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."

Comments

Wow.

[benjamindees]

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.

Re:Or how about

[Volmarias]

Despite the funny rating on this post, it probably is the truth. People will "interpret" the bible to mean that extraterrestrials are really angels; they're servants of God that guided us through the ages. Unfortunately, it is certain that there will be a bunch of loonies who also feel that extraterrestrials are obviously demons; man was made in God's image, after all. These are simply tests from above to see how we will adapt.

Re:Or how about

[krymsin01]

That's funny, I have, several times.

Then again, if you go looking for them you'll find someone who believes anything you can come up with.

Re:Dolphin Communication

[DZign]

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.

Re:Or how about

[ThaReetLad]

Can you really evangelize as an AC? Now there's a moral question.