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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."
We discover intelligent life up there immeasurably superior to ourselves and they become our new gods.
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
In all the time I've spent pondering extra-terrestrial life I've never onced considered wasting my time trying to convert 'em to the baby Jesus. It's funny enough that humans still waste their time with these ludicrous old superstitions.
Now wash your hands.
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.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
All hail Ming, our Emperor!
All these years, I've been telling you, I hope now that you see it as clearly as I do. I for one welcome.. err.. ok.
Even if any aliens were to have a concept of good and evil there's no reason why they would see things the way we do. Just look at how it is on Earth: there are people who genuinely believe it is 'good' to do things that many now believe are profoundly evil. Take the Spanish Inquisition, for example: they really believed that it was the right thing to torture suspects - give a sinner hell here, so they don't suffer so much in the next world.
In fact, I don't think there is anybody that considers himself 'evil', no matter what.
Interplanetry Mormons or quantum presbytaryans
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
...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.
and so no longer need primitive belief systems.
They may even know why we're here and what comes next
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FYI, "flamebait" isn't a synonym for "I disagree".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
He also seems to miss out the option whereby we atract the attention of "agents of free will" who have already discovered evil. Am I right in thinking that currently it's illegal to attempt to communicate with an ET without UN approval, or something? In case they wander over and rape our planet/enslave us all/demand McNeal.
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I find the prospect of a mass space-conversion by Jehovah's witnesses to be unlikely. How are they gonna knock on all those doors? Better chances: Hare Krishnas They can appeal to the disaffected alien youth! Islam: Convert or we will crash this spaceship into your planet! Scientology: Will work briefly with its appeal to science and reason, but will suffer a backlash after aliens are treated to a free screening of Battlefield Earth
The discovery of extra-terrestrial intelligence would be catastrophic for organized religion. What if they have the exact same religion as one of the ones on Earth? Then it must be the correct one, and there's no such thing as faith anymore, and at least 80% of the Earth's population was wrong all along. What if they DON'T share any of our religions? Then ALL of ours must be wrong.
qntm.org
They give us plans to build a mysterious worm hole transportation device, some zealous religious nut destroys it, but Jodie Foster gets into another one made in Japan, trips out on a few psychedelic visions, meets her father who looks slightly like Douglas Adams, comes back and says it's all about being happy with your life.
Meanwhile, Steve Jobs' pagan cult goes unchallenged.
Asking the Vatican about Religion.
Mistake No. 2
Thinking a dying Pantheon would interest already Illuminated Extra Terrestrials.
... that getting rid of our Jehovah's Witnesses is a good idea but the potential of a hostile alien reaction is probably very good. Just imagine if we were invaded with the alien version of Jehovah's Witnesses... Aaggggghhhhhhh!!!
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One doesn't have to go back in history to see how worlds that collide have one side winning while the other side becomes victims of genocide. The warlike Caribs met the peaceful Arawaks in the Caribbean. The Caribs promptly enslaved and if I remember pretty well wiped them out. The "white man's" encounter with Native Americans led to the decimation of their culture and the annexation of their lands. We (white civilization) also introduced them to a form of biological warfare in the form of smallpox bacteria in blankets.
I personally hope that any alien life form will just pass us by. Why would their motives be any more benign than history has shown us time and time again by other peoples who in one way or another were superior? As far as SETI is concerned, it makes me cringe. My hope is that we keep a low profile and this blue marble is overlooked by any alien life form.
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
Just goes to show that religion isn't against science and vice versa. There's a wide-held misconception that science and religion are so conflicting with one another that you cannot believe in both areas of life.
There is the belief that science seemingly sets out to disprove the existence of a god-figure. For example, it is through science that the seemingly anti-religious evolutionary theory is 'proven' and the creationist theory is 'proven' wrong.
Then again, there are those who study science and astromony and actually come to believe in a god figure. It is claimed that many astronomers and scientists actually do believe in God because all their research leads them to believe that there must be a superior being, case in point Brother Guy Consolmagno. It's the philosophers who say "If you believe in God, you won't when you walk out of my lesson in an hour."
...or at least it's not how I interpret it.
When the Astronomer is talking about the second scenario, he sees the critical description of that scenario as that "there are other Words in other languages to other cultures". According to Christian Theology (as quoted by him from the opening lines of the book of John), the Word of God existed before humanity did. In other words, the aliens we encounter will have already experienced God, that "need to overcome evil in the world".
He doesn't necessarily think that he's going to be converting them in this scenario. As I see it, he thinks that they will have already encountered some form of Christianity, perhaps in a form completely different from the one seen here on Earth, and that Christians may be able to learn from their encounters with (what he believes is) the same God.
I should hope that a species more advanced than us wouldn't fall for creationist stories without a lick of proof. Okay, mod me down as flame bait... but if creationism wasn't so ingrained into our culture and upbringing every one of our religions would sound absolutely ludicrous.
See the video. Check out Wired.
The video looks pretty convincing, and according to AP and Reuters, the Mexican military is standing behind the story.
The detailed information is at Rense.
The interesting thing is that the Mexican plane was a drug interdiction aircraft with advanced radar and forward-looking infrared. It was designed precisely for the task of finding, intercepting and identifying unidentified aircraft, and it sounds like the data was handled in a way that would meet legal evidentiary standards (for obvious reasons: it was designed to convict drug smugglers).
Maybe the Vatican missed a fourth option: they're already here.
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.
The arrogance of these statements is quite startling, and reflects the typically dogmatic view of the Vatican (although I guess being dogmatic is basically what they're supposed to do - Jesus says 'don't use condoms'!).
For one thing, suggesting that we might convert aliens to Christianity is pretty much akin to suggesting that less well developed parts of the world might have had a chance to convert western explorers to their local animalist or totemist belief system. To take it even further, it might be like suggesting that an advanced primate like a Gorilla would have a chance of converting a human to its belief system (presumably based around sitting in a jungle doing nothing). Any race able to contact us or travel to get here is likely to be far more ethically and morally advanced that we are - it will, after all, have survived the equivalent of a nuclear age of technology without annihilating itself, and must therefore have a high degree of moral thinking.
Read Pynchon.
that's a logical fallacy.
Or a "straw man argument". Dolphins are not even aliens.
