History Main / NoSuchThingAsSpaceJesus

* Creator/RayBradbury :

** The Minbari religion gets a mention for apparently having no supernatural beliefs whatsoever; this may be related to their special relationship with the Vorlons. Note that there is such a thing as a soul in Babylon 5, which can be extracted with a machine and imprisoned in small orbs. The Minbari (and others) don't just believe in reincarnation, they can actually measure it.

** Further aversions came in the ''ComicBook/SecretInvasion'' and ''ComicBook/ChaosWar'' stories, which proved that the gods of certain alien cultures were every bit as real as the Asgardians and Olympians, although most of them were dead in the aftermath of the former and before the start of the latter.

* ''Literature/InfernoLarryNivenAndJerryPournelle'': Discussed, and ultimately subverted. Allen Carpent(i)er is -- [[AuthorAvatar much lik the writers]] -- an author of 70s-era science fiction, mostly focusing on future Earth and space-age settings, and with a strictly materialist understanding of the universe. Thus, when he wakes up after very clearly dying, he assumes that the frightful afterlife he finds himself in is a monstrous amusement park or some other megaproject created by extremely advanced aliens. As he descends farther and father into the pit, he needs to make increasingly large concessions to the technological prowess of these "Builders", including the ability to effectively alter physics and time. He eventually realizes that he's given this hypothetical civilization so much power that there is no difference left between them and God now beyond pure semantics, which is when he admits to himself that, indeed, he is dead and he is in Hell.

* In ''Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', followers of Great Prophet Zarquon (a Jesus-like being who promised to return) are mocked by a stand-up comedian at Milliways, Literature/TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse. Zarquon then proceeds to ''[[SubvertedTrope show up]]'', apologize for being late... and then disappear when [[spoiler:the Universe ends]].

** Also, there's the [[TranslatorMicrobes babel fish]], which are such obvious proof of God that he can't possibly exist, and God's last message to all creation, written in huge flaming letters: [[spoiler:We Apologize For the Inconvenience]].

* By the end of Gentry Lee's ''Literature/RendezvousWithRama'' series of novels, it's heavily implied that the eponymous ship, and the other ships like it, were constructed by God - ''the'' God - for the purpose of conducting an intergalactic survey of His creations. Much of the conflict in the later novels arises from the way the characters behave in the light of this revelation.
** Just to clarify, God made very little of the Rama survey ships or the system behind them. Rather, according to the robots behind the "survey", moments after the very, very first big bang (the ''Rama'' series assumes the theory of big bang > snapback > big bang > snapback, etc.), a tiny {{nan|omachines}}ite factory of sorts was created, with instructions to create the necessary infrastructure to, and to go about, watching and taking note of any civilization making steps toward Utopian society. Every recurring "'big bang", the process begins anew, the eventual goal being to find the key pattern to creating a true, eternal Utopia-- ''without'' violating free will by just making Utopia and rendering the whole affair pointless. The only source of this information is, importantly, ''according to the robots'', who themselves make certain to point out they were just programmed with this knowledge, and can't exactly give any real proof besides the scale of their operation and its goals.

* Creator/RayBradbury

** This is notably one of the criticisms of Richard Dawkins in so much that his critiques are mostly critiques of Christianity and monotheism versus religion in general as a concept.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': The T'au have no Warp presence, and thus are nearly immune to the risk of insanity and daemonic possession that is endemic to humanity (even their space travel doesn't use the Warp, and thus is safer but much slower). Having no frame of reference for it, they therefore believe that the human reports of daemons are just madmen's tales (to be fair, Chaos forces are usually insane), and that the daemons they ''have'' encountered are a highly unpleasant species of alien with bizarre abilities. It's hinted that the Ethereals ''are'' aware of Chaos and the Warp and deliberately hide this information from the population.

** It's worth noting, however, that in the very conversation above, "God" displays a very non-omniscient degree of surprise at Picard's "blasphemy," uncertainty as to how to punish him, and a sudden decision to change the subject.

** 1 Corinthians 10:19-20 King James Version (KJV) What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.

*** The context of this verse is that God proves there is only one God because there is only one chosen people, Israel, and thus only one Earth: Isaiah 45:18 King James Version (KJV) 18 For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.

*** The non-changelings of the Dominion seem to have little problem believing in Space Jesus, as they know the Founders are an alien race, yet ''still'' consider them gods. One Vorta dismisses the Prophets as mere SufficientlyAdvancedAliens, and then immediately states that the changelings are ''real'' gods. It's noted though that the Founders actually genetically-engineered these species to worship them-and in the ExpandedUniverse, its revealed that the Founders have their ''own'' God....[[GodIsDead and accidentally get him killed. Woops.]]

* Deconstructed in ''ComicBook/TransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye''. The mythical Necrobot (a Cybertronian deity of death whose legends arose during the war) is discovered by the crew to actually just be a normal, friendly guy who records deaths he comes across as a way of honoring an old friend, using tech that's not even that advanced by the setting's standards and being mistaken for magical when people saw him searching battlefields. This revelation causes Nightbeat to suffer a crisis of faith because he thinks that if something like the Necrobot is just a wartime myth, than stuff like the afterlife may not exist either and that terrifies him. The Necrobot expresses the belief that it doesn't really matter if something like the afterlife exists as long as you have the hope such an idea gives.

