Most people have treated me with reasonable civility. A few viewed me askance upon discovering I'm not a Broncos fan.
Mass suicide? Human beings aren't the brightest. How many people are affiliated to organized religion? (Hello! "God" isn't a Jew, Catholic, Muslim, etc) Evidence of other planetary lifeforms will blow their collective mind. I mean, don't religion people think Earth is the be-all and end-all of life? (Apart from Scientologists) The evidence cannot come quick enough.
I doubt there would be mass suicide, unless the xeno scum are belligerent torturers. You'd be surprised at how many religious people are actually pretty decent and sane, they can adapt to things that are contrary to their beliefs, I am sure. For some, religion might just be an excuse to be social and part of a group.
In the large village/small town where I used to live, church on Sunday whilst No.1 son went to Sunday School was an essential part of family life even though I wouldn't have said we were that religious. After a short while we were invited to dinner at the vicar's house, and after that you would be amazed at the step up the social ladder - dinner parties at senior partners in law firms etc. (my then-wife was an up-and-coming solicitor). Could have been very successful if that was the game I wanted to play; the Freemasons have nothing on the Church of England in an English country village!
I think the first contacts will be one way. So we might have knowledge of an intelligence that existed a long time ago (it may or may not be around today). How people would react to just that I think has potential. Just knowing we are not special. Knowing that abiogenesis happened more than once. But I'm sure as always the religions would come up with some reinterpretation. Some of us would add to a flood of sci-fi books. And after 6 months the rest of us would get on with life.
I don't think it's as simple as that. I remember reading the book "A Case of Conscience" by James Blish (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Case_of_Conscience). In the forward, he mentions that the Catholic Church has a policy for contact with extra-terrestrials. As I recall, it partly depends on whether they have souls (though how that's supposed to be measured, I don't know). If they have souls, they'd either get proselytisation or studied, depending on whether they had fallen from grace.
By (Saint) George, the Catholic Church thinks of everything. How, I wonder, will the soulfulness of extra-terrestrials be determined?
... And what if they already are gods? What then, hmmmmmmmnn? Perhaps they'll allow the Church to convert?
Personally I would find and tweet the single most appropriate reaction gif. Jim mugging for the camera on The Office, I imagine.
Just for funzies. If the aliens weren't gods, and decided to have other plans for us. Then they might be seen as heretical by the religeous commnities for telling them they worship the wrong god, and then... ...there will be a great crusade to purge the galaxy of all the heretic xenos scum. The end.
There is a good chance that the aliens might try to enslave us. I don't care if they are nice. I just hope that their sex robots are realistic.
When you point to the mothership in the sky that is casting a shadow over the city they will go: "Oh that is just a holographic image portrayed by the government to scam us into increased security measures."
Imagine the Twatter posts, "That's just project Blue Beam, man. Another nothing-burger" "Aliens have the BEST butt probes!" "Da Lard is coming down, grab ur holy books!" "Fake" "Are those aliens vaxxed?!" "Are those aliens LEGAL?!" Ad infinitum.