Whilst we are on the subject, this story has been shooting around the world; some very interesting infra-red footage shot by the Mexican Airforce shows...make up your own mind. The footage was shot by drug interdiction aircraft on patrol for smugglers.
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C.S. Lewis covered this a while ago. He addressed most of the relevant religious questions pertaining to the existence of extraterrestrial life in a far more rigorous and interesting manner than this article could dream of. I highly recommend reading Out of the Silent Planet, if only for his excellent writing.
"I would give my right hand to be ambidextrous."
Looking at it from the point of view of someone who is a Christian, it is hard to see how Aliens would be like us. Either:
They've never screwed up like we did and had the 'Fall' - so they have no concept of good or evil - in which case I doubt any meeting would be allowed to occur. My other problem with this is that the Bible, and the world around us, suggests that creation has also been affected by our mistake. There's far too much in nature that "isn't right" as people say.
Or:
They have had their own equivalent of the fall, and are just like us, the kind of Aliens you don't want to meet (think we'd avoid war in that scenario?). Considering the unique role of Jesus Christ, this would also be unlikely to be allowed by God.
I guess there's a third scenario too. The Bible isn't particularly specific on where angels and demons are (though they do business on Earth already). It is possible that some supposed UFO or alien encounters are a result of this. It's not entirely impossible, especially considering the apocalyptic sections of the Bible, that as part of some end times scenario, people beleive that we have encountered aliens (with the reality being more sinister).
Personally, the distance to our nearest stars, which may not even support life, looks suspiciously like a "buffer zone".
I'm sure that to those who do not beleive in any of the Bible, or in God, or Jesus, this sounds like nonsense. Hopefully its interesting though, and won't be modded down simply by those disagreeing. Also it would be interesting the different opinion that other beleivers have, not necessarily agreeing I'm sure!
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That's odd. I think a lot of the shit surrounding "Passion of the Christ" stemmed from the fact that Gibson rejected some of the Vatican's reforms. In particular, his splinter group of Catholisim ignores the reforms which absolved the Jewish people, collectivly, of culpability for Jesus's death.
Historically, there have been many pogroms and a lot of anti-sematism which stemmed from the notion that 'the Jews killed Jesus' and should collectivly be punished for it till they convert.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
This is quite timely, considering the reports of UFO's coming from Mexico as well as reported in Iran, although for me, one of the most intriguing cases happened in Belgium, over a decade ago. Slightly more on topic, I think that something he doesn't really touch upon here is what happens when two cultures of vastly differing technology meet; in nearly all (if not all) cases in history of such a collision, it is always the weaker culture that either perishes (is absorbed) or is greatly affected by the sudden influx of ideas and technoloy. If aliens do visit us, then their technology is obviously greatly superior to our own, and I can see similar things happening (we would begin to adopt their technology, which in addition to contact, would lead to massive culture change). Of course, some people would hate the aliens and vow to eradicate them, whilst others would look to them as gods themselves.....well, it's all conjecture, but it's interesting stuff!
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.
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The problem with good and evil is that they are open to interpretation.
During the colonisation of America the settlers considered Slave Labor good.
In Hitler's point of view he was doing a good thing.
The Al Qaida is fighting for what they believe is right.
Of course I know this is flame bait.
And I don't even agree with their point of views.
But fact of the matter is. It's culture that decides what's good and evil. So if we meet aliens, and they start invading us, and reeducating us. Who's to say they aren't doing it because they think they're doing the right thing.
Face it, you can't predict the outcome of a meeting with an alien race.
First off, the summary puts words in his mouth: "As agents of free-will, the aliens are self-aware of good and evil, thus convertible to some terrestrial religion."
He doesn't even IMPLY that.
What he SAYS is that if we can communicate intelligently with the aliens the question becomes, are religious concepts of right and wrong UNIVERSAL, and if so would their concepts match ours? He hopes so.
Later on, he states: "The other thing that happens is that each side learns from the other, inevitably. And the sense of acculturation continually goes on. It went on when the missionaries from Italy showed up in Ireland. Irish sensibilities became part of the Christian milieu. German sensibilities. Russian sensibilities. Every culture has added something to the mix, and brought something out of the mix. It's inevitable. You can't pretend that it's a one-way street. Even if you wanted it to be a one-way street, it wouldn't be."
He also answered the reverse question (Aliens converting us):
"We can't even convert ourselves"
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!
Perhaps 'first contact' will spark a re-enacment of how so-called 'tribal' religions came to be replaced, violently or non violently by 'great religions.' (the Aiwa (sp?) in Japan were mostly replaced by the Japanese, the Hopi were replaced by Christians. Muslims spread over N. Africa replacing whatever proto-voodo gods were native there (I don't know) etc.)
The theme is this - religions for small, racially similar groups of people are replaced by religions for larger, less racially similar groups of people. Religion helps justify this takeover.
Great religions often deal more with conversion than tribal religions.
I wonder if this trend will apply to extra-terrestrial religions. Will such religions tend to be converting religions? Will Extra terrestrials have eliminated the notion of 'race' from their religion and culture?
If so, will such a culture focus on genetically assimilating creatures along with religious and cultural conversion?
Considering how universal Nietzche's 'Will to Power' is likely to be, I sometimes wonder if aliens will be like Nazis, but with forcible genetic engineering rather than gas chambers.
Furthermore, since religion and nationalism have always been strongly linked, what kind of religion will a space-faring race have, considering that they will be the first intelligent creatures who aren't bounded by nations and territory as we know it.
I think living in space will have a profound impact on nationality, and thus religion, because it will eliminate the notion of fixed land, which is the basis of nationality. If sattelites can become self-supporting it will allow people to redefine how they organize themselves and choose citizenship.
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Just thinking.. suppose we were advanced enough to be able to travel between the stars and came across another civilisation who were just making it into space, what decides whether we make contact or not.
This is kind of a prime directive situation, where a major factor would probably be how religious that civilisation is. Somebody weighing this with us would probably think that religion has too much control and it would almost certainly mean war. They wouldn't want that so they back off and leave us to evolve.
It is anti-semetic to blame all Jews for all time for somthing that happened over 2000 years ago. It's even anti-semetic to blame all Jews when Jesus was alive. The Sanhedrin was a Roman puppet.
