Interfaith Group

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is rather misleading, if not simply false. It sacrifices accuracy to achieve a clever turn of phrase. Absence of evidence is (or at least can be) evidence of absence. What it is not is absolute proof of absence (which is rarely if ever to be found in the real world in any case). And yes, that applies to both "god" and intelligent life on other planets.

While we know that intelligent life is possible, there is no evidence as yet to show that it actually exists on other worlds. We cannot, however, even come close to examining all of the possible or predictable manifestations of such existence, so the "absence of evidence" in this case tells us very little.

As far as its effect on religious beliefs, simply discovering that alien intelligence exists would probably not affect earthly believers too much. But if we ever got to the point of actually being able to communicate with them and find out about their culture, that would be a different story.