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November 7, 2025 15 mins

What would faith look like if we weren’t alone in the universe? In this episode of HELLO FUTURE with Kevin Cirilli, Kevin sits down with Dr. Lance Gharavi of Arizona State University — a leading scholar of artificial intelligence, emerging tech, religion, theater, and space exploration — to explore how the discovery of extraterrestrial life could transform belief as we know it. From ancient creation stories to future Martian colonies, they discuss how religions might adapt, what role ritual could play in helping humanity process contact, and why the question of aliens might be the most spiritual one of all.

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Speaker 1 (00:08):
I don't know if you saw this just the other week,
but Pope Leo actually called buzz Aldrin, the famous moonwalker
and congratulated him on everything that he was able to
do on the moon. And I went down this rabbit
hole online and I started seeing all of this content
about what the Vatican and the popes and religion have

(00:28):
said about extraterrestrials. I didn't learn that in CCD Sunday
School growing up outside of Philly and Donco. Hello Future.
It's me keV and this is a dispatch from the
Digital Frontier. The planet is Earth, the year is twenty
twenty five. My name is Kevin Surreally. Subscribe to the
Hello Future podcast however you get your podcasts, and of
course on the iHeart at. My guest back for session
two is Lance Garavi. He is he studies these fascinating things.

(00:52):
He's at the Arizona State University, which is an awesome school.
I love Arizona, been there many many times. And he's
this rare mix of artists and theater person also with
outer space and exploration, and he's done a ton of research.
And I want to continue this conversation on things that
the religious leaders sticking with the Pope and the Vatican

(01:13):
for a second on what they have said, because you
mentioned in our previous episode that if there are aliens,
the Vatican has been actually quite consistent that it is
not in contradictory to your religion or your faith. I
do identify as Catholic, and I would never shove my
religion down anyone's throat, but it is quite interesting to

(01:34):
me that for several hundred years they've been very consistent
on this point, and that they have had an observatory
to do this. I don't want to put you on
the spot at all, but do other religions have planetary observatories?
And what has made you, as you're preparing to release
research in the coming months on this topic, what stands

(01:58):
out as some of the key takeaways that we can
glean from you as a preview of your research, specifically
with how they've explored this and their public communication on it.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
So, Pope Francis released his statement several years ago, maybe
more than ten years ago, saying that he would baptize
an alien if asked, and I think that caveat is
important from my very limited reading and this particular issue

(02:28):
religion's contact with extraterrestrial life is not a special area
of my research, but the research I have done. Catholicism
has already said this doesn't disrupt things theologically for us.
Some lines of Protestantism, I think might find this more
disruptive because the emphasis on salvation in the Christian Church

(02:58):
and particularly mainline and even more evangelical denominations is very anthrocentric,
meaning very human centric. Right, so it could, in the
minds of some suggest a real theological challenge. Let's saying,

(03:18):
where do these beings exist in creation in relation to salvation?
Did Jesus die for the aliens?

Speaker 1 (03:30):
That's a question that makes hello future stand out, my friend.
But Pope Francis didn't shy away from this. Just to
your point, I mean, a quick Google search, just the
headlines that doc glean. He said it in twenty fourteen
The Atlantic headline, Pope Francis says he would definitely baptize
aliens if he was asked. The Independent, Pope Francis says
he would baptize aliens Christianity. Does the Pope have the

(03:53):
authority to baptize aliens? The Guardian. The Pope has said
that he would baptize a Martian. I mean, he said
it as a joke, but he knew he was saying.
He said, if an expedition of Martians arrives and some
of them come to us and one of them says me,
I want to be baptized, what would happen? The pods
have jokingly speculated during a Tuesday morning Mass, the church
turns no one away, and he confirmed not even extraterrestrials.

