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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.'"
The hypothesis that no deity of any kind exists solves the problem in an unbeatably elegant fashion.
We need money to build an interstellar cruiser. Now, this space ship will be able to travel through a wormhole and deliver the message and guh-glory of Jesus Christ to those godless aliens.
S-send your money now. Amen.
or is this just a "cover our own backs" maneuver to avoid what happened with Galileo, Copernicus and others? Those cases weren't exactly the best publicity they've had.
This is blinging
Normal folks think of aliens as being extraterrestrial. In this case, it's probably a study of non-Catholics.
So the bullshitters have changed their story after it's shown to be implausible. It's not like they had much choice. People are leaving that organization in droves.
God is an alien - no doubt - cause no human has laid eyes upon him. That should stop the debate.
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
Vatican, the UN and the USAF already has been in contact with the aliens; this conference is just to prep the world for the breaking news.
If you don't believe me, check out V on ABC (in the USA)
The catholic church could deal with the multiple species thing where other species look different, from other planets, by simple acknowledge that God has many forms and can take the form of many different species which represents different aspects and characteristics of god. God can be seen as life itself , the consciouisness and soul in all living things, the world arises from this infinite consciousness from its infinite potential to create reality. So in a sense we are living in our own collective dream. The world as such reflects our own attitudes, since we are god, however we have forgotten much of who we are as god, the world as well does not display the true nature of god, which is infinite love, kindness and compassion and which desires to see no being suffer.
Current Catholic theology is the result of about 1500 years where some of the most powerful minds of occident contributed to build a quite solid intellectual building. It might be based on nonsenses but still it's internal coherence and its resistance to foreign attacks is quite good.
"extremely alien-looking aliens would be hard to fit with the idea that God 'made man in his own image'"
Surely it would be a problem for those too literalist (the ones that really believe the universe was built in six days, Noah's ark, Metusellah living 600 years, etc.) but for Catholics, God's image has nothing to be with having two arms or five and two heads or breathing liquid methane; it's about self identity and the thought of our own transcendence so probably any intelligent alien (non self-concious non-intelligent alien life pose no problem) would still fit the definition.
"Jesus Christ's role as savior would be confused"
Minor problem: Rome would say that each intelligent species would take its own path towards or against salvation and that's all. Regarding the heaven chores (angels and all that stuff) they are both real things and methapores of the relationship with divinity and you are done.
"would other worlds have their own Christ-figures, or would Earth's Christ be universal?"
Both stanzas are true at the same time. Literally that would be no problem for Catholic church, after all its God is one and three at the same time; logically it's still not a big problem: the path to redemption (or the lack of) would be tied to the local History of those aliens; they either don't need redeption (rationally that could be the case, of course I don't think Rome would accept that; they would be out of job), or they found their own path or they came to know about us so they can learn about Christ and share our own redemption (they know *now* that Christ did die for them to so their souls can be saved etc.).
"says Father Jose Funes, a Jesuit astronomer "
Of course, it had to be a Jesuit. Quite clever folks, those Jesuits.
"The multiple incarnations is a heresy in Catholicism"
Yes. But since God is uber-everything (almighty, omniscient...) it's easy to acomodate the idea that there are a lot of different ways for a mere mortal to be made in God's image (and even real reincarnations might be accepted by Catholics if aliens are involved; they'd just say that it's no "real" incarnation but kind of larval state: just as a worm and a butterfly seem very different but they still are the same individual you might incarnate on an alien or the other way around and still being accepted as being the same individual -that wouldn't be too hard a problem for Catholics: Christ showed us there was live beyond human death, etc.).
His noodley appendages touch ALL planets
Why are they wasting time with this, do they know something the general pubic hasn't been told yet?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've encountered people who think that the discovery of intelligent alien life would completely upset the apple cart of Christianity, "proving" that it was all a bunch of hogwash. But it wouldn't. There's nothing anywhere in Genesis that says that there are no other "people", and it's not as if this would be the first time that a New World was discovered. To be sure, there'd be some challenging theological questions to wrestle with, such as whether the Original Sin of Eve tainted their world, or some ancestor of theirs did it for them, but most adherents don't really care about that stuff: they just believe.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
"Just as a multiplicity of creatures exists on Earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God."
I am agnostic, and I have no problem with this line of reasoning. The presence of aliens neither proves nor disproves the existence of God, from a philosophical point of view. The 'smart' religion is the adaptable one. If you want to keep your followers and expand your base, you need to keep your belief systems up-to-date. This is a very smart thing for the Catholic church to do. Now if they could just get over their hatred of homosexuals...
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
The Catholics should start with dolphins, who are arguably as intelligent as humans, but not tool users, and alien in their thought processes and communications mode. Frankly chimps are close enough to at least spark a debate.
And what of lawyers and politicians? Do they *have* souls? Is it possible?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
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's been 425 years since Bruno argued in De l'Infinito, Universo e Mondi (Italian; use Google translate) that the universe was infinite and contained innumerable stars, with countless planets around them, some containing life.
He was pretty far ahead of his time... far enough ahead that in 1600 the Church had him burned at the stake. Good to see they're getting round to considering his ideas, albeit a little bit belatedly.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Not all of use read the tabloids.
Maybe you don't understand what /. is. It isn't a news site; it's a blog that links to news articles on other sites that /. readers might not already be reading. Whining that it's pointing to an article you happen to have already read seems a bit... pointless.
If they tought that God were almighty and everywhere, they could still think that, just put up several orders of magnitude how much powerful must be. And, of course, stop thinking on it as an human form.
Or go to Clarke's law for religion, any sufficiently powerful entity is indistinguishable from God and redefine that we had just one, not "the" god in universal scale.
Or just think.
Religion is a good tool, but dont have to be the truth.
'Cause that would seem to be an important preliminary to your definition of science?
The problem: existence is the thing that *everything that *exists has in common, and scientific articulation of its meaning would require a comparison between the things that do and don't exist. Which comparison it cannot make, because as you rightly point out scientific inquiry cannot be made into non-existent things.
btw the 'which' in "things which don't exist" is a funny word misusage in this context -- do you see why?
