Lots of good answers here, but what do you mean by 'other planes of existence'?
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2025
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This question is too vague. “Higher beings” is not well defined enough. “Other planes of existence” is not defined well enough. For that matter “the Gods” is not very specific. And in a weird way, what you’re saying seems somewhat circular. Like what do you call it when you believe gods aren’t gods? If you don’t believe they’re gods then who are you even indicating?
Are you asking if there’s a name for someone who believes that humanity’s major religions do worship real living beings, but those beings are simply advanced alien creatures and not metaphysical in any way.
Like what do you call it when you believe gods aren’t gods? If you don’t believe they’re gods then who are you even indicating?
Let me give a possible interpretation. These are hypothetical, both in terms of argument , and in OPs viewpoints.
We live in a simulation. The "higher beings" are the admins that are running the simulation. They can change the settings of the simulation and break the rules with their avatars. They live as common folk on their own plane. Jobs, wife, kids, food and sleep etc. So they don't have superpowers, they just get to mess with our reality but not theirs.
Gods sounds perfectly usable in this example
Yup. Believing in higher beings from other dimension is just religion with different words. Only when the belief is based on fact and not faith can it not be religion.
Alien Worship Cultist
"spiritual, but not religious"
then explain in more detail
What makes something religious? Because at least with Christianity, they claim that God is spirit. Whatever 'spirit' is...
Religion has to do with habits and practices. So someone can brush their teeth religiously.
Christianity is a religion, but it’s also a faith-based belief system that incorporates alternate planes of existence. Some people eschew the religion part but still have the belief system, and some people play inside the religion without actually believing in the spiritual side of things.
I like to explain Christianity as the belief in a multidimensional being who defines the dimensions we can observe and has done a bit of mucking around in a way that was measurable by us. Angelic appearances? Most would call them aliens, as they’d be extra terrestrial intelligences. Spiritual possession? A different dimension that has an effect on the ones we inhabit, but is currently beyond our capacity to fully understand.
Deistic (believing in a god or gods without a necessary religious component) but not theistic. Or pagan, which is just believing in higher beings (or singular being) that are not Abrahamic. There's probably other words that fit the bill, too.
Non-Denominational Polythism would be the term, I think.
Spiritualism?
Science fiction, maybe?
Can you define "god" in this context? Does "god" imply a creator of human existence, or merely a being with abilities not understood or quantified by humans (think Q from Star Trek).
The latter isn't necessarily a belief system in and of itself. It's just the acknowledgement that "higher", ascendent beings can exist because humans are not, necesssarily, the be-all-end-all sapient beings of the universe.
Trascendental polytheism? Are these "gods" involved in any way with our "plane of existences? Are they one or two beings or whole races? Do they have their own "gods" and so on like a multiplanar Matrioska doll? 🤔😅
Those higher beings keep hiding my keys and deliving kids, women and elderly people in the various war stricken areas. And they gave us big orange.
Let me precalculate that on my realshitolometer hold on....hmm, just as I suspected, its a billion percent!
Still theism, but is also what "spiritualism" usually means. You believe in some deity or deities, but not necessarily anything organized.
I've heard and read that Abrahamic religions don't have a place for their gods to hang out but the rest they hang out in the Metadivine Realm.
sg1/ and some trek ascended beings are based on higher dimension/planes of existence, almost alway beings of pure energy thought or conscience. heaven/hell is considered a higher dimension, scifi is obsessed with it, and it tries to add some technobabble into why these exists.
Whatever you want. All of religion is made up, structure provided for those in need.
I still call it religion.
if there's higher dimensions they're still part of the universe as I know it, they're just not in the parts I can perceive. There's very little useful speculation I can do in relation to the parts I can't perceive. Apparently this is called "existence monism," so this would be one of the other things in the Wikipedia theology tree. personally I would classify it as a type of Monolatry.
I don't know but now I'm wondering, do the Greek gods qualify?
greeks seem to have a hierarchy. thier are demigods lower than gods, gods are lower titans, and lower than primordial beings(aka personification of aspect of the universe), and thier "abilities are more powerful the higher your hierarchy is.
Honestly that's just religion through science; the purpose is still to give meaning to meaninglessness.
common sense.