(04:16):
It is fascinating.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think there's an important distinction to make here, and
that is the distinction between extraterrestrial life and extraterrestrial intelligence.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Because I'm not following.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
So on Mars or Europa or you know, one of
the other bodies in our solar system, we might discover
extraterrestrial life, maybe microbes, yeah exactly, or sort of primitive
forms of life. A discovery like that would be huge,

(04:50):
ar shaking, but it would be a different thing entirely.
If we discovered life that we would deem quote unquote
intelligence for sure.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
One of the other areas of research, and Lance Garavi
is my guest. He's a professor at the Arizona State
a University and has really taught a plethora of different
subjects which I just find so interesting from theater to
arts and entertainment and technology and interplanetary as well as
you did a lot. I don't want to call it
like social experiments on the impacts of the teams in space.

(05:22):
I just watched this great movie on Netflix called Stowaway,
which is essentially have you seen Atlance?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
No?

Speaker 1 (05:28):
No. The premise is I watch I love sci fi
In case you can't tell. The premise is essentially, this
team of three astronauts goes up to do to go
to Mars, and then someone else is on the ship
after they take off, which how that would ever happen?
I don't know. The movie explores the dynamics of the
team because there's not enough oxygen and like food rationing,

(05:52):
and it's really like a fascinating study of team dynamics.
Like I mean, Harvard Business School could do a case
study on it. But Lance like, yes, it's very hard
to go to space, technology, cyber all the implications, But
one of the things that you've really looked at is
the team dynamics of people going to space and the
human socialness of what goes to space. What are some

(06:12):
of those threads that perhaps we lay people who just
are interested in this stuff, don't necessarily always think about.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
One of my research projects is called Port of Mars,
and it is a game based research platform for investigating
social dilemmas and collective action problems. Social dilemma, sometimes referred
to as a commons dilemma, is when everybody benefits if
everybody behaves in a certain way, but behaving in that

(06:43):
certain way may come at some kind of cost to
the individual. During COVID, there were certain behaviors that they
wanted everybody to adopt. Some of those behaviors people saw
as coming at some sort of cost, like they were
worried about vaccines or getting vaccines was inconvenient or masking
and social distancing was annoying, and so they chose not

(07:07):
to behave in that manner. So it's this dynamic of
behaving in the interest of the group or pursuing individual interests.
There's a tension there frequently, and so the Port of
Mars was designed to investigate that dynamic because specifically in

(07:28):
the interest of how do we manage these dynamics? How
might future human space communities on the moon of Mars
or elsewhere navigate those dynamics? Because if you're on Mars,
the stakes are a lot higher. If people can't get
along and contribute to the good of the community and

(07:51):
are just pursuing their unselfish needs, the community is going
to collapse and everybody will die.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
There's a great book, this Book of Strange New Things,
which talks a lot of about this. Maybe you've heard
of it. He talks about essentially how likely a space
colony will be essentially a refinery and one that's very
close counters like a military encampment and very boring for
lack of a better word. And so to your point,
if you don't get along with your teammates or your colleagues,

(08:16):
it's like some office politics, you know.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
How do we ensure that some isolated space colony where
rescue is not coming because it takes two years to
get there. How do we ensure that that community won't
evolve into nineteen eighty four or Lord of the Flies
or some other young adult novel.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Let me tell you. You're like, oh, you know, you're dipping
and diving on all of this stuff that to you
is just common knowledge. To be honest with you. Broadcasting
from Washington, d C. The mainstream media.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Has absolutely failed on these topics. The mainstream media has not.
They've called us all crazy and kooky for going down
these wormholds. And let me tell you something, there's a
lot more people like me than people like them, because
this is insane to me that we have a new
Galileo discovery every day, and the national security implications of

(09:07):
this stuff, the security technology systems of this stuff is
so vital.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
One point I want to make that is I think
germane to both Christianity, both in its Catholic and Protestant variance,
and Judaism thirty six times in the Torah or the
first five books of the Christian Bible, ye, thirty six
times it commands us not to oppress the gear, alien,

(09:38):
the stranger, and so I think biblically and in the Torah,
they are absolutely unambiguous statements about this. Now, having said that,
even among the people who profess Judaism or profess Christianity,

