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Vatican Debates Possibility of Alien Life
Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences is holding its first ever conference on alien life, the discovery of which would have profound implications for the Catholic Church. For centuries, theologians have argued over what the existence of life elsewhere in the universe would mean for the Church. Among other things, extremely alien-looking aliens would be hard to fit with the idea that God 'made man in his own image' and Jesus Christ's role as savior would be confused; would other worlds have their own Christ-figures, or would Earth's Christ be universal? Just as the Church eventually made accommodations after Copernicus and Galileo showed that the Earth was not the center of the universe, and when it belatedly accepted the truth of Darwin's theory of evolution, Catholic leaders say that alien life can be aligned with the Bible's teachings. 'Just as a multiplicity of creatures exists on Earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God,' says Father Jose Funes, a Jesuit astronomer at the Vatican Observatory and one of the organizers of the conference. Others do not agree. 'If you look back at the history of Christian debate on this, it divides into two camps. There are those that believe that it is human destiny to bring salvation to the aliens, and those who believe in multiple incarnations,' says Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist. 'The multiple incarnations is a heresy in Catholicism.'"
Going to get modded down for this, but if you believe anything the Vatican/Bible says your fucking stupid. Lets listen to the religion who has killed millions of innocent people just because they want to think differently; the same people who have detested the thought of non-human life for centuries.
George Carlin puts this best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
The pope needs to get kicked in the balls, hard. There is no man floating up in a cloud somewhere...and even if there was, he's a bloody moron. Leave this stuff for the pros, and go back to your worldwide business.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
If you look back at the history of Christian debate on this, it divides into two camps. There are those that believe that it is human destiny to bring salvation to the aliens, and those who believe in multiple incarnations
What about the possibility that alien species have not Fallen or suffered from Original Sin?
It isn't that funny though.
For entertainment, ask any worshippper of Abrahamic religion about the size and shape of God's penis (or Penis? ;p ) and see how they struggle with the concept of their deity having such "unclean" part.
Also, ask them how existence of woman fits in (hint that their god might be a hermaphrodite)
One that hath name thou can not otter
... we're supposed to treat these clowns with respect and allow their weird Sunday-morning social clubs to have tax-exempt status in the US?
And the Catholics are supposed to be the *smart* ones, too!
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
Enjoy your superstition. It has no effect on reality.
I'll bet at some point in your amazing life you have admired Galileo. Do you think he heard things like this when he tried to explain the universe might not revolve around the earth?
My basic point is, people search for meaning in life. That's why we have religion
Huh?
How do lies and fantasies and logically contradictory meaningless gibberish provide meaning?
Your claim is no different from saying, "People search for facts in life. That's whey we have religion." It makes no sense at all: the purported conclusion is completely unrelated to the nominal premise, and there is no true middle premise that can form a valid syllogism.
People search for facts in life.
Religion supplies facts.
Ergo, people have religion
The middle premise is obviously false, and even more obviously false if you replace "facts" with "meaning", since an omnipotent loving god not only is logically contradictory it contradicts almost every fact about human life we know, from the bad design of the retina to the propensity of old people to lose control of their bowels. An omnipotent god could have created a universe that was exactly like this one in every respect that didn't have those problems. That is a logical contradiction, but a god whose power is limited by logical possibility is not omnipotent (all powerful) but rather one whose power is limited.
Believers are all remarkably inconsistent or stupid, because they claim to believe in an "omnipotent" god who has limited powers.
To have meaning requires logical consistency, and nothing that lacks all logical consistency can be considered a source of meaning. If people want to use religion as a source of meaning they may as well just make shit up... oh wait...
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
If you don't approve of cherry picking, then I encourage you to read your fucking bible. It condones genocide, slavery, opression of women, etc. etc. Do you agree with those views? If not, why not?
Btw, Mithras is also alarmingly similar to Jesus. (And I'm sure there are more examples from roughly 2K years ago.)
Oh, why am I even bothering? Grow a dick and log in.
HAND.
Not sure how you religious types continually keep getting modded up. Yeah, sure, E=MC^2 is mysterious to the masses. However:!:!: I'm one of the masses, and I took it upon myself to investigate and read the damn fucking book, and now I understand it and can falsifiably reproduce Einstein's results. You are no closer to reproducing (falsifiably, or otherwise) Jesus Christ's results than a waffle. Your argument panders to the lowest common denominator, and perhaps you'll be voted into office on the strength of that based on the dumbing down of our populace based on unfunded mandates in education -- but, don't let your winning the vote get to your head; you're still selling lies.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.