I believe I've posted this elsewhere, sometime or other; but RnR you remind me of a woman I know who grew up in the jungles of Bolivia, where her parents were missionaries to a culture there that was very isolated.  The people wore not one stitch of clothing, and only the occasional string of beads or other handmade trinkets.  After they had been among these folks for several years and began to learn their language, the men asked this woman's father if he could get them shirts like the ones he wore.  They liked them.  So, he got enough to pass around to the men. That's as far as it went. They loved the shirts, but they never asked for pants and were never offered any. After a while, when the novelty wore off, many of them stopped wearing the shirts also.  In a way, since they were entirely isolated from the rest of the world, I guess it could be said that they were aliens living on the planet, and the only thought they gave to wearing clothing was as a temporary novelty which, apparently, they eventually saw as unnecessary and maybe even a little restrictive. I don't think the missionaries ever discovered what the thinking was behind the request or the subsequent rejection.

When Anna and I chatted about this topic we did ponder over the idea of remote people who haven't taken to clothing but we figured going the extra terrestrial root was simpler. Though maybe not! The problem is that so many tribes have been touched by the western world in some way now and like the story above it has effected them. We also wondered that if the visitors were coming to us rather than us going to the visitors it does raise the question of a high level of knowledge. Remote cultures may see our clothing as a sign of our "worldliness" and see the use of it as something more learned (though may not more wise) people do. 

I cannot attempt to say I know what the Bible and Christianity's views are on life on other planets, but is it not possible that if we are here by Devine measures that other worlds have been created too and that the same divinity may watch over them all to see how they play out? And that if one planet became so advanced that they could travel to ours that it could be the deity's wish for them to re-kick our way of thinking a little from the visitation? It could also be the deity's wish that the co-existence of other worlds be kept secret until such a time is right. After all we need to get on with life on our world and not look wishfully out to the skies for a better one. 

I love Sam's thoughts of how much more higher advanced we would be if we hadn't put so much effort into sinning. That is surely something that cannot be argued no matter what beliefs are held. The human race seems to put so much time into all levels of hatred. Maybe, necessity is the mother of invention but gluttony, lust, greed, despair, wrath, sloth, vanity and pride are the founding fathers that drive that necessity.

Whether or not our world has any divinity we have still evolved. From primitive life forms, or Adam and Eve, our journey has involved a evolution that in many ways has not always been for the good. We have been making a mess of things for thousands of years and the quicker we evolve the deeper we seem to sink. The last 150 years is only unusual because of have fast we have grown - in intelligence and numbers and in return in much darker and disturbing ways. 

The calling for naturism - and sadly its misuse, rejection and fear - is in many ways linked to that. A Christian may say that the further we get from Eden the stronger the need becomes for some to recapture it. A non-Christian could argue that the further we develop scientifically the more vital the need becomes for some to return and respect our own nature. 

Either way if an alien life form visited our planet they may look at us and see our clothing as a symbol of where we have gone wrong. An alien in a universe with a God may wonder how we erred to be blighted with such fears and an alien in a universe without a God may see our clothing as a sign of how bogged down we are with gluttony, lust, greed, despair, wrath, sloth, vanity and pride that all, in someway, are caught up in our need to cover ourselves (actually that would make an interesting blog to explore). 

The alien life form may have made similar mistakes and also be covered. That is a possibility, because either way, they may have gone down a path that also found a need for covering. It isn't impossible as any number of directions can be taken. The one thing that seems certain to me is that clothing is not necessary for a cultured, intelligent and civilised world - it isn't necessary for our own. Many people may find that hard to believe, but fingers crossed one day we can stand as RnR hope and say "see I told you so!"

In the meantime, lets move on from the debate on whether aliens could exist and return to the main question. 

If they did exist (and it may be a very big if or an impossible if), but if they did exists, could they be expected to wear clothing? And if they didn't or only wore clothing for protective purposes what would the think of our clothing, our need to to hide ourselves and our need to encourage some people to come out of hiding?

 As Steve writes. “The one thing that seems certain to me is that clothing is not necessary for a cultured, intelligent and civilised world - it isn't necessary for our own.”