Should I say "The Christians were responsible for killing Jews during the Holocaust" because some Christians were involved in it. And should I conclude from this that all Christians for all time are murderers until they change their religion? The notion is absurd.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Yes the Jews and the Romans physically killed him, but it was ultimately His choice to die, and to that end we all killed him by failing to be perfect.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
I'm not trying to offend anyone here, so I will be very careful with my words. This is just my opinion, but I think that deliberately setting out to encourage others to join your system of beliefs is not a good or responsible thing to do. Simply in the act of proffering a particular belief system on others, you are necessarily advocating that point of view. It is your opinion. The way that many Christian Churches have acted in the past has been to enshrine their doctrine in myth and ritual, and to withhold the fact that Christianity was a point of view, not the point of view.
I just think that religion is something that must be spread through people being shown the true possibilities in terms of belief systems that are available to them, rather than having ideas thrust at you by parents or Clerics.
Just my 2 cents, feel free to disagree! That is your right, just as this opinion is mine.
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
There's much dismissal of the notion of aliens taking our religion seriously. And I tend to agree. But it does make for a fun "what if" scenario.
What if the aliens did take to our religious beliefs? What if the Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons did manage to convert them? Either scenario would be particularly entertaining, since presumably the aliens would then undertake the same activities as the human Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons on Earth, to the limits that their biologies would allow. Hell, I'd look forward to them coming to my door. I would be able to forgive all the other shortcomings of the 'future' (lack of flying cars, rocketpacks, etc.) if every now I could open my door to find a couple of small grey aliens in white shirts and black ties, earnest looks on their faces, asking me about my thoughts on God. I'd still slam the door in their faces, of course, but I'd have a little "Well, whaddya know?" smile on my face as I did so.
Indeed, conversion to any branch of Christianity would provide endless entertainment, since we would have yet another party laying claim to Jerusalem as the holiest city. Or perhaps we could one day look forward to a "Passion" remake, complete with an alien Jesus dragging the cross? I wonder, would the Christian aliens still nurse a mild resentment of the Jews? Or would aliens be more likely to become Jews themselves, able to accept the idea of God but not a human Messiah? Man, would that ever get some people going. Osama bin Laden would just shit himself.
Of course, they may not go for a mainstream religion. Maybe they'll become convinced that the ultimate arbiter of religious truth is some dude leading a cult somewhere in the wilds of Montana. Maybe they'd all become Branch Davidians, or some equivalent thereof.
Mind you, the alternative to us converting them is even more fun. I personally would go to church--or whatever you would call it--every week, if the purpose were to worship some whacked-out alien god. All hail the Great Slug of the Cosmos, perhaps. Hell, I'll even worship Kah'less if I get to play with a Bat'leth.
Thinking about this sort of stuff is more fun than a box full of puppies.
In a world without walls, there is no need for Windows.
A logical fallacy is to say "just by that scenario existing ...we have something in common with them". This is assuming that an alien race must be reasonably similar to ours, whereas the aliens might be in relation to us as we are to dolphins.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
> now they will have to agree for Jesus with eight tentacles?
Naw, you're confusing him with his surly cousin from R'lyeh.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I'm a linguist who spends a fair bit of time thinking about these sorts of things (I have a cat, of course!), and I just wanted to say that your post was very well-written and raises a few questions that I enjoy thinking about.
Your first point, that we haven't ever needed to communicate with dolphins and vice versa is a very good one that many professional linguists really don't get. Communication only comes about when it is an advantage to both parties.
One thing that is important here I think is to clearly distinguish communication from language. Most animal species can and do communicate with each other (and in some cases, with humans), ranging in complexity from ants to chimpanzees, but it is yet to be proven that any animals use language in any ways outside of a purely functional manner. Humans use language in so many ways - as a functional, communicative tool, as a system of recording facts, as a social construct for building groups of humans... I could go on. I don't think there are all that many documented cases of animals showing these kinds of behaviours.
But, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence! I personally have a feeling that cats do understand what humans say very, very well. Down to the word level. I'm not sure what their syntax is like (i.e. whether they can interpret meaning above the word level, as phrases or sentences) but Aristotle, my cat, picks up on quite a lot of phrases, such as 'vet', 'bad cat', 'good cat' and all those mundane things, including the name of every kind of food he likes. I also have a bilingual friend whose cats understand his English and Spanish very well. Of course, all this isn't very scientific, but there are reasons to suspect that cats do understand us very well. They have been hanging around us for a long, long time... perhaps since the dawn of farming techniques and granary construction, 2000 bce or earlier. You could even say we have a symbiotic relationship with cats, i.e. a mutually beneficial relationship. They eat the mice, birds and insects that come after our food, which is good for everyone. Except when they hunt the neighbours pigeons, stupid things. (Pigeons, not cats!)
I think there's still a lot we don't know about this kind of thing, but I'm always looking into it!
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
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
Odds are that if they are aware of good and evil and advanced enough to be space-faring then they will probably have higher moral standards than anything christianity has to provide...
High moral standards are what makes cooperation possible. Tolerance of differences is probably neccesary, and that certainly isn't taught by christianity.
Or maybe im just projecting my own standards onto aliens... but the christian concept of moral seems to be pretty low compared to what humanism can provide.
"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." -George H.W. Bush
Why did I blow all my mod points yesterday?
Religion is truly the highest form of comedy
There is, of course, an existing tradition of Christian thought on extraterrestrial life.
C.S. Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy is probably the best known example: Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra took H.G. Wells as its point of departure and speculated upon other world in which the corruption and redemption of humanity and nature had followed different courses. (I never got far into Vol. 3, so I can't recommend it.) Probably both are in a library near you.
Going back a little farther, the poetry of the Catholic writer Alice Meynell (1847-1922) touched on a few of these themes, e.g. in 'Christ in the Universe':
Meynell's works are available online.
There is no god and the aliens know it for sure and can prove it also
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"Convertible to some form of terrestrial religion". Yeah right...
Forget about religion, how about cultural assimilation?
Read this exerpt from the Brookings report from 1960 comissioned from NASA about finding extraterrestrial life, it will make you think twice. Perhaps this is why the goverment is hiding the truth that "they" are already here. Oh and don't forget to see that Mexico video, just another iron in the fire so to speak.
