S. Professor Claims Belief in Aliens Could Soon Replace Faith in God","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2019\/06\/u-s-professor-claims-belief-aliens-soon-replace-faith-god","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"U.S. Professor Claims Belief in Aliens Could Soon Replace Faith in God","og_description":"More people are convinced that extraterrestrials do exist. 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