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Vatican Astronomer Comments On Extraterrestrials
An anonymous reader writes "There's an Astrobiology.net interview up with a Vatican astronomer, Guy Consolmagno, who also curates one of the world's largest meteorite collections. On the possibility of a non-terrestrial lifeform, he says initially 'I don't know', followed by three scenarios. First, he argues: 'We find an intelligent civilization and there's no way in creation we can communicate with them because they're so alien to us. We can't talk to dolphins now. In which case, we'll never know.' Secondly, he suggests: 'We find the intelligent civilization. We can communicate.' As agents of free-will, the aliens are self-aware of good and evil, thus convertible to some terrestrial religion. Thirdly: 'We find a dozen civilizations out there, and a bunch of Jehovah's witnesses go up and convert them all.' The question of whether an alien civilization might convert Earth to their religion, or become a religion unto themselves, is left unconsidered. This compares to the many reasons people give for hosting a SETI@home client, including that ET contact would unite humanity, challenge religion, or all of the above."
We discover intelligent life up there immeasurably superior to ourselves and they become our new gods.
As agents of free-will, the aliens are self-aware of good and evil, thus convertible to some terrestrial religion
Even if Aliens know the difference between right and wrong but they might not be able to understand the concept of god. Even if the did understand god I doubt you could convert a space faring race to any of our religions in their current form. It makes the earth too special and they'd probably wouldn't take kindly to that. I do suspect religion will transform in to a 'many games of chess' set-up. Adam and Eve was Earth's story. Kalcknor and voltak was Vulcan's story etc etc.
Simon
In all the time I've spent pondering extra-terrestrial life I've never onced considered wasting my time trying to convert 'em to the baby Jesus. It's funny enough that humans still waste their time with these ludicrous old superstitions.
Now wash your hands.
And this is in the 'science' section.
And it's nothing but a bunch of speculation about how to convert aliens to christianity.
My head is about to explode.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
All hail Ming, our Emperor!
All these years, I've been telling you, I hope now that you see it as clearly as I do. I for one welcome.. err.. ok.
Even if any aliens were to have a concept of good and evil there's no reason why they would see things the way we do. Just look at how it is on Earth: there are people who genuinely believe it is 'good' to do things that many now believe are profoundly evil. Take the Spanish Inquisition, for example: they really believed that it was the right thing to torture suspects - give a sinner hell here, so they don't suffer so much in the next world.
In fact, I don't think there is anybody that considers himself 'evil', no matter what.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
Interplanetry Mormons or quantum presbytaryans
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
...what about religion?
Seriously, if some advanced race landed on Earth, at least some cult/faction/group would characterize them as gods. What I find interesting is the practical viewpoint of the Vatican astronomer; new scientific discovery does not eliminate the need for a God, it just redefines the boundaries between humanity and the Other.
I also think that a chance encounter with aliens would certainly polarize the creationists. Did God create the Earth in seven days? OK, what about Gamma Epsilon 7? The Catholic Church has had many, many faults, (hello, Galileo) but IMO the modern Church is much more accepting of scientific theories than, say, fundamentalist Christians.
and so no longer need primitive belief systems.
They may even know why we're here and what comes next
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Chuck another prawn on the barbie, come visit us on Outback Earth, y'hear?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
FYI, "flamebait" isn't a synonym for "I disagree".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
He also seems to miss out the option whereby we atract the attention of "agents of free will" who have already discovered evil. Am I right in thinking that currently it's illegal to attempt to communicate with an ET without UN approval, or something? In case they wander over and rape our planet/enslave us all/demand McNeal.
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
I think that the parent is flamebait inasmuch as it encourages flames (thank goodness all the Christians are in bed) but I belive it still makes a very valid point: surely the Vatican should spend more time thinking about how to truly help the people on this planet rather than speculating about people (in its loosest sense!) much further away!
This really seems to resonate with the attitude of the Catholic Church in the Fifteenth Century. "We have learned from our brave adventurers and scientists that people, or what we would roughly call people, exist on a place unbelievably far away. Let's convert them!" And the rest is rather unpleasant history.
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Marklar: "You marklars must leave."
Missionary: "But you will all burn forever in eternal hellfire!"
Marklar: "Yes, that's nice, thank you for stopping by."
Made me feel REEEEALY good about myself.
Call me crazy but I wouldn't want most of those as indicative of my 'clientel'.
'Yup, we've got a bunch of remarks from idiots, take us seriously.'
Don't park drunk, accidents cause people.
I find the prospect of a mass space-conversion by Jehovah's witnesses to be unlikely. How are they gonna knock on all those doors? Better chances: Hare Krishnas They can appeal to the disaffected alien youth! Islam: Convert or we will crash this spaceship into your planet! Scientology: Will work briefly with its appeal to science and reason, but will suffer a backlash after aliens are treated to a free screening of Battlefield Earth
The discovery of extra-terrestrial intelligence would be catastrophic for organized religion. What if they have the exact same religion as one of the ones on Earth? Then it must be the correct one, and there's no such thing as faith anymore, and at least 80% of the Earth's population was wrong all along. What if they DON'T share any of our religions? Then ALL of ours must be wrong.
qntm.org
They give us plans to build a mysterious worm hole transportation device, some zealous religious nut destroys it, but Jodie Foster gets into another one made in Japan, trips out on a few psychedelic visions, meets her father who looks slightly like Douglas Adams, comes back and says it's all about being happy with your life.
Meanwhile, Steve Jobs' pagan cult goes unchallenged.
Our south of the border friends release pictures of a rather large number of questionable "invisible" ships, and the intellegent life forms say **** this. Seriously, I'd love to know how this hoax was set up. (less seriously) if it's not a hoax I wonder if the Aliens are islamic fundementalists that threaten the American way of life...
ok, thats all...working my way up the ladder there...go me!
insert generic
We can't communicate with dolphins because we have no common frames of reference of any sort
Actually, the bigger reason is that the dolphins don't have a "language."
Simple as that.
If an alien species has developed spaceships, it's very likely that they have some sort of formal system to communicate thoughts with one another.
Putting our best linguistic experts to the task of communicating with them, regardless of how they communicate (sound, light, gestures, pictures), we'll be "communicating" within hours, carrying on conversations within days, and will be fluent within weeks. (I should know; I've seen Star Trek.)
Asking the Vatican about Religion.
Mistake No. 2
Thinking a dying Pantheon would interest already Illuminated Extra Terrestrials.
... that getting rid of our Jehovah's Witnesses is a good idea but the potential of a hostile alien reaction is probably very good. Just imagine if we were invaded with the alien version of Jehovah's Witnesses... Aaggggghhhhhhh!!!
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Well, maybe we can't communicate with dolphins, but they sure enjoy a good handjob given by a Greenpeace activist. Anyone to try the same with aliens ?
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
One doesn't have to go back in history to see how worlds that collide have one side winning while the other side becomes victims of genocide. The warlike Caribs met the peaceful Arawaks in the Caribbean. The Caribs promptly enslaved and if I remember pretty well wiped them out. The "white man's" encounter with Native Americans led to the decimation of their culture and the annexation of their lands. We (white civilization) also introduced them to a form of biological warfare in the form of smallpox bacteria in blankets.
I personally hope that any alien life form will just pass us by. Why would their motives be any more benign than history has shown us time and time again by other peoples who in one way or another were superior? As far as SETI is concerned, it makes me cringe. My hope is that we keep a low profile and this blue marble is overlooked by any alien life form.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Just goes to show that religion isn't against science and vice versa. There's a wide-held misconception that science and religion are so conflicting with one another that you cannot believe in both areas of life.
There is the belief that science seemingly sets out to disprove the existence of a god-figure. For example, it is through science that the seemingly anti-religious evolutionary theory is 'proven' and the creationist theory is 'proven' wrong.
Then again, there are those who study science and astromony and actually come to believe in a god figure. It is claimed that many astronomers and scientists actually do believe in God because all their research leads them to believe that there must be a superior being, case in point Brother Guy Consolmagno. It's the philosophers who say "If you believe in God, you won't when you walk out of my lesson in an hour."
But is it even true? If we can't communicate with dolphins, how come we can train them?
In my opinion, we can communicate with dolphins. Exchanging a single bit of information is to "communicate".
But then again, I'm not Vatican-science-guy.
...or at least it's not how I interpret it.
When the Astronomer is talking about the second scenario, he sees the critical description of that scenario as that "there are other Words in other languages to other cultures". According to Christian Theology (as quoted by him from the opening lines of the book of John), the Word of God existed before humanity did. In other words, the aliens we encounter will have already experienced God, that "need to overcome evil in the world".
He doesn't necessarily think that he's going to be converting them in this scenario. As I see it, he thinks that they will have already encountered some form of Christianity, perhaps in a form completely different from the one seen here on Earth, and that Christians may be able to learn from their encounters with (what he believes is) the same God.
I should hope that a species more advanced than us wouldn't fall for creationist stories without a lick of proof. Okay, mod me down as flame bait... but if creationism wasn't so ingrained into our culture and upbringing every one of our religions would sound absolutely ludicrous.
See the video. Check out Wired.
The video looks pretty convincing, and according to AP and Reuters, the Mexican military is standing behind the story.
The detailed information is at Rense.
The interesting thing is that the Mexican plane was a drug interdiction aircraft with advanced radar and forward-looking infrared. It was designed precisely for the task of finding, intercepting and identifying unidentified aircraft, and it sounds like the data was handled in a way that would meet legal evidentiary standards (for obvious reasons: it was designed to convict drug smugglers).
Maybe the Vatican missed a fourth option: they're already here.
..religion eventually being the cause of even bloodier and more nasty wars?
We may think The Crusades and Nazi Germany had bad consequences - but when our fleet of orbital antimatter carpet bombers drops out of warp at the home planet of those cursed unconvertable Alpha Centauri aliens, the scale of destruction will be difficult for us to imagine now.
And finds a circle hidden in the digits of pi.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
From the Vatican? This made me think it was going to be a religious commentary on the possibility of ETs. This is addressed very well in a book called "The Hercules Text", (kind of old).
The premise of the argument was, if ETs exist, there must be immortal ETs, if you subscribe to Roman Catholic religion. I.E. : The reason we are not immortal is that we failed the "test": we ate the apple!
Therefore, somewhere out there there must be people who passed it, or the test is "spurious".
Therefore there must be immortal aliens, or the test is invalid, and therefore the Redeemer is invalid.
That's just the argument in the book.
The arrogance of these statements is quite startling, and reflects the typically dogmatic view of the Vatican (although I guess being dogmatic is basically what they're supposed to do - Jesus says 'don't use condoms'!).
For one thing, suggesting that we might convert aliens to Christianity is pretty much akin to suggesting that less well developed parts of the world might have had a chance to convert western explorers to their local animalist or totemist belief system. To take it even further, it might be like suggesting that an advanced primate like a Gorilla would have a chance of converting a human to its belief system (presumably based around sitting in a jungle doing nothing). Any race able to contact us or travel to get here is likely to be far more ethically and morally advanced that we are - it will, after all, have survived the equivalent of a nuclear age of technology without annihilating itself, and must therefore have a high degree of moral thinking.
Read Pynchon.
that's a logical fallacy.
Or a "straw man argument". Dolphins are not even aliens.
Whilst we are on the subject, this story has been shooting around the world; some very interesting infra-red footage shot by the Mexican Airforce shows...make up your own mind. The footage was shot by drug interdiction aircraft on patrol for smugglers.
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Actually, the way moderation seems to work, you could reduce the options to "+1, I agree" and "-1, I disagree". In the end, the only thing that counts is how many mods agree with a post vs. how many disagree. The mod system simply favors posts that agree with the general opinion, while punishing dissenting opinions.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
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C.S. Lewis covered this a while ago. He addressed most of the relevant religious questions pertaining to the existence of extraterrestrial life in a far more rigorous and interesting manner than this article could dream of. I highly recommend reading Out of the Silent Planet, if only for his excellent writing.
"I would give my right hand to be ambidextrous."
Looking at it from the point of view of someone who is a Christian, it is hard to see how Aliens would be like us. Either:
They've never screwed up like we did and had the 'Fall' - so they have no concept of good or evil - in which case I doubt any meeting would be allowed to occur. My other problem with this is that the Bible, and the world around us, suggests that creation has also been affected by our mistake. There's far too much in nature that "isn't right" as people say.
Or:
They have had their own equivalent of the fall, and are just like us, the kind of Aliens you don't want to meet (think we'd avoid war in that scenario?). Considering the unique role of Jesus Christ, this would also be unlikely to be allowed by God.
I guess there's a third scenario too. The Bible isn't particularly specific on where angels and demons are (though they do business on Earth already). It is possible that some supposed UFO or alien encounters are a result of this. It's not entirely impossible, especially considering the apocalyptic sections of the Bible, that as part of some end times scenario, people beleive that we have encountered aliens (with the reality being more sinister).
Personally, the distance to our nearest stars, which may not even support life, looks suspiciously like a "buffer zone".
I'm sure that to those who do not beleive in any of the Bible, or in God, or Jesus, this sounds like nonsense. Hopefully its interesting though, and won't be modded down simply by those disagreeing. Also it would be interesting the different opinion that other beleivers have, not necessarily agreeing I'm sure!
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
Well, it took the Catholic Church so long to accept exotic iconography of Black or Asian Jesus... now they will have to agree for Jesus with eight tentacles? I wonder how will the cross look like then...
That's odd. I think a lot of the shit surrounding "Passion of the Christ" stemmed from the fact that Gibson rejected some of the Vatican's reforms. In particular, his splinter group of Catholisim ignores the reforms which absolved the Jewish people, collectivly, of culpability for Jesus's death.
Historically, there have been many pogroms and a lot of anti-sematism which stemmed from the notion that 'the Jews killed Jesus' and should collectivly be punished for it till they convert.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
This is quite timely, considering the reports of UFO's coming from Mexico as well as reported in Iran, although for me, one of the most intriguing cases happened in Belgium, over a decade ago. Slightly more on topic, I think that something he doesn't really touch upon here is what happens when two cultures of vastly differing technology meet; in nearly all (if not all) cases in history of such a collision, it is always the weaker culture that either perishes (is absorbed) or is greatly affected by the sudden influx of ideas and technoloy. If aliens do visit us, then their technology is obviously greatly superior to our own, and I can see similar things happening (we would begin to adopt their technology, which in addition to contact, would lead to massive culture change). Of course, some people would hate the aliens and vow to eradicate them, whilst others would look to them as gods themselves.....well, it's all conjecture, but it's interesting stuff!
No, but it is for...you've left the burgers on the stove too long.
BTW I don't discuss religion, pro or con. You'll see the reasons why in a couple hours. Just watch.
all aliens are in fact Buddhist
We can't communicate with dolphins because we didn't have the need to do so.
:-)
If we knew they were trying to tell us a message and they actually tried to get the message across, resources would be made free so we
could communicate with them..
Communication is 2 ways, you have to make sure
you understand what they say, and they must also
make an effort to be understood and repeat if
necessary..
What about cats ? Do they say we can't communicate with cats ?
Sorry, I do communicate with my cats.
I don't know everything they say, and they don't
understand everything I say (I hope
but if they want to send me a message
(need food/attention/to be alone/go outside/..)
they get the message to me.
And if they do something they shouldn't, I also
make sure they get the message..
So yes to me that's communicating.
And now I'm thinking about it, yes, some
people can communicate with dolphins.
Dolphin trainers do train them and I assume
they will also learn to interpret the reactions
of the dolphins. They won't understand everything,
and we speak our own languages to communicate
(dolphins won't speak and we won't squeek),
but there is some limited communication.
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The problem with good and evil is that they are open to interpretation.
During the colonisation of America the settlers considered Slave Labor good.
In Hitler's point of view he was doing a good thing.
The Al Qaida is fighting for what they believe is right.
Of course I know this is flame bait.
And I don't even agree with their point of views.
But fact of the matter is. It's culture that decides what's good and evil. So if we meet aliens, and they start invading us, and reeducating us. Who's to say they aren't doing it because they think they're doing the right thing.
Face it, you can't predict the outcome of a meeting with an alien race.
Maybe the Vatican missed a fourth option: they're already here.
...
Maybe the Vatican are the space aliens...
Personally, I can think of plenty of good Earth-religions for space visitors. Wouldn't it be terrible if they do arrive, and it turns out that our religions are the only thing they're interested in?
Would put all those anti-religion zealots in a different realm, for one. And it could serve to validate the rights of certain 'unpopular' groups to their point of view
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I watched the movie and, like most other people whoi wer ein the theater at this time, we weren't pissed at the Jews but at violence.
Actually, the nasty Roman retrospectively remind me of the GIs practising "civilizaiton-101" in Iraq.
ok, a really really big one actually.
smallpox is a virus , not a bacteria .
> You could call any post that people might disagree with "flamebait". It's a stupid mod option.
I kinda don't like it either, because it requires an assumption that the moderator knows the poster's motives for posting.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What if an alien race came to earth and tried to convert us to their religion.
...what if they already HAVE converted us????.... ...
Given some of the things people on earth believe in I reckon they'd have
mass conversions taking place on usenet within about 80 minutes.
Although....
I for one welcome our new dogmatic alien masters!
First off, the summary puts words in his mouth: "As agents of free-will, the aliens are self-aware of good and evil, thus convertible to some terrestrial religion."
He doesn't even IMPLY that.
What he SAYS is that if we can communicate intelligently with the aliens the question becomes, are religious concepts of right and wrong UNIVERSAL, and if so would their concepts match ours? He hopes so.
