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.'"

Comments

Of course, there is another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The hypothesis that no deity of any kind exists solves the problem in an unbeatably elegant fashion.

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[IrquiM]

Except it may not be a good answer. There is more to life than what you can prove scientifically.

As of now, yes - but who knows what will be possible in 1-5-10-50-100 etc. years.

However, it is the person who makes the claim that should prove it. So that there's a deity is up to the church to prove, and not for the science to disprove.

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[fastest fascist]

Perhaps, but that is hardly proof of anything supernatural. It just means there are limits to our understanding.

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[turbidostato]

"There is more to life than what you can prove scientifically."

Prove it.

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[JustOK]

some branches deal with things that may or may not exist. God may well be similar to quantum theory, with faith corresponding to observing

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[moz25]

It's rather trivial to "prove" any random claim when you don't have to bother with the same rigorous criteria for what constitutes valid proof.

Thus, religions appear to have lots of "answers" that science doesn't have. Of course, unlike science, no one - even within the same religion - can come to agreement about the details of those answers, just that they're there.

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[iocat]

Not sure why imaginging God would be the simplest answer to Mankind's questions about themselves. It actually seems sort of like an idiotic idea. "Huh, I'm alive. Clearly an invisible omnipotent creator made me, even though I've seen no other evidence." In my opinion, the "god is a simple answer for primitive people" stance is a straw man.

I did find it interesting in the summary that the Catholic priest was positing multiple creations on multiple earths, while the theoretical physicist was insisting that was heresy to Catholics. I think I'll trust the priest on what's heresy and what's not to Catholics.

While people like to bag on the Catholic church for its persecution of scientists hundreds of years ago, in its acceptance of evolution, and williningness to cnoser things like the role of alien life, it's actually among the most progressive religion around in the realm of the sciences. Unfortuntaley, that typically doesn't fit in with critics' political world-view, so it's conveniently ignored.

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[BakaHoushi]

You're implying that life, itself, is not entirely meaningless. It could very well be a meaningless computation. I propose that life itself is, in fact, 100% devoid of any inherit worth.

Now, hold on, put down your pitchfork and torches. I'm not advocating hedonism or "killing people 'cause their lives aren't worth anything." I said "inherit" worth. We, as a species, can attribute meaning into things. I wouldn't say "being alive is magical," as you would put it. Rather, I would say that we don't know what it's like to be anything other than alive. Thus, we can use the time we have to apply meaning of our own. Do what makes you happy, to a reasonable extent. Expand your mind. So what if your dream of constructing the largest scale model of The Taj Mahal using gum drops seems like a waste of time to someone else?

My basic point is, people search for meaning in life. That's why we have religion. We want to be given a purpose, a reason to get up in the morning instead of just putting a gun in our mouths and ending it. But "meaning" is a totally human created concept. As such, it cannot be found, only made. Thus, I feel any attempt to "find" meaning through spirituality is merely a false hope. People take it as the shortest route, but never truly arrive.

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[Crazyswedishguy]

I said "inherit" worth.

Yeah, you said it twice. I think you meant "inherent".

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[northstarlarry]

There were plenty of people from the time of Jesus's death through many centuries who denied or argued various aspects of Jesus's humanity, divinity, status as a prophet or the Messiah, and resurrection.
The current Bible canon is only a selection of the books that the Catholic Church decided were the right ones in the 16th century. They also had to select one of at least two available manuscripts for what became the Old Testament. Other denominations have other canons. There's a pile of books that are left out, and some which are left in that have disputed authorship.
A lot of what's in the Bible is historically accurate, some percentage of it is repeated and probably exaggerated, and there's a lot of stuff that was written in the same span of time (anywhere from 10 to 15 centuries) that isn't in there. You are glossing over so much history it's amazing. Just take a look at this one wikipedia page, if nothing else: The Bible and History.

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[SanityInAnarchy]

Please explain how someone would "prove" anything that happened 2000 years ago without relying on the books that were written at the time.

You're both wrong -- you wouldn't prove it, in that you can't prove anything.

But your evidence is entirely within the pages of a single flawed book. Compare this to the evidence for other historical figures, like Julius Caesar, for example.

And IrquiM is right in that it is up to you to provide evidence, if you want your claims to be taken seriously. Otherwise, the correct default position is nonbelief -- not disbelief, simply nonbelief.

the bible is a compilation of the best preserved writings from that time,

Mostly because they are the writings religion wanted to preserve. Just look at the writings which were rejected by the Council of Nicaea.