--
Proposed Studies On The Implications Of
Peaceful Space Activities For Human Affairs
By
Brookings Institution, 1960
Report To The 87th Congress, Union Calendar 79
Report Number 242
For
National Aeronautics And Space Administration
The general public
1.As with other matters not central to day-to-day living, the
public, considered as a whole, is probably only selectively
attentive to and knowledgeable about space activities. The
relationship between the impact of events on indifferent or only
occasionally interested people and their attitudes and values is
but partly understood and needs further study.
2.It has been alleged that the "public" is optimistic about
space activities. If this is so and if the optimism is
widespread, the present support it generates for the space
program may not be lasting if the difficulties inherent in space
efforts have not been appreciated enough to make the failure of
specific projects understandable. The resulting disillusionment
may be a serious factor in reducing public support as space
efforts become more grandiose, the consequences of payoff more
exciting, and the losses from failure more dramatic. On the other
hand, this optimism, if it exists, may produce a state of mind
tolerant of failures. The factors affecting optimism, realism,
and tolerance of frustration need more study as an aid in
preparing for this situation. The roles of the promoter spokesman
and the mass media in encouraging expectations of great and
imminent accomplishments are integral to this problem area and
would benefit from research.
3.The conviction that space activities will broaden man's
horizons are presently based on the perspectives and special
interests of a relatively few people in western societies. The
claim may be justified, but there is need for research to assist
understanding of the conditions under which innovations broaden
or narrow perspectives in various cultures. For example,
sufficient emphasis on space as the proper expression of man's
highest aspirations may result in the evolution of a broadly
based belief that this is so. But whether or not this is likely
to be the case cannot now be decided in view of our limited
understanding of how new ideas disseminate through societies. If
and as horizons were broadened as a result of space activities,
other aspirations would compete with them for attention and
resources, and continuous study would be required to evaluate the
appropriate position of space in this competition.
4.Though intelligent or semi-intelligent life conceivably
exists elsewhere in our solar system, if intelligent
extraterrestrial life is discovered in the next twenty years, it
will very probably be by radio telescope from other solar
systems. Evidences of its existence might also be found in
artifacts left on the moon or other planets. The consequences for
attitudes and values are unpredictable, but would vary profoundly
in different cultures and between groups within complex
societies; a crucial factor would be the nature of the
communication between us and the other beings. Whether or not
earth would be inspired to an all-out space effort by such a
discovery is moot: societies sure of their own place in the
universe have disintegrated when confronted by a superior
society, and others have survived even though changed. Clearly,
the better we can come to understand the factors involved i
Just because we are (inevitably) steeped in Christian culture does not meen that every religion (here on earth) conforms to the same basic models.
In the given question of how religions would respond to this 'new' reality, I think would fair quite nicely. Budism and Hinduism would have little if any problem with this, and would probably brag about their general philosophy of univeralism. Jews would find some 2,000 year old comment, saying that they always knew this. Muslims would most likely be outraged. Aithiests would have an absolute fit, when they translated the alien pledge of aliegence. And the Georga school board may finally allow the teaching of evolution (that the Aliens came from apes).
The basic need for faith, in something, by far exceeds the need to keep ones world view intelectualy honest.
And maybe that's a good thing.
ps. Even if *WHEN* we discover ET, that doesn't prove or disprove anything other than ETs do exist, and really prefer M&Ms over Reeces-Peeces.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
The question of whether an alien civilization might convert Earth to their religion, or become a religion unto themselves, is left unconsidered.
:-)
I heard about a religion a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The priests of this religion wore plain brown robes and carried sabers made out of light. They were (supposed to be) good and kind and helped fight evil.
I've never even met this alien civilization and I already want to convert to Jedi.
As an aside, if you think that cats are impressive, try owning a dog sometime. Both I and one of my brothers go to college, and yet when my mother says one of our names, the dog immediately stands up and wags her tail. This is after not seeing us for months. Yes, household pets are quite adept at recognizing words, but can they string those words together to form more elaborate concepts? I would argue no. In the example of my dog, she can relate names to individuals (when we are actually present, saying "go to [name]" will produce the correct response), but she can't understand that a name can refer to someone who is not present. She certainly understands "would you like to go for a walk?" but can't understand "walk" in any context that does not involve taking her outside. Likewise with your cat, would it be able to understand it if you said something else was good or bad? Probably not.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I think it likely that a race that can devote enough resources to exploring interstellar space will already have settled most of their domestic disputes, which more or less implies that they subscribe to a strong common set of values, e.g. some sort of "religion" (I use the term loosely).
If they come here and see us squabbling over the meager resources of our planet, I think it more likely that they would want to convert us to their views than the opposite.
I think the same argument applies to us. If we don't stop fighting amonst ourselves, we won't ever get anywhere with our space exploration. As long as most resources are tied up in military programs, space will have to wait. Getting to the Moon is nice and all, but the travels will get increasingly expensive as we try to get outside of our own solarsystem.
On the other hand, I believe in the "wisdom" of Star Trek - First Contact, if we ever encounter another race, people are probably going to be so scared that many Earthly conflicts will be set aside.
Those who think they can disprove God by finding alien life better think again.
;)
There is NO REASON whatsoever to believe that Earth is the only creation, or even this universe. I happen to be Roman Catholic. The discovery of aliens would not shake my religious foundation one bit.
I see science not as competition for religion, but as complimentary. When we discover how things work, we discover more about God.
I have no problem accepting evolution as the PROCEESS that was used, for example.
I don't like the extremists on either side on this debate. On one side, you have the atheists, who think science can replace religion. Then, on the other side, you religious nutcases who think the Earth is only 5,000 years old, who scream BLASPHEMY! at you when you mention Mars is closer than it's been in 600,000 years.
But those types of nutcases aren't Roman Catholic, but they are a lot of my neighbors here in Easern Kentucky
We should be seeking to discover other life for many reasons, none of which have to do with proving or disproving God. Either task is impossible, BTW.
Corporatism != Free Market
I think the common frame of reference is very important. With pets we tend to learn what they are after but it only works for the common things. We can tell the difference between them wanting out and them wanting food but maybe not between them wanting food and wanting water. For the pet, they may have a different frame of reference than we do but the position of their food and water dishes are close enough that we may not pick up a suttle difference in their message. They also may see the world much differentlly than we do. For example, my new pet is 3 mos old and is starting to learn that she's not allowed on the table however from her point of view, that only applies if shes jumping up on the table, not down to it. I think I have taught her not to jump on the table but in her mind, I may have taught her not to jump up from the kitchen chairs.
