A recent survey by YouGov, an online survey site, found that about 54% of Americans believe in extraterrestrial life. Most Americans believe that there is intelligent life on other planets. 

Many scientists believe that there is intelligent life on other planets. For scientists the presence of intelligent life on other worlds is a matter of numbers. With billions of other planets in our galaxy and other galaxies, there has to be intelligent life on at least some of them, even if that life evolved by chance. 

Scientists have a strong ally in their belief of extraterrestrial life: Latter-day Saints. Mormons and scientists may disagree on how intelligent life arose (scientists: chance events; Mormons: divine events), but they certainly agree that there are many other worlds populated with intelligent beings.

According to non-religious scientists life evolves by chance. This means that there are many worlds capable of harboring intelligent life, but they lack intelligent life because the chance events needed to create intelligent life have not occurred and may never occur. Just one disturbance in a sequence of delicate events needed to turn a primordial soup into a bipedal human can disrupt the whole process. 

So how many worlds are there with intelligent life on them? According to Mormons, more than you or I can count. The Lord has said that there are worlds “worlds without number.” That’s a lot, eh? If there are so many other worlds with intelligent life, why haven’t we been able to make contact with them? 58% of people in the YouGov survey agree that extraterrestrials are too far away to contact earth, and they are probably right.

Why are inhabited planets so far away from other inhabited planets? I don’t know, but think for a moment what it would be like to contact intelligent beings on other planets. If we contacted a mortal world like ours we might compare notes about the nature of deity. If we contacted post-mortal telestial world might they warn us of the consequences of bad choices. If we contacted a post-mortal celestial world they might tell us about the wonders of Heaven. Communication between worlds would be disruptive to God’s purposes. It might undermine the responsibility to rely on faith, to earnestly seek the Lord through personal humility and prayer.      

Ontology refers to what is real, or the fundamental reality of existence. Ontologies are generally shaped by people’s beliefs about what is real in the world. For example, if you’re an atheist you might ascribe to a materialistic ontology which is that matter in motion is the fundamental reality. If you believe that social situations construct our reality then you might follow a social constructionist or relational ontology – for these people, interactions with others are the fabric of reality.  

If you are a devout Latter-day Saint you probably embrace a religious or supernatural ontology.

According to the LDS ontology all of us are spiritual beings having a physical or mortal experience. We existed as spirits far longer than we’ve existed as physical beings. During our lengthy pre-earth life we communicated, learned, and grew in a way very different from how we learn and grow in this world.  

We don’t remember what spiritual learning and communication was like because the God that sent us to earth put a veil of forgetfulness over our minds. He did so because this life is a test of faith, a test that would not be possible if we remembered standing in God’s presence.

However, many believers have an idea about what spiritual communication is like. They know it through the Holy Spirit. If you have ever “heard” the Lord speak to your mind you know what I am talking about. People who’ve had a distinct impression to do something or have “heard” words in their minds know what spiritual communication is like. As someone who has personally experienced spiritual communication I can say that it is just as real as sitting at my computer typing this blog entry.

Explaining spiritual communication to non-believers is a bit like describing the color green to a visually impaired individual. In many cases it cannot be done. Spiritual communication is difficult to describe. It is something that needs to be experienced to truly understand. Because it cannot be observed in an empirical way (i.e., measured with scientific instruments), spiritual communication does not fit into a materialistic ontology; therefore it is not considered real by empirical standards.

The full reality of spiritual communication hits everyone after they die. After dying, non-believers suddenly realize that there is a spiritual reality where things work quite differently from how they worked on earth. This realization leads many non-believers to accept the possibility that there is a God whose communicates with us spiritually. In due course many seek Him out in humble prayer and finally experience what believers experienced while on earth – they experience the reality of God’s love.

While in this world it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the physical domain is the only thing that exists – that we and everything around us is made up of nothing more than matter in motion. But if we remember that there is a whole other spiritual domain and that we are spiritual beings, we open our minds to new ways of learning and understanding our world, we allow our minds to receive inspiration from the Lord. When we receive inspiration we see things the way God sees them, we understand things the way he understands them.

Inspiration gives us, in some small way, the perspective of an all loving, all-wise, and all-knowing being. That can only be a good thing.   

People who like Back to the Future will remember this statement from Doc Emmett Brown: “I was changing a light bulb in the bathroom when I slipped, fell and hit my head. When I came to, I had a dream . . . a vision, of this! (pointing to a drawing). The Flux Capacitor!” 