That, and the fact that someone felt the need to forge an entry by Josephus doesn't exactly help your case.

generally accepted from a HISTORICAL pov as accurate.

Citation, please. From a historical perspective, the Bible is a work of fiction which borrows heavily from other traditions. The Jesus story in particular is borrowed from all kinds of stories repeated through the ages, and is almost a complete ripoff of the story of Horus. Here's a quick summary of Horus, stolen from the movie Religulous:

Written in 1280 BC, the Egyptian Book of the Dead describes a god, Horus, the son of the god Osiris, born to a virgin mother. He was baptized in a river by Anup the Baptizer, who was later beheaded. Like Jesus, Horus was tempted while alone in the desert, healed the sick, the blind, cast out demons, and walked on water. He raised Asar from the dead -- "Asar" translates to "Lazarus". Oh yeah, he also had 12 disciples. Yes, Horus was crucified first, and after 3 days, two women announced that Horus, the savior of humanity, had been resurrected.

Ignoring that, it's certainly one of the more self-contradictory accounts, and you have yet to answer Hume's challenge -- in order for testimony of a miracle to be believed, you must show that it would be more miraculous for the testimony to be wrong than for the event to have actually occurred.

Now, which seems more miraculous: That a man rose from the dead, or that the testimony was mistaken? Which seems more likely?

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[Thing 1]

Religion has all the evidence that everything else we rely on has.

Wrong. E=MC^2 is simple to deduce; read Einstein's Theory of Relativity, downloadable from Project Gutenberg. Special theory talks about dropping a ball from a moving train; general (the E=MC^2 one) talks about a man in a closed box with a string on the outside, and something pulling the string, and the forces the man experiences. The rest is just math, and fairly simple math at that.

Recent history (Abraham Lincoln) is documented in photographs, paintings, and newspapers.

More distant history is of course more difficult to ascertain. But saying that "religion relies on the same evidence as science" is ridiculous on the face of it. Thanks for playing.

(Hint: religion is not falsifiable; science is. What this means: science can say "here is something I want to disprove using what I've already learned; and here is an experiment that should disprove it, depending on the outcome of the experiment." Religion has no such utility; religion is always "close your mind to the abject reality around you, and substitute this one with a sky fairy where most people burn for eternity upon their death.")

Re:Of course, there is another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet we continually believe the "questionable testimonies" of people for almost all of our other knowledge.

No we don't. Where did you get that idea?

How do you know E=MC^2? Did you figure it out yourself, or did someone in authority tell you it was true?

When you study physics, you're taught both how theories have been developed and how you can test them for yourself. Thus you can eventually, when you get far enough in your studies, both understand E=MC^2 and experiment yourself to see how the theory fits observations in reality.

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? 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?

Historical documents are studied and those doing so look for contradictions and try to establish the truth. If I was really interested in history, I could do that myself but most people are content relying on historians, if their conclusions are consistent and contradictions absent, it is likely that what they state is true. Maybe not with absolute certainty but with much higher certainty than anything claimed in religion.

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?

Forensic science and testimonies constitute the process of trying to convince a jury of a certain chain of events having taken place. An explanation of what the methods show is of course also part of the trial. Some absolute certainty about what actually happened might not be within reach, which is why a guilty verdict only requires proof "beyond reasonable doubt".

Religion has all the evidence that everything else we rely on has.

No, that's precisely what religion doesn't have. Religion is based on accounts and documents that believers don't permit you to question. In science, questioning theories is precisely what is welcomed since it might lead to either better verification of the existing theories or new, better theories.

You simply make the assumption that religion is false and then you are able to deny the testimony of witnesses (by calling them suspect) simply because of your assumption.

Scientifically-minded people don't make that assumption directly. They only hold religion accountable to the same degree as any other proof of anything and religion fails to reach that level. Furthermore, when evidence that can be held accountable to that higher degree contradicts religious claims, it proves that at least those contradicting parts are false. The best example is probably the age of the earth. The process of carbon dating can be replicated over and over again so that anybody that doubts it, can verify how it works for themselves. The results carbon dating yields contradict religious accounts to such extent that it proves certain religious claims wrong. Inevitably, it might also lead people to doubt other claims made in religion.

Remove that assumption and the stories suddenly corroborate much more than is comfortable.

By "remove that assumption" you mean that proof in religion should be held to a lower standard than anywhere else and I'm quite curious to know why. Your logic is circular: "you're not allowed to question whether it is true since it is true".

Spread the word!