 

We feel this is a very important point to raise, which we also alluded to earlier. If we look backwards to the time either of or before Christianity and the other religions, we can explore a world based on our past cultures, which were very well organised and highly cultured. When we say cultured, obviously we do not refer to todays modern standards of culture, but we do emphasise the power of community, and the responsibilities attributed to that.

We feel it is a little bit misleading to take the point of view that before the Roman’s invaded and brought religion to our shores that we were uncultured, the Celt people were highly intelligent and very cultured, as were the Greeks.

The world was a very different place back then, which arranged society very different from today, and so what was considered normal back then, would in our modern civilised traditions of today, appear strange and possibly unacceptable, and yet they were the norms of those times.

In Celt tribes, there was complete sexual equality, as men and women had equal rights, something that was a unique aspect of those times, as most other cultures were more male orientated. Nudity was not at all shameful or frowned upon, communal bathing was a norm, as was mixed bathing. Marriage was merely a business arrangement for those who held land and titles to ensure the children from the union were legitimate heirs, and Monogamy was not at all a normal thing, as most cultures back then were polyamorous. It is a very stark contrast to the ideals of today, and we use it as an example to show how much society has changed.

In regard to an alien lifeform, we feel after over two thousands years of the rise of multiple regions, society has been shifted away from its previous norms of what was acceptable. To a degree, stories and films have led us to think that a race from space would be like us, and so therefore have the same moral stance, and we feel that could be a mistake.

In reference to indigenous peoples living in other parts of the world, to highlight our thinking here, we will quote the following.

There was a tribe that was approached by a Christian mission or nuns, but they refused to communicate with them, and shunned them completely. After six months with no progress the Mother Superior was frustrated, as their goal was to convert what they saw as Heathen to Christianity. This tribe was completely naked, and felt no shame at all, and happily continued their tribal ways ignoring the nuns.

The walk from the mission to the tribe was a long one, and one day a young novice nun who had been considering the Mother Superiors words of frustration as she walked to the village, considered that because she was dressed, and the tribe could not see her true natural form, they might be intimidated by her. She was right, they feared the clothing as they did not understand why a person would hide their body, so the young novice decided to remove all of her clothing. She stripped completely naked, and was instantly greeted and accepted by the tribe.

The mother superior reacted badly when she found out, and the young novice was disciplined, sent back home in shame and eventually Ex-communicated from the religion. It appears to us, the novice had a far greater understanding than the Mother Superior who was bogged down in her dogma and thinking.

Using this example, we have to ask, would a race of visitors be accepted if their culture was completely different? If theirs was a clothes free culture, which ours isn’t, would we as a race be able to accept them, or like the mother superior be so blinded to reality that it is simply impossible to tolerate something that actually promotes communication?

There is currently a world wide spread dogma of conformity that shuns the naked body on mass, due to certain aspects of what we would call, Religious belief, which has influenced how society is structured, and so we ponder if we found an opposing culture that was modelled more on what were our traditional life styes many thousands of years ago, would we as a race be even capable of changing back to what was once a normative way of society?

Would the human race be able to accept that a far more advanced way of thinking on a greater intellectual level, from an alien culture that completely opposed ours today, was that the naked body was the correct way to be, and clothing was only a minor utility in extreme situations, or would we demand the aliens dressed?

We are not convinced that in the culture of today’s landscape, and using current naturism as the best example, we could tolerate a naked alien race as a human society. We actually feel that the aliens would actually be pressured on mass, or like the Mother Superior, would we remain so entrenched, we would risk and hamper all efforts to fully communicate, unless they converted to our way of thinking?

On this planet today, we have many examples of how many of the different religions have changed and reshaped the ancient indigenous cultures of the past, and damaged or destroyed lifestyles and habitats dating back well beyond their own creation, and we feel that an alien race would be no different.

In this community of ANW, we are all more than aware of the many mass benefits to life, health and mental stability that is gained through the simple act of being naked in nature, and yet we are a tiny minority on the world stage as we fight the many forms of cultural bigotry that is aimed at us, as we are isolated from mainstream society.

We feel as naturists, we probably understand the aliens, better than we do our own communities within society, for we believe, they would face similar challenges.  

