An American creationist has claimed that intelligent alien life doesn't exist, on the grounds that they cannot, by default, be saved by Jesus.
Ken Ham, who is a media savvy believer in God, a denier of virtually everything else, and president and "CEO of Answers in Genesis" and the Creation Museum in Kentucky, says that the Bible is evidence for the supposition that aliens don't exist.
In a blog post responding to NASA's recent claim that aliens would be discovered within 20 years, Ham argues that "secularists" need to find aliens to prove evolution (they don't, incidentally).
"I’m shocked at the countless hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent over the years in the desperate and fruitless search for extraterrestrial life."
"The search for extraterrestrial life is really driven by man’s rebellion against God in a desperate attempt to supposedly prove evolution!"
Ham does admit that that the Bible offers no firm prediction on the existence of aliens:
"The Bible doesn’t say whether there is or is not animal or plant life in outer space. I certainly suspect not. The Earth was created for human life. And the sun and moon were created for signs and our seasons—and to declare the glory of God."
But in his most controversial passage he says that intelligent aliens cannot be saved by Jesus, since they are affected by original sin but are not descendants of Adam, so can't be saved. As such he thinks they don't exist.
"I do believe there can’t be other intelligent beings in outer space because of the meaning of the gospel. You see, the Bible makes it clear that Adam’s sin affected the whole universe. This means that any aliens would also be affected by Adam’s sin, but because they are not Adam’s descendants, they can’t have salvation.
One day, the whole universe will be judged by fire, and there will be a new heavens and earth. God’s Son stepped into history to be Jesus Christ, the “Godman,” to be our relative, and to be the perfect sacrifice for sin—the Savior of mankind…
An understanding of the gospel makes it clear that salvation through Christ is only for the Adamic race—human beings who are all descendants of Adam."
However, Ham insists that previous reporting by HuffPost US that he thinks aliens are going to hell is wrong -- since he actually believes they don't exist.
In a second blog post he writes:
"Secularists and some media outlets have been falsely accusing me of saying aliens are going to hell—when I don’t even believe in aliens."
Meanwhile NASA and the scientific community have now racked up confirmed discoveries of around 2,000 planets outside our solar system, after studying a bare minimum of our galaxy's 100 billion stars. Which is to say, there are a lot of corners as yet unexplored in which to find a living organism -- and really irritate Ken Ham.