Slashdot Mirror
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
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?
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!
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...
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.
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?
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 ?