Later on, he states: "The other thing that happens is that each side learns from the other, inevitably. And the sense of acculturation continually goes on. It went on when the missionaries from Italy showed up in Ireland. Irish sensibilities became part of the Christian milieu. German sensibilities. Russian sensibilities. Every culture has added something to the mix, and brought something out of the mix. It's inevitable. You can't pretend that it's a one-way street. Even if you wanted it to be a one-way street, it wouldn't be."
He also answered the reverse question (Aliens converting us):
"We can't even convert ourselves"
In fact, this sounds interesting. The thing is, it has already been reported by news.dir.bg (not that this makes it more credible or anything, but still...), so mod this one up if you feel like it.
i feel very sorry for all those who call themselves "intelligent". everyone wants to contradict everybody. believeeers in God will oppose the non-believers and vice versa.
now that we know there could exist life beyond this planet which could be different from us, i thought all of us will unite together to welcome/fight/whatever required to do against/with them.
but noooooooooo, we will not converge our energy in doing that, coz we are very "intelligent" every one of us can manage on our own.
so what we do is try to put "our" ideas in front, opposing all other theories.
it's sad, people still don't know how everybody can be "RIGHT" at the same time
"I will defend your post and mod you up and then I will disagree with it vehemently" Just because you disagree with something doesn't mean it should be modded down. If you think it is just a popularity contest, do your part. I think calling religions "superstitious nonsense" is being flammatory. And no. I am not religious.
I am very sceptical to the question of communicating with extra-terrestials, or further even understanding them. Let's say we get an oopportunity to travel to another planet, and find out there is life. Does this life have to be creatures we can and must try to communicate with?
The example goes on. We soon find out this life is just some strange greenish worms, not able to make sounds, etc. Just like worms on our planet. hencefore, the question is, what will be thinking of in first hand? Making them religious.. or further research..?
What if they're less archaic than us and got rid of religion centuries ago ? Then we'll let them where they are and claim they simply don't exist.
"When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives."
Surat Mohammed:4
The discovery of extra-terrestrials will be the biggest event after the discovery of fire...and the only thing the Vatican can think about it is how to convert the extra-terrestrials to christianity ?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha...they are insane!
I would really like it if extra-terrestrials existed, only to make churches go crazy!
Perhaps 'first contact' will spark a re-enacment of how so-called 'tribal' religions came to be replaced, violently or non violently by 'great religions.' (the Aiwa (sp?) in Japan were mostly replaced by the Japanese, the Hopi were replaced by Christians. Muslims spread over N. Africa replacing whatever proto-voodo gods were native there (I don't know) etc.)
The theme is this - religions for small, racially similar groups of people are replaced by religions for larger, less racially similar groups of people. Religion helps justify this takeover.
Great religions often deal more with conversion than tribal religions.
I wonder if this trend will apply to extra-terrestrial religions. Will such religions tend to be converting religions? Will Extra terrestrials have eliminated the notion of 'race' from their religion and culture?
If so, will such a culture focus on genetically assimilating creatures along with religious and cultural conversion?
Considering how universal Nietzche's 'Will to Power' is likely to be, I sometimes wonder if aliens will be like Nazis, but with forcible genetic engineering rather than gas chambers.
Furthermore, since religion and nationalism have always been strongly linked, what kind of religion will a space-faring race have, considering that they will be the first intelligent creatures who aren't bounded by nations and territory as we know it.
I think living in space will have a profound impact on nationality, and thus religion, because it will eliminate the notion of fixed land, which is the basis of nationality. If sattelites can become self-supporting it will allow people to redefine how they organize themselves and choose citizenship.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
You could call any post that people might disagree with "flamebait". It's a stupid mod option.
Blatent ethnic/religious/sexual slurs are flamebait, but anything else is not.
The aliens never fell. Perhaps this solves the silent universe problem. If humans are the only species silly enough to eat the apple (or jnikrup fruit or whatever), the rest of the universe is presumably to happy in paradise to want to contact the ethically subnormals of Sol III.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Just thinking.. suppose we were advanced enough to be able to travel between the stars and came across another civilisation who were just making it into space, what decides whether we make contact or not.
This is kind of a prime directive situation, where a major factor would probably be how religious that civilisation is. Somebody weighing this with us would probably think that religion has too much control and it would almost certainly mean war. They wouldn't want that so they back off and leave us to evolve.
It is anti-semetic to blame all Jews for all time for somthing that happened over 2000 years ago. It's even anti-semetic to blame all Jews when Jesus was alive. The Sanhedrin was a Roman puppet.
Should I say "The Christians were responsible for killing Jews during the Holocaust" because some Christians were involved in it. And should I conclude from this that all Christians for all time are murderers until they change their religion? The notion is absurd.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
wow, that was well placed. kudos to you
Yes the Jews and the Romans physically killed him, but it was ultimately His choice to die, and to that end we all killed him by failing to be perfect.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
It's not what you say, necessarily, it's the way you say it.
...) believe that Jesus' teachings as an adult are highly worthwhile [though how they get round him saying he's God ... but that's for another argument!].
... maybe you think this is flamebait? Please give us some enlightment on that if you do!?!
Flamebait presupposes all other arguments to be weak, it is fundamentalist, and usually makes some statement that other people holding disparate views will find inflammatory.
Of course disagreement is part of it.
For example in the parent post: "wasting my time trying to convert 'em to the baby Jesus" is an unguarded attack which has been universalised. The presupposition is that Christians are wasting their time. Better would be to say that the poster thinks Christians are wasting their time.
The poster could have said "I believe it is a waste of time to convert aliens to Christianity". I would disagree with that but I wouldn't call it flamebait - I think this post is flamebait.
Another clever turn of phrase is to say "the baby jesus". Whilst members of the Christian faith believe that Jesus birth is important it is not the crucial point of Jesus life. Indeed many non-christians (Muslims, some Hindus, some atheists,
By saying "baby jesus" this is intimating that Jesus only import [the only thing you'd tell alien life about] is as a baby and thus you are saying, allbeit in an implicit veiled manner, that those who respect his teachings are misguided.
You'll probably think I'm reading too much into it
I'm not trying to offend anyone here, so I will be very careful with my words. This is just my opinion, but I think that deliberately setting out to encourage others to join your system of beliefs is not a good or responsible thing to do. Simply in the act of proffering a particular belief system on others, you are necessarily advocating that point of view. It is your opinion. The way that many Christian Churches have acted in the past has been to enshrine their doctrine in myth and ritual, and to withhold the fact that Christianity was a point of view, not the point of view.
I just think that religion is something that must be spread through people being shown the true possibilities in terms of belief systems that are available to them, rather than having ideas thrust at you by parents or Clerics.
Just my 2 cents, feel free to disagree! That is your right, just as this opinion is mine.
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
However, flamebait is a synonym for "Many will disagree and yell at you for it".
There's much dismissal of the notion of aliens taking our religion seriously. And I tend to agree. But it does make for a fun "what if" scenario.
What if the aliens did take to our religious beliefs? What if the Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons did manage to convert them? Either scenario would be particularly entertaining, since presumably the aliens would then undertake the same activities as the human Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons on Earth, to the limits that their biologies would allow. Hell, I'd look forward to them coming to my door. I would be able to forgive all the other shortcomings of the 'future' (lack of flying cars, rocketpacks, etc.) if every now I could open my door to find a couple of small grey aliens in white shirts and black ties, earnest looks on their faces, asking me about my thoughts on God. I'd still slam the door in their faces, of course, but I'd have a little "Well, whaddya know?" smile on my face as I did so.
Indeed, conversion to any branch of Christianity would provide endless entertainment, since we would have yet another party laying claim to Jerusalem as the holiest city. Or perhaps we could one day look forward to a "Passion" remake, complete with an alien Jesus dragging the cross? I wonder, would the Christian aliens still nurse a mild resentment of the Jews? Or would aliens be more likely to become Jews themselves, able to accept the idea of God but not a human Messiah? Man, would that ever get some people going. Osama bin Laden would just shit himself.
Of course, they may not go for a mainstream religion. Maybe they'll become convinced that the ultimate arbiter of religious truth is some dude leading a cult somewhere in the wilds of Montana. Maybe they'd all become Branch Davidians, or some equivalent thereof.
Mind you, the alternative to us converting them is even more fun. I personally would go to church--or whatever you would call it--every week, if the purpose were to worship some whacked-out alien god. All hail the Great Slug of the Cosmos, perhaps. Hell, I'll even worship Kah'less if I get to play with a Bat'leth.
Thinking about this sort of stuff is more fun than a box full of puppies.
In a world without walls, there is no need for Windows.
A logical fallacy is to say "just by that scenario existing ...we have something in common with them". This is assuming that an alien race must be reasonably similar to ours, whereas the aliens might be in relation to us as we are to dolphins.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
No, but ridiculing something that some people take seriously enough to shape their whole lives around certainly *is* flamebait.
I may not believe myself, but I certainly wouldn't refer to any religion as a "ludicrous old superstition".
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I can just imagine the general population (i.e., us) having this kind of discussion in say the 1940's. People were absolutely terrified of the prospect that there could be life on other planets. Take the War of the Worlds radio show as a prime example of this.
:)
Say even a small percentage of the UFO sightings have been real, I don't blame any government for covering it up. It would be mass hysteria if it got out that a civilization of obviously vastly superior technology had come here.
Now we're a post-Star-Trek civilization. We've learned (through entertainment) that there can be good and evil out there. We're just taking the gamble of if they're friendly or not. Are they here to help us advance, to just explore, or eat us.
I suspect if we did make contact with a sufficiently advanced race, who had any sort of written language (that we could see, I hope) we'd have a chance of translating and eventually communicating with them. I'm sure they'd be trying to communicate with us too. Well, assuming they aren't here to eat us.
The religion debate may be moot. Religion may be a human thing that we've invented to comfort ourselves regarding things we don't understand. They may actually be a bit peeved that we try to push our primitive concept on them.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Remember the Holocaust! Whaddaya mean, "what's the Holocaust?!..."
Personally I'm still waiting for us to find the planet with the 40 foot burning letters that say "We apologize for the inconvenience..."
Didn't the Bablefish already prove there is no God?
Genda
> now they will have to agree for Jesus with eight tentacles?
Naw, you're confusing him with his surly cousin from R'lyeh.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Grandparent is either trolling or stupid, obviously didn't read the article properly, and is basically only motivated by hatred for anyone with a religious belief and a desire to find something, anything, to nitpick.
Parent is providing a genuine insight into what the article meant, which is a thing of rare beauty here on Slashdot.
Praying to an external force would seem to be likely as one of the earliest attempts to manipulate one's environment, which is a good definition of sentient life. When one was successful in a large percentage (whether by coincedence or divine intervention) patterns would emerge that seemed to be a formula for successful guidance, thus starting a religion. Speculation, to be sure, but it seems logical to me
I don't follow any of the Abrahamic faiths. How about the Hindu-Muslim conflicts in India and Pakistan? That's going both ways.
I'm a linguist who spends a fair bit of time thinking about these sorts of things (I have a cat, of course!), and I just wanted to say that your post was very well-written and raises a few questions that I enjoy thinking about.
Your first point, that we haven't ever needed to communicate with dolphins and vice versa is a very good one that many professional linguists really don't get. Communication only comes about when it is an advantage to both parties.
One thing that is important here I think is to clearly distinguish communication from language. Most animal species can and do communicate with each other (and in some cases, with humans), ranging in complexity from ants to chimpanzees, but it is yet to be proven that any animals use language in any ways outside of a purely functional manner. Humans use language in so many ways - as a functional, communicative tool, as a system of recording facts, as a social construct for building groups of humans... I could go on. I don't think there are all that many documented cases of animals showing these kinds of behaviours.
But, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence! I personally have a feeling that cats do understand what humans say very, very well. Down to the word level. I'm not sure what their syntax is like (i.e. whether they can interpret meaning above the word level, as phrases or sentences) but Aristotle, my cat, picks up on quite a lot of phrases, such as 'vet', 'bad cat', 'good cat' and all those mundane things, including the name of every kind of food he likes. I also have a bilingual friend whose cats understand his English and Spanish very well. Of course, all this isn't very scientific, but there are reasons to suspect that cats do understand us very well. They have been hanging around us for a long, long time... perhaps since the dawn of farming techniques and granary construction, 2000 bce or earlier. You could even say we have a symbiotic relationship with cats, i.e. a mutually beneficial relationship. They eat the mice, birds and insects that come after our food, which is good for everyone. Except when they hunt the neighbours pigeons, stupid things. (Pigeons, not cats!)
I think there's still a lot we don't know about this kind of thing, but I'm always looking into it!
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
We find the intelligent civilization. We can communicate.' As agents of free-will, the aliens are self-aware of good and evil, thus convertible to some terrestrial religion
Odds are that if they are aware of good and evil and advanced enough to be space-faring then they will probably have higher moral standards than anything christianity has to provide...
High moral standards are what makes cooperation possible. Tolerance of differences is probably neccesary, and that certainly isn't taught by christianity.
Or maybe im just projecting my own standards onto aliens... but the christian concept of moral seems to be pretty low compared to what humanism can provide.
"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." -George H.W. Bush
... without a name. He'll die this episode.
Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
It just enforces yet another false identity and is directly responsible for many of the conflicts in today's world. The only thing the commies got right was the banning of religion. But I guess, most of the people are so weak/stupid/lazy that they need artificial crutches in order to find answers in this world. Actually they just want to believe whatever is packaged and dished out to them. Sort of like the Disneyland/Vegas experiences.
What is the big deal about the religious implications Aliens pose to us. It is ok for people and Alien alike to beleive in different things. Just because Aliens might not beleive in our God, doesn't mean that we have to go and change the way "They" think. What right do we have to go and do something like that. I have been saying it for years.... All Religion does is get in the way. Hell here on Earth we kill and/or hate someone just becasue they beleive in different religions. Does this mean we could never like any Alien life out there just because we don't beleive in there "religion" if they have one?
The general human attraction to religion can be explained by our instincts related to "group survival". This instinct makes us want to be a part of something "greater than life", and makes us willing to sacrifice our all for this (in benefit of the group). The very presence of this instinct suggests that groups with this feature will have better chances in competition with other groups, which makes sense since the individuals will easier work together for the common good. The general religion has gone as far as to suggest that the demise of the individual leads to advantages in the "afterlife". Many other systems utilise the same instinct (nationalism, sports). Note that we can not conclude that the group instict "causes" religion, just that religion uses this instinct.
Any Alien race that has a strong society, and have advanced technology will probably rely on a strong group instinct. It is reasonable to expect that this race also has harnessed their instinct within the framework of a religion. It is likely to contain the same elements as most religions here on our planet ("greater than life notion", "advantages in afterlife").
Frank T.
The Bible is quite clear that Jesus died for the sins of all of us. Those who repent and believe, can benefit from his sacrifice.
The so-called 'hints' you have listed are all evils, perpetrated by those who have been misled, or are simply falsely claiming faith. I mean for crying out loud, Bush alleges to be a Christian! Even more amazingly, he may well be even if what he does is wrong!!! (Or not!)
I'm just pointing out that there's a slight dilemma if we meet aliens. Do they have another Jesus (iffy as regards Christian theology)? Did Jesus die for them also here on Earth - is that why they meet us? This is not impossible (just possibly tricky to accept). After all, Jesus' death benefited those prior to the event who did not have the knowledge we have now - in actual factual knowledge at least. The Bible (New Testament wrt. Old Testament) is clear that no amount of sacrifices could save people from their sins, that the 'old system' was simply to provide a focal point for their faith. The Jews today survive without animal sacrifices. Do they believe they are all condemned as a result? So aliens too, could also be part of the saved.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
There is a blatently obvious (well to me anyway) possibility that has been left out, that the aliens (lets assume that they have never heard of us, or seen us before now) already believe the same things we do. From a Christian perspective, I find it quite intriguing that there may be an alien civilisation out there that believes the same things I do. After all, if God did create the universe, wouldn't he show himself to other beings aswell?
Karma? Hey I just call it as I see it.
Why did I blow all my mod points yesterday?
Religion is truly the highest form of comedy
There is, of course, an existing tradition of Christian thought on extraterrestrial life.
C.S. Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy is probably the best known example: Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra took H.G. Wells as its point of departure and speculated upon other world in which the corruption and redemption of humanity and nature had followed different courses. (I never got far into Vol. 3, so I can't recommend it.) Probably both are in a library near you.
Going back a little farther, the poetry of the Catholic writer Alice Meynell (1847-1922) touched on a few of these themes, e.g. in 'Christ in the Universe':
Meynell's works are available online.
There is no god and the aliens know it for sure and can prove it also
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
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"Convertible to some form of terrestrial religion". Yeah right...
Forget about religion, how about cultural assimilation?
Read this exerpt from the Brookings report from 1960 comissioned from NASA about finding extraterrestrial life, it will make you think twice. Perhaps this is why the goverment is hiding the truth that "they" are already here. Oh and don't forget to see that Mexico video, just another iron in the fire so to speak.
--
Proposed Studies On The Implications Of
Peaceful Space Activities For Human Affairs
By
Brookings Institution, 1960
Report To The 87th Congress, Union Calendar 79
Report Number 242
For
National Aeronautics And Space Administration
The general public
1.As with other matters not central to day-to-day living, the
public, considered as a whole, is probably only selectively
attentive to and knowledgeable about space activities. The
relationship between the impact of events on indifferent or only
occasionally interested people and their attitudes and values is
but partly understood and needs further study.