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
This is one of the fundamental problems with modern religions.
When religion and scientific evidence are in direct conflict with each other, enlightened people accept the scientific evidence. Enlightened religious people accept the scientific evidence and try to find ways to resolve it so that their religion remains logically consistent. (Yes, sometimes jumping through hoops to do so, but at least they don't look at scientists as some kind of evil tricksters or conspirators.)
The dumb ones, though, continue to argue against the scientific evidence not because of any particular keen insight, but because of what they think they know about an invisible guy who reigns supreme and, for the most part, what a two-thousand-year-old book that was written in an ancient language by ancient people and interpreted through various political and theological lenses says.
And, of course, most modern religions (and in particular, most modern people pushing it) are out there trying to convince people that if you question their interpretation of the "facts," that you'll burn in hell for eternity.
The church shouldn't even be having this argument. Science points towards an almost certainty of intelligent alien life out there, even if we never meet it face-to-face. They need to resign themselves to the fact that it exists, and adjust their thought accordingly. A biblical reference to the "four corners of the earth" doesn't mean that the earth literally has four corners (i.e. it's flat). A biblical reference to God making man in his own image doesn't mean that the god they worship literally looks like we do.
Duh.
As for the whole Christ thing, well, I'm guessing that alien cultures probably have their own religions, and some of them are probably even more interesting than ours. If we ever do have the pleasure of meeting some of them, we'll probably do what we've done throughout our entire history of existence. Figure out some way to meld them together to make ourselves feel better about ourselves and go on with life.
For all the so called negative press religion gets, it sure seems to be on the increase. Make of that what you will.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Be careful, you might break an altar boy's coccyx.
You are welcome on my lawn.
So, Vatican has been watching V on HULU lately?
You might like this debate, ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvZz_pxZ2lw
Christopher Hitchens does a good job as usual, but Stephen Fry really does steal that show. It is a shame that they didn't have stronger opponents.
...this could be the theological equivalent of executing a proof, thinking you've got it right, only to wind up dividing by zero. Oops. Let's just review those first equations again...
On the other hand, though, they could easily explain it away by saying only humans have souls, and therefore aliens are really just demons/not living or some other gibberish like that. It wouldn't be the first time religion has dehumanized/demonized (meh, really don't have any better terms than those right now) individuals, groups (social, religious and ethnic populations), and ideas, simply because they conflicted with the Church doctrine.
As long as whatever they decide doesn't include a Xenu figure, they'll leave the illustrious status of "Most despicable 'religion' in the world," to those who deserve it.
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo
...That I read the title as "Vulcan Debates Possibility of Alien Life?"
As a protestant, you, your pope, and all his cardinals can all fuck off.
Argh! Can't... find... anything... to... say... that's... more... funny... than what they're already saying!
The holy book heads' battle with science a.k.a. lucency a.k.a. anti-brainwash a.k.a. non-bullshit is much akin to a talking monkey trying to explain the passing of seasons as somehow being ultimately tied to the taste of bananas.
They're just so funny!
Except, of course, when they go postal with the crusading, and the suicide bombing, and the child molestation, and the... Ah well, maybe it's not so funny after all...
'The multiple incarnations is a heresy in Catholicism.'
For me, as for many aliens in this galaxy too, it is the Monotheism itself recognized as a most obscure heresy, catholicism included.
There you are, staring at me again.
Fiction enthusiasts finally discuss the staple of science fiction. Church and science could be reunited again.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I watched that a few days ago, and one of the concluding points was interesting.. the archbishop of Nigeria mentioned that the other side (Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens) failed to show that the Catholic church is -not- a force for good in the world.
And he's right.. the two gentlemen merely showed that members of that church have done wrong - in the distant past, the recent past, and in current times (yea olde pope thinking condoms are evil and all that) - and are not a force for good in the world. But they have not shown that the Catholic church, as an institution, is not a force for good in the world.
Of course, therein also lies the catch... you -can't- prove that the Catholic church as an institution is not a force for good in the world if all of its mistakes can be written off as the wrongdoings of its members. And therein lies also the rebuttal.. if only its members can do wrong, then only its members can do good.
"Is the Catholic church a force for good in the world?", then, is a question that simply has no answer.
The question should have been about specific elements within the Catholic church, or its constituency as a whole, and not whether they're good or not, but whether they're good or evil ('not good' could, after all, mean that they're just.. not good.. not evil, but not good either).
Stephen and Christopher do answer -that- question, just as the other side argues for their take on that question, and it is worth watching. Although it is entirely too short, the audience's questions are glossed over (in part due to the time constraints - and it should be said that the audience sure knows how to make their question long-winded, by thanking the speakers, telling them their personal stories, blabla) and it's certainly not meant to be an in-depth debate. Unfortunate.
The Catholics need not confront alien life issues at all. The idea that God's truth had to be delivered to the population of this world in such a way that they could understand and make use of it is sufficient. Can any of us imagine a Holy book being delivered two thousand years ago that babbled about relativity, the Higg"s Boson or multi dimensional universes?
We can trust that the message has been delivered to others in a format that they can both understand and make use of.
If you look at history, the real debate will be what sorts of side dishes to serve with them.
Of course, the aliens will have their own god, who is, like our god, the only god in the universe, but not the same god. This paradox can only be solved in one way: good old-fashioned interstellar war.
assignment != equality != identity
Any evidence that the Earth moved. He did try to use his theory of tides to demonstrate that the Earth moved, too bad it was wrong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Galileo.2C_Kepler_and_theories_of_tides Of course if you have Newtonian Mechanics, ability to observe stellar parallax, or even a Foucault pendulum it becomes pretty obvious that the Earth moves but he didn't have any of that.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
If you do as little as attend a few Sunday School classes, you will quickly find out that God making man in his own image means that he made him ORIGNALLY perfect and holy.
