> news like this would have a huge impact on their faith.
Not necessarily. Non-believers often underestimate the intellectual sophistication that one can find in religious traditions.
For instance, Augustine in the 4th century was already saying things like this:
"With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures."
And C.S. Lewis (best known as a Christian apologist) wrote some interesting religious science fiction novels with extraterrestrial angels. (The Space Trilogy.)
Not necessarily. Non-believers often underestimate the intellectual sophistication that one can find in religious traditions.
For instance, Augustine in the 4th century was already saying things like this:
"With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures."
And C.S. Lewis (best known as a Christian apologist) wrote some interesting religious science fiction novels with extraterrestrial angels. (The Space Trilogy.)