*** The non-changelings of the Dominion seem to have little problem believing in Space Jesus, as they know the Founders are an alien race, yet ''still'' consider them gods. Its noted though that the Founders actually genetically-engineered these species to worship them-and in the ExpandedUniverse, its revealed that the Founders have their ''own'' God....[[GodIsDead and accidentally get him killed. Woops.]]

*** Although to be fair, whatever gods genetically engineered ''us'' to worship them sure did a bad job of it, seeing as how people argue over this in the first place.

** How does this connect to space, you ask? Well, small g-gods and devils in the Bible are angels or sons of God. And angels are called stars in the Bible in many places like Revelation. Have you ever noticed planets and constellations are named after pagan deities? A literal interpretation of this is [[spoiler:that the stars are the angels themselves or inhabited somehow by an angel. Literal star gods that are not gods like in fiction.]]

** Islam already believes in non-human sentient life in the form of spirits and ifrits and other dimensions. Life on other planets isn't too far a stretch. In fact most religions seem to be pretty okay with the concept, even traditional ones like Orthodox and Catholic Christianity and Hinduism. Its kinda hard to lose your faith because you see photographic proof of how small and helpless you are in the face of the immensity of the universe when you spend most of your life believing in your smallness and helplessness in the face of God.
*** Many Hindu scriptures in fact explicitly state that there is life on other planets and other universes (In fact some of the earliest instances of the multiverse concept are found in the Vedas)

* Another uncomfortable topic to bring up in a religious discussion is that modern humanity is already sufficiently advanced to do things that would have seemed miraculous in the past, or at least, we have rudimentary technologies that demonstrate the possibility of that with a certain amount of development. In the 1800s finding naturalistic explanations of miracles was actually regarded as an *affirmation* of the Christian faith specifically, though the practice rapidly fell into disfavor again once churches realized that it sort of negated the need for a creator deity altogether.

* Toyed with in ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' where an EldritchAbomination is shown to be designated the role of God. [[TouchedByVorlons Roger Bacon]] states that God, is not God as we think of Him but a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien yet Roger is still a pious monk; Either the real God is immaterial and thus Roger prays to the real thing and God was given credit for the alien's action creating the planet or Roger has knowingly been praying to the giant space monster, neither is too hard to believe considering [[TheWonka who Roger is]]. The heroes on the other-hand don't seem to care and just aim to beat the snot out of the primordial space titan that has come down to bring about the Apocalypses.

* One of the most common plotlines in ''Franchise/StarTrek''. Apollo, {{Satan}}(!) and Quetzalcoatl have all been "explained" away as {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s as have a number of fictional alien gods.

** As for "Satan", that wasn't explained away. That was just a con-artist pretending to be Satan (and a bunch of other dark entities from various interstellar religions). Satan never actually appeared in the franchise.
*** Except in the ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries''.

* In ''VideoGame/StarCraft'', the Xel'naga are an ancient alien race that [[spoiler: created both the Protoss and the Zerg]] and they are shown to be very, very powerful, so much so that the Protoss worship them as gods. However, most gods aren't slaughtered by their creations, that's the MadScientist's job.

See also SufficientlyAdvancedAlien, ArbitrarySkepticism, and AncientAstronauts. Not to be confused with IfJesusThenAliens which in some ways is almost the reverse. NoSuchThingAsWizardJesus is how UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} will continue to be worshiped and not suspected of being anything other than the son of God even if an alien superhero named Josys from the planet Beaven is running around doing everything he can do and more.

** Played with in in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E9TheSatanPit "The Satan Pit"]], where the Doctor finds {{Satan}} chained up on the edge of a black hole. The episode never clarifies if it's just a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien, actually Satan, or a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien that inspired legends of Satan, but all theories are put forward by different characters. It claims to predate time itself, which the doctor declares impossible.

*** Many Hindu Scriptures in fact Explicitly state that there is life on other planets and Other universes (In fact some of the earliest instances of the multiverse concept are found in the Vedas)

*** In ''The Discarded Image,'' Lewis claimed that religious thought prior to the scientific age (even in ancient times) tended to emphasize the lowliness of man compared to the divine, and that it was only once the concept of evolution was accepted that man started thinking of himself as being at the ''top'' of a ladder of life, and dreaming of subjugating nature to his will. Unsurprisingly, this is wrong; the so-called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being great chain of being]] put man in charge of the physical world (and more specifically, put rulers and nobles above other people), and indeed, in Genesis, God explicitly states that man holds dominion over all the creatures of the world. And women. The idea of man being on top of the world, with only the divine above them, is an ancient one, and shows up in a great deal of mythology. Interestingly, the misconception that evolution puts man at the top of the great chain of being is an unscientific holdover from the previous worldview. One of the reasons that people disliked (and continue to dislike) evolution is that it means that humans ''aren't'' special or different from animals.
*** Then again, it's worth noting that when the Bible states that we are special in God's eyes, that there's no real reason to assume it means that ''Earth'' is special compared to ''the rest of the universe'', instead of that ''sapient minds,'' being capable of returning God's love, are special compared to ''the rest of creation,'' that is, the rocks and stars and lower animals, which aren't. There's no reason to assume that the aliens will all be fallen like us, nor is there a reason to assume that they'll all be unfallen. But whatever the fallen:unfallen species ratio is in the universe, it's safe to assume three things. A) There ''are'' other inhabited planets out there, since God wouldn't go out of their (the trinity) way to plow out a universe this big only to plant a single flower in it, B) That God makes themself known to all of the universe's inhabitants, and C) That God will redeem a given fallen world in some way, shape, or form. Perhaps by doing what they did here, or perhaps by doing something quite different. Whatever is appropriate.

