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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."
And who is this God they are referring to ?
I'm waiting for an answer from a legitimate authority.
Whale
Doesn't the Pope have direct communication with god? Why doesn't he just ask for christ's sake?
C.
"Doctor, it's not the voices I hear in MY head, but the voices I hear in YOUR head that really frighten me."
... just made humans as a cautionary example, and shows us on CCTVs all over the Universe as a sort of "The More You Know!" service.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
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
But of course only WE were created in His image, right?
And is the Catholic church going to fund expeditions to these alien civilisations in order to convert them? Kinda sounds familiar, doesn't it?
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?
UFO true believers stop pestering the UK government and start demanding to see the Vatican's top secret UFO files?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
So is the pope God's representative on Earth, or God's representative for everywhere outside of heaven ?
Nullius in verba
(So long, and thanks for all the fish!)
I'm glad that the Catholic Church is taking an educated view of the sciences, with the support of evolution, and now this. Of course this will also lead to many useless comments about pedophilia, non-existance of God, and other useless flame wars.
Scientific illiteracy here in the states is really bad, and I'm embaressed that my church has a more progressive attitude than our current administration. This should change with the next admin thankfully.
This is Slashdot, and everyone needs to get their 2 cents in, but please try to submit meaningful/useful posts.
..........FULL STOP.
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?
Next week they'll be approving a new brand of condoms. They're open at both ends ...
Kevin Smith on Prince
Hello Earthlings, my name Zorbo, I'm from the planet sh388wg32 in what you call the Andromeda galaxy and I think the time has come to reveal ourselves to you. The reason I am contacting you now is that we have some Good News for you creatures, the all powerful creator of everything (Zippin52, praise be His name) has a plan for you and everyone you know!!! Can I take a little of your time to explain why we're all imperfect and need saving in His forgiveness??!
Yes Catholic church, that is precisely how idiotic you sound right now.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
It's the same old problem of infinite regress when you try to state that a complex thing has to have a more complex designer. An über-powerful deity has to be much more complex than a human (or alien) and you end up with a bigger problem than the one you started with and you have explained exactly zero. And that's without even mentioning that there is no evidence of any form of supernatural creation of living beings (or anything else for that matter).
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!
...the Flat Earth society has just announced that there might be alien life "after and slightly beneath the fringes".
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
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.
Why can't a Catholic priest be an astronomer? A Catholic priest, Father Georges Lemaitre, came up with the Big Bang theory
Never let reality temper imagination
Are thrilled to see that our Earther brethren have finally publically acknowledged our existence. Please prepare your altar boys for our arrival.
If god is omnipotent than he(she/it) can appear in any form (say a burning bush).
Therefore god must have created us in the image of the only part of him that doesn't change. His morality, his way of thinking and his personality. We have a dim image of this immutable portion of god.
Therefore aliens COULD look very different but still be created in his image.
The only remaining question is how did they get so many light years from eden?
Well, I would prefer it if they made policy changes that actually changed people lives, like dropping their stupid stance on condoms.
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.
When you get right down to it, nothing can contradict that a supernatural being exists outside of it's actually appearing to us ... at which point it would become a natural being since we could observe it.
I can believe that the only two people in the world are Steven Hawking and Darl McBride and that ice cream is made from grub worms. If anyone provides me with evidence to the contrary, I can always say "Ah, but that's just what $DEITY wants you to think!"
The only thing a belief in a deity doesn't support is non-belief in a deity.
Last time I checked CS Lewis is not the head of any protestant church. I'm sure you could find a random catholic who said it even earlier.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
The important message is that good scientific ideas can come from anywhere, even from Catholic priests, and you don't judge an idea by where it came from, but by whether or not it does a good job, for example by making falsifiable predictions.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
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.
Sucks to be those aliens... since they have no way to learn about Jesus (except, of course, the Gray aliens that visit earth all the time) all those extraterrestrials will burn in hell since they never accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. Brings up an interesting question - what percentage of hell is human? With all those alien species being sent to hell by default, I bet humans make up an extremely small percentage of hell's population. Even the Greys that visit earth have likely not become Catholics. Though in that one episode of South Park there was one alien species that actually was Catholic. But that's just one species, and south park is just a cartoon anyway. Make believe TV shows have no place in a discussion about magical human beings and aliens.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
"So even in the oldest context, Evolution fits fine with the Bible." which would somehow say that the bible is the mass to measure everything on it.
So it should read "the bible stories can be made fit with evolution (which we know to be a very successful theory at explaining all life today as we know it)". It is not that evolution fits, it is that the bible is interpreted in the light of evolution.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Evolution is fact in the same sense that gravity is fact. We know it happens. There are things we can point to and say "look, evolution".
Evolutionary Theory also exists ("The Theory of Evolution" is a misnomer as there isn't really one single theory, rather a lot of complementary and sometimes competing theories for parts of what might be considered, in toto, "evolution") also exists in the same sense the Newton's Theory of Gravity and General Relativity exist.
So yes, a theory exists to explain the facts but that doesn't mean there is no fact.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
As I said, there are things you can point to and say "that's evolution" in the same sense that you can point to a falling object and say "that's gravity".
Things that are seen as it happens, not just digging up a few bones and constructing a theory.
Those links are just the first two things I found from a quick internet search. However there is an abundance of such observations where evolution can be said to have been observed as a matter of fact.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park