- Guy lives on some alien planet where he has introduced metalworking etc materials to some highly litteral-minded aliens (I forget their name) who create beautiful artifacts.
- Priest comes to convert them all to Christianity. ("They are all God's children")
- Guy disagrees and tries to stop him (by philosiphy).
- Aliens are converted and build a church.
- Aliens decide that the matter would best be decided by a miracle. With their annoying logic they choose to crucify the priest to see if he comes back to life.
- Guess what. He doesn't.
A moral of the story is: People are innocent before they commit murder, but not after."We can't communicate with dolphins because we didn't have the need to do so."
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Based on the information I've read, chances are fairly good that the first life we encounter will be bacteriological, not something as sophisticated as Mankind.
The UFO thing has sorta been bothering me. All these stories that ask whether or not these things are UFOs.
Here's an easy answer: Yes! They're Unidentified! They appear to be flying! They're objects!
I'm pretty sure that serves all the relevant criteria, right there.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here we are, possibly a century or more before interstellar travel is possible (maybe) and we already need a Prime Directive to reign in the Pope. ;)
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
"At the end of the day, every civilization is Christian, except the human race is still not too sure about this." Granted he's a Catholic, he's not terribly polite or open-minded about the Japanese, Chinese, Muslim etc. civilisations, which he appears not to think of as 'civilization'
In the eyes of a person who shares your morals, no. But if the Nazis has won the war, I suspect many people would have had no moral problem with it. Morals are not absolute or universal. It's true that you can apply your moral values to any point in history and say that (for instance) human sacrifice has always been wrong in your eyes. But that doesn't prove that morals are universal. How do you know that human sacrifice is wrong? Why have so many religions actively promoted it?
would it be right no matter how many supported it?
No. Your morality isn't based on what a majority think. It's based on what you believe to be right or wrong (although that is usually strongly influenced by the culture that you are in - hence most people, I suspect, today believe that genocide and human sacrifice are wrong). But different people do have different views on it - therefore there is no univeral morality.
...This story is a TROLL.
I am reminded of a story by Arthur C. Clarke. Two IBM programmers are brought out to Sri Lanka to work in a monastery at the top of a mountain. The monks believe that if all the nearly infinite names of God are recited, the universe will come to an end. Their job is to write a program that will be run on a mainframe at the monastery to try and generate all those names. Someone out there probably knows the name of this short story.
BTW, one of the posts near the top of this discussion is correct. The Roman Catholic Church (my flavor of Christianity) is now very much at ease with the results of all the scientific discoveries of the past few centuries. One of our fundamentalist friends is a "Young Earth Creationist". Sorry, but I gotta laugh when told that humans and dinosaurs walked the Earth together. All the animals were vegetarians (even T-Rex) until Adam and Eve shared that apple/pomegranate. Huh?
Dear Fellow Slashdotters, most of the world's religions are fine with scientific discovery. The great "undiscovered country" out there is the focus of most religions. What are humans capable of when their mind, body and spirit are all completely aligned on their spritual "North Star"? What matters is not material things but things like love, hope, joy, justice and so on. Mother Teresa (already beatified, now awaiting canonization- Sainthood. Similar to a certification from Verisign finally completing for the tech-obsessed) spoke of the spiritual poverty of Americans as compared with the spiritual wealth of the poor of Calcutta. Religion does not need these routine bashings on Slashdot. I have found most of it is good for helping keep the neighbor's kids from trying to break into my house. Without it, I am certain that mere Earthly laws and law enforcement will leave us much poorer in every way. Since the tyranny of the ACLU and atheists was unleashed by the Warren Court, we have seen what happens when God is driven out of America at every turn. As a lifelong historian, I truly believe that America was better off when it wasn't trying to force religion out of the public sphere at every turn. I would be fine with seeing crosses, stars of David, crescents, and Buddha statues all over America. Let the government referee the occasional conflict instead of suppressing them unevenly which is the current game. Studying anything BUT our major legacy of faith, Christianity, is fine for public educational facilities now.(e.g. universities down to elementary shcools) The anti-Chrisitan crowd that has been extending its reach through government is totally fine with promoting every religion but Chrisitanity. The Founding Fathers wisely chose not to establish state religions, (unlike Europe where tax dollars go straight to state religions) but their separation of Church and State was trying to protect BOTH. The protection of the State should not come at the expense of one particular practice of faith. If it must be paid, it should be paid evenly by Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and so on. The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. Everyone has made a religious choice since exposure to religion is inescapable. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. -Rush
In principio erat Verbum.
Umm, no .... I saw the ABC interview with Gibson where he specifically states he does not blame the Jews for Jesus's death. His father is the wackjob that denies the holicaust and blames Jews, not Mel himself.
the more alarming thing is that secularist revisionists have twisted history so as to claim that the Crusades were unprovoked. they were a reaction to the unprovoked maurading accross north africa (burning the library of alexandria), spain, and half of france.
there is much evidence that shows that the so called "golden age of spain" was concocted in the early 1900s as propoganda so the British people would not mind allieing with the Turks.
Then how do we train them to do little tricks at our whim?
One could argue that there is some form of communication going on there.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
So if an alien species looks like us (has a mouth that serves respiratory and ingestion functions, a tongue) they probably evolved in similar circumstances and therefore have a basis for understanding.
But an incredibly different species could be extremely intelligent but we wouldn't be able to communicate (verbally, maybe even electronically) with them because their medium for thought transmission evolved in a completely different manner
Imagine a species that used special appendages to communicate, kind of like sign language. We wouldn't know where to begin because we don't have those appendages, and it would look like a bunch of flailing to us.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
The salvation by "faith not works" thing is a bit more complicated. One cannot discount the book of James (as Luther would have liked) which states that "faith without works is dead". However, I do not see the contradiction between that and Paul's words that faith alone is needed. If someone DOES have true faith in God who is goodness, then they *will* do good works. Or else what they have is not really faith.
The good works thing IS important, as "by their fruit you will know them" (Jesus describing how to know false prophets in the Gospel). Someone can't be going around professing faith in God and yet living without any attempt at good behaviour. The two aren't compatible. Now to those that do have faith, grace is given to help them obey the Lord.
