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

Re:I respectfully disagree.

[fucksl4shd0t]

Not to mention that Christianity, as far as I know, at least, was the original anti-competitive embrace and extend monopoly. ;)

But if I were you, and I'm not, I wouldn't worry so much about offending people. Fuck 'em. Why is it concerned acceptable in modern society to preach about God, but questioning God is so offensive? Fuck that. Fuck God, for that matter. Fuck Jesus, fuck 'em all. Moses was a twerp, the Pharoah was just a pussy to give in to that guy (oh wait a minute, he never gave in, did he? Moses needed the power of God to save his people from the pharoah, didn't he?). Jesus is the role-model pothead: smoke too much, start believing you're the son of God, preach about peace and love. We had millions of 'em in the '60s and '70s, and those fuckers are still around, and they all look like Jesus. Jesus was just a psychedelic drug abusing bad smelling hippy. Fuck 'im. Who needs him?

And if this offends anybody, fuck off.

:)