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Vatican Says Alien Life Plausible
An anonymous reader writes "According to BBC, the director of the Vatican Observatory stated in an article titled 'Aliens Are My Brother' that intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space. 'The search for forms of extraterrestrial life does not contradict belief in God. — Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God.' Mind that this is not the same director who said that evolution is more than a mere theory — that was Father Coyne. I myself agree. There might be intelligent beings created by God in outer space even if there are none here on earth."
there is a related announcement coming soon from world leaders,
and this pronouncement from the vatican is so that they don't bleed followers in the mayhem to follow.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
C.S. Lewis came to this conclusion years ago. Glad the Catholics finally caught up with us Protestants.
Apologizing to Galileo, Hell is a metaphor, evolution is real, now aliens could exist. The Vatican is really taking their modernization seriously, aren't they?
(So long, and thanks for all the fish!)
So does that mean that any intelligent alien life is doomed to hell because they don't have the benefit of baptism and the forgiveness of original sin? Did they get a messiah from the catholic god and does that imply more than one "jesus"?
Or, being that they are not human and never ate from the garden of eaden does that mean that original sin doesn't apply to them? Better yet, does that make them more holy then humans and therefore closer to the catholic god?
I don't see how the catholic clergy can just say "yeah alien life doesn't contradict our religeon" without addressing these questiosn.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
If an alien world were encountered with a Bliznorp claiming to receive instruction from Q'thalis Almighty, would the Pope claim to be God's infallible messenger on Earth, or for everywhere outside heaven? For his followers, then, wouldn't the Pope need to confirm the Bliznorp's authority on the homeworld of the sentient grey blobs of Shronos, lest a new "Space Catholicism" denomination be created believing in individual Popes for each inhabited world?
First, I would point out that this is not really news. The Vatican has actually had a plan for approaching and converting alien life just in case it should be discovered for decades. (In fact, the plan was one of the programs that Madalyn Murray O'Hair frequently liked to joke about.)
This particular comment (the parent) is actually one of the few good comments I've seen so far. Since medieval times theologians have wondered, "did the Son of Man come to save everyone, or just humans?" There were a surprising number of medieval philosophers who were concerned with question -- should a race of sentient cyclopean starfish be discovered -- of whether human Jesus was sent to save their souls, or whether they would have to wait for cyclopean starfish Jesus.
In any case, this isn't a deviation from established Vatican protocol, and isn't news. Not for Catholics, and not even for people who just care about alien stories.
Bruno suggested that there could be an infinite number of worlds and that they could be inhabited by intelligent life.
For this they burned him at the stake.
Galileo was only 'shown the instruments' of torture and placed under house arrest.
Bruno is the guy they need to apologize to!
I find it offensive that some people are still implying that God is /unable/ to create extraterrestrial life.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
Really, I have always thought the "in His own image" thing was taken way to literally. I don't really think God would give Himself a physical body like ours that is inferior to many animals in many ways (we are slower than cheetahs, can't see as well as eagles, can't swim like fish, etc.) Honestly if you get down to it, there are a lot of things that suck somewhat about our bodies (a quasi-flawed design that causes a large percentage to experience lower back pain, etc.). Obviously there are some who would say that God has a "perfect" human body that, since it isn't marred by sin, doesn't have the same flaws, but I honestly think the idea of God having a physical body is kind of silly. I mean, I can't even be in two places at once with my physical body, much less everywhere at once.
So it comes down to, what does "in His own image" mean? We like much of the creation story in Gensis, I think it is meant to be taken figuratively, not literally. We are set apart from the animals in that we have a conscience and free will. In this way, we are like God. We can basically do whatever we want, and reason about what we want to do. Although I am not a Catholic, I agree with their stance that it is completely possible for alien life to exist (although I think intelligent life, at least that we can/will find anytime soon, is unlikely for other scientific reasons). This alien life could even be "in His own image" as well, since it isn't really a physical appearance thing, and more of a soul/conscience thing.
Riddles? Dude, he'll fucking kill your entire family on a dare from the devil, ask Job!
You can't take the sky from me...
What I find interesting is that this figurative interpretation is what is already being favored by the Catholic Church. From their acceptance of the Big Bang and evolution, it is already clear that they are comfortable with figurative interpretations. This is in stark contrast to a few hundred years ago, when you could be killed for minor points of dogma.
I'm hoping is that some of the more extreme groups take heed and see that it is possible to have an open mind with religion. If you look at history, there has been a long track record of religion disagreeing with science and science winning. Is there anyone (of importance) out there who still disagrees with the heliocentric view of the solar system? I wonder how much of the current switch from the Catholic Church is a recognition that their obstinate views in the past backfired.