Those who decry the do-gooders for in example, the Catholic church (preaching salvation by works) have missed the point. These people would not be doing such works were it not for their faith. I do subscribe to criticism of this position of preaching - it can confuse. Of course, so too can the most ardent "faith alone" preachers (profess faith and just sit back).
In conclusion, yes, it begins with faith. But true faith IS shown by the works of those who have that faith.
As James says, even the demons not only believe in the existence of God - but fear Him.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
And suppose we contact some alien civilizations; and some humans send them one of our Bibles; and the aliens say: "yeah! the same Savior came to our planet, too!"
Evidence works both ways, you know.
Personally, I'm an atheist, but I acknowledge that my atheism is falsifiable.
It's easy to point at other people's beliefs and say "look! they are gonna have such a crisis of belief when we expand our circle of knowledge!" But intellectual honesty and humility compels me to consider: what kind of evidence would make me change my mind about atheism?
Come to think of it, maybe our obsession with religion and mistrust of science is the reason we haven't been contacted by more intelligent species yet. Maybe they're waiting to see if we all nuke one another out of existence because of religious and race wars (!)
The scary thing about the parent comment was that it was modded "informative" rather than "funny". There are some hardcore Subgenii out there I tell ya.
Praise Bob.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
You're wrong. Well, you're right if you read Paul and pretend that Jesus didn't say anything. Jesus and Paul don't agree on many things. Salvation is probably the biggest one. Consider this scripture:
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
Mat 25:31-46.
Here Jesus gathers up everyone in the world ("all the nations") and judges them. What is the criteria for judgement? Faith? Abosolutely not! Jesus doesn't even mention faith! The criteria is works and works alone.
That's it. Nothing else to it. It's in black and white in the Bible. You'd have to actually read it to know that, though.
Nice little dig. Unfortunately for you, I *do* read the Bible and know exactly how flawed it is and can detail and debate those flaws with any Christian on the planet. It is the work of humans, not the perfect work of a divine being.
There's no difficult list of rules, either.
Again, wrong. In order to get into heaven, you must do the following:
If you do those things, you go to heaven. Otherwise, you roast in hell. If you disagree with this, then you are disagreeing with Jesus. Your likely response is to argue, "That's what Jesus said, but that's not what he meant." Or perhaps you'll try, "You're taking things out of context." Maybe, if you're desparate, you'll try the "natural man" argument.
The majority of the New Testament is philosophical explanation of Jesus' words, and guidelines for behavior given by the early apostles, not the direct handing down of a list of rules by God (like the Ten Commandments).
Incorrect again. The majority of the New Testament is the creation of the "Christian" doctrine by
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Earth's finest astro-missionaries do indeed initiate contact and demonstrate themselves, and their beliefs, as mankind's majority view. In which case:
1: After a few years of contact with our nonsense, they (The ET's in question) decide to tie us to an intersteller "cross" and set us out to drift by a black hole (a la The Mission
2: Our astro-misionaries find that the alien culture in question has a highly evolved sense of religion themselves and they proceed to convert us.
3: They (the ET's) are completely appalled by our (mankind's) inability to distinguish personal spirtual beliefs from nonsensical religious imperatives and (after speaking their case to some galactic council or other) quarantine Earth from interstellar contact until we set our priorities straight.
4: (As a continuation of point 2) They (the ET's) are enraged by our collective infidelism(sic) that we are hunted down and exterminated for challenging they one true religion: Theirs.
5: They view us as silly monkey-men and throw our collective simian asses in a cosmic zoo (a la, Vonnegut and Porno for Pyros).Anyway, just a few other ideas to chew over, you silly religious elitist type.
You'd think it would be relatively easy to look around and see how much religion (and our immature view(s) of it) have fucked us all over. I mean, turn on the CNN and the end result of it is everywhere. I have an idea, take your deep seeded personal religious views and shove 'em deeply up a very personal place... until we collectively realize that our own personal spiritual viewpoints have no bearing on the world around us... we'll just continue to be screwed.
______
#SickNotWeak
For those of you in SE Michigan, Br. Guy is going to be speaking at the Cranbrook Institute of Science this weekend. He's a fascinating public speaker and all-around great guy.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Nope, not everyone says they're an excellent set of rules. I don't. I for one think they're just about on par with any other ancient code of behavior or law -- a mix of obviousness and muddled ambiguity handed down by yet another set of self-appointed spokespeople for God.
We had a brief thing with the 10 Commandments at my kids' Public school, actually. Supposedly the existing "Code of Conduct" was all too "PC" -- a term mostly used to attack things you disagree with nowadays -- and we had a few parents who asked why we couldn't also post the Commandments instead (or failing that, also). So, we got a good chance to examine the two lists.
The current behavior code was full of stuff like "Show respect for others" and various words about becoming a good student and a good citizen -- an emphasis on learning how to be a good person and how to participate in American society. There was an interesting strain of "Civics Lesson."
The Commandments, well... We don't actually have a problem with students murdering each other at our little school, and as far as coveting our neighbor's wives goes, there isn't much danger of it among the grade schoolers I happen to know, and I'm not sure an advanced warning was all that useful for them. As a public school, Noble doesn't encourage idols of any sort (that being one of the several reasons for which the idea of posting the Commandments themselves was voted down). And so on.
In short the Commandments frankly didn't seem relevant to my kids' school lives, or really to their lives -- surely not more than any other list of advice. Not nearly as relevant as the existing conduct code, anyway. Where they did apply, they were mostly staggeringly obvious (Don't kill anyone). They reflected social mores of 2000 years ago; the "neighbor's wife" thing is more about women as property than about being faithful to your own spouse -- note that it doesn't mention husbands or tell you not to fool around with single college girls if you're married. (How many wives did Solomon have, again?) Granted, this was the KJV translation, but then nobody asked us to post anything in Aramaic or Hebrew or Greek.
That's leaving alone the whole "We're all evil by default thing, which is just so very Christian and so very not useful in figuring out how to live a moral life. If God wants to blame me for my inherent flaws, I defer to God entirely -- but not to a human spokeperson for God. No - Thank - You.
So no -- brzzzt -- not everyone says they're such a great idea. I personally think you'd do much better reading a Cliff's Notes version of Kant, as far as leading a moral life.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
What ignorant bullshit. Have you ever been to Spain? Have you ever seen the al-Hambra? The fact is that during the 7th through 10th Centuries, while Europe was little more than a stinking barabaric backwater, Islamic civization was very highly developed. They even had soap. During the Crusades, many Christian lords would try to get hold of Saracen physicians, because everyone knew that their medical methods were far superior to the European ones (which tended to consist of bleeding and wrapping the wound in dung).
