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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."
ok, a really really big one actually.
smallpox is a virus , not a bacteria .
What I'm really ashamed of is that the US could come up on war crime charges.
Actually, it couldn't. The International Criminal Court is the court that deals with war crimes now, and the US has done everything it can to avoid it having jurisdiction over US citizens, even to the point of passing a law that allows the president to invade holland and forcibly take back any detained suspected war criminals that have a US passport. In addition to measures like cutting of aid to countries that ratify the ICC.
To me Bush has been unusually prescient with respect to avoiding any culpability of US citizens for war crimes committed around the world.
I can't download that torrent. I get an error about being rejected by tracker because my IP is not registered.
damn skippy. we kick ass.
And that's exactly why "we" are largely resented around the world.
yeah. stupid jealous world.
The point is that He loves us so much that in order that we could get to know Him, He gave us the free will to reject him. It's the old story of "If you love someone, set them free". This is why there is pain and suffering in the world. It is the ineviable consequence of people turning there back on God and placing themselves above Him.
Once you accept Jesus as you personal Lord and saviour the inevitable consequence if you really mean that is that you will start trying to be more like him. In fact, what you want from life gets closer to what God wants from you. Usually that means turning up to church late one evening to clean it, or taking food to drug addicts and prostitutes. Jesus himself got down on the floor and washed the feet of his apostles. The moral is that those who put themselves above aother people, and more importantly above God, which is what you are doing by saying he is wrong, cannot really know who God is. If you really believe, you simply cannot "Half Ass" it. You may fail miserably all the time, but so long as its not willful thats OK. And even then you can repent as many times as you have to. God sets no limit on his forgiveness until the day you die.
I recommend reading Job for this kind of question. After God lets the Devil kill Jobs animals and wife and children, Job says (and I'm going from memory here)
"I entered the world naked and I will leave it naked. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Praise be the name of the Lord".
The reason he can do this is that life is essentially a gift from God, but equally meaningless to him, because what is important to Him is that in the time you have you choose Him and spend eternity with Him in heaven.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
I promise you ...
Quit posting AC, chickenshit. If you have something to hide in this "discussion", you're just an imbecile with no convictions and there's nothing here to discuss.
Now then, if I were interested in learning the tenets of a nasty little cult that refuses to let people know them who haven't already joined, you'd have a point. However, since I'm of the opinion that anyone who would start a "religion" and then actively attempt to keep its information concealed is completely full of shit, and that's what I'm inviting you to respond to, I don't see how knowing any of those things is relevant. When I come back and argue about the content of the cult, fine, go wild. Until then, however, you're full of shit, and so are all the scientologists.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Tough isn't it, this question. I've been praying about this and the answer I came up with is that the torture of hell is the inevitable consequence of free will, which was God's greatest gift to us.
I suspect that when we die and meet our maker one of two things will happen. Firstly you see God for what he is, and become instantly aware or all that you have done that was wrong. Now either you know that God loves you and has forgiven you, in which case you can exist happily in his presence, or you fear His wrath in which case you flee.
I'm sure I'm way off, but it makes sense to me.
As for Hitler, IF he was devine then, yes slaughtering jews would be good, but I'm not aware of much evidence that would demonstrate Hitlers divinity.
Our modern standards of what is good and what is evil could be said to come from conscience, which could also be said to be Gods law written on our hearts, as Jesus promised. The problem is that we have a tremendous capacity for self delusion and can convince ourselves that almost anything can be justified.
I should point out that I only really became a christian a couple of months ago so my thoughts may not be fully formed or consistent, but what I can say with certainty is that in that short time I have seen God work miracles in my life and that getting to know his goodness is a simply amazing experience. He is real, He does love us, and he know what is best for us.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
/me licks moofie's ear.
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you must understand there will be innocent people killed on both sides
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.
I'll ignore the rest of your personal attacks and random conformist propaganda. BTW, where are those weapons of mass destruction?
Thanks for being honest, but I find it hard to believe you can't see the hypocrisy in that statement. So here's the big question:
What if the person who is murdered for the supposed benefit of others is YOU OR YOUR FAMILY?
It is murder, plain and simple. Prove that it isn't.
If you kill a human being to supposedly save another, you are no hero, you are a bloody murderer.
The idea behind libertarianism is the zero-aggression principle.
If the zero-aggression principle is noble, then how can the deliberate killing of innocent people (an act of aggression if there ever was one) ALSO be noble as you claimed before?
That doesn't change a thing. If you kill one innocent human being to supposedly save 100 then you are still a bloody murderer.