Slashdot Mirror
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."
show some respect and ....
move along, move along
It's whack.
Now wash your hands.
and so no longer need primitive belief systems.
They may even know why we're here and what comes next
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Contraceptives are a plot to keep brown people from having kids. Another front in the "War on Terrorism."
Heck, as long as they have oil, who cares?!?
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!
"Aithiests would have an absolute fit, when they translated the alien pledge of aliegence."
asshole.
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They will blow us to itty bitty peices.
Religion is the most destructive force in the galaxy.
What a lame, annoying thread. From the Vatican dick whose only concern is proselytizing to aliens to the insipid Bible debates, to the endless Comic Book Guy-ish 'what if' responses, this is the sort of total bullshit I'd go to Usenet to read if I wanted to read it, not /.
Thats funny, all the dude can comment about is who gets to convert the new race of aliens.
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.
Did you know that the US government has been involved in some war, somewhere in the world, for every single year of the past century?
Yeah, and did you know before the eurotrash dragged us into WW1 and WW2 to fix their problems we were an isolationist country with a lot less problems?
Were you aware that the US government now has a military presence in over 150 countries around the world?
Are you aware that is because of the constant guilt trip we get for not getting into WW2 'soon enough' to somehow magically stop the holocaust? Nobody wants to be the fucking nannies for the world, but in todays nuclear age we have no choice. Even if we get a damn good ballistic missle defense system we still can't let the world go to hell in a handbasket.
get your liberal fuckwit head out of you ass. The US government isn't 'evil' and if it wasn't for our government there is a good chance you would be speaking german.
That's all fine and dandy, but I said "a crusade", not "THE Crusades".
In that case you are still a fucking moron, do you really think the US is fighting a holy war? If it were, don't you think we wouldn't be 'nation building' in Iraq? Do you really think if the US were really waging war against Iraq and it's goal was to kill people of another faith that it would take this long?
Are you saying that in order to stop the killing of innocent people we need to kill innocent people? That's exactly what's been happening for years, and it sure hasn't fixed anything.
I'm saying you must fight ruthlessly, you must understand there will be innocent people killed on both sides, and you must fight to win at all costs. If WW2 were fought today, the US would be trying to kill hitler and the Nazi's while dropping peanut butter and crackers on the German people. The good guys would have lost. I'm sure you don't think of the American army as the 'good guys' but they are.
The greatest threat to America today is terrorism. The second greatest threat is the millions of Americans who hate their own country and will do anything to derail their own government who gives them nothing but freedom. It's the proverbial "biting the hand that feeds you" and it's sad.
he goal of the war on Iraq is not to kill innocent people. The goal is simply to generate "justification" for bigger government: more revenue, more power over the people, more "responsibilities", and naturally, more profit for the powerful elite.
Umm, no. If anything starting more social programs expands government much more than being involved in a war. From a 'pure' ideology standpoint Republicans are for less government, although Mr Bush doesn't seem very pure in that regard. If his goal was a truely large government he could start by making the government in charge of health care...that isn't what he's after.
Are you aware that the US federal government today dwarfs the US federal government of only 100 years ago? How exactly did they achieve this incredible growth? War, plain and simple. As the saying goes, war is the health of the state.
Silly liberal fuckwit pulling statistics out of your ass. Of course the government is bigger nowadays. The population is HUGE compared to what it was years ago, the infrastructure is HUGE compared to 100 years ago. It takes people to manage all of that. The other side to government being bigger dates back the great depression and the new deal. Before then, the American government was small. If you look at America today, the two events that shaped our politics the most are the great depression and WW2. It's not just "war" that made government bigger, it's not even the main reason government is bigger.
I hold that it is immoral to kill an innocent for any possible reason, even if it *could* be proved that killing one innocent would save another.
Well I hold that if you kill one person to save two, that you are a hero and if you save one and let two die you are a coward.
I'll ignore the rest of your personal attacks and random conformist propaganda.
My politics are far from conformist, especially for slashdot.
BTW, where are those weapons of mass destruction?
Who cares, Hussain should have been killed years ago when he tried to have George Bush (the father) assassinated. That alone is an act of war and was barely covered in our press. The fact that Saddam was giving reward money to suicide bombers and allowing terrorists to train in his country is cause enough to go to war. Remember the Bush doctrine my fellow American...There is no difference between Terrorists and the countries that harbor them.
Hey shitless. Was it coincidence that you chose "Jesus Christ Guys" as the subject of your post about going off topic in an article about a Vatican Astronomer.