2.It has been alleged that the "public" is optimistic about
space activities. If this is so and if the optimism is
widespread, the present support it generates for the space
program may not be lasting if the difficulties inherent in space
efforts have not been appreciated enough to make the failure of
specific projects understandable. The resulting disillusionment
may be a serious factor in reducing public support as space
efforts become more grandiose, the consequences of payoff more
exciting, and the losses from failure more dramatic. On the other
hand, this optimism, if it exists, may produce a state of mind
tolerant of failures. The factors affecting optimism, realism,
and tolerance of frustration need more study as an aid in
preparing for this situation. The roles of the promoter spokesman
and the mass media in encouraging expectations of great and
imminent accomplishments are integral to this problem area and
would benefit from research.
3.The conviction that space activities will broaden man's
horizons are presently based on the perspectives and special
interests of a relatively few people in western societies. The
claim may be justified, but there is need for research to assist
understanding of the conditions under which innovations broaden
or narrow perspectives in various cultures. For example,
sufficient emphasis on space as the proper expression of man's
highest aspirations may result in the evolution of a broadly
based belief that this is so. But whether or not this is likely
to be the case cannot now be decided in view of our limited
understanding of how new ideas disseminate through societies. If
and as horizons were broadened as a result of space activities,
other aspirations would compete with them for attention and
resources, and continuous study would be required to evaluate the
appropriate position of space in this competition.
4.Though intelligent or semi-intelligent life conceivably
exists elsewhere in our solar system, if intelligent
extraterrestrial life is discovered in the next twenty years, it
will very probably be by radio telescope from other solar
systems. Evidences of its existence might also be found in
artifacts left on the moon or other planets. The consequences for
attitudes and values are unpredictable, but would vary profoundly
in different cultures and between groups within complex
societies; a crucial factor would be the nature of the
communication between us and the other beings. Whether or not
earth would be inspired to an all-out space effort by such a
discovery is moot: societies sure of their own place in the
universe have disintegrated when confronted by a superior
society, and others have survived even though changed. Clearly,
the better we can come to understand the factors involved i
... proselytizing would be the last thing on our minds when aliens attack!
In any case, given that there have been so many 'first-hand reports' of alien performing various 'tests' on earthlings, I would caution the Jehovah's witnesses, trying to convert the aliens, to wear sturdy chastity belts!!
Well, if we ignore some tentacles or bundle them together, maybe like the star of david. Now that would be funny in some wicked retro kind of way.
Free as in mason.
OB Douglas Adams quote
So long and thanks for all the fish!
Anyway communication != comprehension
We can communicate with dolphins upto a point its just we can't comprehend their vocalisations and most likely they can't comprehend ours.
"goatse? What's that? Anyone have a link?" - AC
So there's no absolute morality?
If someone wants to practice genocide and believes it is holy that's OK for them if they think its OK? Despite you believing it's not OK, you won't do anything - because you're morals too are just your own POV? What right do you then have to condemn such atrocities (after all, it's only you who thinks they are atrocities).
Wise up, regardless of your religion - absolute morals exist. Genocide is NEVER right. Rape is NEVER right.
People might disagree about the contents of a full list (hence I stop there) - but the point is, it EXISTS. Some items are in that list regardless of others disagreement. There ARE absolute morals of some form out there. So this is why conflicts between religions are tricky - pluralism doesn't work in practice. Unfortunately people forget their religions values on behaviour towards others just because they "know" the others are wrong. (Stuff like killing one another over it usually goes against most religions - but people have a nasty selective reasoning) But that's the point. Only one can be right! The absolutes ARE there - unfortunately people have a tricky time accepting that.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
... little gray men standing on my doorstep preaching the holy teachings of 'Grgublob the great'?
That is still preferabele to little green men in combat suits packing hyperblasters and plasmaguns, ie. an alien version of Francisco Pizarros conquistadores. Fortunately as we all know from watching 'Mars Attacks!' all we have to do is play country music REALLY LOUDLY! I wonder if that will work on Alien Jehovas witnesses as well?
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
The Wallonia Triangle event (Belgian Airforce tracking visually and with radar, multiple witnesses on the ground and a superb corroborating photo from close up) had a similar level of beyond doubt credibility, was widely reported, and nothing at all "happened".
The fact of the matter is, UFO's are real, some of them are extraterrestrial craft and...
it doesnt matter.
They are not going to give up their secrets. They are not going to interact with us in a way that is desireable to us, and nothing that they do is going to change the way that the majority of us live. In any case, even the most logical and intelligent of opinion shapers are in denial about UFOs; this is the main reason why no amount of evidence will cause a sea change in the public's perception.
In every way that matters, these ET craft are of no signifigance to the ordinary man. Until they are made to interact with us on our terms, and the pundits are finally forced to concede, this is something that simply needs to be documented with rigor and then left at that; expecting the earth to be rocked by this or another irrefutable case, or the secret reports getting released is not the holy grail as everyone has been seeking.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Why would there be only one religion with the aliens? There is more then one on Earth. If we have contact with Aliens and they only have one religion, ask for the name of their ship, as it might be the Mayfair. (OK it will probably a broadcast.)
When it comes to meeting Aliens, we almost always asume they are one country. Wake up, it is not happening here, so there is a good change that it is not happening there as well. Untill further notice: 'inteligent lifeforms' living on one planet try to kill each other. Please prove me wrong.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
maybe the alines are trying to find cheap labor and want to outsource their jobs to the U.S., maybe that will make up for U.S. jobs being outsourced overseas :-)
;-)
and who said there ever was intelligent life here on earth?
marklar marklar marklar
welcome our Extraterrestrial overlords
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
You contradict yourself. His choice to die, and to that end we all killed him by failing to be perfect. Simple as - it was his choice to die. We all have choice and are responsible for our own lives. What a dumb arse.
Fnord Fnord Fnord
By saying "baby jesus" this is intimating that Jesus only import [the only thing you'd tell alien life about] is as a baby and thus you are saying, allbeit in an implicit veiled manner, that those who respect his teachings are misguided.
God I hate the deconstruction of comedy.
..."We are not alone! This is so weird!".
-- search the web
Perhaps we shouldn't try to contact them, not yet at least.
Physics and mathematics may not be universal but be closely related to our general perception of reality, which largely depends on the kind of life we have here on Earth, how our brains evolved to better grasp the environment we live in. We have certain set of physical concepts, also at the scientific level, which are more or less intuitive for our brains. The Others have theirs.
Any way of thinking limits the solutions we can find. We can take some different viewpoints and change our thinking, but there could be limits with that. We can only change our thinking if we can think of the other ways of thinking, which might not always be possible. The Others may have the same problem.
Therefore, finding a solution for some universal problems might need much bigger change in thinking than even what the Others could be capable of making. To solve the problems, they would need to find completely new forms of life, each with their new potential. Some of the forms of life could be "planted" and evolved freely -- the Others acting as "creator-gods" -- but that would be limited by the kinds of life they are capable of inventing, which is again limited by their brain. A better choise could be to let the Nature do its job of inventing the way, and then hunting for solutions.
For example, according to modern physics, the universe has a problem: it's dying. After some 10^100 years, it'll be just some thin energy particles here and there. Let's assume that the Others have noticed the problem too and haven't found a solution.
If we now made contacts with the aliens, the free development of our own ways of thinking would quickly stop and we would be assimilated in Their culture and science. We would have no special position any longer and would no longer be that promising to the Others. We would be just cosmic rabble.
Probably abducting some portion of people would be useful, to create interesting cultural hybrids that would combine the ways of thinking from the both worlds, but the main stream culture should be kept in isolation as long as possible.
WRT the religion question, the Others might believe that they were created to solve the same question, or alternatively living in an artificial universe, created to solve the same question...or that they are the First. If they (or we that matter) have any reason, however, they would notice that the question is unanswerable and therefore suspension of belief is the only rational choise.
Or maybe they are Pantheists. That would probably be much in line with Carl Sagan's ideas of Extraterrestials.
You could call any post that people might disagree with "flamebait". It's a stupid mod option.
Yeah yeah, obviously there are just a bunch of mods who, like you, don't know the meaning of the word "flamebait".
Flamebait is any post that is written with the sole purpose of inciting flames, i.e. making people mad enough to post back and flame you. A flame is a direct attack on someone, usually personal, and generally quite funny.
Just because you're an idiot who just got his first dialup connection yesterday doesn't mean the "-1, Flamebait" mod option is stupid.
And finally, this post was written with the intent of demonstrating flamebait. It contains useful information, on-topic in the sense that I replied to the poster's topic, and might be considered +1, Insightful, if it wasn't written to be inciteful instead.
Like what I said? You might like my music
No it's not it is how the comment is made as to wheter it is flamebait
Example of non flamebait disagrement: I think that there is no god and that we are all alone.
Flambait example: you all a bunch of motherf**ing C**cks f*ck you f*ck you religion.
big diffrence
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Just because we are (inevitably) steeped in Christian culture does not meen that every religion (here on earth) conforms to the same basic models.
In the given question of how religions would respond to this 'new' reality, I think would fair quite nicely. Budism and Hinduism would have little if any problem with this, and would probably brag about their general philosophy of univeralism. Jews would find some 2,000 year old comment, saying that they always knew this. Muslims would most likely be outraged. Aithiests would have an absolute fit, when they translated the alien pledge of aliegence. And the Georga school board may finally allow the teaching of evolution (that the Aliens came from apes).
The basic need for faith, in something, by far exceeds the need to keep ones world view intelectualy honest.
And maybe that's a good thing.
ps. Even if *WHEN* we discover ET, that doesn't prove or disprove anything other than ETs do exist, and really prefer M&Ms over Reeces-Peeces.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
The idea that we will ever find intelligent life is a bunch of Marklar!
I'd hope that if we did make contact with a more advanced civilisation they would say something along the lines of "Religion? Oh, do grow up".
It would also highlight the hubris of certain religions. Claiming that a god sent his only son to the human race, but didn't consider an alien race worthy of such attention is just a tad conceited.
Imagine if they had time travel and could go back in time further than say 4500BC, that would make Genesis redundant.
If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?
Calling it enlightenment or the truth is also inflammatory, and rather insulting.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
The question of whether an alien civilization might convert Earth to their religion, or become a religion unto themselves, is left unconsidered.
:-)
I heard about a religion a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The priests of this religion wore plain brown robes and carried sabers made out of light. They were (supposed to be) good and kind and helped fight evil.
I've never even met this alien civilization and I already want to convert to Jedi.
As an aside, if you think that cats are impressive, try owning a dog sometime. Both I and one of my brothers go to college, and yet when my mother says one of our names, the dog immediately stands up and wags her tail. This is after not seeing us for months. Yes, household pets are quite adept at recognizing words, but can they string those words together to form more elaborate concepts? I would argue no. In the example of my dog, she can relate names to individuals (when we are actually present, saying "go to [name]" will produce the correct response), but she can't understand that a name can refer to someone who is not present. She certainly understands "would you like to go for a walk?" but can't understand "walk" in any context that does not involve taking her outside. Likewise with your cat, would it be able to understand it if you said something else was good or bad? Probably not.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I think it likely that a race that can devote enough resources to exploring interstellar space will already have settled most of their domestic disputes, which more or less implies that they subscribe to a strong common set of values, e.g. some sort of "religion" (I use the term loosely).
If they come here and see us squabbling over the meager resources of our planet, I think it more likely that they would want to convert us to their views than the opposite.
I think the same argument applies to us. If we don't stop fighting amonst ourselves, we won't ever get anywhere with our space exploration. As long as most resources are tied up in military programs, space will have to wait. Getting to the Moon is nice and all, but the travels will get increasingly expensive as we try to get outside of our own solarsystem.
On the other hand, I believe in the "wisdom" of Star Trek - First Contact, if we ever encounter another race, people are probably going to be so scared that many Earthly conflicts will be set aside.
Those who think they can disprove God by finding alien life better think again.
;)
There is NO REASON whatsoever to believe that Earth is the only creation, or even this universe. I happen to be Roman Catholic. The discovery of aliens would not shake my religious foundation one bit.
I see science not as competition for religion, but as complimentary. When we discover how things work, we discover more about God.
I have no problem accepting evolution as the PROCEESS that was used, for example.
I don't like the extremists on either side on this debate. On one side, you have the atheists, who think science can replace religion. Then, on the other side, you religious nutcases who think the Earth is only 5,000 years old, who scream BLASPHEMY! at you when you mention Mars is closer than it's been in 600,000 years.
But those types of nutcases aren't Roman Catholic, but they are a lot of my neighbors here in Easern Kentucky
We should be seeking to discover other life for many reasons, none of which have to do with proving or disproving God. Either task is impossible, BTW.
Corporatism != Free Market
I think the common frame of reference is very important. With pets we tend to learn what they are after but it only works for the common things. We can tell the difference between them wanting out and them wanting food but maybe not between them wanting food and wanting water. For the pet, they may have a different frame of reference than we do but the position of their food and water dishes are close enough that we may not pick up a suttle difference in their message. They also may see the world much differentlly than we do. For example, my new pet is 3 mos old and is starting to learn that she's not allowed on the table however from her point of view, that only applies if shes jumping up on the table, not down to it. I think I have taught her not to jump on the table but in her mind, I may have taught her not to jump up from the kitchen chairs.
- Guy lives on some alien planet where he has introduced metalworking etc materials to some highly litteral-minded aliens (I forget their name) who create beautiful artifacts.
- Priest comes to convert them all to Christianity. ("They are all God's children")
- Guy disagrees and tries to stop him (by philosiphy).
- Aliens are converted and build a church.
- Aliens decide that the matter would best be decided by a miracle. With their annoying logic they choose to crucify the priest to see if he comes back to life.
- Guess what. He doesn't.
A moral of the story is: People are innocent before they commit murder, but not after.The "Word" is not merely a head thing, but as the Bible states - it's "written on men's hearts". Christianity is having all the puzzle pieces put together. It's a huge amount easier to see the picture. But one only has to see the amazing ease at which Christianity transcends culture boundaries and has resonance to Western, African, Asian peoples, to see that people everywhere essentially know its truths already.
It's a tricky subject - one cannot dismiss Jesus' statement of being "the Way". Yet it does not seem the act of a fair and just God, the God of Christian belief, that all peoples of other religions are condemned to hell, unless they hear the story of Jesus' death. CS Lewis has an interesting take on this towards the end of "The Last Battle" in the Narnia series of books.
There's a problem with saying there's more than one way to God (to do so is to make the Christian faith meaningless). Yet faith in God transcends actual words. After all, even the forefathers of Judeo-Christianity did not have the actual words of Jesus' death. (Yes, later they did have the predictions of the Messiah - but before that). Look at Paul's words about Abraham (I'm sorry, the book may be Romans or one of his other letters) in the Bible. He was saved - but did not know (in head knowledge) of Jesus. He had faith in God that it would all be solved somehow - as he did when about to sacrifice his son Isaac - he knew God would provide an alternative or that somehow it would work out.
So the whole aliens thing, doesn't fundamentally add to the existing situation.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
But this may be a bit unrealistic. Assuming they are waaay more evolved than us, imagine they see us as insects or microbes crowding a perfectly good piece of rock they'd already planned vacations to. Or as nasty little bugs invading their space, polluting their radiofrequencies, ... Why wouldn't they get it over with before they ever might get in trouble over this? As fas as I know that is exactly what we do with our less-brainpowered fellow earthcreatures...
int main(void) {while(1) fork(); return 0;}
Then there were the "Children's Crusades". The Spanish Inquisition looks sensible compared to these.
Think of it, thousands of innocent, naive children going off to do battle with the infidels.
This must be an inspiration to pedophiles everywhere!!!
Dubya should read up on the "Children's Crusades" before he makes any more pronouncements about "Crusades to the Middle East".
Or maybe he should ask a grownup to come and explain it all to him!
Just a brief thought about the "Children's Crusades" should give one pause about the subject of right and wrong, evil, beliefs and religion in general.
The Vatican doesn't exactly like its own philosophizing about ETs. They certainly weren't amused by former Dominican monk Giordano Bruno...
They've never screwed up like we did and had the 'Fall' - so they have no concept of good or evil - in which case I doubt any meeting would be allowed to occur.
The Fall from the Garden of Eden is just a story about how some people switched from hunter-gatherer to agricultural. Basically someone said "Hey! Instead of gathering fruit about five hours a week and just relaxing with our friends all day, does anyone here want to switch to a 60-hour week of backbreaking toil farming the fields? Also, we'll need to dig up metal and study that to make farm implements."
The Fall from Grace story was just invented to explain why anyone would make such a crazy choice. It was quite possibly invented by their enemies to explain why the Workaholics with their metal weapons were such ill-tempered jerks to everyone else all the time. To their way of thinking, it must have been some powerful, vengeful God cursing them to make them into Workaholics- no sane person would choose it of their own free will. But of course they did choose it all on their own, in bits and pieces, one hour more of work per week at a time.
The upside to our workaholic lifestyle is that farming allowed for specialization and research in metalcraft and science. Refining and iterating on that allowed us science and technology that allowed us space travel. (Although if technology is so great, why can't we do something about that 60-hour workweek required to maintain said technology?)
The point is, fundamentally, the decision to become Workaholics with Technology allows us to go into space. Any civilization with the technology to come here must have made some kind of similar choice in their civilization.
But unlike us, they must have learned how to handle such powerful technology without the "Road Rage" to have destroyed themselves with same technology. They were workaholics but also valued space programs above planetary war and conquest- and they worked together enough to get out of their solar system. By definition, if they had enough technology to come to our solar system, they found a way to work together and overcome civil unrest, terrorism, religious extremism and gigantic, economy-draining wars. (Iraq)
Whether or not we'll accomplish a similar feat remains to be seen.