It was Arab scholars who preserved much of the ancient Greek litterature. Without them we would have none of it. As for your statement about the library of Alexandria, you should read this.
In addition, who do you think invented algebra? (a hint: it should be al-gebra). Most of the stars visble to the naked eye have Arabic names (Aldebaran, Almitak, Algol, Betelgeuse, Achernar etc etc.), meaning that they had highly developed (for the time) mathematics and astronomy.
I understand you're pissed about terrorism; who wouldn't be? But don't make the mistake of letting current events color your view of the past. It's bad enough the other way around.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
> 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.'
On that note, there's actually an on-going project as CMU's Language Technologies Institute to create technology to allow us to communicate with dolphins.
When I was in high school, we had a supplementary text in our AP European History class that was full of primary sources from throughout Western history.
Nestled in the back of this book, I found a Catholic Church document from the 60's or so addressing the Catholic position on ministry and evangelism to extraterrestrials (if any were found).
I don't know if it constituted a doctrine or a dogma or what have you, but the gist was that the Church assumes that God's plan of salvation for other worlds may, in fact, be completely unlike His plan of salvation for this one--and thus it is probably inappropriate to evangelize to aliens.
This has always struck me as remarkably sensible.
The Vatican Astronomer in question has a Bachelor's and Master's from MIT and a Doctorate from the University of Arizona. He's definitely no dummy. Maybe Slashdot could interview him.
he studies meteorites. I wonder what research notes look like:
Observed high proportion of Carbon to Iron in meteor type X.
Question: Why is this so?
Answer: God made it that way.
Next question...
Yeah, but the person who owned the copyrights died about 2 thousand years ago, in a tragic accident involving a cross and some nails. And left no descendants.
-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
C.S. Lewis brought up another possible scenario when dealing with aliens and religeon in his book "Out of the Silent Planet". What if the aliens are already perfect christians who didn't mess up in their own garden of eden like we did. Is this why they have no interest in talking to us?
Many of those posts claim that religion is our problem. I disagree. The problem is how people interpret religious texts, teachings, etc. Of course, this leads to the question: if most of the adherents to a religion believe something, isn't that actually what the religion represents? Using this as my guide, I believe it is only a matter of time until the entire planet is either blanketed by one religion or we all kill each other. Place your bets now.
The Italian navigator has reached the New World and the natives are friendly.
If they do know the difference between good and evil, it's unlikely they'd convert to most Earth religions. Too much of a track record re: killing unbelievers.
First, a disclaimer; IANAB - I am not a believer. However, I've been making something of a study of religions since 9/11, including the histories of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Zoroastrianism, in search of clues to the roots of religious violence.
The attitude above, which is common among many educated secularists, is excessively simplistic.
The reason is that the separation of church and state is a very, very recent concept and is still not a totally realized political ideal. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to clearly delineate state violence or political violence from religious violence.
I would say I can make two broad generalizations about large scale religious and non-religious violence:
(1) Religious violence seldom occurs without corresponding political agendas; even the Crusades, which are the prime examples of holy wars, have substantial political underpinnings. Some wars, such as the early Muslim wars of conquest, are often perceived in religious terms but turn out to have virtually no religious underpinnings.
(2) Political agendas are perfectly capable of large scale violence without recourse to religion, for example Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot.
Religion is tied up with violence and warfare in an extremely complex ways. Commonly accepted religious systems can be used as frameworks in which ideologies both supporting and opposing war can be posed. My original hypothesis in beginning to study the nexus between religion and war is that religion is a powerful motivator towards war. This, however, I have eventually come to reject. The next hypothesis is that religion is a powerful amplifier of human violence (and anti-violence). Yet I don't feel that the historical evidence is so clear cut on that even. Yes there are incidents where religious fervor appears to be a powerful amplifier of violence, such as in the sacking of Jerusalem in the first Crusade. Yet it is equally true that ethnic, racial and ideological ideas can play exactly the same role.
I would say that religion is often used as a tool to support political agendas. However it is a somewhat untrustworthy tool in the hands of the tyrant. Conservative elements in the great world religions can often cut in ways a ruler might not wish. For example, Sharia evolved as a check on the political power of the caliphs starting from Muawiyah I and later. Admittedly, as a legal system for modern times, Sharia leaves much to be desired. But it has its attractions to muslims who feel abused and downtrodden; this attraction is incoprehensible to anyone who takes the kind of historically simplistic view of religion that secularists do.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
By nature Religion is territorial. Religion was one of the evolutionary factors of early society. It provided a better chance of survival by setting and reiterating societal rules. Unfortunately, as successful tribes expand and become civilizations, nations, super-powers, their vestigal religion comes along like an appendix.
If people learn to live without religion, and take personal responsibility for their lives (don't be good to get into heaven, be good because it's smart for survival) the need for religion and the rules it evolved with go away.
Unfortunately, people don't want to deal with death, and the message that one will continue moving on in an immortal fashion is far more seductive than accepting you are going to die and rot in a box till the Sun explodes.
As for the harm religion can do, it is immense. Islam, Christian Crusades, Witch hunts, Jewish conquests, Hindu Thugee, terrrorism, and expansionism can all be traced back to religion. These competing religious ideas are just like competing species. They all want maximum expansion room and few competitors. Religion is a virus. If you want to believe in God, Yaweh, Vishnu, Allah, or Hecate, by all means do so. There is no need to be part of an organized group to do it. Religious heirarchy is an old concept that was once important to our survival, but now is as useless as a stone axe.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
They are clearly high speed, high altitude weather ballons. Now move along, there is nothing to see here. Look at all the pretty pictures of Iraq, and the Presidential race, and sport, American Idol, etc., etc.
Although it's true that algebra gets its name from al-Jabr, and it's also true that some of the great Arab mathematicians (including al-Khwarizmi) codified many algebraic structures and practices that are now common (al-Khwarizmi essentially worked out the "Completing the Square" method of solving quadratic equations), it's a bit of a stretch to attribute everything to the Arabs.