The world is full of religions and one thing that they maybe all have in common is that theirs is the one that makes the most sense, the one that they feel passionate about and the one that places them above others in culture, civilisation and morality. History and society is shaped by those that win, those that assume power, those that have wealth. The Roman Catholic church has guided much of Western society for some time - shaping our views on other cultures, of equality, on life and on how we view history. 

It isn't just religion that carries the power to change. The voice we listen to comes from any pulpit. Victors of a war will rewrite history - it is because it is the strong view point that counts. The victors have strength. Today the biggest voice is echoing from social media. The voice may reflect strong politics, it may reflect woke ideals, it may reflect religious teaching, it may reflect patriotism. BUT it is a reflection, distorted in the fairground mirror of social media. Twisted with hate, bigotry, paranoia, misconceptions, trendy notions, revenue concepts and acted upon with a domino effect by thousands/millions who continue the distortion and grow something that can (like Facebook itself) start in a small town and spread Covid like across the globe. Ideas that have no relevance to another small town half way across the globe take hold and change viewpoints in an attempt to find relevance. 

The modern world is full of Mother Superiors with no religion, Atheists who follow the words of someone elses God, Bigots who act like they are openminded and Good people who have learnt to hate through the preaching of fools. It was bad enough to see our nations shaped by the rich and the politicians but now our world is shaped by the loudest voice shouted from any valley that offers a strong echo.

If Aliens came to our planet they would see us as rather foolish people, and our clothing would be only one aspect. Back biting, greedy, angry, obsessed, hating our neighbours (on a local and national scale), keeping each other down, encouraging old wounds to never heal, self-harming through any substance and excuse we can find, desperate for attention but fearing judgement, eager to influence yet reluctant to learn, obsessed with our bodies but mistrusting nudity, aware of our destructive capabilities through the environment and war, and yet eager to put them to the test, preaching words without following their meaning, in love with ourselves but unable to see the love of other, getting praise by selling out and creating fake personas and then wondering why we don't feel rewarded by the success and likes. 

If aliens came to Earth and thought we were worth the time they may find the best thing to do is to connect with genuine naturists. Despite our religious, cultural, national, sexual...difference we are honest and real. (On the whole which is why I said Genuine Naturists - some people seek nudity as part of the foolish brigade above). We may be small in numbers, we may not carry the world's wealth and power, but at least they will get some honest answers and a view of what humanity is really like and the equality and goodness we can kind across our spectrum.

If aliens chatted with naturists then they may actually find humans as worth considering and not simply a plague on a rather attractive planet.           

I'm a bit late to this party but I'll add my thoughts on the subject.

To get back to Anna's original topic, I think we need to consider some practical realities.  As I type this it's currently -6 Centigrade outside.  To be comfortable inside I'm unfortunately clothed this morning because I'm not going to spend a small fortune to heat my house.  In addition, we are very much tightly connected to our environment.  As a scuba diver I've learned that oxygen, normally considered to be a vital life-giving substance, is actually toxic under certain circumstances.  Specifically, we as organisms are used to 21% oxygen at a pressure level we find at sea level;  change that percentage and increase the partial pressure and oxygen can kill you.  I present this to illustrate that other life forms would no doubt be optimized for their environment and could be expected to have to do something to survive in ours.

I think one issue is how we have twisted the use of clothing into something other than protection from the elements.  I'm not going to work outside today naked.  Likewise, I would never clear poison ivy in the summer while being naked.  While I do believe in God I'm not sure that organized religion has always been as pure as they would like us to believe.  Robin and Rin's example of the young nun and Mother Superior is excellent.  We (naturists) approach nudity as just another way to live rather than considering certain body parts as "private".  Aliens would hopefully have the same outlook.

One final topic, this for Sam.  While I never read the works of Eric Von Daniken, I did stumble upon a book written by a NASA engineer that was to refute Von Daniken's theories regarding aliens.  The author concentrated on the book of Ezekiel from the Old Testament.  What happened was that Ezekiel's writings, when analyzed by this fellow, described a practical design for a space vehicle.  The only stumbling block he found was the energy requirements.  It was an interesting read and I'm re-reading it now.  Here are the specifics:

The Spaceships of Ezekiel
Author - Josef F. Blumrich
Published 1974
ISBN 0-553-08378-3

In locating the ISBN number (it was not in my copy) I found .pdf versions online.  You may want to look at it.