Yes, because there is no chance that the modern Sunday School interpretation could be the wrong one.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Whether intelligent societies elsewhere in the universe developed religions comparably to how we did is perhaps an interesting question. Trying to apply some of our historical myths to beings who evolved completely independently from ourselves is just nonsense.
You've seen the Pope? I think even with a year's supply of Viagra that requires nothing short of a miracle to happen.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I rather like the perspective that Answers in Genesis takes about the search for alien life (see article):
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v4/n4/search-alien-life
Of course regardless of my belief, or anyone's lack of belief, what is will be and the truth will set you free.
The whole point is moot anyway until life is discovered on other planets. Does the Vatican just think that we're close to that discovery? Why debate something that is still hypothetical when making a decision now will affect absolutely nothing.
If the Vatican really has a sudden outbreak of open-mindedness I strongly insist we settle the issue of evolution first!
Since he has no body, so what is meant by "created in his image" is more to do with our sentience, consciousness and knowledge of good and evil. This is how we are like him. Kind of like if we were to create a sentient program, who is "in our image" but looks like a computer.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
its most likely that god created the big bang. So whether or not there is alien life, God knows. But earth and our solar system is a darn special place. Gas giants at the out side a happy shining star. earth with a good sized moon. "God created man in his own image" I think the general perspective is way to three dimensional. We are Aware of Gods creation and can use, explore, interact, dream about that. Dolphin's live in life bubbles called oceans. So what if there was an Ugly alien with eyes on tentacles hiking around in the grand canyons and thinks "WOW amazing".
Looking at the present bishop of Rome tells us aliens are among us.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
If those "brother extraterrestrials" turn out to be turban-wrapped sand aliens, shall we "Salaam" them or "Deus vult!" them, Your Holiness?
Christians, please be aware that the intergalactic god, Zul-9 is the "one and only God". The alien crusaders are coming to spread the Word of the Great God Zul-9, and they want your churches, cathedrals and your women.
And if you silly Christians want "proof" that Zul-9 is the only God, then you can read it for yourself in the Biblio Galactica -- where it's written in clear, concise Zorgox "There is no God but Zul-9. All other gods are His sexual playthings -- until he eats them like crumpets with his afternoon tea."
Any evidence that the Cathoilc church attempts to put forward in an effort to discredit Zul-9 are words of the Devil (The evil "Byxaplaximax") and are but mere examples of obfuscation used by the Forces of Evil to cloud the One True Word of Zul-9. (It is common knowledge that the entire Bible was penned by an incredibly drunk Byxaplaximax in a weak effort to stifle Zul-9.)
To any Catholics who suddenly believe that their god may have created life elsewhere in the Universe, Zul-9 has proclaimed the following words: "Jesus H. Christ, stop trying to change up your stodgy little screed to encompass new scientific data which clearly disproves your stodgy little screed. There is no god but me, and you should know that because I've already buggered and devoured your god and he needed salt." (From the Book of the Book of St. Pogax-7).
And if there are any Catholics who cling to their religion in spite of the overwhelming evidence that they are uneducated monkeys, Zul-9 would like to remind these unbelievers that they have to "have faith".
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Maybe it's because I was raised Catholic, but I can't see how the question of what happens to religion if/when we discover intelligent alien life to be that funny... darn interesting maybe... but funny? Surely there's some good scifi out there about this very issue.
-chris
Robert Langdon If anyone can get to the bottom of this conspiracy, it's gotta be him! ;)
Bark less. Wag more.
For the love of God, NASA's little 15 billion dollars a year has kept some of the best and brightest minds engaged, added immeasurably to the American reputation around the globe. Let's GO and get these guys the funding that they have earned. Let's bring back JIMO, let's get nuclear propulsion programs working. Lets get Constellation rolling and get people to asteroids, to Mars, and to space. Let's do ALL of it.
If we have the Feds printing currency, we may as well spend it on something humanity can remember for a thousand years to come. Let history say, Americans lead the way into space.
LET'S GO.
This is my sig.
we would have to invent him.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
To paraphrase your argument: "Everything must have a cause except the thing that doesn't need a cause."
1) Why are you satisfied by calling the uncaused cause God? Why can't you define the Universe to include the uncaused cause and accept that not all effects have identifiable causes?
2) If you do decide to call the uncaused cause God, how do you jump from that to believing that God cares about you and listens to your prayers? Wouldn't that be like the flames of a forest fire praying to the lightning bolt that started the fire? Is the lightning bolt watching over His creation and deciding which flames get a happy afterlife?
3) Mathematically, you can have a function with periodic boundaries that depends only on itself without a beginning or end. If the Universe is mathematical and time is a characteristic of the Universe (not a supernatural clock existing outside the Universe), then the Universe could exist in a self-consistent state without any need for a beginning. Time is an illusion experienced by hunks of matter present within the Universe. The Universe, including all of time and all possible states, simply exists.
4) If you argue that what I have just describe as the Universe is actually God, then we need to have a long discussion about Baptism, Communion, Marriage, Sin, Heaven, and Hell.
Your kidding right? Catholics did not kill 'millions'. Where did you here that?
When my children reached the age of firmly questioning Santa's existence, I took each aside and told them that parts of the Santa story are fiction and parts are quite real. There is no reindeer, sleigh, north pole, ... and yet "he" sees you when you're sleeping and knows what you want and gifts really do arrive under the tree almost simultaneously around the globe! I then told them that WE are Santa Claus and I welcomed them to the club. "Remember: Don't spoil it for the little ones."
So if we are the hands of Santa Claus, might it not also be true that we are the hands of a creator? "Santa Claus's will" is sufficiently encoded in a few myths and jaunty songs. Is "God's will" sufficiently encoded in physics and genetics? E=MC2 and "survival of the fittest" might make nice jingles.
Careful, though, this line of thought could lead a thinking person to believe that the awakening in the hereafter will involve a lesson from a benevolent father. Don't spoil it for the little ones.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
The other poster adressed the absurdity of "everything must have a cause except for the first thing that caused everything" and attaching to this concept human values and wishes.
There's one thing left, your list of great fathers of science that were religious.
