NASA hired priests and theologians to study how would different religions react to the prospect of extraterrestrial life. As per Times UK, the space administration agency sponsored a programme at the Centre for Theological Inquiry at Princeton University in New Jersey for the research. 

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One amongst the 24 theologists hired by NASA, Rev Dr Andrew Davison, is also set to release a book next year. The reverend holds a doctorate in biochemistry from Oxford. 

 “He was one of 24 religious experts who took part in the in a NASA-sponsored programme at the Centre for Theological Inquiry (CTI) at Princeton University in New Jersey to assess how religions would react to news that life exists on worlds beyond our own,” the Mirror report said.

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 Davison says that his research so far has already seen just how frequently theology-and-astrobiology has been topic in popular writing during the previous 150 years, a statement on the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity blog reads. 

His book – ‘Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine’ – will cover part of CTI and NASA’s joint exploration. His ‘most significant question’ is how theologians would respond to the notion of there having been many incarnations [of Christ] in the universe,  the blog post further reads. 

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As per the Times UK, in 2014, NASA awarded CTI with a $1.1 million grant to study ‘worshippers’ interest and openness to scientific inquiry called the Societal Implications of Astrobiology study’.

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CTI’s director Will Storrar said that with NASA’s support they would hope to see serious scholarship being published in books and journals to come out on the subject, answering to the “profound wonder and mystery and implication of finding microbial life on another planet.”

“Detection [of alien life] might come in a decade or only in future centuries or perhaps never at all, but if or where it does, it will be useful to have thought through the implications in advance,” Davison writes.