(09:58):
we as a human right don't have a great record.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
I would underscore humanity as a whole, regardless of religion
or not. In religion, Yeah, yeah, I mean we are
a very peaceful bunch. We are also a very violent
bunch as humans.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
We're at a time in this country. You know, you
said you covered Washington, so you're aware of this where
the issue of the stranger is explosive.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
I actually think, to your point with space exploration, and
I was when I interview astronauts and CEOs of space
companies as well, what I find super interesting and what
really inspires me because I'm a huge optimist when it
comes to space exploration, because I believe it creates jobs.
I believe medical research. I believe that what you can
do in zero gravity is so different than what you

(10:44):
can do in gravity here on Earth. And I also
just believe that exploration is represents some of the best
of human innovation and imagination. When I think every person
listening right now, they can think of the James Web
Telescope and all of those images. They are the most stunning,
most beautiful images that I think we've ever seen. I

(11:04):
think from a climate change perspective where I'm also all
in on traveling for space is to be able to
mine asteroids or to be able to mine other parts
of our Solar system. There are millions of objects, millions
of objects in our Solar system, not just nine planets.
I consider Pluto a planet I know but and a
couple of moons and a couple dozen asteroids. It's like

(11:27):
millions of asteroids and then millions of other objects in
the Orc cloud and everything like that. So where I
think there's a lot of consensus, because that's what the
show is all about. We're not a divisive platform at all,
is let's explore to make Earth more like Earth again.
If we can explore and drill in other parts of
the Solar System and have those interplanetary supply chains, I

(11:47):
believe that's the future that we should all be able
to get behind, because we're only a small spec of
sand in our Solar System, let alone in our galaxy,
let alone in our universe.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
One last point, we are already we already have what
might be termed alien intelligence on this planet in the
form of other animals. But one kind of alien intelligence
is in the news a lot lately, and that is
artificial intelligence. Yes, I work a lot in AI, especially

(12:18):
you know, for the past ten years, but especially over
the past five, and a lot of AI experts talk
about AI as a kind of alien intelligence radically other
but also strangely familiar. So we are encountering this alien
intelligence constantly. A question related to the question you've been asking,

(12:39):
is a lot some AI experts believe that that AI
will achieve consciousnessience, Yes, yes, AJI or ASI and artificial superintelligence.
What happens when we are when and if we are
able to confirm that AI has achieved sentience. I think

(13:03):
that will be a more difficult question for the world's
religions than an extraterrestrial intelligence.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Why that's fascinating.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
Why one can conceive you know, let's take Judaism Christianity.
They's stick to abraham religions. For example, they can conceive
of all living creatures throughout the universe as part of
God's creation. AI is not AI is a creation of humans. Therefore,

(13:36):
would it, for instance, have a soul.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
You are setting me up so well for future episodes,
by the way, because there's this whole debate, as you know,
and this is a great topic, but there's a whole
debate like should the robots be able to vote?

Speaker 3 (13:48):
One day?

Speaker 1 (13:49):
Like that movie with Haley Joe Osmond, Like artificial intelligence
which came out I think like twenty five years ago.
Pinocchio is about artificial intelligence. If you really want to
go there.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah, you know, there's this whole very very new area
of research sometimes referred to as AI welfare, and a
welfare doesn't mean they'd be getting social security.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, that's not going to pass into town.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
I'm in right right research into the well being of AI.
Should it become sentend how then are we to treat it?
What would our moral obligation once it becomes morally significant?
And again I want to point out we as humans

(14:31):
don't have a great track record treating other sentient creatures,
not just humans, in treating other sensient creatures.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Well, I think that's a really, really great point to
end on because it's almost like a cliffhanger because we
could talk about that forever. Yes, stay tuned to say
hello to the future, and we are definitely going to
be diving into that coming up. And I can't thank
you enough, And Lance, you have to come back on
the show because I had so much fun with you
and I would love to stay in touch and as
your research comes out and all of these different topics,

(15:00):
because you're too humble, my friend, because you have a
plethora of knowledge and you are a great guest. So
I can't thank you enough for this. And this has
been a lot of fun for me so thanks Allans

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Thank you for having me on Kevin, thanks
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