You DO realise that in their times following dominant (and oficially "the one") religion was the only way of obtaining broad education, right? That not being able to publish if they converted to Paganism or atheism was the least of their worries? (as for Georges Lemaitre, it's only natural that he proposed a hypothesis that fit nicely with his dogmas; and luckily turned out to be roughly correct...how many other weren't?)
One that hath name thou can not otter
The fundamental *ists with their *isms all tell us the path to salvation.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
let's get HUMANS walking on Mars and on the asteroids and on Titan and Europa...
Europa? But we're supposed to attempt no landings there!
~Philly
. . .this is modded insightful when it's clearly flamebait. You may have a valid point, but calling Catholics stupid clowns is far from a logical argument and does nothing to support your conclusion that they shouldn't be tax exempt. Typical Dawkins thinking: logic only matters when dealing with science. Science was an unknown concept (it's a method of discovering knowledge, btw, not a book of answers) to Aristotle yet he considered many philosophical questions utilizing logic. Science likewise employs logic, it's dependent on it, but logic is in no way dependent on science. So regardless of how well formed you may believe your argument to be, "they're stupid clowns" is an ad hominem fallacy. I love how up-modded comments on Slashdot tend to be logical and are called out for their fallacies, but it pisses me off how this standard never seems to apply to religion. If I said Linux was crap because Linus Torvalds is a stupid weird clown everyone would be up in arms, the comment would be buried. But apply that same fallacious logic to the pope and it's insightful.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I'm not Catholic, but even when I was active in the Protestant church I had resolved two of these issues.
Among other things, extremely alien-looking aliens would be hard to fit with the idea that God 'made man in his own image'
Perhaps Catholics interpret that statement differently. I was always taught that "in God's image" didn't mean a head, two legs, two arms, and presumably a penis since they always call God a "he." Instead, God's image means the ability for cognition, rational thought, compassion, love, and free will. Aliens, no matter their shape, would be made in God's image as well if they were intelligent. Of course the probability that there would be mutual comprehension is very small, so it's just as likely that they would be seen as the spawn of Satan.
Jesus Christ's role as savior would be confused; would other worlds have their own Christ-figures, or would Earth's Christ be universal?
This strikes me as a false dichotomy. C. S. Lewis in his Space trilogy hypothesized aliens that had no need of a Christ figure because they never "fell." In that series, the aliens all know of Christ and have a sense of fear and wonder about our planet, so mired in bad deeds yet the site of the lorious incarnation.
Robert Heinlein too gave a wonderful description of aliens (and one human) who did not need redemption in Stranger in a Strange Land. Those who strictly follow the rules laid out in the Bible might disagree, but I believe that Valentine Michael Smith exemplifies Jesus' teachings so well that he met the same fate for the same reasons: the world at large is not ready for such a radical way of life.
Your brain is not a computer.
Enjoy your superstition. It has no effect on reality.
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=suicide+bomber&btnG=Google+Search&meta=lr%3D&aq=f&oq=
Deleted
How is the parent off topic? Christianity does not teach that being made in Christ's image means looking physically similar to Christ. It shows a lack of understanding in the announcement of one of the basic tenants of Christianity. It seems that the the modding down of the parent is due to an inherent bias among /. users. Sadly, things like this are slowly forcing me off /.
the completely secular, and godless, communists, socialists and nazis all as supremely liberal groups, and they slaughtered people like ants.
You may just be trolling; but I wouldn't consider communists or nazi's as particularly liberal groups.P
and thus breaking Godwin's, but not God's, law...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
What would the Catholic Church's opinion matter on this topic?
I'm struggling with this because they represent a segment of our society that is steadfastly incurious and resistant to new ideas.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Actually if you look at my user number - 464142, I think it's YOU who doesn't understand what /. WAS, and what it has become.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Your kidding right? Catholics did not kill 'millions'. Where did you here that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_crusades
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
Lets suppose for a second the following:
1. Alien life exists.
2. Evolutionary factors made religion useful in the alien culture.
3. They looked outside their planet for alien life to answer life the universe and everything questions.
4. Hey there is "earth". Scout ship pronounces it "mostly harmless".
5. Religious types in alien culture are obligated to spread the word of god.
6. Missionary aliens arrive, destroy all churches/temples/holy men/infidels/etc and mention of religion other than their one true word.
6.1. Establish the 600 Club.
6.2. You guessed it.
7. Everyone on earth knows the divine word.
[no relation to any South Parks episodes. Honest.]
Just like orthodox Jewish believe God's salvation if for them only, and the rest of us have a place in God's plan that is somewhat inferior, we could come up with saying God created us on his/her own image, salvation is for us, and for the rest of our neighbors we can only preach Human morality, as seen on Star Trek.
The GP is the current pope.
Crusades were a response to Muslim expansion and domination at that time in history. It was far more political than religious in content. But those who spread misinformation will always point to the fact "oh my god, they were Catholic" as the reason why instead of pure political reasons.
The Catholic Church teaches that God created the universe. Therefore, God created all life everywhere and we can expect that life found off of Earth will be similar in appearance to life as we know it. This would also imply that there is a certain predestination in the journey of life...which is what we see in evolution where the same complex functional structure evolves independently at different times in the fossil record. A fish swimming in an ocean on another world is likely to have the same overall structure that a fish on Earth has, although with differences created by the environment in which it developed.
So bombarding Jerusalem and killing thousands in search of a holy artifact is "political"?
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
“The only thing that scares me more than space aliens is the idea that there aren't any space aliens. We can't be the best that creation has to offer. I pray we're not all there is. If so, we're in big trouble.”
-- Ellen Degeneres
It's a very dark ride.
Another factor that contributed to the change in Western attitudes towards the East came in the year 1009, when the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1039 his successor, after requiring large sums be paid for the right, permitted the Byzantine Empire to rebuild it.[10] Pilgrimages were allowed to the Holy Lands before and after the Sepulchre was rebuilt, but for a time pilgrims were captured and some of the clergy were killed[citation needed]. The Muslim conquerors eventually realized that the wealth of Jerusalem came from the pilgrims; with this realization the persecution of pilgrims stopped.[11] However, the damage was already done, and the violence of the Seljuk Turks became part of the concern that spread the passion for the Crusades.