The second option is interestingly covered in Jacek Dukaj's story "In partibus infidelium". Well worth the read, altough I am not sure if the polish version isn't the only one.
"Man in the Moon and other weird things" - wfmh.org.pl/thorgal/Moon/
Why the need of the catholics to convert others to their religion? Is it to bolster the numbers of the church and its power and coffers? Where does it stop? Won't someone one day go and try to convert some of the more intelligent animals (dolphins, gorillas)?
If I understand the Bibel correctly, christian faith was supposed to be rather exclusive, leaving other nations/cultures to their own devices/deities:
Or am I mistaken? Of course, there was always room for exceptions (as in the last quote), but never any compulsion for anyone to accept the faith.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
The point of everything is that its not the same. So why try to push your way of doing things or beliefs on anyone else? I couldnt personally care less... just dont f*ck with me and we're cool :)
jewish: would God have a "chosen people" on another planet? would their torah be in hebrew? would their temple still exist? would their messiah have come? could the jewish people accept converts from them?
buddhist: had any buddha manifested among them yet?
islam: is their koran in arabic?
i'm considering these questions from the most "orthodox" point of view within each religion.
Quite an amusing post! Actually - your reasoning is surprisingly close on at least one point! The point is we DID make a choice and the "Fall" wasn't because of a vengeful God!
Yup. Adam must really have been going D'oh after the whole thing. And Eve too. And I doubt there was a dearth of fights after the whole Adam blaming Eve thing! In fact, that was quite possibly where the "battle of the sexes" began - a real part of the fall. Men and women unfortunately do not get along perfectly *any more*!
Allegory or no - it is quite true and entirely fits into the Christian faith. Those who ignore it completely have not quite gotten the whole thing.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
From "Starvin' Marvin in Space":i pts/seaso n3/marvininspace.html
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http://www.angelfire.com/nf/spdomain/scr
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Pat Robertson: (On TV, CBC, Christian Broadcsting Channel.) Uh, God wants you to send us money! He needs you to send us money so we can help others!
Pat Robertson: You know, Susan, there, there's so many great...missionaries doing work...out there in the, in the, in parts of Africa and, and while we're trying to get bibles to people all over the world, and what we need is the help of everyone out there so that we can continue these, these projects! (Subtitle: "To Pledge Call: I-800-555-2717") Now, listen to this, Susan! (Shows Sister Hollis on screen with some Ethiopians.) W-one of our missionaries in North Africa has made an amazing discovery! (Shows the green planet of Marklar.) A-a-a new planet in the, in the galaxy Alpha-Seti 6 that has intelligent life on it!
Susan: Amazing!
Pat Robertson: Now, we're not sure what these hyper-intelligent beings look like, but one thing is for sure, and they've never heard...of Jesus Christ!
Susan: What can we do with the 600 club to help those poor aliens?!
Pat Robertson: W-what we need, Susan, is we need money to build an Interstellar Cruiser! (shows one on the screen.) Now, this spaceship will be able to travel through a worm hole in deliver the message and glory of Jesus Christ to those godless aliens! Send your money now! Amen!
. .
Pat Robertson: Now, our deflector shields are useless against four-ton torpedos and we really need your support on this one, folks! Here at the 600 club, we need your money to spread the word of Jesus and build more advanced deflector shields for our galactic cruiser! Call now and we'll give you this free pin! (Shows a small CBC logo pin.)
. .
Pat Robertson: Everyone, th-the word of God is going around the world and, and all your help is so greatly appreciated! W-w-what we need now is an Argon Crystal Laser! (Shows one on screen) You see, an Argon Crystal Laser can pierce thick space holes in a way that other lasers just can't! Send your money now! Ah, th-thank you!
. .
Pat Robertson: Uh, now, now stay with me on this one, folks! (shows Sally's ship on screen) Uh, Sally Struthers has a Taberian Junker which is, uh, the favourite ship of the hutts and she has trapped our, our, our new CBC ship in a, uh, Posetronic Tractor Beam. (pan to cue card holder. The cue card reads "Postronic Tractor beam so we're gonna need an Ionic Tractor Disruptor") Uh, so we're gonna need an Ionic Tractor Disruptor! Now, now, not a regular Ionic Tractor Disruptor, but a Negative Ionic Tractor Disruptor to, uh, help spread the word of Jesus! I will get the fuckin' idiot up here!
We can't communicate with dolphins because we have no common frames of reference of any sort.
I thought about this a little more, and we CAN communicate with dolphins. We can ask them to jump through certain hoops and let us ride them. There are even advanced marine biology experiements where we can ask them to point to a silhuoette of a collection of pipes. "Point to the silhouette that looks like three interwoven rings, please!" An interesting point on that is the dolphins can make a mental concept of Three Rings if they see it with their eyes, OR even if it's behind a wall- they can "feel" its shape with their natural sonar.
What does this interview want- spoken language comparable to our own sentient thought? We're not likely to find that- Dolphins probably aren't quite at the point we'd consider sentient.
Dogs and cats, and parrots- we can all communicate basic ideas with them. Parrots can even mimic our language, with some understanding of context. Dogs and cats can also even empathize with our emotional states- they have some understanding when we are happy or sad, and can relate to it at least a little (without words or sentient thought.)
So if we can't "speak" with dolphins, it's more likely because they "aren't sentient" than "we could never understand another sentient being." And sentience is, after all, a sliding scale.
Ffs, man, get a grip -- your planet and your country are full of people of all religions who don't give a damn about creationism. YOU just want to feel persecuted, so you decide you're being persecuted by Christians, because there's a lot of them and they're unlikely to kill you in return. That's fine, it's great that you've found a way to build up your self image. But please don't confuse it with something 'deeply ingrained into our culture' because most of the members of said culture don't give a shit.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Bruce McCulloch's *baby jesus (radio)*
:)
from the album, *shame-based man*
"Go ahead, caller, you're on the air."
"uh, i have a special friend and he's the baby jesus, and i love him. and, uh, he don't give me no shit, and he don't fuck around, and he's just the fuckin coolest guy, and i just wanna say i love the baby jesus, i can't say enough."
"Yes, sir, I know."
"anyway, i love the baby jesus, and i think he's the best thing, and it's really great when he shares his love, because, um, he's got enough love for everybody. you know what i mean?"
"Um, I do sir, but-"
"yeah, he's like, uh, i can't even see a manger without thinking about him, eh? yeah, i love him. i just love the jesus and i thought i'd phone up and, uh, you know, uh.... i've only been into him for a couple of hours though, but i'm _really_ into him."
Very Funny Stuff, there
Thirdly: 'We find a dozen civilizations out there, and a bunch of Jehovah's witnesses go up and convert them all.'
...we were looking for intelligent life. Which as it turns out, is pretty rare on earth too...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I think my point is that genocide/murder/torture HAVE always been morally reprehensible regardless of even a majority thinking otherwise.
I hate to get to the whole WWII thing in an argument - but it's somewhat appropriate. The point is that the evil regime (to use modern parlance) there, would not have survived but for the support OR ambivalence of a large section of the German populance. Now - that which was perpetrated - was it less wrong in Germany just because those against it were in the minority?
Even if you disagree as to how much support the whole Aryan-is-best philosophy got - the point is - would it be right no matter how many supported it?
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
"We can't communicate with dolphins because we didn't have the need to do so."
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
For all the good things religion (in general) has brought in the world during the last 5 millenia...
For war, famine, genocide, inquisition, delusion...
For Slowing down technological advance, science, philosophy...
Wait a minute... Sounds like I'm talking about GWB's influence in he world today!
Suppose aliens came to earth and were, at a glance, obviously superior. This is highly likely, because they were the ones who managed to travel here, not the other way around.
Suppose, that we could communicate with them and learn at least the rudiments of their technology and science.
But, what would we do if their religion and philosophy were completely foreign and incomprehensible even to our best minds, because of its highly abstract nature.
This is also likely, since philosophy tends to be more abstract compared to technology and even to science.
Would missionaries even dare to try to convert them to our religion. The common people would take one look at the alien's advanced technology and refuse to believe that their religion is not equally advanced even while not being able to understand a word of it.
We couldn't even worship them intelligently!
Can you say "Cargo Cult"?
P.S.
Then again they may have a "Religion" with an outward form that is specially constructed for our consumption, and has nothing to do with what THEY believe. I think that somebody that we all know said something like, "Religion is the opiate of the masses."!
All the better to manipulate you with, my dear!!!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Based on the information I've read, chances are fairly good that the first life we encounter will be bacteriological, not something as sophisticated as Mankind.
With all the talk of "the fall" and "'good' vs. 'evil'" are almost all the posts in the U.S.? I thought Europe was more secular and expected more discussion that humanists like say, Gene Roddenberry, can come up with a morality like the prime directive without religion.
Conversely, would an alien species with the prime directive take the risk of contacting a religious species?
The argument is also flawed because we _can_ communicate with dolphins. We may not "talk" to them in the same sense that we talk to other humans, however, we can exchange ideas through the use of symbols, hand signals, and the like.
"Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating. " - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Somewhat off topic, Br. Guy's book, "Turn Left at Orion" is the best primer on observing the sky that I've read. I'll be giving a copy to my niece for her graduation from grammar school.
[this
The UFO thing has sorta been bothering me. All these stories that ask whether or not these things are UFOs.
Here's an easy answer: Yes! They're Unidentified! They appear to be flying! They're objects!
I'm pretty sure that serves all the relevant criteria, right there.
I would also hope that a species more advanced than us would have the honesty to admit they may not know the answer. It's possible to think there is not "a lick of proof" for or against the idea of a higher being.
To some, deciding not to choose may devalue our existence or raise uncertainty. Hopefully other species have the courage to confront their fears.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Really, really, really advanced smugglers???
Smuggling ideas, maybe?
Now here's a hoopy frood that really knows where his towel is.
Here we are, possibly a century or more before interstellar travel is possible (maybe) and we already need a Prime Directive to reign in the Pope. ;)
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
The Sparrow
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
"At the end of the day, every civilization is Christian, except the human race is still not too sure about this." Granted he's a Catholic, he's not terribly polite or open-minded about the Japanese, Chinese, Muslim etc. civilisations, which he appears not to think of as 'civilization'
Dr. Consolmagno book "Turn Left At Orion" is an excellent introductory book on astronomy. I tend to give out copies to anyone who gets a telescope as a gift. As the title implies, it teaches the night sky relationally (e.g. "Draw a straight line from Orion's belt to the left. See that bright star? That's Sirius"), aka "star-hopping". Consolmagno's (et. al.) writing style in the book is very approachable.
I think it would be much more fun if they became Amish. Space travelling (assuming they found us) ETs that gave up their technology for the simple life and dedication to God and the Church
On slashdot, it's not politically-correct to challenge a Believer, no matter how valid your argument, or ridiculous theirs. It it not acceptable to poke fun at someone's beliefs, no matter how cranky. A society in which honest criticism and humour are suppressed is on a dangerous slippery slope into oblivion.
Now, I'm off to speak to the aliens. Please excuse me.
Stick Men
...This story is a TROLL.
I am reminded of a story by Arthur C. Clarke. Two IBM programmers are brought out to Sri Lanka to work in a monastery at the top of a mountain. The monks believe that if all the nearly infinite names of God are recited, the universe will come to an end. Their job is to write a program that will be run on a mainframe at the monastery to try and generate all those names. Someone out there probably knows the name of this short story.
BTW, one of the posts near the top of this discussion is correct. The Roman Catholic Church (my flavor of Christianity) is now very much at ease with the results of all the scientific discoveries of the past few centuries. One of our fundamentalist friends is a "Young Earth Creationist". Sorry, but I gotta laugh when told that humans and dinosaurs walked the Earth together. All the animals were vegetarians (even T-Rex) until Adam and Eve shared that apple/pomegranate. Huh?
Dear Fellow Slashdotters, most of the world's religions are fine with scientific discovery. The great "undiscovered country" out there is the focus of most religions. What are humans capable of when their mind, body and spirit are all completely aligned on their spritual "North Star"? What matters is not material things but things like love, hope, joy, justice and so on. Mother Teresa (already beatified, now awaiting canonization- Sainthood. Similar to a certification from Verisign finally completing for the tech-obsessed) spoke of the spiritual poverty of Americans as compared with the spiritual wealth of the poor of Calcutta. Religion does not need these routine bashings on Slashdot. I have found most of it is good for helping keep the neighbor's kids from trying to break into my house. Without it, I am certain that mere Earthly laws and law enforcement will leave us much poorer in every way. Since the tyranny of the ACLU and atheists was unleashed by the Warren Court, we have seen what happens when God is driven out of America at every turn. As a lifelong historian, I truly believe that America was better off when it wasn't trying to force religion out of the public sphere at every turn. I would be fine with seeing crosses, stars of David, crescents, and Buddha statues all over America. Let the government referee the occasional conflict instead of suppressing them unevenly which is the current game. Studying anything BUT our major legacy of faith, Christianity, is fine for public educational facilities now.(e.g. universities down to elementary shcools) The anti-Chrisitan crowd that has been extending its reach through government is totally fine with promoting every religion but Chrisitanity. The Founding Fathers wisely chose not to establish state religions, (unlike Europe where tax dollars go straight to state religions) but their separation of Church and State was trying to protect BOTH. The protection of the State should not come at the expense of one particular practice of faith. If it must be paid, it should be paid evenly by Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and so on. The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Everyone has made a religious choice since exposure to religion is inescapable. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. -Rush
In principio erat Verbum.
Umm, no .... I saw the ABC interview with Gibson where he specifically states he does not blame the Jews for Jesus's death. His father is the wackjob that denies the holicaust and blames Jews, not Mel himself.
to people who don't take kindly 'round heeyah!
Eat at Joe's.
Anyone who puts their responsibility in the hands of "gods" don't deserve life.
Were talking about intelligent life, right?
I'm sure they don't belief in any gods, and will see a threat in those "relegious" drones and whipe them out.
Being flammatory and being flamebait are two different things(IMHO of course). I believe it's perfectly valid to voice an honest opinion, even it is flammatory. It becomes flamebait when it's done just because it's flammatory. I see flamebait as particularly hatefull trolling.
I would not call a post flamebait for calling religeon superstious nonsense unless they were clearly just trying to piss people off.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
I can't download that torrent. I get an error about being rejected by tracker because my IP is not registered.
Subgenius
I wonder how will the cross look like then...
It will look like a Star of David, of course!
This is the best Democracy money can buy?!?!?
They will blow us to itty bitty peices.
Religion is the most destructive force in the galaxy.
[obligatory comment body goes here]
Were we to contact an alien race however, it's implied just by that scenario existing that we have something in common with them;
I believe the quote was
"We FIND an intelligent civilization and there's no way in creation we can COMMUNICATE with them because they're so alien" (emphasis mine)
This is extremely possible and should not be so glibbly discounted. It is extremely possibly for us to find an alien civilization and not be able to communicate with them, and as you say, have no common frame of reference.
What about a different link? I haven't found the Mexico UFO footage anywhere, just plenty of references to it! ;-)
Then how do we train them to do little tricks at our whim?
One could argue that there is some form of communication going on there.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
That the aliens would have "Their own.. personal.... Jesus" (cue 80's tech-pop music).
"Rimshot!"
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
And let's not leave out good ol' GWB. He is right up there with the rest of the religious nuts. How do you know when to start a war? Talk to Jesus. Get into an argument with your mother about if you can get into heaven without accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior, what do you do? You call up the Rev Billy Graham to come over and mediate your argument. Read more...
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
So if an alien species looks like us (has a mouth that serves respiratory and ingestion functions, a tongue) they probably evolved in similar circumstances and therefore have a basis for understanding.
But an incredibly different species could be extremely intelligent but we wouldn't be able to communicate (verbally, maybe even electronically) with them because their medium for thought transmission evolved in a completely different manner
Imagine a species that used special appendages to communicate, kind of like sign language. We wouldn't know where to begin because we don't have those appendages, and it would look like a bunch of flailing to us.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Their religous belief system is far more advanced and THEY convert US.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The salvation by "faith not works" thing is a bit more complicated. One cannot discount the book of James (as Luther would have liked) which states that "faith without works is dead". However, I do not see the contradiction between that and Paul's words that faith alone is needed. If someone DOES have true faith in God who is goodness, then they *will* do good works. Or else what they have is not really faith.
The good works thing IS important, as "by their fruit you will know them" (Jesus describing how to know false prophets in the Gospel). Someone can't be going around professing faith in God and yet living without any attempt at good behaviour. The two aren't compatible. Now to those that do have faith, grace is given to help them obey the Lord.
Those who decry the do-gooders for in example, the Catholic church (preaching salvation by works) have missed the point. These people would not be doing such works were it not for their faith. I do subscribe to criticism of this position of preaching - it can confuse. Of course, so too can the most ardent "faith alone" preachers (profess faith and just sit back).
In conclusion, yes, it begins with faith. But true faith IS shown by the works of those who have that faith.
As James says, even the demons not only believe in the existence of God - but fear Him.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
Thats funny, all the dude can comment about is who gets to convert the new race of aliens.
I think nobody even knows what happened 2000 years ago. Heck, I can't even remember what happened last wek (thank you, mr. jack daniels). The fact is, no one is to blame for Jesus' death, it was foretold so he ultimately ended up the same way wether it was by jewish or roman hands. And what if it were the romans? should we blame all italians because they executed the son of god? I guess not... The truth is I don't care who did it, it just happened.
By the way, what's the name for anti-italianism? I mean, there's a name for being against jews (anti-semetism) but not for being anti-. I think it's hypocrite if you find being against one nation/religion/etnic is more important (requiring a special term) than being against any other.
