How would discovery of Alien life effect religions?

I would say the world would go apeshit and if they come here or w/e it's basically the end of us because they probably have all kinds of diseases unknown to man.

If you wanna know about Jesus (the son of man), aliens and us then read The Book of Enoch. On another note, our history is full of alien contacts, many in religious contexts; no need to ask the question, just look back at our countless encounters. Genesis 6:1 is says that the sons of god bread with the daughters of man (the book of enoch has the full story). Go read that, then read everything you can on the Sumerian culture; you'll see a direct parallel. An excellent example of ancient contact

Below is the drake equation I was talking about in the vid, BTW.

Just watch the Fastwalkers Documentary! You will find your answer

Thanks Matt, good thoughts on how society would take it. But I'm afraid I disagree on the occurrence of life/intel life in our galaxy (That's right, I'm saying galaxy, not universe. So this counts trillions of times.) Let's say there are and were about 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy when ours came along. I think that sounds good.

Then, let's say only a tenth of them have planets (which is a low estimate). Of those, let's say only a millionth of them are Earth-like. So let's say of these Earth-like planets, the chances of some kind of life happening are about one in ten. This is again, a low estimate. Life doesn't need to be carbon based. There are, from what I understand, theories pointing towards the possibility of other chemical pathways to life - like a silicon based ecosystem.

Then lets say only a 10,000th of them have intelligent life. Of those, perhaps a 100th stumble on to radio-wave telescopes. Then let's say, once a civilization comes into being, it doesn't blow itself up, catastrophically disrupt its planet's climate, or lose interest in radio astronomy, so it lasts about 10,000 years. So, let's see: N = (400 billion)(1/10)(1/1,000,000)(1/10)(1/10,000)(1/100)(10,000) = 40 civilizations.

First of all, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Earth being the only planet in the universe with life (or at least with life that's as developed as humans). True, the universe is astronomically large, but the occurrence of abiogenesis is likely an astronomically unlikely event. Such a rare occurrence could plausibly only happen once given trillions of trials.

If we found life on another planet, it's more likely that it would just be a bunch of bacteria chilling in an ocean somewhere. In which case it wouldn't really be an issue for religion. If we did find sentient life on another planet, then the Christian rationalization would probably be the same way they rationalize civilizations on Earth that hadn't (and a few that still haven't) heard about Christianity.

The existence and fate of people who have never heard about Christianity is no new problem for Christians. Personally, when I went to Sunday school, I was always given a made-up doctrine that those who never had a chance to become Christians are judged according to the old Jewish law. This isn't a universal belief among Christians, but I'm doubtless in saying that Christians will use whatever rationalization they already have in place to justify alien life.