Your only seeing what you want to see, you want to make Catholics look so bad that your taking things out context, ya I know most of the people on /. do that.
Just thought people wanted to be of reason more than the whims of their feelings.
all is well...
From less than nothing at all there became an awareness of this and at that splitting instance consciousness and existence came to be. Both of which either exist or they don't, no in between. But what exist in consciousness and what exist in existence are variables/changing. Now if you are all that is, how do you know you will continue being? Expansion of what exist in both existence and consciousness and at some point in creation, to create life in order to experience more and to create more. Experience more as from within seeing things in part, not whole and likewise creating things with limited knowledge. When you die you go back to the whole to file your report as you are again made aware of the whole and eventually re-enter a part for additional recording to later report. But still, without existence, there can be no consciousness or place to know existence and what it contains. So the purpose of your life and the lives of other creatures and higher intelligent life is the same as it is for what some call god. SURVIVAL and as such we are all given the religion of "Survival" built-in.
There is not one religion that will counter this, as a house fighting against its foundation, will fall.
So what do you do, what is your purpose? To help provide insurance for survival....
Different forms of life have different perception and abilities and as such its a direction of helping to insure survival.
So where is the problem with so called alien life?
In the big picture, aliens don't really exist, only being different for survival insurance.
Intelligence and ability to contribute to expansion is graded on how well a life form understands self destruction is anti-expansion and not helpful.
AlpineR gave a nice summary of the First Cause argument. Yes, it was all covered by Aquinas, and has also been countered for centuries. All I have to add is that to the best of our knowledge, the Big Bang was the beginning of time itself. But we don't actually know that -- we only know what happened up to a tiny fraction of a second before the Big Bang. For all we know, there could be an immensity of time, perhaps infinite, before that.
I fail to see how science and Catholicism disagree.
Really? You can't imagine how?
I'll give you a hint: According to all known physical laws, it is impossible for someone to be dead for three days and then come back to life. It is also impossible for someone to walk on liquid water, or for water to become wine, or for that little cracker to become the flesh of a god.
Also if Copernicus (a Polish cleric), Galileo, and Newton can believe in God, I don't see why I can't.
Appeal to authority. If you really want to play that game, watch this. (Even if you don't, watch it anyway. It's worth watching.)
Otherwise, you have to ask why they believed, and whether their reasons were good ones.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I love being lectured in logic by a person who ritually cannibalizes a god's zombified offspring because a talking snake tricked a mud-man's rib-wife with magic fruit.
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
"The Catholic Church has to refine and revise it's mission statement every time real science debunks it's faith-based beliefs. "
Debunking what? Last I checked science hasn't found intelligent "aliens" either. At least the church is open to debating the issue. As far as "mission statement" it hasn't changed.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Actually, I doubt that. It seems to me that religion is on the decline, and that it's the insanity of the fundamentalists that's on the increase.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The Vatican is currently deciding whether it wants to be the organization that dooms the entire human race to be wiped out by annoyed extraterrestrials who already have their own religion(s).
The hypothesis that no deity of any kind exists solves the problem in an unbeatably elegant fashion.
Only until contact is made.
It would be - inconvenient - for the atheist to encounter an alien believer. A believer with own intellectual and historical traditions and methods.
Methods perhaps more rigorous and defensible than his own. Someone whose brain and senses might be very different than his own.
The atheist has no need to fear an encounter with a living witness to the miracles of the Bible or solid documentary evidence.
With the alien, you just don't know what the possibilities really are.
MEANING OF LIFE SPOILER ALERT!!!
(If you like to discover it by yourself and have a big
sweet eureka-moment take all the time you desire before
reading further)
Since there are _only_ two things that effect us.
1. Evolution of Genes (i was created by my parents, not God. Duh!)
2. Evolution of Memes (=information) (Richard Dawkins invented the word in 1976)
It covers everything and explains everything. I think
it's actually far more beautiful then e=mc^2.
And the nicest thing is that it's up to _us_ to choose
how to best use evolution and information.
Nazis were neither secular nor godless. Communists are typically godless, but not secular. Also, I think you mean the 20th century. There weren't any communist states until the beginning of the 20th century, and the Nazi party didn't exist until around the end of the first world war.
Learn something new.
Yup. --And any reading of the bible shows us that if our actual "superiority" fails to conquer the opposing camp, then god will step in on our behalf and blast them from the heavens himself. You know, because, we're the "Chosen" people.
Religion is for fools and people with fractured minds.
-FL
would seem to imply that there wouldn't be needless suffering (Darfour, the hunger in most of Africa, the Tsunami that killed over 100k people, etc. etc.). The only rational conclusion is that god is either a trickster (trying to conceal his existence) or evil. So there.
HAND.
I've already posted so I can't mod this, but FWIW I'd mod you way way up, Mr/Mrs. AC. :)
Well said.
HAND.
Since they were going with the Tychonic System and all of that is accepted as correct in that system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tychonic_system (That whole thing about the church being pro Aristotle is kind of a myth) Oh, the other thing Galileo observed were the phases of Venus but again the Tychonic system is cool with that too.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
We evolved like this and it seems to work relatively well. Human design is obviously pretty good so long as you are a hunter-gatherer living a littoral existence in a warm climate, where you can expect a life expectancy over 50 years without medicine. The error you are objecting to is self-referential; it denies evolution, so has to posit that things were designed like that in the first place since they could not have evolved.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Read Genesis carefully and literally. There are at least 3 creation myths referenced in it. In one, quite separately from Adam and Eve, human women have sex with "angels" and give birth to giants. You could argue that Genesis (and the Book of Daniel) posit visitors from other worlds. (personally I believe that magic mushrooms trump flying saucers 9 times out of 10)
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I'm currently pondering a design for a system that uses genetic algorithms to evolve neural networks. Do I care what happens to the networks after a generation is up? Not really? At some point one may be found to perform its task at a level that would make the experiment a success. That one might get saved. The rest of them... not so much...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There is no Jehovah, only Zul-9.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
In a hundred years of Crusades, about a million people died on both sides. That's ten thousand per year. Diarrhea killed more people than that -- and it still does.
how to invest, a novice's guide
How do you know E=MC^2? Did you figure it out yourself, or did someone in authority tell you it was true?