[sakdoctor]

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.

Re:Spread the word!

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Catholic, I have a bit of a problem with this being filed under "humor". Yes, yes, most religious questions are a big joke to /. editors and posters (Cf. parent), but when institutions look as these low-level problems they frequently have
a) a faction that gets it really wrong and embarasses the institution; and
b) a faction that gets it right (or close) and enriches the institution

"what are the ramifications if there are nonhuman beings who experience conscience and guilt?" is a fascinating question, just like

"what are the ramifications if the earth goes 'round the sun"

"what are the ramifications if indigenous people are fully human and have as much God-given dignity as Western Europeans?"

etc.

Re:Spread the word!

[DudeTheMath]

I don't know if AC's get notifications when someone responds, but I'll recommend a couple of SF books by Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow and Children of God. In the first, extraterrestrial life is discovered, and the Jesuits have a plan! She deals deeply with the question of whether non-humans have souls, etc.

Probably not what you think

[swamp boy]

Normal folks think of aliens as being extraterrestrial. In this case, it's probably a study of non-Catholics.

Catholics are quite clever

[turbidostato]

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.).

Re:Catholics are quite clever

[lwsimon]

Being raised Catholic, I questioned the idea of alien life. My priest got a little bit exasperated at times, but he sat and explained the catechism to me, and there is no problem with accepting aliens. Further, the Church would not necessarily even want or need to convert them, regardless of their religion.

Christianity holds that man fell from grace in the Garden of Eden, where he was tricked into consuming fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, against God's commandment. If He created an alien species, then they may have never been exposed to the concept, or they may have followed His commandment. Having never fallen from grace, they would have no need for a savior, and therefore no Jesus Christ.

As the parent said - the premises may be flawed, but Catholic Catechism is quite internally consistent.

Two words: Giordano Bruno

[Shag]

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.

The problem with religion

[KingSkippus]

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.

No surrender

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Catholic, I have a bit of a problem with this being filed under "humor".

As a protestant, you, your pope, and all his cardinals can all fuck off.

Re:No surrender

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Jew, you're both a pack of heretics. "Son of god", my ass.

Re:No surrender

[geminidomino]

As a heathen, get over it already. We know you're cranky, but it's not our fault Moses wouldn't stop for directions...

Re:So the bullshitters change their story.

[biryokumaru]

People are leaving that organization in droves.

I would beg to differ. Several top Google hits suggest that they are growing, but at a rate less than the world population. Thus, as a percentage of world population, Catholocism is shrinking, but it's still growing in numbers. People are not, as you suggest, leaving it in droves.

Another great statistic I just found was that an average of 171,000 Christians are "martyred" for their faith every year. That's pretty wild! I'd make a joke about some well-fed Roman lions, but that would be in very poor taste.

Re:Keep It Simple

[KGBear]

Or maybe someone on this other planet 2,000 thousand years ago compiled a bunch of thousand-year-old stories and attributed the result to the creator of the Universe. Then over the next 500 years or so a group of people schemed to get to the top of their society by carefully editing the stories, leaving out whole books of it and only including what they could use. Then they controlled their world for the next 1,000 years or so by using careful doses of applying the resulting book and torturing and killing people who disagreed with them. Then some people finally started waking up and learning to think for themselves and maybe the original people who were oppressed by the holders of the book have now ascended to the top of the societal pyramid and are terrified of not having oppressors and tyrants telling them what to do, so they vote and influence policy to try and force everybody under the rule of that original book again, which in the meantime has lost all of its meaning and can be interpreted to mean anything at all. Just saying. This is just the kind of thing that could happen on an alien world in a bad Sci Fi plot, isn't it?

Re:So can science define existence?

[Cytotoxic]

'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?

That's just silly. A 3,000 meter tall solid gold badger watching over Madison Wisconsin doesn't exist. We can easily compare it to a small ceramic badger from the University of Wisconsin gift shop that in fact does exist. Now, there is no logical reason that the giant golden badger cannot exist, it just doesn't. However, a square with only 3 sides does not exist anywhere in the universe, because it is logically impossible for such a thing to exist. It is easy to compare this with an equilateral triangle which in fact might exist, or one that does exist.

This is related to the history of argument about the existence of God. Thomas Aquinas made a similar distinction between things which exist and things which don't exist, things which cannot exist and things which just happen not to exist. In this ontological argument he attempts to prove that God logically must exist.

Catholics: Prepare to be assimilated.

[popo]

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".

Re:AHEM...

[quadelirus]

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 /.