An interesting irony in this is that {{Heaven}} is generally regarded as being in, or above, the sky, and that most cultures tend to look upward when thinking about their deity or deities.

* Inverted in the anti-Mormonism film ''Film/TheGodMakers'', which has an [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment odd animation]] describing how Mormons believe God and His followers come from a planet called [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 Kobol]]. This, like much of the information in the film, can be chalked up to sloppy research; in the Mormon Book of Abraham ''Kolob'' is supposedly the star or planet nearest where God currently resides, not the planet he came from. However, there IS such a thing as [[MemeticMutation Mormon Jesus]].

* Creator/CSLewis generally averts this, most notably in ''Literature/TheSpaceTrilogy'', which is pretty much ''about'' Space Jesus.

'''Eros''': Is it so hard to believe that ''[[NotSoDifferent we]]'' might also think of God?

*** In ''The Discarded Image,'' Lewis claimed that religious thought prior to the scientific age (even in ancient times) tended to emphasize the lowliness of man compared to the divine, and that it was only once the concept of evolution was accepted that man started thinking of himself as being at the ''top'' of a ladder of life, and dreaming of subjugating nature to his will. Unsurprisingly, this is wrong; the so-called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being great chain of being]] put man in charge of the physical world (and more specifically, put rulers and nobles above other people), and indeed, in Genesis, God explicitly states that man holds dominion over all the creatures of the world. And women. The idea of man being on top of the world, with only the divine above them, is an ancient one, and shows up in a great deal of mythology. Interestingly, the misconception that evolution puts man at the top of the great chain of being is an unscientific holdover from the previous worldview. One of the reasons that people disliked (and continue to dislike) evolution is that it means that humans ''[[NotSoDifferent aren't]]'' special or different from animals.

* Inverted in the anti-Mormonism film ''The God Makers'', which has an [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment odd animation]] describing how Mormons believe God and His followers come from a planet called [[Series/BattlestarGalactica2003 Kobol]]. This, like much of the information in the film, can be chalked up to sloppy research; in the Mormon Book of Abraham ''Kolob'' is supposedly the star or planet nearest where God currently resides, not the planet he came from. However, there IS such a thing as [[MemeticMutation Mormon Jesus]].

* One of the most common plotlines in ''Franchise/StarTrek''. Apollo, {{Satan}}(!) and Quetzalcoatl have all been "explained" away as {{Sufficiently Advanced Alien}}s as have a number of fictional alien gods. Oh, and Q once claimed to be "the" {{God}}. ([[TheTrickster He was probably kidding.]])

** Before his departure, the Klingon prophet Kahless pointed to a star and said that would be where he would someday return. After they developed interstellar travel, Klingons went to that star and built temples on a habitable planet in that system to wait for his return. [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Worf]] was there fasting and praying when he showed up. [[spoiler:Then he turned out to be a [[CloneJesus clone]].]]
*** But then a priest asks "How do you know this is not how the [[ProphecyTwist prophecy]] was to be fulfilled?" Well, how DO you?

* Subverted in ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic''. Amy and Tekno find out that the universe was created by aliens. When Amy mentions that she thought sometone else made the universe, the aliens imply they're working for a higher power.

There is a strong degree of ArbitrarySkepticism in many examples of the trope, particularly in cases where characters automatically disbelieve the self-proclaimed deity because it runs against their view of what {{God}} is or should be. Take, for example, ''Star Trek V'', where "God" tells our protagonists that He "needs a ship," and is met with skepticism on the grounds that God wouldn't need a starship. Sure, the Judeo-Christian God would have no need for a starship, but [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Helios]] had a chariot and [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Ra]] had a barge (and Literature/TheBible ''does'' describe God as possessing a chariot [[MindScrew made of angels]])... In short, the entity is disbelieved because it pretends to be specifically the Judeo-Christian God. [[http://www.danhausertrek.com/AnimatedSeries/HS.html Had he instead claimed to be, say, Quetzalcoatl,]] one suspects our heroes' reaction would have been very different.

* "[[http://www.roma1.infn.it/~anzel/answer.html Answer]]" by Creator/FredricBrown: Computer scientists build the world's most powerful computer, far more powerful than any previous computer. They ask it, "Is there a God?". The computer replies at once [[AGodAmI "Yes, ''now'' there is a God."]]