I did calculate it myself when I was a sophomore in college. The mathematics of it actually aren't all that hard.
How do we know Abraham Lincoln was a president of the US? Did you see him become president? Or did you rely on the authority of some written documents to tell you that he was?
As evidence we have written history, photographic evidence, copious reliable documentation, archaeological evidence, birth records, and much more - most of which is available for you to peruse yourself. There is even DNA evidence from known descendants. Furthermore there is not a single claim to a supernatural act in any of the above and I can tell you exactly what evidence would be needed to disprove the claim that he was President.
How do we know Julius Caesar was an emperor of Rome? Where you there or are you relying on documents the earliest of which come from around 1000AD?
See the above, minus the photographs and with fewer surviving records and other bits of evidence. Again, no supernatural claims exist with regard to the existence and historical record of Julius Caesar and I can tell you exactly what it would take to convince me that he was not actually the emperor of Rome.
How do you know that person A murdered person B even though you haven't found the murder weapon? Is it because you performed some scientific test to determine it or is it because the bag lady across the street and said she saw him enter the apartment just before it happened and the neighbor said he saw him leave with a bloody knife?
It depends on the nature of the evidence. If the "bag lady" also claims to have seen a ghost rising to heaven or some other supernatural act, her credibility is rightly going to be suspect. Witnesses alone are rarely enough to convict someone of a capital crime.
Religion has all the evidence that everything else we rely on has.
WRONG. Religion makes no falsifiable claims. There is no way I can disprove the assertion that Jesus Christ was the son of "God". I can accept the assertion or not but I can not disprove it. Science and history actually do make falsifiable claims. I can find evidence to disprove a theory or a historical narrative. It might not be easy to do so but it is possible and I can tell you exactly what evidence I would need to disprove a scientific or historical theory. The worst abuses of religon come when historical fact is conflated with religious dogma. Much of the evidence from 2000 years ago is of course lost so it makes it easier for the charlatans who sell religion to dupe the unscrupulous and naive.
I've met plenty of all of the above, and none of them think what you claim they do.
Maybe you've got a different breed of them than around here, but I doubt they're all so radically different.
My conclusion can only be, then, that you are trolling, or that you have no idea what you're talking about.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Thank you for that comment.
I hadn't heard of Horus in those terms, but Mithras is also has an uncannily similar story to Jesus. What a coincidence, eh?
HAND.
Perhaps a very long time ago on a distant world, a small group beings convened to debate the possible existence of the vatican.
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps
Seems to me this is just another example of a religious institution redesigning where their God fits into the gaps in current scientific knowledge. /puts on tinfoil hat /puts hat away
What makes me curious though, is if this is being driven by an unannounced discovery? I've always wondered what the process would be if we really made contact with a higher life form, or even definitive proof of of a lesser life form. Would NASA hold off telling the public and instead talk to religious leaders first to let them have time to integrate the findings? Fear of panic? etc...
Discussions of faith based religion on /. usually results in the flames of the atheists, agnostic / logical minds. Very difficult subject to discuss here with any level of intellect, or respect.
As a devout christian (no, I don't see myself as any better than anyone else), I believe the universe is fully populated with intelligent life. Our planet earth is merely a petri dish culturing life & the inevitable conclusion of sin which we brought upon ourselves. Additionally, many other planets (in other star systems), whose populations looking on in sympathy for us, our race self destructing as the inevitable result. I associate the concept of the Supreme Being as one of an intelligent energy force that exists beyond our primitive perceptions, our brains too primitive to truly comprehend, so the concept of God is easier for us to grasp.
One favorite example of our dilemma is the "Christian Conservative". Here you have someone wrapping themselves in self-righteousness using the CC label, but are often found doing questionable acts of a homosexual nature in airport lavatories. Lying through their teeth and delusions of grandeur are also common as demonstrated by the recent return to the spotlight of Moose Barbie, the "Wicker Witch of Wasliia" (Sarah Palin).
Another pathetic example of just how evil we humans can be is the Islamic clergy commonly found in today's headlines. They have NO problem with Iranian muslims brutally murdering other Iranian muslims, but if an American muslim/soldier is out there shooting muslim wingnuts in sucide vests .. well, this is call for jihad against the evil Americans. What a crock of shit!
"And unicorns don't appear anywhere in the Bible, AFAIK"
* "God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn."--Numbers 23:22
* "God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn."--Numbers 24:8
* "His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorn: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth."--Deuteronomy 33:17
* "Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?"--Job 39:9-12
* "Save me from the lion's mouth; for thou hast heard me from the horns of unicorn."--Psalm 22:21
* "He maketh them [the cedars of Lebanon] also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn."--Psalm 29:6
* "But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of the unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil."--Psalm 92:10
* "And the unicorn shall come down with them, and the bullocks with their bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness."--Isaiah 34:7
Shamelessly cut & paste from God, errr I mean Wikipedia.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
C. S. Lewis wrote a series of books about this exact premise. In his stories, there is indeed life on other planets, but the life there is not fallen as it is on Earth. The first one is entitled "Out of the Silent Planet," and the collection is known as the "Space Trilogy".
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Heh. The "old Slashdot" was long gone by the time it had half a million registered users. Now get off my lawn.
Even though you're posting AC and consistently misspelled one of the key words for the topic at hand, you're fairly coherent, so I guess you deserve a brief rebuttal.
That was, in fact, exactly what I was trying to do. The OP was making a blanket statement that the Bible was historically accurate and complete, and I wanted to make the point that there's been a whole goshdarn lot of disagreement over the past three millenia about what belongs in it.
