If God is an alien....?
 

let's start with the opening..."sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Clarke third law...

as we all know human as a species is very young, very much so, but he already have myriad of technology that mess with the very essence of life like cloning, and genetic manipulation. If we see it that way how about other species in this very wide universe that is much older than us. That when we still at Stone Age already warping his way traveling the galaxy. their technology definitely much more advanced than us that's for sure.

What if this species is the one that created human, or at the very least spread the seed of life that enable the creation of human in this planet. Doesn't that mean since they are our "creator" they are God to us?

even if we still try to deny that and say we are the only one and special since the bible or other sacred text say so, don't they have the right to say that as well, by their own sacred text as well...?

What do you think if someday some species come and say, "we created you guys"

You're certainly not the first person who thought that and the concept was popularized by the movie Prometheus.

But in the end this idea:

1) Isn't supported by any evidence
2) It still doesn't changes anything about the problem of how life started, because even if we accepted that life on Earth was created by aliens you still would need to explain how those aliens came to be, and then you'd be back to the "god did it" and "evolution" theories that we already have now.

Technically, any deity whose origin (if any) is not from Earth is already an extraterrestrial being.

As for what might happen if a technologically superior species were to claim godhood over human beings, history has shown that, with enough power, even fellow human beings have been worshipped as a deity. So I suppose it would be a matter of how much force/evidence would this species use/provide to get humans to accept their claim.

And of course, there will be those who will reject them regardless, be it rejecting their claim of creation, or accepting it but still rejecting any claim of authority. My first thought was the Stargate franchise, but I didn't realize this Prometheus is part of the Alien franchise. I think I'm going to check this out, thanks.

Also depends somewhat on your theological/philosophical concept of God. For example, anyone who ascribes to Perfect Being Theology (for example, any follower of Judaism/Christianity/Islam) would reject any sort of alien creator as a god, even if they had in fact created humanity.

But humans have a tendency to find gods where they don't belong, so if any race did appear and claim such godhood I would expect a large population would take those claims at face value.

And of course, as monster mentioned, depending on your definition of aliens, basically any creator god would be considered an alien. Or at least the vast majority.

I was gonna say a bunch but the last post says it all for me so I'll just say this: a God is some thing that you can't physically perceive so the definition doesn't really fit with the question if you're looking at it on paper. Fun to think about though, had fun reading your posts.

After a certain point, otherwise "sufficiently advanced technology" is likely to be seen for what it is: sufficiently advanced technology that is ripe for reversing engineering, as opposed to sacred powers beyond mortal comprehension.

In fact, an interesting property of Clarke's law is that it is reversible in interpretation. That is to say, if any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, then any sort of magical phenomenon is indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced technology.

The difference lies in what sort of creature is applying "clarks law". We human beings have developed some big egos. There are more and more people every day who might play with the idea of humanity ultimately reaching out and conquering the galaxy, etc, etc.

Creatures with such high ambition don't necessarily need to be bound by first principles and worship of unexplained phenomena. In the short term, sure, but ultimately humanity is a species that wants to be on top, and no amount of advanced technology will be enough to stunt that desire for long.