That is one advantage of an older religious group - perspective. This reminds me of one conversation I had a few weeks back. My friends and I were musing at the relative levels of extremism and how that relates to the age of a religion. Take Buddhism for example. It is an old religion and there is very little extremism. Christianity is younger, and there is still some extremism with a whole lot back in the dark ages. Islam, on the other hand, is still relatively young, about the same age of Christianity in the dark ages, and we all know how much Islamic extremists make the news. Hopefully, then, as religions get older and settle down, they will start adopting the more peaceful, open-minded approaches.
And for all those offtopic morons that say that the Pope is responsible of the pandemies on Africa due to the Church's point against condoms: the Church is also against extra-marital sex, and if you are determined to ignore the last point, what stops you to ignore also the first one? Are you hypocrites, or what?
I've always thought that it would be interesting to see other intelligent races reaction to humans. My guess is that aliens would notice a high tendency for delusion. Your faith is delusion to anyone who doesn't share it.
Oh without a doubt. I don't want to go too far off topic, but if I had to speculate about the origins of prayer, I'd say it's actually a clever way of capitalizing on a couple of aspects of the human psyche, such as the fact that we acquire habit through repetition, and our herd-mentality when in large groups. Since a religious person is encouraged to pray as often as possible (for an extreme example, see Islam), the constant repetition reinforces the basic tenets and beliefs in the mind of the believer. The more they repeat it, the stronger the belief becomes. Add to that the fact that humans in large groups respond strongly to simple statements with which they can identify (eg. "No War for Oil", "Meat is Murder", "Zeig Heil", "Zhu Mao Zhuxi wanshou wujiang!" etc.), and you have a pretty good incentive to want to indoctrinate your followers with something like prayer, and encourage them to repeat it whenever they can.
The argument that since science can't explain X, religion must provide the explanation is a false dichotomy. If religion wants to make a case for a claim it must do so by providing evidence - something that it doesn't.
Folk 'wisdom' and folk science - or as you put it the "collective intuition of A developed by hundreds of generations of many million people" - tends to be completely wrong. We live on a sphere, not on a plane, we are not at the centre of the universe and force is proportional to acceleration, not to velocity - just to take a few examples of incorrect intuition. If our 'collective intuition' failed us in these rather elementary cases, what makes you think that it is correct on the much more complex question of how the brain and consciousness works?
Actually, ex utero fertilization is generally (although I don't believe officially) considered illicit because it to some degree separates procreation from sex (the theology goes both ways...the dignity of a human demands that their creation be the result of a loving act). The punctured condoms are for collecting samples for sperm counts, etc. Because doing this allows sperm to be collected without intentionally sterilizing sexual intercourse, it is considered acceptable.
There may be zero chance of conception (for example, a woman who had her ovaries removed due to cancer), but having sex in that case is not wrong (assuming they're married, of course), because the persons involved are not deliberately sterilizing the act. They are not excluding God.
There is a difference between something not currently being understood, and something not being understandable. I've heard people talk about this argument that, since we don't understand X, the only explanation for it is God, and call it the "God of the Gaps" - that is, the argument that God must exist to explain a current gap in our understanding of the universe. The problem is, science keeps coming along filling in those gaps. Yes, it usually, so far, has introduced at least one new gap for every gap it fills in, but the point is, our current ignorance of the mechanism for some observable phenomenon, or hole in our current theories (like the theory of the Big Bang necessarily raises the obvious question - what caused the Big Bang to happen? What came before the Big Bang?) does not in and of itself prove the existence of God.
My point is, when your whole faith is based upon a gap in knowledge, there is a significant chance that the argument for your faith can be discredited by advances in Science. We may, quite possibly, in the course of time come to understand how to correlate "certain chemical and electrical processes" with "self-awareness". As for "We have no way to tell what happens to our 'souls' before birth or after death", currently we have no way to tell if we actually have souls. The concept of the soul comes from a faith in the supernatural. I'm not saying we do not have souls, but what I'm saying is, how could you possibly tell what happens to 'souls', when you can't even find any way to actually prove the existence of a soul? I can't come up with any meaningful theory of how many Unicorns it would take to move an object of Mass 'M' up a hill with incline I, since I can't prove the existence of Unicorns or come up with any kind of average force that an average Unicorn can apply on an object.
What I find interesting is that this figurative interpretation is what is already being favored by the Catholic Church. From their acceptance of the Big Bang and evolution, it is already clear that they are comfortable with figurative interpretations. This is in stark contrast to a few hundred years ago, when you could be killed for minor points of dogma.
I'm hoping is that some of the more extreme groups take heed and see that it is possible to have an open mind with religion. If you look at history, there has been a long track record of religion disagreeing with science and science winning. Is there anyone (of importance) out there who still disagrees with the heliocentric view of the solar system? I wonder how much of the current switch from the Catholic Church is a recognition that their obstinate views in the past backfired.