You are cricizing a Propositional Statement not an argument. An argument requires a premise, inference, and a conclusion. There is none of that here. The vatican fellow is saying there is a high degree of probability we won't be able to communicate with an alien species that is sufficiently different from our own, such as how we cannot communicate with dolphins. This is a proposition, there is no argument.
The strawman argument is also completely wrong. The strawman fallacy is when someone misrepresents another's views, attacks them, and concludes the opponents views are wrong. While you seem to have a grasp of this somewhat, I am baffled by how you can accuse the Vatican fellow of performing this fallacy. He is giving his own opinion and not even discussing the supposed arguments of others. Thus, the strawman fallacy is completely irrelevant.
I think you have read some simple listing of logical fallacies and have tried to apply them to all forms of written communication without actually trying to figure out what an argument is and is not.
In this case, we are not dealing with argument founded on deductive logic so all you babbling is for nothing.
1. You are using our definition of a civilisation and generalising from this that all civilisations (by inductive inference) share the same or similar characteristics.
Dolphins do not display these qualities
2. So your conclusion follows that dolphins are not a civilisation, and therefore it is irrelevant whether or not we can communicate with them.
So, your basic fallacy is circular reasoning. You define a civilisation as X, then say because dolphis are not X they are not a civilisation.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Not so. He had to choose to die, to pay the price for all our sins so that we can know we have been forgiven and live with Him for eternity.
It's like someone who pushes you out of the way of a train, but dies in th process. They had a choice to do it, but if they love you they really have no choice. You killed them though because it was you who was standing in the path of the train, just as it is all of us that are facing hell for the sins we commit every day.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Harry Harrison's short story "An Alien Agony" comes to mind re. "What If?". If I remember correctly, a (Roman Catholic?) priest accompanies an Earth mission to a planet inhabited by intelligent, but not advanced, life; humanoid aliens with a ferocious capacity for imitation. He evangelises them, only to find himself taken captive, tried, and crucified so that they too can be "saved".
:-)
Science Fiction got there first, I think.
The Inquisition tortured him to death for refusing to recant - he speculated that, if there are alien civilizations, the Son of God must have visisted them, as well.
Don't believe all that anti-clerical rhetoric! Coming from an astronomer! Who is also a monk! Who speculates about extra-terrestrials!
Oh, the irony.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How about a working link?
lameness filter sucks.....
"So long and thanks for all the fish," is all the dolphins have been trying to tell us.
MAKE YOUR TIME
And suppose we contact some alien civilizations; and some humans send them one of our Bibles; and the aliens say: "yeah! the same Savior came to our planet, too!"
Evidence works both ways, you know.
Personally, I'm an atheist, but I acknowledge that my atheism is falsifiable.
It's easy to point at other people's beliefs and say "look! they are gonna have such a crisis of belief when we expand our circle of knowledge!" But intellectual honesty and humility compels me to consider: what kind of evidence would make me change my mind about atheism?
I don't think the suggestion is that this is held as a fact. It's a theory, It's not like there's the direct evidence in the Bible to support it.
It is however, a quite plausible explanation considering the past history in the Bible (angels come down to earth and breeding with humans is given as the reason for legends of Giants etc. not to mention the giant-ish Anakim that the Israelites fought). Also the fact that UFO sightings do have this link with cultish behaviour - and people claiming to have extraterrestial visits often exhibit religious tendancies after the experience (usually divergent from Christianity).
There's the whole tie-in between hypnotism and ET encounters too. Again, a theory amongst some Christians is that hypnotism leaves the mind open to demonic influence (much as drunkness - lowering all inhibitions - is viewed). Thus the connection between communication with aliens and "memories" after hypnotism. Again, I don't know that you will find a church with this as part of their doctrine. Though I should point out, both theories would be supported by some clergy from various denominations.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
As far as I remember Vatican II, the question of extraterrestrial life had been brought as one of the themes, and (according to christian terminology), two cases had been considered : either the aliens had committed the "original sin", whatever might be meant by that, in which case either they had already got a Redemptor or not or... they HAD NOT committed that "original sin", in which case they would have no use for any religion of ours :o)
I had seen that consideration in some french catholic magazines ("Fêtes et saisons", "La vie", "Le pélerin") and am pretty sure it has been covered at the time by many catholic magazines all over the world.
Just my two cents.
Signature omitted in order to save space. Thanks for your understanding.
God, being omnipotent: Can exist Can not exist Can perhaps exist And all of the above simultaneously Before, during and after any aliens have been found. Such seems crystal clear.
A Totally useless tracker. Try This one. Lets see if Freeache works...
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The question of whether an alien civilization might convert Earth to their religion, or become a religion unto themselves, is left unconsidered.
That sentence just made me remember "Earth: Final Conflict." Bad Slashdot! Bad!
"Each time you smile, it'll only last awhile. Life may be scary, but it's only temporary."
- either the aliens had committed the "original sin", whatever might be meant by that, in which case either they had already got a Redemptor or not
- or... they HAD NOT committed that "original sin", in which case they would have no use for any religion of ours, of course :o)
I had seen that consideration in some french catholic magazines ("Fêtes et saisons", "La vie", "Le pélerin") at the time and am pretty sure it has been covered at the time by many catholic magazines all over the world.
Just my two cents.
Signature omitted in order to save space. Thanks for your understanding.
like it says, this one works
It's disgusting to think that we would bring our savage and brutish religions to the table if we met an exterrestrial race. Trying to convert another race to our religions will make us look as undeveloped, foolish, infantile, and irrational as all the missionaries that have gone to Iraq recently to try to convert the Muslims to Christianity.
5 409469/qid=1084454712/sr=8-2/ref=pd_ka_2/002-92996 28-6892005?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
If we communicate with another intelligent species, that communication must be based on science, and celebrate scientific understanding instead of the fear and confusion that truly is religious faith.
If this post made you angry, please read this book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/034
Why do these people automatically assume aliens are evil beings? Seems like human beings are inherently pessimistic.
Scientologists want you to understand, not 'believe'.
... you can find it if you care to look...
When someone comes along and intentionally perverts the material in such a way as to cause ridicule or deride the value of the entire body of material, of course there is going to be retribution from those who already do understand, and already do use Scientology to make their lives better.
If I were suddenly to come along and say "All Americans Suck because America only cares about oil for their fat SUV's", then undoubtedly, there will be retribution from those Americans who, in fact, care about other things.
Why is it Scientology is not allowed to defend itself from those who would degrade it? Is it not a basic right of existence in the famous United States, that when someone abuses your, or you perceive your rights are being trampled on, that you are able to defend yourself?
Scientologists would rather you understand the materials, educating yourself on them in a way in which they were intended to be conveyed -= NOT in a manner (such as the Clambake idiots) which is guaranteed to be nothing but an utter perversion of the original material.
Scientology works -very- hard to ensure that it does, in fact, stay Scientology, and doesn't become some other god-awful perversion of the original material. There are enough self-serving bigots and greedy zealots in the world, with their own personal and private agenda's, to warrant such overt protection from the people who are responsible for ensuring that Scientology remains available, as it was intended to be studied, to be studied by those who intend to study it.
Ape-like assertions that "All Scientologists are Bad" pretty much reveal the true nature of any 'critical assessment' that anyone appears to be trying to make. If you haven't actually gotten any Auditor training, and you don't even know what Method One Word Clearing is, then you have no business assuming authority over one of the few bodies of knowledge available to us all today which ACTUALLY produces peace among all who use it.
Scientology can be corrupted. It can be mis-used. Just ask the U.S. Army about how they've mis-used the basic tech of the Scientology orgs, for example
"Muslims would most likely be outraged"
Why do you assume Muslims would be outraged? Were they outraged when N&S America were discovered? Your comment says more about you than it does about Muslims.
By the way, it is spelled "Buddhism"
What about possibility four: The aliens are self-aware and recognize religion and simplistic divisions into "good and evil" for what they are: mental dysfunctions and primitive rites that are used by power-hungry leaders (religious and otherwise) to cause people to kill each other in large numbers and behave in self-destructive ways (yes, this includes the Vatican). The aliens have better things to do than to fix and meddle with some backwards world and simply ignore (and if need be, contain) us until we have changed to the point where we are worth interacting with.
Usually, when a more advanced civilization comes into contact with a less advanced civilization, the less advanced civilization gets mostly assimilated.
If there are aliens out there with fabulously advanced technology who could crush us like bugs, THEY are going to be the missionaries and WE are going to be godless heathens that need saving... not the other way around.
The scary thing about the parent comment was that it was modded "informative" rather than "funny". There are some hardcore Subgenii out there I tell ya.
Praise Bob.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
You're wrong. Well, you're right if you read Paul and pretend that Jesus didn't say anything. Jesus and Paul don't agree on many things. Salvation is probably the biggest one. Consider this scripture:
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
Mat 25:31-46.
Here Jesus gathers up everyone in the world ("all the nations") and judges them. What is the criteria for judgement? Faith? Abosolutely not! Jesus doesn't even mention faith! The criteria is works and works alone.
That's it. Nothing else to it. It's in black and white in the Bible. You'd have to actually read it to know that, though.
Nice little dig. Unfortunately for you, I *do* read the Bible and know exactly how flawed it is and can detail and debate those flaws with any Christian on the planet. It is the work of humans, not the perfect work of a divine being.
There's no difficult list of rules, either.
Again, wrong. In order to get into heaven, you must do the following:
If you do those things, you go to heaven. Otherwise, you roast in hell. If you disagree with this, then you are disagreeing with Jesus. Your likely response is to argue, "That's what Jesus said, but that's not what he meant." Or perhaps you'll try, "You're taking things out of context." Maybe, if you're desparate, you'll try the "natural man" argument.
The majority of the New Testament is philosophical explanation of Jesus' words, and guidelines for behavior given by the early apostles, not the direct handing down of a list of rules by God (like the Ten Commandments).
Incorrect again. The majority of the New Testament is the creation of the "Christian" doctrine by
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Earth's finest astro-missionaries do indeed initiate contact and demonstrate themselves, and their beliefs, as mankind's majority view. In which case:
1: After a few years of contact with our nonsense, they (The ET's in question) decide to tie us to an intersteller "cross" and set us out to drift by a black hole (a la The Mission
2: Our astro-misionaries find that the alien culture in question has a highly evolved sense of religion themselves and they proceed to convert us.
3: They (the ET's) are completely appalled by our (mankind's) inability to distinguish personal spirtual beliefs from nonsensical religious imperatives and (after speaking their case to some galactic council or other) quarantine Earth from interstellar contact until we set our priorities straight.
4: (As a continuation of point 2) They (the ET's) are enraged by our collective infidelism(sic) that we are hunted down and exterminated for challenging they one true religion: Theirs.
5: They view us as silly monkey-men and throw our collective simian asses in a cosmic zoo (a la, Vonnegut and Porno for Pyros).Anyway, just a few other ideas to chew over, you silly religious elitist type.
You'd think it would be relatively easy to look around and see how much religion (and our immature view(s) of it) have fucked us all over. I mean, turn on the CNN and the end result of it is everywhere. I have an idea, take your deep seeded personal religious views and shove 'em deeply up a very personal place... until we collectively realize that our own personal spiritual viewpoints have no bearing on the world around us... we'll just continue to be screwed.
______
#SickNotWeak
No matter which way you look at it, forceful conversion is wrong. If we were to make contact, we could tell them about our religions, but we should never force them to become one of our religions.
There is a baptist church ("baptist" only because they baptize, they're not actually affliated with the Baptist church) nearby that tried to convert all the Methodists (of which I am) and the Presbyterians to their cultist church. Unfortunately, many people went for it, mostly Presbyterians.
Not too long after that church really got going, at my public high school, a "Generation Jesus Bible Club" started. Many people in the high school who weren't members of this church or weren't Christian (my best friend in HS was agnostic) investigated Separation of Church and State laws, and found that it was legal because there were other activities offered at the same time.
The following year, in the girls bathroom appeared a listing of EVERYONE in the ENTIRE high school that had been "saved", "yet to be saved", and "hellbound". It was never publiclly announced whodunit, but it was known that they were a GenJesus member (I still have my theories).
So, if these aliens want to convert, fine, let them. Otherwise, we should just keep our religion to us. Let them know about it just like they'd let us know about theirs, and leave it at that.
We don't want to start another Crusades.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
We communicate with these aliens and they are finally able to convince everyone that most of our religons are money making schemes, and that we've been going about religon all wrong for quite a long time.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
Carl Jung theorized that aliens are the modern incarnation of angels and daemons. Both are psychic entities that take (or the mind gives?) the form in which they will make the most sense. Yugoslavian peasants witness the Virgin Mary; suburban Americans see UFOs.
Whether these entites are an internal, or external construct is purely a matter of conjecture; real or imaginary they affect the world, if only through the actions of believers.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
wtf?
Also while S (the number of stars) and P give good ballpark figures, it ignores the possibility that life may not need a planet to evolve on. What about stars that share planets? Considering that there's a lot of binary star systems out there.
Although I have nothing better, the basic problem I see with this equation is that it is absolutely no use to determining if life is out there. By the time we know the values to any useful degree of accuracy, we'll already know if there are other species in the universe. Say we are able to go out and explore 1000 planets (which is a big stretch). That sounds like a great number to start extrapolating from.... BUT compared to the Billions of stars per galaxy and Billions of galaxies in the universe, you might as well have a sample size of 2.
If that doesn't make sense, think of it this way. It'd be like trying to guess how many people are in the world by sampling a rural county in Kentucky. There's no way it can be accurate. There's just too much information we'd need to know.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Repent and turn in your tin foil hats
Mothership will arrive in September to harvest the true believers.
I think the big question the 1960 Brookings Institution report asks is how each religious institution will react to the formal proof that life did exist on some place besides Earth.
Personally, I think the big unknown is Islam--does the Qu'ran and the related Sunnah provide guidance on how to deal with exterrestrial civilizations that have drastically different cultural norms than what is taught in Islam?
I think Christianity might have a better chance to deal with such a proof. After all, the Roman Catholic Church managed to eventually accept the radical astronomical theories (for its time) of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo; the fact that Catholicism is actually openly discussing the very idea of extreterrestrial life bodes well for Christianity existing in a post disclosure age.
One of the things we have to deal with in terms of extraterrestrials is the fact some of the ET's we do contact may be a civilization of immortal, extremely powerful entities. In that case, it's a major unknown how any religion will deal with such a contact.
4) They will try to convert us to their religion. Possibly forcibly.
After all, look how well the Incas converted their "extraterrestials" (the Spanish) to their own religion.
And then there is option #5, that they gave up on superstitions like religion a long time ago.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I'm sorry, I thought this was Slashdot, not alt.religion.kibo.
:-)
Don't most people here understand what religions really are? They are memes, that infect human culture. The more successful memes (such as Islam) reproduce themselves through reinforcement of cultural paradigms (although are themselves changed by the cultural meme), and by encouraging begetting. (Think of a computer virus -- now imagine the computer is a human mind. Voila! You have a meme.)
It's actually quite difficult to live without some form of meme infection -- only a few people have achieved this (J.Krishnamurti for example.) My own meme of choice is Buddhism, with a strong flavour of Secular Humanism.
At least one SF write has speculated that memes could be used as weapons by advanced ET races.
Perhaps the true evidence of the existence of ETs may be inferred by looking for their memes, which might serve to render a populace docile and compliant when the alien overlords arrive.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
When will you people learn? Jesus was a human born to Mary and Jospeph of Aramathea. The original word for "young girl" (Mary) was erroneously substituted with "virgin" by the original translators. (I believe that was when the King James version was created, but am probably wrong.)
Jesus grew to be discontented with the current state-of-affairs, then hitchhiked to India and studied yoga.
He went back to Palestine, bringing with him a mixture of Hindu and Bhuddist philosophy. Many such elements can be easily extracted from the New Testament.
The local government became concerned about the power structure which formed around Jesus, and they trumped up charges to execute him.
If you want to know more about Jesus, read the non-Canonical books such as the Gospel of Thomas. Especially good are the Gnostic texts. All of these are available on Amazon.com.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Does *every* post on Slashdot always have to turn into political mudslinging?
Great, its not enough that the Catholic Church spread their garbage to the New World and into Asia and Africa, now they want to convert aliens. The idea that a human is inherenly bad and the only way out is to feel really really guilty because some middle eastern philosopher let himself be killed by the Romans 2000 years ago is one of the worst ideas to be spread across this planet. Hopefully aliens won't be as gullible as American Indians and won't allow thier cultures to be subverted by the Church's lies.
Right and wrong is an emotional layer added on top of cold hard reality. It probably has its roots in primitive social instincts like not mating with a close relative. Something like stealing is just an act without inherent meaning but since it can cause social turmoil it became seen as bad. Aliens might think of stealing no differently than a bear stealing a kill from a wolf, it has no moral meaning, it just is.
The need for god may also just be a fluke of our mental evolution or spring from an emotional need to deal with our self-awareness of our limited life spans. The original comment made it sound like the need for religion is a given. How so? If you accept reality for what it is without seeing it through some good/bad filter there is no need for religion. I wouldn't assume that Aliens have emotional minds like we have. They could be intelligent but controlled by matter-of-fact instincts or Vulcan-like logic.
I suspect if we did communicate with Aliens they'd find our need for religion strange at best. They sure as hell wouldn't suddenly convert en-mass to some other life form's odd beliefs any more than we'd start eating krill because we learned to understand whale songs.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
... I guess that's also a valid point so I concede this point. I suppose where I'm arguing from is that a Christian is not supposed to go out and deliberately sin. Paraphrasing Romans: before Christ you were dead in your sins, so why would you want to go back to your old "dead" self?
