Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman: Is God an Alien Concept? Episode Review: Alien Theory

Religion is a complicated and sensitive subject. Analyzing religion will make a ton of people angry. The newest episode of “Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman” dares to ask the question and use science to answer the question “Is God an Alien Concept?”

In this episode, we see different researchers studying different aspects of faith. One of them is first testing people by asking them to make a sentence using the fifth word in a sentence they read. Next they have to drink many cups of orange juice mixed with vinegar. Another is the researcher trying to speak to two counter clerks in a hot dog restaurant in a dead language.

The first experiment found that people who answered the questions that had to do with religion were two times more likely to finish the test because of faith. The other test showed how humans have to join the majority in order to survive. While both tests were interesting, the first one is a bit suspect. There can be any number of factors as to the ability of a person to do something insane. There are plenty of atheists who are able to put multiple needles into their bodies and show no signs of pain.

Another one showed that an AI in a video can slowly becomes human- to the point where it becomes self aware. Again, this is another suspect experiment. If an AI is programmed to do certain things and it will spot differences in its algorithm. This isn’t necessarily the nature of a human- it’s what a good computer program is supposed to do.

Let’s talk about the title of the episode. Anyone reading that title might assume that this will be like an episode of “Ancient Aliens” and try to show how the idea of god is of alien origins. Instead, the subject of aliens seems to be an afterthought thrown into the mix. It asks questions like “what if aliens have evolved to the point where their god is an AI?” and “do aliens follow the same morality as humans?” It comes off as trying very hard to stay on topic when in reality it has moved mile away from it.

The “Is God an Alien Concept?” episode of “Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman” may have some interesting ideas, but basic common scientific sense makes the ideas sound pathetic. On top of that, the whole alien concept is nothing more than a clever marketing ploy to get people to watch the episode.