Thanks for posting this. I totally agree and have always applauded that the Roman Catholic Church can, and does, change. Cynics may argue the change is to keep up numbers, but I think some the changes, especially the conservative ones, are to insure that they are reinterpreted for the current civilization based upon the old and new testaments.The Catechism does allows for an intelligent understanding of the bible. Genesis is a good example of mythos, and this is taught by our Arch Diocese. Of course, for younger children a more simplified version is taught, but what it comes down to is that when I was going through CCD, once you were confirmed, church initiated education stopped. As a teenager, it's hard to believe in Noah and the ark as a true story. Or to read some of the genealogy of Genesis, that people were living for 300-800 years.
It is understandable that those who haven't studied religion take a literal interpretive view. "Man mad in God's likeness." I'd like to believe it's nothing to do with two arms, two legs, but more of Love. We may not live up to it all the time (sin), but seeing man's ability to love is heartening.
You say "let people die" like you think there's an alternative, other than timing.
I find this form of argument very strange, though very common--making statements which presume ongoing continuity of life, or consciousness, while denying it. Reality is such that by default people don't die, so God should be blamed if they do, or reality is such that people do die by default, and your complaint is about when exactly it happens... which is it?
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
You'd be shocked how little science can actually explain. We know next to nothing about the history of our species, of our planet, of our galaxy.
To paraphrase Bill Bryson, if someone were to take a pair of tweezers and pull you apart atom by atom, when the last two were separated you'd be left with a pile of inanimate matter -- none of which is alive but all of which was you.
Science has no provable explanation for how the Big Bang occured (assuming it did), simply that it looks like that's probably what happened. Science can't explain how the 20 amino acids we require to exist form on their own, nor how they combine and fold themselves into the hundreds of various proteins we require to function, nor why all the thousands of processes that occur within a cell occur. This all appears to happen "just for the hell of it".
As for there only being room for God in the gaps science can't cover -- I submit to you that if we were to learn everything there is to know about everything, we would become Gods.
For the record, I'm a confirmed athiest and devil's advocate.
The Vatican are trying to update their status in society because if they don't, they lose followers, I wonder if sometime in the future they will "approve" human cloning too by saying something like "maybe God wanted us humans to create clones", I don't know, they'll try anything to manipulate society, but let's see what happens...
Biologist Francisco Ayala calls that the god of the gaps, because it only occupies those gaps of human knowledge that haven't been explained yet. I like picturing science slowly eroding the terrain of superstition, but then again, that's just a way to say that religions simply adapt to survive, and then move on with the same old crap.
To do list for Windows
why wouldn't original sin apply to them? Or did god create them entirely separate from man (the obvious answer is yes, but I mean in terms of Genesis and the 'six days' and all that crap). Just because you had no chance to know about jesus doesn't mean you get a hell-pass for not accepting him as god, at least according to many of the wackier christians. Babies and children who die too young to learn about jesus go to hell. Retarded people who can't learn about him go to hell. Isolated, insular tribes who never met a christian go to hell. I don't see why intelligent life forms on another planet would be any different. They're analogous to a tribe of people isolated deep in the jungle or on a small island in the middle of the ocean - never coming in contact with a christian, the bible, or even so much as the word 'jesus' ... they still go burn in hell for all eternity according to most christians I've talked to about this issue. There's no due process for the heaven-hell adjudication. So based on the Drake Equation, I contend that hell is full of aliens. Only a de minimus portion of hell is actual homo sapien from the planet earth.
Of course, each planet could have its own hell, or hell could be segregated by planet/species.
Or religion could simply be a factor that precludes a species from being considered "intelligent" life.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Just to bring you up to date about the Catholic Church's position on the possibility of salvation of unbelievers (including atheists & agnostics!): "Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life." (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium,DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH, 16) Check it out: http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html
Catholicism is different enough from most other branches of Christianity that most non-Catholic Christians think of Catholicism as not just being another Christian denomination like Baptist or Lutheran or Methodist, but a separate religion. Same goes for Mormons, only more so.
Different denominations of Christianity have different interpretations of the Bible, but generally they all hold the Bible to be the ultimate authority, God's message to mankind. The Catholic Church's ultimate authority is the Pope, who can freely contradict and overrule parts of the Bible he doesn't like. Mormons believe Jesus visited North America after His Resurrection, according to some golden plates written in "reformed Egyptian" and buried in New York until the 1820s at which time they were translated into King James English. Anyway, they don't hold the Bible to be the ultimate authority either.
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There is a little more to it than that.
1. Go throgh Genesis chapter 1 and write down all the different categories of life forms listed there in the order created.
2. Go throgh a textbook on evolution with the list you wrote in step one and you will discover something very odd. Same order.
Not only that but the order is counter intuitive. Specifically, everyone assumed Mammals came before birds ontil the fossil record showed otherwise.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?