The author C.S. Lewis wrote a paper which addresses these same issues called "Religion and Rocketry" which is published in a collection of his short works called The World's Last Night. In addition to the speculative piece, he also references Augustine's response when asked about the spiritual status of such half-humans a fauns and satyrs. Augustine's response was that it might be better to find out if such things exist before giving the matter too much attention.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Actually that was Troll,
Flamebait: I think there is no god and we are all alone and you stupid god believers are a bunch of tools for believing otherwise.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
picking on peoples beliefs isn't funny asshat! It just makes you look like a fuck-o!
Dickhead.
"We need an intergalactic space cruiser to help spread the word of God."
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
already been said just a few places below and it was just as stupid then.
Winner of dickhead #2 award!
First, he argues: 'We find an intelligent civilization and there's no way in creation we can communicate with them because they're so alien to us. We can't talk to dolphins now. In which case, we'll never know.' Secondly, he suggests: 'We find the intelligent civilization. We can communicate.' As agents of free-will, the aliens are self-aware of good and evil, thus convertible to some terrestrial religion. Thirdly: 'We find a dozen civilizations out there, and a bunch of Jehovah's witnesses go up and convert them all.'
Or how about: we find a dozen civilizations out there who teach mankind to finally grow up and throw away the crutch that is religion?
The Caribs didn't wipe out Arawaks. They did in some parts of the Caribbean, but not on the the big Antilles.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
But, then again, if there ARE technological civilizations out there, they probably wouldn't have to come to us to convert us. They only have to tell us about their religion, and plenty of humans are nuts enough to convert to it.
There are extraterrestrials, but their Prime Directive forbids contact with primitive worlds still dominated by religion.
For those of you in SE Michigan, Br. Guy is going to be speaking at the Cranbrook Institute of Science this weekend. He's a fascinating public speaker and all-around great guy.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
You do realize that practically all bible versions are copyrighted right?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Simple enough. If you dont believe the dead carpenter, you burn in "hell". The threat is pretty clear, "you guys need help. believe in me trust me, i can give you guys a hand. if you dont believe though, you're gonna BURN"
unconditioinal promise my ass
Obligatory HHG quote :
So long and thanks for all the fish.
What choice did I make that resulted in this "really bad situation that [I] can't escape by [myself]"?
And isn't the "threat" the eternal burning in Hell?
Now, if there wasn't a threat, then believers and others would BOTH end up in Heaven forever.
Nope, not everyone says they're an excellent set of rules. I don't. I for one think they're just about on par with any other ancient code of behavior or law -- a mix of obviousness and muddled ambiguity handed down by yet another set of self-appointed spokespeople for God.
We had a brief thing with the 10 Commandments at my kids' Public school, actually. Supposedly the existing "Code of Conduct" was all too "PC" -- a term mostly used to attack things you disagree with nowadays -- and we had a few parents who asked why we couldn't also post the Commandments instead (or failing that, also). So, we got a good chance to examine the two lists.
The current behavior code was full of stuff like "Show respect for others" and various words about becoming a good student and a good citizen -- an emphasis on learning how to be a good person and how to participate in American society. There was an interesting strain of "Civics Lesson."
The Commandments, well... We don't actually have a problem with students murdering each other at our little school, and as far as coveting our neighbor's wives goes, there isn't much danger of it among the grade schoolers I happen to know, and I'm not sure an advanced warning was all that useful for them. As a public school, Noble doesn't encourage idols of any sort (that being one of the several reasons for which the idea of posting the Commandments themselves was voted down). And so on.
In short the Commandments frankly didn't seem relevant to my kids' school lives, or really to their lives -- surely not more than any other list of advice. Not nearly as relevant as the existing conduct code, anyway. Where they did apply, they were mostly staggeringly obvious (Don't kill anyone). They reflected social mores of 2000 years ago; the "neighbor's wife" thing is more about women as property than about being faithful to your own spouse -- note that it doesn't mention husbands or tell you not to fool around with single college girls if you're married. (How many wives did Solomon have, again?) Granted, this was the KJV translation, but then nobody asked us to post anything in Aramaic or Hebrew or Greek.
That's leaving alone the whole "We're all evil by default thing, which is just so very Christian and so very not useful in figuring out how to live a moral life. If God wants to blame me for my inherent flaws, I defer to God entirely -- but not to a human spokeperson for God. No - Thank - You.
So no -- brzzzt -- not everyone says they're such a great idea. I personally think you'd do much better reading a Cliff's Notes version of Kant, as far as leading a moral life.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
War has been the downfall of some of the most powerful nations on earth.
If Rome had not over reached, it might not have fallen.
If Hitler had just left Poland alone, the Third Reich might have stayed in power.
If Russia had just ignored the USA and focused on its own internal problems the soviets might have survived.
If the US had just left Iraq alone...
I must also disagree with your point about 'the most efficient killers' - in many ways we are only successful because we are smart enough morally to not kill, and indeed to stave of death at every turn because we realise the value of life.
"Morality is just something we talk about when we're not waging war" could be the most cynical thing I've ever heard. I'm betting you'll be voting for George W because he's a strong leader, then?
Read Pynchon.
I want no part of any religion where a serial killer would still enter heaven because he's kept his faith.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People would alway sbe skeptical. The Star Treks had several episodes about god-like beings, abouse of their power, and skeptism.
This is no different than the past. Exorcists have always wondered whether a spiritual visitor is really a demon (or angel), misguided ghost, or some other being.
Ah, but the dolphins DO have a message for us:
"So long, and thanks for all the fish!"
Check out what I'm working on! -- http://smaragd.DaveWard.net/
It is unlikely that a society encumbered by religion would ever develop the technological capability to visit far away planets. Nor would space faring alien race bother visiting a planet prone to such violent religious tendencies.
Did they interdict a large supply of halocingenics
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
after observing comments in this thread; you really want to pray that we do find some kind of intelligent life out there (whatever religion, culture, etc they may have), because really, "there's bugger down here on earth..."
We can't communicate with dolphins because we have no common frames of reference of any sort.
How about this for subjects of conversation:
"Sushi is good."
"Tuna is Yummi."
"Those SeaWorld shows are annoying and degrading"
And both most bioliogists and the Vatican are on your side, there, when it comes to evolution. The vatican has basically been on board with evolution and natural selection for a long while now, right? This article is about a Vatican person discussing Extraterrestrial life, so clearly they don't believe it'd necessarily mean God is gone.
Creationism is a protestant thing, both in the US and in Australia -- the only two places where it has any grip at all on the culture. My Southern Baptist relations talk, I swear, about "Converting the Catholics to Christianity."
none of which have to do with proving or disproving God. Either task is impossible, BTW.
The guts of Agnosticism -- "strong" flavor. See, we can all get along after all.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Do you realize that this is the first time a Ninnle post has been modded +5?
W00t!
Perhaps we (human and nonhuman intelligences) would discover that our religions have something important in common, and rather than converting one another we'd pool our understanding and all understand our own faiths more deeply.
Nah.
> First, he argues: 'We find an intelligent civilization and there's no way in creation we can communicate with them because they're so alien to us. We can't talk to dolphins now. In which case, we'll never know.'
On that note, there's actually an on-going project as CMU's Language Technologies Institute to create technology to allow us to communicate with dolphins.
When I was in high school, we had a supplementary text in our AP European History class that was full of primary sources from throughout Western history.
Nestled in the back of this book, I found a Catholic Church document from the 60's or so addressing the Catholic position on ministry and evangelism to extraterrestrials (if any were found).
I don't know if it constituted a doctrine or a dogma or what have you, but the gist was that the Church assumes that God's plan of salvation for other worlds may, in fact, be completely unlike His plan of salvation for this one--and thus it is probably inappropriate to evangelize to aliens.
This has always struck me as remarkably sensible.
Mankind would sooner perish than kowtow to outrageous alien demands for this McNeal... whoever he is.
Read Pynchon.
They might, you know, try to make sure that any contact was an inclusive process where everyone was very cautious and avoided conflict. They might even try to prevent the US from gaining a monopoly on alien technologies and materials, in direct contradiction to America's god-given right to rule the universe!
I'm sure the millions of people who have benefited from the UN would see it differently, but you and I know that any kind of cooperation between nations is just a waste of time, don't we? Sure, they probably averted the destruction of earth during the Cold War, but the destruction of Earth would have been small price to pay for the destruction of Moscow Joe.
Lousy pinko UN bastards! I'm sure glad the Iraq debacle isn't under their control, it's going so well as a US-only exercise in active diplomacy.
Read Pynchon.
Reasoning based on an unproven premise is unsound, by definition.
The Vatican Astronomer in question has a Bachelor's and Master's from MIT and a Doctorate from the University of Arizona. He's definitely no dummy. Maybe Slashdot could interview him.
he studies meteorites. I wonder what research notes look like:
Observed high proportion of Carbon to Iron in meteor type X.
Question: Why is this so?
Answer: God made it that way.
Next question...
... found here...
(Cut to CBC, Christian Broadcsting Channel, Pat Robertson's channel. On TV. The logo appears on the screen. Pat Robertson and Susan are sitting together.)
Pat Robertson: You know, Susan, there, there's so many great... missionaries doing work... out there in the, in the, in parts of Africa and, and while we're trying to get Bibles to people all over the world, and what we need is the help of everyone out there so that we can continue these, these projects! (Subtitle: "To Pledge Call: I-800-555-2717") Now, listen to this, Susan! (Shows Sister Hollis on screen with some Ethiopians.) one of our missionaries in North Africa has made an amazing discovery! (Shows the green planet of Marklar.) A-a-a new planet in the, in the galaxy Alpha-Seti 6 that has intelligent life on it!
Susan: Amazing!
Pat Robertson: Now, we're not sure what these hyper-intelligent beings look like, but one thing is for sure, they've never heard... of Jesus Christ!
Susan: What can we do with the 600 club to help those poor aliens?!
Pat Robertson: W-what we need, Susan, is we need money to build an Interstellar Cruiser! (shows one on the screen.) Now, this spaceship will be able to travel through a worm hole and deliver the message and glory of Jesus Christ to those godless aliens! Send your money now! Amen!
coincidentally enough, this episode was on the night before last... the episode itself features Sally Struthers in the role of Jabba the Hutt and Starvin' Marvin acquiring an alien ship... pretty good episode.
J
Shouldn't Christians be happy that the Jews/Romans/somebody killed Jesus. Jesus was sent as a sacrifice for mankinds sins. Part of that sacrifice involved blood. But maybe, being perfect and thus not susceptible to death, Jesus could just hang around until donating blood became a reality, and over time sacrifice enough blood to count as 1 whole messiah's worth of blood.
What about Kissing Hanks Ass?
[ http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.mv ]
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Flamebait is any post that is written with the sole purpose of inciting flames, i.e. making people mad enough to post back and flame you.
I think the word you're looking for is troll.
'We find the intelligent civilization. We can communicate.' As agents of free-will, the aliens are self-aware of good and evil, thus convertible to some terrestrial religion.
... a European definition of free-will tautologically linked to 'awareness of good and evil' is accurate
... all 'terrestial religions' accept (or even acknowledge) the very notions of good and evil
... 'good and evil' exist
..., even though any evaluation of human behavior is based on cultural value systems and is rooted in group survival instincts, an E.T. species could find our evaluations not only comprehensible, but relevant to their own lives
... 'religion' as defined in most Western societies is part of a universally-accepted paradigm, even though many major cultural traditions on Earth find the concept incompatible with their culture and worldview
... agency automatically brings with it an evaulation of one's own thoughts and actions as being right or wrong
... an E.T.'s self-conception as an autonomous agent is compatible with the notion of subjecting one's will to an external, transcendental will
... in some cases, an E.T.'s ontology has room for the idea of a transcendental being that lives dimensionally outside of the phenomenal universe
... all extraterrestrials have gender and two essential sexes
... Western hegemony stands a chance of extending beyond Earth
:(
There are so many things wrong with these presumptions, one could not being to list them all. In brief, we're expected to assume a priori that...
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
And on and on...
Transubstantiation is when an angel cuts off his wings {prior to | during | upon completion of} a mass slaughter of the congregation in a vain attempt to outwit the Almighty and get back into Heaven without having to wait for the release Duke Nukem Forever.
Study everything, you'll find something you can use - Jason Bourne
who read this as Vulcan astronomer, and thought finaly some real news.
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
Need food:
Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow, Meow (etc etc)
Let me out of this room:
*Knock things off a shelf until let out*
Leave me alone:
*claws* *blood* "oh, the pain, the PAIN!"
Want attention:
Seek most obviously disinterested person (or the guy allergic to cats), rub against him, close to the face if possible.
"`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
-- Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
One thing which is rarely considered by astronomers, who tend to be a fairly optimistic bunch (as opposed, anyway, to cosmologists), is that humans will probably behave as badly to aliens as we do to each other. Science fiction writers have addressed the topic before, but more typically tend to focus on the possibility of hostile aliens.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
For me, this raises one important question? Can vegetarians eat aliens?
Stop the vegicide!
Never underestimate the power of fiber.
You say that as if it's a good thing.
I'm being serious. What's so bad about nudity? Why is it that it was such a good thing to teach the heathen masses modesty, and to 'cover their shame'?
And besides, all these wonderful Xtian things are wiped out by one horrible thing: fighting birth control. Teach the starving, unhealthy peasant that it is a sin to use birth control, and the starving, uneducated peasant has 10 kids, all of whom are starving and unhealthy. By fighting birth control, these religious freaks are creating more naked, hungry, thirsty and sick orphans.
This leads for TONS of fascinating speculation that I don't think I've ever seen adequately addressed by anyone. Did Jesue mean that there were other ways for other people to get to Heaven? Did he mean that for those people who never heard the Word would be able to get to Heaven?
Did he mean that those other mansions were reserved for aliens? If so, is God so limiting as to only provide one mansion (one true way?) for each sentient species?
We can communicate with dolphins, btw. It's just very, very difficult as our points of reference have so little in common. Dolphins are more intelligent on average than humans. Do they also have souls? Do they therefore qualify for one or more of God's mansions?
Why on Earth does every branch of Christianity insist that each has the only right answer when Jesus himself puts the issue in question?
Thank Ghu I was raised to be a more open minded, critical thinker by parents who loved me. I thiink that background keeps me somewhat inocculated from all the self serving religious dogma.
People who feel it is their mission in life to convert others to some arbitrary religion are evil. Why? Because it reeks of such arrogance that it cannot be good.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
"Moral standards have to come from some place."
Yep, they come from your parents and the society you were raised in. As such, moral standards change over time. 200 years ago, it was "moral" in the US to own slaves. Today it is not moral to do so.
"Either what God says is good is arbitrary, or God is obeying some higher standard."
The assumption here being that God acts in a moral fashion. Why assume that?
"This doesn't seem at all like a cop-out to me."
It is because you're ascribing "good" to God regardless of God's actions.
"If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods" - Arthur C. Clarke
Study everything, you'll find something you can use - Jason Bourne
It is anti-semetic to blame all Jews for all time for somthing that happened over 2000 years ago
I dunno about that: God seems to be OK with 'punishing your sons, and their sons, for (some number) of generations'. If I remember correctly he didn't allow any way for the "children's children" to make it up to him either.
I'm not anti-semitic, but sometimes it seems that God might be. He's certainly not easy to please.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
By the time we contact any alien species, if at all, will religion even be a consideration?
Religions become extinct. This has happened for thousands of years. Gods only exist so long as they have believers. Some of those believers are so fanatical they destroy the followers of other gods in order to strengthen their own.
Once upon a time, this was acceptable, and in some cases encouraged. In some places it still is. But this mindset is on the decline, and the moral outrage of having religion forced upon free people has increased.
Free will still generates converts, but not nearly at a rate comparable to converts obtained by a red hot poker in the eye.
Demosthenian Hierarchy of Exclusion described: "...Demosthenes' History of Wutan in Trondheim... The Nordic language recognizes four orders of foreignness. The first is the otherlander, or utlanning, the stranger that we recognize as being a human of our world, but of another city or country. The second is the framling... This is the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another world. The third is the raman, the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another species. The fourth is the true alien, the varelse, which includes all the animals, for with them no conversation is possible. They live, but we cannot guess what purposes or causes make them act. They might be intelligent, they might be self-aware, but we cannot know it. "
Study everything, you'll find something you can use - Jason Bourne
C.S. Lewis brought up another possible scenario when dealing with aliens and religeon in his book "Out of the Silent Planet". What if the aliens are already perfect christians who didn't mess up in their own garden of eden like we did. Is this why they have no interest in talking to us?
Many of those posts claim that religion is our problem. I disagree. The problem is how people interpret religious texts, teachings, etc. Of course, this leads to the question: if most of the adherents to a religion believe something, isn't that actually what the religion represents? Using this as my guide, I believe it is only a matter of time until the entire planet is either blanketed by one religion or we all kill each other. Place your bets now.
The Italian navigator has reached the New World and the natives are friendly.
We can't talk to dolphins now.
Yes we can. Haven't you ever seen a Flipper episode that goes something like this?:
FLIPPER: Sqeak squeak whistle sqeak
BOY: Marry's boat is stuck on the northwest coral reef and is bleeding? We better go help!
FLIPPER: Squeak
BOY: I know, Flipper, I feel sad also. But lets hurry up and go help her.
Table-ized A.I.
fundamentalistic approach to religion. Did you ever consider that eating the apple was metaphorical?
"It really is a matter of life and death so the challenge I set to you is this."
No, you believe it is because that is what you believe.
"Prove with documentary evidence that is didn't happen."