The links to the Islam and Jewish Christians articles may have been misplaced, but the point remains that there were plenty of people in the area at the time who didn't see any reason to believe in the resurrection, and were no doubt writing their own religious texts. The same is true of the Paulicans: it doesn't matter if Paul said something different than what they said. They're an example of resurrection-deniers.
The point is, again, that the Masoretic version and the Septuagint differ, and someone made a choice . There isn't one single version that everyone has always been reading from. And unless I'm mistaken, Protestants use the Masoretic text for the OT.
The reason the canon is the way it is has plenty of politics and power struggles mixed in to it.
You seem to have misread one of those articles. Deuterocanonical books are those that are used by the Catholic Church but which are not a part of the Hebrew Bible. They're canonical. Apocrypha, on the other hand, are not. The KJV (a Protestant Bible) originally included the Catholic Deuterocanonical books under the "Apocrypha" heading.
I'm not claiming to be a Biblical scholar; most of what I sort-of-know is half-remembered from confirmation classes way back when. The point stands, however, that the Bible is neither complete nor entirely historically accurate.
...is this: suppose that we make contact with some alien species, and it just happens that they are overwhelmingly superior to us - a civilization that's thousands of years more advanced and kicks our ass in technology, morals, arts, everything.
Now suppose that this civilization is completely atheist. They are angel-like beings but with no God; they consider religion a trait of pre-historic (in their POV) civilizations. Just like, say, our modern opinion about cannibalism. Their scientists and philosophers have long demolished all pro-religion arguments, finishing this debate in such clear terms that any educated human would understand and find impossible to not agree.
*If* this happens (notice I'm just supposing), religion is in major trouble and the only option for resistance is fanatism.
"Somebody had to create the computer too. So that's just bringing more into the equation. This whole computer simulation thing is the same as everything else - it's just another religion, no matter how you twist it around."
The universe is not simulated, YOU are. That statement is not religious, it is simply the result of carefull observation and ruthless logic. The only magic* computer required is the universe itself and the algorithm it runs is infinitely recursive - your mind simulates the universe that simulated your mind with your brain.
A mind is a mathematical entity that emerges from the interactions of organised matter, you could say it's the byproduct of the universe observing itself. Human minds create a 3D repesentation of the universe and call it "commonly percieved reality".
The bottom line of all this is our minds are incomplete. We will never fully understand ourselves, let alone reality.
magic* - the universe "just is".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Whatever conclusions they come to will be completely non-falsifiable and compatible with whatever sort of alien life that we could potentially encounter!
I stole this Sig
Of course, the aliens are witches and heretics, and need to be purged from the galaxy in great crusades.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
I would like to point out that the Mormon religion already takes into account the existence of extra-terrestrial life. They believe that Christ under the direction of God the Father created many worlds and that Christ is the Savior of all of God's worlds and all the inhabitants therein. As to why Christ came to this world it's because it was the only world so wicked that it would crucify it's Savior. While you may disagree with this doctrine it is interesting that the church already has doctrines in place that allow for any eventual discovery of extra-terrestrial life.
A scenario similar to this was the first thing that popped into my mind, too. Mine involved aliens going door-to-door with copies of the Watchtower.
Now you're making assumptions. Where in my post did I claim to be a fundamentalist Christian?
Not all Christians are fundamentalists, not all people who are offended by fallacious anti-religious arguments are Christians. Fallacy #2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Converse_accident
You also repeated your first fallacy, ad hominem, because you attacked my character rather than the argument. It doesn't matter if I'm Aristotle or Mickey Mouse, it's the argument that matters.
Fallacy #3: Straw man, you tried to defend your use of fallacious logic by pointing out the absurdities of my (assumed) religion, thus framing the argument around irrelevant circumstances. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Fallacy #4: Fallacy of emotion - your hyperbolized, irrelevant satire was a cheap emotional appeal to atheists.
Way to be an ideal example of how NOT to construct a logical argument. Perhaps if you weren't so quick to judge and too impatient to think you may find some merit in religion. I'm all for religious debate, but when name calling and other silly fallacies are invoked it ceases to be an argument and becomes a dispute. Disputes are unproductive and achieve little other than spite. Logical arguments enhance the minds of those involved and sometimes conclude with a consensus. When no consensus is reached, at least there is an increased understanding.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Why do grown adults in this day and age need to preserve the idea that the words of Genesis are somehow literally true, and that there's a creator God who stood apart from everything and created it as a separate thing? Why do they need to take everything that we now understand about the Universe and shoehorn it into an ancient tribal conception of the way the world is?
I've heard otherwise rational people say, "well, of course Genesis isn't 'literally' true! For example, one of God's days might actually correspond to 2 billion years! That would square with the way things are!" Such people need to be slapped repeatedly with a noodley appendage.
The Universe is just the way it is. Life developed within it over billions of years as a product of natural processes. It's a continuous and complete thing. What's the problem with just accepting that we're here, and life has certain requirements, and our job is to live in harmony and fulfill the requirements of life in the most responsible way we can, given our capacities? Do we need to do everything as a show, or to please some celestial daddy? Is that really the only reason that we act in the world?
To my mind, it is much more breathtaking and invigorating to realize I am a product of and participant in something so infinitely vast and self-sustaining, without need of any kind of intervention whatsoever.
Fact is, the point of religion is entirely psychological, and for that it needs to have a certain continuity with the reality we know through our sense and experience, and to a great extent that reality is now determined by scientific discovery. The Catholic (aka inclusive) church is breaking under the strain of new knowledge, and its psychological framework is increasingly untenable. They are desperate to preserve the church itself and its central tenets at a time when people are more than ever aware that it's all a load of symbolism.
I think it's absolutely foolish the way they're bending over backwards to try to get reality to fit into their storybook conception of things. Reality isn't a story. Reality is visceral, omnipresent, and immanent in itself. When we engage with it directly, all that narrative goes away, and really I think religions should be stripping down to essentials and helping people to face reality as it is.
