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Vatican Astronomer Comments On Extraterrestrials

Posted by simoniker on from the somewhere-out-there dept.

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."

6 of 1,312 comments (clear)

  1. I doubt it by Ckwop · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

    1. Re:I doubt it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

      Beyond the fact that Christians don't mind that Jesus was Jewish, there is other contrary evidence to that right here on earth... Christianity, fundamentally, is an extension to Judaism that says "you jews have gone off course and gotten things wrong." Islam says to Christianity, "well, BOTH you and the Jews have gone off course." In either case, the new religion on the block says to the old, "we're kind of like you, only you've messed up so much that God sent us to get the truth straight again."

      Given this, it would truly be ironic if some aliens came down and proclaimed that they were true Christians (or Jews, or Buddists, or any other group you care to go with), but that the whole lot of us had gotten Christ, Moses, Mohammad or Buddha all wrong. They would basically be calling us heretics within our own religions. We've done that enough on or own, so why should we assume that somebody else wouldn't?

  2. Advanced tech indistinguishable from magic... by writertype · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...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.

  3. Re:Or how about by kamapuaa · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The Western notion of God means the being is all-powerful, morally perfect, and the creator of the universe. It's difficult to believe people would start bowing down, like it was C3PO with the Ewoks...

    There's already a lot of people who believe in Grey Aliens, but I haven't heard of people interpreting these Greys to be Christian angels or demons.

    --
    Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
  4. Parallels by ArbiterOne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. Re:Or how about by Micro$will · · Score: 5, Interesting

    McCoy: Just once, I'd like to beam down on some planet and say. "Behold, for I am the arch angel Gabriel!"
    Spock: I fail to see the humor in that doctor.

    Something even more amusing would be the discovery of aliens that take offence to the fact we don't believe in their god and start blowing us up. Oh wait, that happens right here...