You cannot prove that something didn't happen. The most you can show is that there is no physical evidence that it happened.
"If you fail, then you must accept that there is a God and he loves you, if you succeed than you will be the most famous man alive."
So, if you cannot prove that there is no Bigfoot, then you must accept anything I say about Bigfoot as fact?
That isn't logical.
"Until then you're just another man who is too afraid of what you might find, and what it might mean to your life."
And end with the personal attack.
Now here's an ignorant post. Name me the document that contains this particular piece of dogma. Oh wait a minute. I understand the animosity now. You're Protestant. The sect that was created because Henry wanted a divorce. How's that for a moral framework?
I find it interesting that people are responding to someone who explicitly states that they're trolling. Don't waste your breath, folks - you have been trolled and the more you argue, the more he laughs.
The HIV test is inaccurate; i.e., it can give false positives.
The side-effects of AZT match the symptoms of AIDS. AZT is very toxic to the human body.
A person could have, therefore, falsely tested positive for HIV, and then died of AZT poisoning.
Tell me: does this sound like a laughing matter to you?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
THE EVERLASTING MAN
G.K. Chesterton
PREFATORY NOTE
INTRODUCTION
THE PLAN OF THIS BOOK
PART I. ON THE CREATURE CALLED MAN
I. THE MAN IN THE CAVE
II. PROFESSORS AND PREHISTORIC MEN
III. THE ANTIQUITY OF CIVILISATION
IV. GOD AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION
V. MAN AND MYTHOLOGIES
VI. THE DEMONS AND THE PHILOSOPHERS
VII. THE WAR OF THE GODS AND DEMONS
VIII. THE END OF THE WORLD
PART II. ON THE MAN CALLED CHRIST
I. THE GOD IN THE CAVE
II. THE RIDDLES OF THE GOSPEL
III. THE STRANGEST STORY IN THE WORD
IV. THE WITNESS OF THE HERETICS
V. THE ESCAPE FROM PAGANISM
VI. THE FIVE DEATHS OF THE FAITH
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX I. ON PREHISTORIC MAN
APPENDIX II. ON AUTHORITY AND ACCURACY
PREFATORY NOTE
This book needs a preliminary note that its scope be not misunderstood The view suggested is historical rather than theological, and does not deal directly with a religious change which has been the chief event of my own life; and about which I am already writing a more purely controversial volume. It is impossible, I hope, for any Catholic to write any book on any subject, above all this subject, without showing that he is a Catholic; but this study is not specially concerned with the differences between a Catholic and a Protestant. Much of it is devoted to many sorts of Pagans rather than any sort of Christians; and its thesis is that those who say that Christ stands side by side with similar myths, and his religion side by side with similar religions, are only repeating a very stale formula contradicted by a very striking fact. To suggest this I have not needed to go much beyond matters known to us all; I make no claim to learning; and have to depend for some things, as has rather become the fashion, on those who are more learned. As I have more than once differed from Mr. H. G. Wells in his view of history, it is the more right that I should here congratulate him on the courage and constructive imagination which carried through his vast and varied and intensely interesting work; but still more on having asserted the reasonable right of the amateur to do what he can with the facts which the specialists provide.
* * *
INTRODUCTION
THE PLAN OF THIS BOOK
There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place; and I tried to trace such a journey in a story I once wrote. It is, however, a relief to turn from that topic to another story that I never wrote. Like every book I never wrote, it is by far the best book I have ever written. It is only too probable that I shall never write it, so I will use it symbolically here; for it was a symbol of the same truth. I conceived it as a romance of those vast valleys with sloping sides, like those along which the ancient White Horses of Wessex are scrawled along the flanks of the hills. It concerned some boy whose farm or cottage stood on such a slope, and who went on his travels to find something, such as the effigy and grave of some giant; and when he was far enough from home he looked back and saw that his own farm and kitchen-garden, shining flat on the hill-side like the colours and quarterings of a shield, were but parts of some such gigantic figure, on which he had always lived, but which was too large and too close to be seen. That, I think, is a true picture of the progress of any really independent intelligence today; and that is the point of this book.
The point of this book, in other words, is that the next best thing to being really inside Christendom is to be really outside it. And a particular point of it is that the popular critics of Christianity are not really outside it. They are on a debatable ground, in every sense of the term. They are doubtful in their very doubts. Their criticism has taken on a curious tone; as of a random and illiterate heckling. Thus they make current and anti-clerical cant as a sort of small-talk. They will complain of parsons dres
IC XC NIKA
My understanding is that Jesus HAD to die in order to save us from our sins. This implies that somebody HAD to kill him. So, doesn't that make the role of the executer just as important as Jesus?
Ardente veritate incendite tenebras mundi
Rein in, as in the horse controller, not reign in, as in Kings or Queens.
Remember...christianity is a REVENGE based religion, much like Islam.
I asked:
"What choice did I make that resulted in this 'really bad situation that [I] can't escape by [myself]'?"
Your reply was "The only condition for entering Heaven is a desire to enter. God won't force anyone to be there who doesn't want to be."
So, the "choice" I made is not choosing what you believe in?
Since belief is an emotional response, the "choice" I made is the same as the "green" example. If I like green, I go to Heaven, if I like blue, I go to Hell.
"Hell is simply a word for the state of those who choose not to enter Heaven."
Strange, when I read the Bible, I see references to burning.
Maybe you should spend some more time reading the Bible and less time reading C.S. Lewis?
Ever see any of the 2001 movies or read the books? How about "Childhood's End"? Arthur C. Clarke has a big thing about aliens taking the place of God.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Well said. I've tried many times to say the exact same thing.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
If they do know the difference between good and evil, it's unlikely they'd convert to most Earth religions. Too much of a track record re: killing unbelievers.
First, a disclaimer; IANAB - I am not a believer. However, I've been making something of a study of religions since 9/11, including the histories of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism, in search of clues to the roots of religious violence.
The attitude above, which is common among many educated secularists, is excessively simplistic.
The reason is that the separation of church and state is a very, very recent concept and is still not a totally realized political ideal. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to clearly delineate state violence or political violence from religious violence.
I would say I can make two broad generalizations about large scale religious and non-religious violence:
(1) Religious violence seldom occurs without corresponding political agendas; even the Crusades, which are the prime examples of holy wars, have substantial political underpinnings. Some wars, such as the early Muslim wars of conquest, are often perceived in religious terms but turn out to have virtually no religious underpinnings.
(2) Political agendas are perfectly capable of large scale violence without recourse to religion, for example Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot.
Religion is tied up with violence and warfare in an extremely complex ways. Commonly accepted religious systems can be used as frameworks in which ideologies both supporting and opposing war can be posed. My original hypothesis in beginning to study the nexus between religion and war is that religion is a powerful motivator towards war. This, however, I have eventually come to reject. The next hypothesis is that religion is a powerful amplifier of human violence (and anti-violence). Yet I don't feel that the historical evidence is so clear cut on that even. Yes there are incidents where religious fervor appears to be a powerful amplifier of violence, such as in the sacking of Jerusalem in the first Crusade. Yet it is equally true that ethnic, racial and ideological ideas can play exactly the same role.
I would say that religion is often used as a tool to support political agendas. However it is a somewhat untrustworthy tool in the hands of the tyrant. Conservative elements in the great world religions can often cut in ways a ruler might not wish. For example, Sharia evolved as a check on the political power of the caliphs starting from Muawiyah I and later. Admittedly, as a legal system for modern times, Sharia leaves much to be desired. But it has its attractions to muslims who feel abused and downtrodden; this attraction is incoprehensible to anyone who takes the kind of historically simplistic view of religion that secularists do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Right/Wrong are concepts.
No matter how fine you grind the Universe, you will never find a single atom of "Right" or "Wrong".
The same with Moral/Immoral/Amoral.
Nor Evil/Good.
From the original article:
"There is evil in the world, that's an observed fact."
He is incorrect. Unless by "an observed fact" he means "my opinion".
Also from the original article:
"The point is, if you're going to convert somebody, you have to treat them as an equal."
Incorrect. The easiest way is to beat them into submission and then indoctrinate their children.
There is no universal morality.
There is no universal right.
There is no universal good.
They are all judgement calls based upon each person's beliefs and values.
get a life. Jesus was a man. He was no more god than the rest of us.
Use your mind and your eyes. Trust reality. What you see, hear, smell, and feel is what is real. Your actual experience of life is a much more important guide than some book from thousands of years ago.
What if the Titans (i.e. the inhabitants of the satellite Titan) visit Earth, and decide to "liberate" us from our "solar centric" views. After all they Titans have managed to live, prosper, and flourish in a satellite with _far_ less sunlight than Earth. Of course they'd try to disabuse us of our notion of day&night, that light is better than darkness etc. Perhaps they would incarcerate our political "leaders" (or is it moronic buffoons) and kick their (dumb)asses. Oh how I wish that would happen .....
Some people think intelligent life wouldn't be religious. While we can all hope, I think that's a false assumption.
If we try not to go for the easy judgmental definition of intelligence, we can all see that quite a few highly intelligent people are also very religious.
Now why would aliens be more logical in that respect than we? Provided they don't come from Vulcan, my bet is that they'll be just as surprisingly gullible, selectively stupid and sometimes dangerous when it comes to "fundamental" things like who's christmas story and who's version of santa claus is the real and only one and will lead us to salvation.
If religion has a biological foundation and function, then I think it's a safe bet to presume aliens have caught a wiff of the same madness.
And if religion is there because indeed God is there, why they'd be religious too, especially if they're more intelligent, because they'd be better equipped to "see the truth".
Now there's a depressing thought.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
The library at Castel Gandolfo contains more than 22,000 volumes and possesses a valuable collection of rare antique books including works of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Brahe, Clavius, and Secchi.
Okay, so which one of these guys listed were NOT persecuted by the Catholic Church? Why did THEY get those works?
"But you will all burn forever in eternal hellfire!"
"Yes, that's nice, thank you for stopping by."
A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. - Tennessee Williams
Context is the issue here. You are right in saying that you need deeds. The main problem, can one have faith without that selfsame faith showing itself in deeds?
Further down in James 2:17-18:
17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, it is dead
18 But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works and I will show you my faith by my works.
Basically, one's faith will save you, but that faith will be demonstrated in your actions and deeds. It's not the deeds that gets one saved, but the faith behind the deeds. If someone claims to have great faith but no deeds to show in evidence, then you'd have to be a little more wary.
So, both of the previous posters have valid points: the profession of faith and belief in Jesus's resurrection truly is all that's needed, and that the deeds/works that come from that faith must be seen as a testimony to that faith.
Sorry for the long-winded reply
So, is Kenneth Lay of Enron fame a Christian or not?
He claims to have the faith, but how about the deeds?
How about the commandment involving "false witness"? The company "was doing fine" when he sold his stock!
No easy way out, is there?
How many other "American Christians" are following in his shoes?
"There is no abuse of prisoners in Iraq!" we were told, in between prayer meetings of those alleged Christians.
By nature Religion is territorial. Religion was one of the evolutionary factors of early society. It provided a better chance of survival by setting and reiterating societal rules. Unfortunately, as successful tribes expand and become civilizations, nations, super-powers, their vestigal religion comes along like an appendix.
If people learn to live without religion, and take personal responsibility for their lives (don't be good to get into heaven, be good because it's smart for survival) the need for religion and the rules it evolved with go away.
Unfortunately, people don't want to deal with death, and the message that one will continue moving on in an immortal fashion is far more seductive than accepting you are going to die and rot in a box till the Sun explodes.
As for the harm religion can do, it is immense. Islam, Christian Crusades, Witch hunts, Jewish conquests, Hindu Thugee, terrrorism, and expansionism can all be traced back to religion. These competing religious ideas are just like competing species. They all want maximum expansion room and few competitors. Religion is a virus. If you want to believe in God, Yaweh, Vishnu, Allah, or Hecate, by all means do so. There is no need to be part of an organized group to do it. Religious heirarchy is an old concept that was once important to our survival, but now is as useless as a stone axe.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
I didn't say the film causes anti-semitism. On the contrary, I was arguing that the controversy stemmed more from the life of the director and his (perceived) beliefs.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Landover Baptist Church - Where the worthwhile worship "the unsaved are not welcome (as jesus commanded*)".
... we think...but if you don't that's cool, cause we don't want to offend anyone''.
Yeah, that sounds like something jesus would say. lol. I guess you can't judge all protestants by this church, but I am sooo glad the Catholic Church has moved away from BS like this.
Mind-Altering Energy Drink Turns Senior High Bible Study Into Godless Sex Orgy
Nowdays, doctrine is more along the lines of ``we believe this,
It's not to avoid offending, its because Catholics believe that who you are as a person is more important than what church you go to, or if you even go to church. To me thats a hell-of-alot better than "we believe this and you have to too. Follow our rules! Here's some more laws!".
Romantiphobia, I suppose. Or you could just say 'dago hater,' or anti-roman. I think people are more likely to hate ideas than people. Racist, maybe. I mean, there's not a word for someone who hates blacks, that I know of. But you do have the term 'White Supremicist' which describes a particular notion which includes disliking/subordinating blacks.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Dan Bern touched on this question in a song, "Planet with Two Sons". It's a funnier listen than it is a read, but here's the relevant bit:
I understand Jesus visited you
2,000 years ago
He came to us more recently
Six hundred and twenty-five years ago
Don't feel sorry that you treated him bad,
Everybody does
Don't feel bad that you put him on a cross
We flushed him down a black hole!
No! No! No!
We must assume that these superior beings are not like Dubya, who does not do subtlety!
The truth is that they would find out how destructive religion is TO US and then use it to manipulate us all rotten!!!
A certain Karl Marx (not to be confused with Groucho) said,"Religion is the opiate of the masses!".
How could truly superior beings pass up such an opportunity?
Anyone interested in a fictional exploration of Catholicism and extraterrestrial life ought to take a look at the SF classic A Case of Conscience by James Blish. This or this Google search will find you lots of reviews and discussion. The book is still in print.
Blish has also written some other good religious-themed SF. Note that though it uses religion as a theme, it's not tract fiction, not even very good tract fiction like that of C. S. Lewis. It just uses religion as a fascinating element of the plot, it doesn't preach.
can't and won't are two different things.
They are clearly high speed, high altitude weather ballons. Now move along, there is nothing to see here. Look at all the pretty pictures of Iraq, and the Presidential race, and sport, American Idol, etc., etc.
"Doesn't matter what I believe in. What matters is what's true."
:)."
Incorrect. Until someone establishes Heaven or Hell via verifiable (and repeatable) evidence, "true" is this context is "whatever you believe".
"If I'm wrong, you don't have any of the problems I described. Might have other problems, though
-and-
"Where did you get this idea? Shouldn't beliefs be formed from careful analysis of arguments, reasoning and evidence? Forming beliefs based on emotion is foolish."
Yet you believe as "true" something that has not been established via evidence (Heaven and Hell).
Yes, forming beliefs based on emotion is foolish. But that is what your belief is. Otherwise, it would be a fact and not a belief.
Now, you may have a belief that is later established as a fact, but that does not change the method by which you originally arrived at your belief.
Since there is no verifiable method of determining the existance of Heaven or Hell, then any belief in them is irrational.
Your gullible nature is lamentable.
What is with the rash of AC posters lately? It seems like every person on here hides their identity and then writes nonsense posts like this one. If you are posting AC for a reason, such as you work for a company we are talking about or some such thing, fine. If you have something useful to say which then log in. Otherwise please go away.
*changes preferences to exclude score:0 posts*
Nonsense. I used to buy that, but then, I read Church history, read other theological views for their merits, and so on. What I found was not only did the views that works count, but also, that the opposite, that they don't count and only faith counts, cannot be found anywhere in the Bible. In fact, the belief didn't appear until Martin Luther decided to make it up, and he even went so far as to change the text of the Bible to support his novelty (he changed "by faith" in Rom. 3.28 to "by faith alone" to "clarify" the plain meaning of the Greek).
Scriptures discussing the importance of works:
James (the whole book), particularly the famous 2.17. And nowhere in this book does it say that works are just a manifestation of the faith that is present. He actually ridicules his detractors by saying they can show him their faith without works, and he'll show his with works. St. James would laugh at this notion, just as he pokes fun at people with similar notions in the text.
Jesus commands the rich young ruler to sell all he has to get eternal life in Luke 18.18-30, and this is a command not a suggestion. No, Christ probably doesn't mandate that for everyone, but He did for this young man. Christ *does* go on to say that those who abandoned all for His sake will find eternal life in v. 29-30. He makes no statement there on belief.
Jesus, in speaking about the ten virgins in Matthew 25. They all waited for the bridegroom to appear, but only five did the work of getting extra oil, and when the bridegroom appeared, the foolish begged for some of the oil from the wise virgins, but the wise refused it, because there wouldn't be enough oil for the two of them. Clearly, both were looking forward to the bridegroom (faith), but only half had prepared themselves beyond that, and so, only half got in, and the Lord replied at their petitions "I do not know you."
Next comes the parable of the slaves entrusted with talents. They were all given a deposit, but because one did nothing with it, then he was cast out into the darkness. Nevertheless, he had the deposit to start with.
He closes that section with the parable of sheep and goats, in which some cry out "Lord, Lord, did I not..." and He will reply "I never knew you." There, the people were working miracles and casting out demons by the Lord's power and evidently under a confession of His name, but they still didn't get it (remember, this can only be done by the Lord's power, as "Satan cannot cast out Satan."). Christ's criticism was on what they did not do "I was hungry and you gave me no food..." (this is echoed in Matthew 7.22). All these three are emphatic analogies, and rather than having an escape clause for a "only faith" approach, they all have people condemned who had faith, but not works.