Of course, there are already good, austere schools that serve that end well, with an emphasis on living ethically and developing the mind through meditation and other practices, so as to be as happy, helpful, and fulfilled in life as is possible. My hope is that such schools will gain precedence over the primitive and superstitious religions that still hang on to the idea that we're all living in a book with God as a character. Reality is much deeper and more noble than such a childish outlook allows for.
-- thinkyhead software and media
However, neither of your examples are fundamentally untestable, just practically. For a given question, you can construct an axiom to develop a system to answer that question, perhaps to the exclusion of another but you could, in principle, do this. It reduces to a choice of which questions you wish to answer.
Similarly, while a full-scale big bang model is impractical, it's not theoretically unobtainable. Collapse the entire universe into discrete BH chunks that will self-aggregate and wait, for example (I don't even want to image spacetime distorted on that scale ..)
There is no reason to assume that there is any fact that is not scientifically constructible. "Faith" based elements are not even constructible in principle.
Blog
The bible is a fiction story with a message, it tells parables, fictional stories that relay a truth or an important thing. They aren't to be believed literally.
I can accept that, though I would say that the truths and important things in the Bible are much more easily found elsewhere, and without being muddled by the kind of actual scripture which supports lunatics like Fred Phelps.
That is: It's not a case of alternate interpretations. If you read Leviticus, the God of the bible really does tell us to kill homosexuals. "God Hates Fags" isn't that far from what you actually find in scripture.
So, with all due respect, if you are wanting a story with a moral, you're probably better off with Aesop's Fables.
I do actually agree with most of what you say, and I think the world would be better of if more people understood it -- though I think you're stretching a bit to make the metaphor work:
Johna didn't get swallowed by "a really big fish" it's a story that says be patient and you will get what you want.
I thought the reason he got swallowed by the fish was that he wouldn't go preach? I don't remember it having anything to do with patience.
But you're probably right in that, where things weren't outright invented or borrowed (December 25th, for instance), they were probably a story that got exaggerated along the way.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
If the Vatican insists, Chuck will kill the Pope with a roundhouse kick.
... discovering unarguably intelligent alien life would be the intra-religion schisms that it would provoke between the different human theological camps.
Watching the "designed in Bog's own image" bandits would also be entertaining, as they try to come up with an image of a Bog which can simultaneously have humans and the BugBlatter Beast of Traal as images.
The one result, theologically, that would be really disturbing (I say this in the spirit of Popperian falsifiability, not because I think it's probable) would be if our alien friends with the 7-fold rotational symmetry (or whatever form they have) turned out to have a religion that was directly translatable into, say, the tales of the Norse Pantheon.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Well, the whole "big bang" theory in my mind still seemed rather odd. As far as my understanding go, all existence was in one big super-dense super-hot pinpoint of "something" until it exploded into a universe, and the expansion continues as time goes on.
OK, so where did that pinpoint of something come from. And where - if any - did the something before that come from?
Religion is often used to describe things that science hasn't yet done so for. Essentially the "because God wanted/did it" is the end-answer to unanswerable questions. But that doesn't mean that science and religion have to be at odds. As more and more complexity is discovered in the design of life, etc, the more I have to think "how could that just be a random accident." And if the answer is that existence is so unimaginable immense that even the tiny odds of that "accident" can come true, then how come by that same concept a superintelligent, superpowerful being cannot exist to act as the overseer of human destiny?
OK, so said being may not exist to the expectations/specifications of the religious community. But as said community always seems to state that the ways/intent of God are beyond the understanding of men, then that pretty much captures that whatever we have on "record" is imperfect at best anyways. Of course this is just IMHO, but there are plenty of famous quotes in science that says more or less the same thing.
I was wondering of in Heaven human would be mixed with various species of aliens, or if there is an heaven per planet ? Or per alien race ? Or are we in distinct areas of one big heaven ? Just curious, can any believer let me know the details, I want to know what to expect. Thanks a lot.
Brice Le Blevennec, Digerati
Oh really?
Then how do you hand-wave away Mary's 'Immaculate Conception', the [alleged] resulting in baby Jesus, and this whole upcoming Christmas?
Then there is the whole pesky issues of man being created in God's image, the Son of God[the a fore mentioned Jesus] being a man, etc.
Pretty dump question.
No, dumb answer.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
take 500 random humans, put them on a desert island in isolation, and in a couple of dozen generations they will have an advanced religious mythology, definitely involving demigods if not a monotheism (and a couple of nonbelievers for good measure)
repeat this experiment, and you will get a different religious mythology, but you will still have a religious mythology
if you had a magic wand, and you waved it, and christianity, islam, judaism, hinduism, sikhism, etc. were magically stamped out, new religions would spring into being overnight to fill the void. and it is a void: there is a place in every human society that religion inhabits. there's no doing away with it. ever
in other words, i don't believe in god, but i believe that belief in god is inescapable in the part of a large part of society
so you need to make peace with belief in god. not because god is real, but because no matter what you do, a lot of people will believe in it, and you can't ever change that, its inevitable
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The story was posted about Catholic Church. Not a generic Christian church or even fundamentalist. You are right on target. If aliens land tomorrow and they look like octopuses, it wouldn't change the Catholic Church's position on any faith elements. This is hardly anything that would have "profound implications" on the Catholic faith. While the actual posting of this story was fine, the poster should have consulted with a credible Catholic source before making his own assumptions and making things up.
"Communists are typically godless, but not secular."
Can you explain the difference?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Seriously, this topic was at 666 comments and some heartless bastard had the nerve to post the 667th? http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/5710/666b.png
What a rotten party, have we run out of beer or something?
A secular society is a society which respects everybody's religion, without showing preferential treatment to any singular religion.
The United States Constitution sets up a secular country, but it doesn't actively prohibit the private expression of religion, or even the public expression so long as it's not being officially endorsed by the government.
An atheist country, like the Soviet Union, makes atheism the de jure state belief. Much like being a practicing Catholic or Jew in Saudi Arabia, it's illegal to be a non-atheist in an atheist state.
Learn something new.