The Chinese were one of the first pioneers in mathematics to lay down many of the standard practices we use in algebra today. They were one of the first major groups to adopt and accept negative numbers, drawing them in red and putting slashes through the last digits to indicate negative quantities (when it took Leonardo de Pisa [Fibonacci] a thousand years later to look at negative numbers in financial problems as losses - he still did not accept negative roots of quadratics). The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, the earliest known work of Chinese mathematicians, dates from around 200BC, and illustrates 246 practical math problems on surveying, conversions, etc. You could argue that these basic math methods of solving equations is a good basis for algebra.
Not to mention that the Babylonians, around 2000BC, began the first major study and work of mathematics in the world. They used a fairly sophisticated positional Base 60 system, showed knowledge of the quadratic formula (the first known civilization to do so), and even looked at (though couldn't derive a solution to) cubic equations as well.
Lastly, one very common misconception: although we refer to our numeral system as the Arabic Numeral system, the actual "figures" we use to draw the numbers 1, 2, 3, etc, were brought to the Western world from India, not from the Arabian peninsula. Many attribute the adoption of the Indian Numeral system to al-Khwarizmi, but it may have been earlier than that. Regardless, they were the ones to give us that number system (including the use of 0 to hold a space in positional number systems), not the Arabs.
I don't mean to belittle the great works done by early Arabian mathematicians - they easily were one of the most influential and driving forces in bringing the mathematical knowledge of the Far East to the Western world, especially when the "dark ages" of mathematical learning dawned when the Greek & Alexandrian schools of learning faded away. They were the greatest preservers of the ancient Greek writings, and quite often the only copies we have today of some of the Greek works of Euclid, Thales, Pythagoras, and others is an English translation of a Latin translation of an Arabic translation of the original Greek. Still, some of the basic practices of algebraic solving existed quite before the great Arabic mathematicians -- they tend to get the "credit" of inventing algebra because they were the main ones to gather, collect, comment, and extend most of that early work.
Oh, and as to the contention that the Arabs were highly developed in astronomy since most of the stars visible to the naked eye have Arabic names, that is a bit misleading. Consider what I mentioned about the "Arabic Numeral" system. Just because something is named in a way doesn't indicate anything about its creators. Many now believe that Pythagoras did not "invent" the Pythagorean Theorem. It is now commonly attributed to an anonymous student of the Pythagorean School of Learning, not to mention how the Babylonians a thousand years before had cuneiform tablets with the same triangle work done on them. It was actually the great Greek astronomer Hipparchus who catalogued thousands of stars and their positions in the 2nd century BC, and whom Ptolemy recorded much of the work. Once again, we owe a great debt to the great Arabic astronomers for preserving and expanding on those earlier works of the Greeks and others - but reali
Londovir
The problem of the 'plurality of worlds' isn't new to the Church. In the introduction to James Blish's "A Case of Conscience" (1958, Winner of the Hugo Award), the author notes:
...
I was gratified to receive also several letters from theologians who knew the present Church position on the problem of the 'plurality of worlds', as most of my correspondents obviously did not
I will quote Mr Gerald Heard, who has summarized the position best of all:
If there are many planets inhabited by sentient creatures, as most astronomers (including Jesuits) now suspect, then each one of such planets (solar or non-solar) must fall into one of three categories:
(a) Inhabited by sentient creatures, but without souls; so to be treated with compassion but extra-evangelically.
(b) Inhabited by sentient creatures with fallen souls, through an original but not inevitable ancetral sin; so to be evangelized with urgent missionary charity.
(c) Inhabited by sentient soul-endowed creatures that have not fallen, who therefore
(1) inhabit an unfallen, sinless paradisal world;
(2) who therefore we must contact not to propagandize, but in order that we may learn from them the conditions (about which we can only speculate) of creatures living in perpetual grace, endowed with all the virtues in perfection, and both immortal and in complete happiness for always possessed of and with the knowledge of God.
Of course, the aliens that are the subject of Blish's book fall into none of these scenarios...
The summary of the article mentions three possible ideas: (1) they are too different to communicate with, (2) we convert them to our religion, and (3) they convert us to theirs.
So what about a fourth possibility? What if we discover an alien civilization and once we start communicating with them, we find that one of their religions is exactly the same as one of our religions? What if we find that that same religion keeps popping up over and over again on every planet we visit? If there is, in fact, one true religion, wouldn't it make sense for it to develop on all the planets?
If this ever happens, I predict that the masses will grasp that the chances of this happening purely by coincidence are quite small, and there will be a massive "oh crap, I'd better get to church right now" reaction. :-)
Shouldn't beliefs be formed from careful analysis of arguments, reasoning and evidence?
Really ? Is that why 90+% people in a country like say, Italy are christians?
Is that why a person born to a Hindu family in India "chooses" to be hindu and not shinto? Because his belief was formed from careful analysis of arguments, reasoning and evidence? Is that why a Amreican Indian born in a Cherokee tribe in 1600AD chose his religion and "chose" not to be a neighbouring Chicksaw ?
If I go back in time, kidnap you when you were 2 yrs old and somehow get you adopted by a rural buddist japanese family, would you still choose your belief by a "careful analysis of arguments, reasoning and evidence" ?
Do you even see what I'm trying to say here ? I'm saying that free will is a myth for the vast majority of people. Its the society where they are born in, the atmosphere they grow up in that shapes your belief. And its the same for you. Thats why you "chose" christianity.
Thats why a two yr old boy born to a taliban terrorist is far far more likely to follow militant islamic beliefs. And if you were to go adopt this kid right now.. guees what beliefs he will choose.
Makes me wonder why your god gave birth to this taliban kid in Afghan when he could have easily put him in a rich white suburb in Boston.
Based on the Jehovah's Witness remark and the photo of him laughing, apparently he has a sense of humor. But his comment about alien races possibly being convertible to terrestrial religion is kind of scary. On one hand it evokes images of Starvin' Marvin in a starfighter. On the other hand I see Pat Robertson seriously soliciting contributions to build an XB79 Galactic Cruiser with plasma-warp force shields and laser cannons.
I've always believed that contact with extraterrestrials will be the beginning of the end of many Earthly religions, as people come to grips with the idea that spirituality is just a local effort to cope with unknowns. But the tenacity of religious leaders to cling to doctrine in the face of contradiction, and the willingness of their flocks to do whatever they command, have always been major driving forces in human history that will probably never go away.