Another telling point is tht it took Martin Luther to come up with this. Why didn't the author of the Didache know about it, who learned from the Apostles? What about St. Clement, the companion of Paul, who wrote the book I Clement? Where is it in St. Ignatius in all his epistles, who was taught by the Apostle John? None of these men had any clue about such a belief, and their writings contradict it. It took a monk, who was willing to alter Scripture, arrogant, and quite creative to make it up, but he could supply no historical or liturgical evidence for it from Christianity's history; just his own peculiar interpretation of Scripture (2 Pet. 1.20).
"Thus every good tree produces good fruit, but a rotten tree produces evil fruit. A good tree cannot produce evil fruit, nor can a rotten tree produce good fruit. Every tree not producing good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. Consequently, by their fruits you shall know them. "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven." -- Jesus Christ in Luke 7.17-21.
"And they were judged, each according to his works" -- Revelation 20.13 in reference to the final judgement.
The problem of the 'plurality of worlds' isn't new to the Church. In the introduction to James Blish's "A Case of Conscience" (1958, Winner of the Hugo Award), the author notes:
...
I was gratified to receive also several letters from theologians who knew the present Church position on the problem of the 'plurality of worlds', as most of my correspondents obviously did not
I will quote Mr Gerald Heard, who has summarized the position best of all:
If there are many planets inhabited by sentient creatures, as most astronomers (including Jesuits) now suspect, then each one of such planets (solar or non-solar) must fall into one of three categories:
(a) Inhabited by sentient creatures, but without souls; so to be treated with compassion but extra-evangelically.
(b) Inhabited by sentient creatures with fallen souls, through an original but not inevitable ancetral sin; so to be evangelized with urgent missionary charity.
(c) Inhabited by sentient soul-endowed creatures that have not fallen, who therefore
(1) inhabit an unfallen, sinless paradisal world;
(2) who therefore we must contact not to propagandize, but in order that we may learn from them the conditions (about which we can only speculate) of creatures living in perpetual grace, endowed with all the virtues in perfection, and both immortal and in complete happiness for always possessed of and with the knowledge of God.
Of course, the aliens that are the subject of Blish's book fall into none of these scenarios...
The summary of the article mentions three possible ideas: (1) they are too different to communicate with, (2) we convert them to our religion, and (3) they convert us to theirs.
So what about a fourth possibility? What if we discover an alien civilization and once we start communicating with them, we find that one of their religions is exactly the same as one of our religions? What if we find that that same religion keeps popping up over and over again on every planet we visit? If there is, in fact, one true religion, wouldn't it make sense for it to develop on all the planets?
If this ever happens, I predict that the masses will grasp that the chances of this happening purely by coincidence are quite small, and there will be a massive "oh crap, I'd better get to church right now" reaction. :-)
But we do communicate with dolphins. How do you think we get them to perform tricks on command?
Hell, my cat communicates with me nearly every day. Based on her vocal calls I know if she's out of food or if she just wants to be pet.
That's just DARPA's latest fighter tech. No big deal.
The evolution of their society was such that, as new data was obtained and analyzed over the course of their history, they discarded outmoded philosophies and superstitions, and wonder why we haven't.
Allegedly real newspaper headline from 1998:
Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge
INVISIBLE fighte tech?
Put down the crack pipe before you post!
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Anything more would be superfluous!
The belief in God is not separable from the believe that God gave man the choice. He "tests" to see those who have chosen correctly. That is not to say that there are not instances where he has decided someone will do a thing, but it is not correct to compare the two.
It is not a very hard concept to grasp unless you come at it from an anti-religious angle.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
these are pavlovian responses, and not true bi-directional communication.
"There can be only one!"
You don't make promises to the fish in terms the fish can comprehend that if it believes hard enough, it'll be able to live outside of the tank once it dies or you flush it down the toilet, do you?
I swear...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
David Brin wrote a story about aliens actually being faeries that had to give themselves some kind of "scientific" basis to keep people believing in them (which they depended on for their existence). Aliens really do have a lot in common with faeries: pointy ears, big eyes, antennae, like to abduct people, really into anal probes...
Actually, I just posted AC to mess with you. Funny post. Me like.
Reason I ask is that the video starts out showing 1 light. Camera is already centered on it, and the light is holding steady in frame. Where was the acquisition part?
Video then cuts to shots of plane, interviews, etc. When it returns, there's suddenly two lights, side by side! When did the second one get there? Did it just appear, did it fly in from one side, did it split off the first? There's got to be more footage.
More edits, suddenly 3 lights, all looking like they've been there for hours. More edits, and 8 lights... but again, no joining of the others, no 'nothing there, suddenly light' frames. They're just there, as if they've always been there.
Every UFO video I've ever seen in my life has been chopped up this way, and I have no idea why. Two lights holding still in the center of the camera frame is a lot less interesting to me than 1 light swooping in from one side to join the first and then holding steady.
The fact that we never see the full unedited clips makes me quite suspicious.
-T
Regardless of your animosity towards Christians I will oblige you with a response.
Exodus provides the story of when Moses was given the Ten Commandments and what they were. In the same book, ch 21+ The Lord sets down other laws of which his people, Israel, are to obey. Many of these laws, while not of the stature of the Ten Commandments, are never the less important. Specifically the kidnap of any being is subject to the punishment of DEATH.
21'16 A kidnaper, whether he sells his victim or still has him when caught, shall be put to death.
About as clear as can be.
The fact is EVERY ABHORRENT ACT did not need to be categorized. That categorization is the defense used by people who cannot put forth a logical argument.
So instead of filling your child with your hatred towards Christians, which can and may manifest itself in ways you never imagined or intended; in otherwords bigotry knows no bounds, perhaps it would be best to allow him to decide for himself.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Mmmm, smell that? Smells like flamewar!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
How about living on the same planet as a frame of reference? Using your own (misguided) logic, what kind of common frame of reference are we supposed to have with these ETs that we know nothing about?
An alien race does not have to resemble us in any form for them to be sentient. Go read OSC's Speaker for the Dead.
Ok, so your arguement is that since God makes demands of us he should explain why we have to behave like that? And if he didn't then you won't believe in him? Isn't going to heaven for eternity enough for you? Now you want to know why? Maybe our feeble brains can't understand? Maybe he is a space alien from the 100th dimension doing experiments on 4th dimensional beings, but if he tells us it's all a big experiment it will mess up the results? Who knows.
If you do believe in God you are probably going to be more worried about not spending the rest of eternity having boiling water poured on your crotch, than why it just doesn't make sense to you.
The "I don't believe because I have never seen any evidence of his existence," theory makes sense. But to me the "I don't believe because I can't figure out the motivations of a omniscient supreme being," makes no sense.
I think the analogy holds as long as you don't try to extend it to cover the entire God/man relationship. It was designed only to illustrate the difference in perspective & knowledge between the owner and the fish.
You just jealous, fool.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
But you're ignoring (and so is the great-grandparent) that God also wants to love the fish and see that love returned, the slashdot faithful earlier emphasized said claims. That relationship is NOT expected of the fish and the fish owner.
There was no reason to spend a paragraph and throw it out there, to just riddle it with clarifications. A relationship between dog and man would be more symbolic of how that mangod relationship _should_ work, but the "show me the evidence" types (such as myself) would have issue with that. (The dog is clearly aware of the man even though he is not his master, but I am not aware of God.... etc.)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
which can infect anyone's mind and not be able to pin the source.
It's been repeated by people, in articles, blogs, and other places as well. I think Carlin was the first to use the expression "invisible man up there" in that flippant context (maybe he wasn't the first, but he was probably the first that people remembered and attributed to him without becoming blocking such heresey from their minds)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
They'd dismiss the question the first time it was asked...
"Do you believe in God?"
"?"
"You know, an omnipotent, omnipresent being that cares for all?"
"mu"
"Yes, or no?"
"No, mu. As in, there's no way to intelligently answer that. I didn't even think you were serious for a minute there."
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Based on the Jehovah's Witness remark and the photo of him laughing, apparently he has a sense of humor. But his comment about alien races possibly being convertible to terrestrial religion is kind of scary. On one hand it evokes images of Starvin' Marvin in a starfighter. On the other hand I see Pat Robertson seriously soliciting contributions to build an XB79 Galactic Cruiser with plasma-warp force shields and laser cannons.
I've always believed that contact with extraterrestrials will be the beginning of the end of many Earthly religions, as people come to grips with the idea that spirituality is just a local effort to cope with unknowns. But the tenacity of religious leaders to cling to doctrine in the face of contradiction, and the willingness of their flocks to do whatever they command, have always been major driving forces in human history that will probably never go away.
I have never ONCE heard anyone talk about how they would like to impress their religion upon visiting aliens. Most people that consider what it'd be like to meet aliens would want to talk them about things like: "Do you guys really abduct people" and "How did you get all the way over here, and where are you from?" and stuff like that.
What kind of person wants to meet complete strangers and interrogate about his personal philosophy? Missionaries, and Socrates. I really thought Socrates was an wise-ass.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
People who take this athiestic position believe an additional assumption:
"If I have no independant evidence of something, it doesn't exist."
Of course, you could ask them to clarify that... because there are lots of things that you have no evidence for that you probably believe, like that there's 12 protons in a carbon atom.
Did you count?
So you read books and listen to people you trust. So the assumption changes:
"If I have no independant evidence of something, and someone claims it does exist but cannot demonstrate independant evidence, or they have not gained my trust, then they have unknown reasons to tell me this and I should reject their assertion."
God fits right in there, if it isn't already "obvious" to you because someone you trust told you so.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
A lot of athiests and agnostics came around to their beliefs on their own (I know I did). And this is after having been fairly firm believers, impressed upon by family and friends.
It's not a faddish thing... it's something you come to terms with and attempt to reconcile.
I don't really see outward bashing of the beliefs of Christianity at all in the media and in the workplace. Criticism is one thing (and it is rightly deserved), and I think all religions' foibles are fair game for comedy. It's not fashionable. In fact, recently, with the Bush administration, it's become "unpatriotic" and those who might have openly disagreed before keep quiet now.
Sorry your crisis of faith didn't shake you to the foundations.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I dunno, it is of course hard to say for certain, but I believe I've seen some rather impressive cognitive abilities from my dog.
:-( But despite an occasional bad shot, I've done this enough times to be pretty certain he understands the geometric concept.
;-) ) I honestly believe a lot of this canine ability is determined by the environment the dog grows up and lives in. If a pup is born from a malnurished or poisoned dog, it might not have the same physical capacity for cognitive ability. If the dog is chained in a junkyard, never is spoken to, and only gets kicked when someone walks by, I would not expect the same responses or interaction from it. But when the dog is young, raised in a caring environment, respected, and communicated with, the dog will respond and make efforts in the same ways. I don't expect my dog to start spouting Shakespeare, but I do (obviously) think he is pretty intelligent. ;-)
Most dogs will chase a ball or something; my little miniature weiner dog will just roll it back and forth, by flipping it with his nose, if the game is taking place in a small area. I've 'tested' his geometry abilities by encouraging him to bounce the ball against a wall before it reaches me. I will bounce it against a wall to him, then I can alter the position of my hand ("the receiver") and he will alter the angle that he rolls the ball at to cause the correct reflection and send the ball to me. It's not always perfect; he can't always send it in a straight line because he is so small and near to the ground -- he sometimes hits his nose on the ground when he sneezes
That is perhaps a more rudimentary, physical world interaction, as opposed to language. But he is not only very good at sound recognition (he can tell the difference between the phone making a regular ring (which is OK) and an intercom request from outside (slightly different ring, meaning someone is outside, meaning he needs to bark to defend the territory)), he also apparently understands concepts of 'who' and 'where'. He definitely recognizes people and places, even getting excited during car trips to various locations we frequent -- he recognizes the scenery and route. If someone is not in the room and you ask him "where is Mom?", he will search them out. If mom is not around, he does not search (unless I make him). He recognizes mom's voice over the phone, but does not get up and start searching the room for her -- he seems to understand the phone to some degree.. certainly not how it works at a technical level, or where my mom is calling from, but he seems to understand that it IS mom, she just isn't here... (recordings would probably be very confusing, though)
I've been able to string together various words that he knows, and get responses from him the seem to indicate he understands strings of words/phrases/sounds. This can be extremely impressive. (He's an english speaking dog! Well, aside from being 'mute'
I read through your linked page. Some of your points show valid problems, but others are based on (from my POV) faulty logic, or have already been widely defused. Specifically, points 2, 3, 5, and possibly 9 are ones I'd be interested in responding to, but doing that on Slashdot tends to start flame wars. However, if you're interested, I'll post my thoughs and we can dialogue.
Your brain is not a computer.
So did Jesus die for the ET's too? If so - and we meet a civilisation of humans (match our DNA and everything), and they have no religion or completely different relig.....what would that mean?
(the Catholics believe in good/evil and penance - so ET's could fit into Catholic dogma - but I can't see how they'd fit into the protestant faiths)
This is an interesting thought experiment that I haven't encountered before. Thanks!
Suppose a super-entity appears and performs that demonstration. My view is that these hypotheses are indistinguishable:
(1) The super-entity is omnipotent.
(2) The super-entity has limited power, but its limited power is larger than anything *I* can conceive.
I think I have to agree with your conclusion: that at some level of (2), *I* cannot distinguish between (1) and (2).
However, I am comfortable accepting an entity that satisfies (2) as God.
"No, but you can discredit evidence. This is how the defence in a court case works when faced with aparantly good evidence."
Well, in that case, your request is easily complied with.
Go visit a mental hospital. You'll find lots of people who believe that people you can't see are talking to them and telling them what to do.
Go visit a UFO convention. You'll find lots of people who claim to have been abducted by non-human creatures.
"You would also have to establish motive as to why the people who wrote the gospels conspired to create seemingly accurate accounts of something that never happened, and then died for it."
How so "accurate"? The gospels contradict each other about who was there when his grave was checked.
They are no more "accurate" than the Greek or Roman god-stories. Yet not too many people claim that I must believe in Pluto if I cannot disprove that he stole Proserpina.
The same with Ra or Isis.
And so forth.
So, your requirements have been fulfilled. I have shown other individuals who exhibit the same behaviour yet are not accepted as divine or prophets.
All your Religion are belong to us.
how about we go somewhere and not shove our fucking religion down the native's throats?
If you read history, you realize God is one of the leading causes of death. Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians all taking turns killin' each other 'cause God told 'em it was a good idea. The sword of God, the blood of the lamb, vengeance is mine. Millions of death motherfuckers. Millions of death motherfuckers all because they gave the wrong answer to the God question: "Do you believe in God?" "No" Boom! Dead. "Do you believe in God?" "Yes" "Do you believe in my God?" "No" Boom! Dead. "My God has a bigger dick than your God!"
As a counterexample to your supposition that we would be able to be able to communicate with an alien species because we had certain characteristics in common, I would point out that we were unable to understand a language developed by our own species until a document was found that presented the same information in the unknown language and languages that were known. I'm referring, of course, to the Rosetta Stone. Even with the active cooperation of a member of the alien race, there will likely be concepts that cannot be communicated effectively, and the likelihood of miscommunication will rise as the amount of deviation between our sensorium and theirs increases -- for an example from science fiction, the concept of 'color' having no meaning to the Kdatlyno in Larry Niven's 'Known Space' fiction.
What would such an experiment prove? Suppose I am right, and HIV is harmless or nonexistant. I inject myself with "HIV tainted blood" and, as expected, I suffer no ill effects from it.
How would the AIDS priests handle this? They would claim that I have a "genetic immunity" or that the "latency period" for me just happened to be really long. Nothing would be proven.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Regardless of your animosity towards Christians I will oblige you with a response.
My mom is a Christian. Do I hate her, too? I know it's convenient for you to paint me as "hateful," but it isn't true. I practice, "Love the Christian, hate the Christianity."
Specifically the kidnap of any being is subject to the punishment of DEATH.
It's interesting that God would have prohibited kidnapping in some places and demanded it in others:
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Num 31:17-18
So much for God's morality.
The fact is EVERY ABHORRENT ACT did not need to be categorized. That categorization is the defense used by people who cannot put forth a logical argument.
You claim that every abhorrent act did not need to be categorized, yet God does that very thing in the Old Testament. My complaint is that the Ten Commandments are supposedly the topmost and most important of these laws. Coveting made the "top ten" list, but rape and child torture didn't. How can you explain this?
So instead of filling your child with your hatred towards Christians, which can and may manifest itself in ways you never imagined or intended; in otherwords bigotry knows no bounds, perhaps it would be best to allow him to decide for himself.
I am a gay man. I understand very well how it feels to be hated considering that your Christian "brothers" promulgate it with every opportunity they have. They call me a child molester and a criminal even though I am a parent and an employer. They call me deviant and unstable even though my gay relationship has outlasted and been more stable than most of the straight ones I've come across. Try walking in my shoes for a day and then talk to me about hate.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
How wrong can somebody be about this?
Atheists do not think that science can replace religion, don't be dense.
Atheists reason or believe that a superior being in the form of a deity does not exist. Atheists do not worship science, and actually one can be an atheist and lack any scientific understanding (like many new age types that attribute powers to stones or magnetic fields using techno babble).
The fact that many scientists are atheists should not guide you to such ridiculous conclusion as the one you ejaculated...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
people started selling their old UID's on eBay. :) Seriously, I haven't noticed much of a difference - it seems to me that for at least the last year, whenever I pay attention to it, about a quarter of the non-troll posts are from UID's under mine, and the rest above...
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?