Doc’s discovery of the Flux Capacitor is what makes time travel possible, at least in the movie. The circumstances behind his discovery are not just another humorous event in a funny movie. Doc’s discovery of the Flux Capacitor is a parody of discoveries that really happened. People have experienced dreams and inspirations that have led to breakthroughs in science and technology.  

Secular science shrugs its shoulders at these supposed visions and attributes them to luck, coincidence, or a frenzied mind. What many do not realize is that the source of these miraculous events is the Light of Christ. When you think of the blessings of science and technology that have enriched your life, don’t thank your lucky stars; thank the Lord.  

My favorite example of the Light of Christ inspiring secular discovery involves Dmitri Mendeleyev (1834-1907). Mendeleyev discovered of the periodic table. The circumstances surrounding Mendeleyev’s discovery of the periodic table are eerily similar to the circumstances portrayed in Doc Emmett Brown’s discovery of the Flux Capacitor. Here are 4 noteworthy similarities.

1. Mendeleyev and Doc had wild, unkempt hair.

2. Both men surrounded themselves with pictures of scientists. In the movie Back to the Future, Doc had pictures of Thomas Edison and Isaac Newton in his study. Mendeleyev had pictures of Newton, Galileo, and Faraday in his study.

3. Both men isolated themselves from the outside world while they worked feverishly on their discoveries, Doc while working on time travel, and Mendeleyev while working on a way to organize the elements by their atomic weights.

4. And most importantly, both men had a vision or dream while unconscious that led to their discovery. Doc had a dream while unconscious on the bathroom floor, and Mendeleyev had a dream after falling asleep from exhaustion. In his vision, Mendeleyev said, “I saw . . . a table where all the elements fell into place as required.” 

Mendeleyev's account reads like a Hollywood script, yet it is true.

It is no coincidence that so many discoveries prompted by dreams happened around the time of the Restoration. The apostle Paul testified that in the last days God would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. This outpouring of the Spirit enlightened people’s minds while it prepared the inhabitants of the earth for the restored gospel. 

The outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord continues to this day; it is what makes the latter-days so different from previous dispensations. Consider that for the first few thousands of years of humankind’s history, modes of transportation and communication remained largely unchanged (i.e., walking or riding an animal). When you compare the first few thousands of years of transportation with what we have today, the differences are astounding!

Mendeleyev's story is a classic example of what the prophet Brigham Young declared some 100 years ago. Brigham Young wrote: “Every discovery in science and art, that is really true and useful to mankind, has been given by direct revelation from God.”  

Einstein’s personal letters to family and friends just fetched 420,000 dollars at auction. Each letter was auctioned separately. The letters deal with a wide range of topics including the atom bomb, marital fidelity, special relativity, and God.

I respect Einstein’s intellectual accomplishments. The combination of his intellectual brilliance and imaginative abilities led to marvelous scientific breakthroughs. What I find fascinating is that Einstein did not conduct scientific experiments in the sense that we are familiar with. He did not formulate and test hypotheses. Instead he used Gendanken or thought experiments.  Thought experiments are those where people imagine what the outcome would be. His scientific laboratory was his own mind.  Only recently have people begun to confirm his ideas with actual experiments.

When someone with immense intellectual skills comes along you can’t help but wonder what they think about God. Einstein was first an atheist but then loosened up a bit and declared himself to be agnostic.

In one of the recently auctioned letters he wrote what he thought was wrong with believing in God. It appears he had problems with the kind of relationship that would be required if God were real. I find it fascinating that the very thing he found problematic is actually an accurate portrayal of what our relationship to God should be like.

He wrote:

"I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one."

In other words he suggested that believing in God requires us to recognize Him as our father and us as His children. The logical extension of this father-child relationship is that we humble ourselves before him and submit to His will as a little child submits to his or her parents. Although he tended to reject this idea, it is indeed fascinating that one of the most brilliant scientific minds understood that accepting God required that we approach Him as a child, with submissiveness and humility.

He was right!

Einstein was not without humility. He wrote in a letter: “I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being.” To his credit, when non-believers acknowledge the greatness of nature and recognize their limited understanding of nature, they are, in a way, reverencing the Creator. And when they marvel at the existence of humankind and at our capacities, they are also, in a way, reverencing the Creator.

But alas, what grand cosmological insights might have come from Eniy if he had only believed in God! One can only imagine what he might have conjured up if he had read and accepted the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and the teachings of Joseph Smith and other latter-day saints like Brigham Young and James E. Talmage. I, for one, wonder what he might have said about the Light of Christ, that power that emanates from the presence of God, letting Him know, at an instant, what we say in our prayers, how many hairs are on our heads, and what is happening throughout all His creations.