Indeed Sam, those are very valid points, especially from an atheistic or perhaps even an agnostic viewpoint. I however, am taking religion, at least New Testament Christianity, at it’s Word. If God is indeed our benevolent Heavenly Father, and if we are indeed created in his image, then I find it difficult to believe that our definition of love is that fundamentally different from his. There are certain things that love does not permit, even ‘tough love’ in the service of life lessons, or ‘don’t worry, you’ll be rewarded in eternity,’ looking down the road love. I fully accept the possibility of God being any or none of those. Free will? You may let the wastrel who squandered his inheritance live in a cold water flat, but you don’t let him die of starvation. Good of the species? Surely God knows better methods of population control than letting children burn to death in rivers molten lava. And hopefully, the guy with the metal spikes is trying to make kitty better and not extract information from her while you sit studiously avoiding violation of the Prime Directive. I’m not sayin’ it ain’t so, and you’ll find plenty of religious folk who agree. It’s probably the best they can come up with to plug a contradiction in their narrative, when a simple ‘I don’t know,’ would perhaps be more honest. The customers usually prefer something a little more concrete before they part with their money and their souls though.

I agree with the ant analogy and our inability to understand. In looking at the various concepts that we can understand however, I find that love and compassion, in the traditional (but certainly not exclusively) Christian sense, is the best candidate for avoiding the ultimate self-destruction that would render the question moot – at least from our species’ perspective. That seems to me to be a perfectly rational assessment that would apply to any putative aliens as much as it would to us. Call it a universal constant. It certainly isn’t easy to achieve. That’s probably why we haven’t heard from ET. Most sentient species have probably killed themselves off before achieving it. As a bonus though, even if God is a fantasy, it’s still a worthy goal – kind of like going to Tijuana to see the donkey show and finding out it doesn’t exist, but you had a wonderful time and found a great Mexican restaurant anyway. OK, an intentionally profane comparison to avoid getting too profoundly sappy here ÷) I’m sure that my theology is as full of holes as anyone’s and I haven’t made a dime off of it to boot, but without uncertainty, faith would be redundant. At any rate, when logic and science fail, turn to the poets:

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." – Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken