Pope's Astronomer Would Love To Baptize an Alien

Ponca City, We Love You writes "The Guardian reports that Guy Consolmagno, curator of the pope's meteorite collection and a trained astronomer and planetary scientist, says he would be 'delighted' if intelligent life was found among the stars. 'But the odds of us finding it, of it being intelligent and us being able to communicate with it — when you add them up it's probably not a practical question.' Consolmagno adds that the traditional definition of a soul was to have intelligence, free will, freedom to love and freedom to make decisions. 'Any entity — no matter how many tentacles it has — has a soul.' Would he baptize an alien? 'Only if they asked.' Consolmagno dismisses the ideas of intelligent design as a pseudo-scientific version of creationism. 'The word has been hijacked by a narrow group of creationist fundamentalists in America to mean something it didn't originally mean at all. It's another form of the God of the gaps. It's bad theology in that it turns God once again into the pagan god of thunder and lightning.'"

Comments

It'll make great TV

[grub]

I can see it now... the ships land at the UN and...

Alien: Greetings. We come in peace.
UN: Where do you come from?
Alien: A distant galaxy nearly 10 billion light years away. Our world has no crime, no disease, no wars; we value learning as the pinnacle of achievement. We have been waiting 2,000 of your years for the moment when Humanity is ready for contact. We feel the time is right.
UN: Why are you here?
Alien: We came to be baptized. Praise Jesus!

or not...

Good read

[MyLongNickName]

This, believe it or not, is a very good read. It brings up some interesting thoughts on science and how it interacts with religion. It shows that the stereotype of the church is against is untrue. It has some interesting observations on the Catholic church and its views on things.

But, this being Slashdot, I am afraid all we will see is a mindless trollfest.

Re:Good read

[IndustrialComplex]

I agree, and I'm glad that the Slashdot summary doesn't try to pick out sensationalist statements like a lot of other blogs have.

For example, the comment about the baptism. A lot of places phrased their summary in an attempt to suggest that he would be running around trying to baptise aliens at the earliest chance. I like that Slashdot included his actual statement which was a response to a question.

"Only if they asked." seems a perfectly fair and rational response to the question.

Re:Good read

[ShakaUVM]

>>You have to remember why Christians get baptized in the first place: to remove original sin

If you consider Original Sin to be a nature that is anything less than perfect (which is what it more or less means these days), it makes sense. Redemption for your fuckups.

>>Or is he thinking that Adam and Eve were the original ancestors of all intelligent beings

Doubtful. Back in the middle ages, the question arose if elves and giants could be baptized. They'd been sending missionaries out to the northern reaches of Europe, where everyone knew giants and elves lived. So the pope considered it, and said, sure. They could be baptized, too, if they wanted it.

So this isn't much of a departure from precedent.

What about Gingers?

[antifoidulus]

Why doesn't he try to baptize a Ginger Kid instead, they are assumed to have no soul and there are a lot more of them then there are aliens.

Definitely discuss beforehand

[starfishsystems]

Water could be extremely toxic to some life forms. You don't want to start out a first encounter on the wrong foot.

Christian: Welcome to Earth. Hey, you want to be baptized?
Alien: Sure!
Christian: Lean way back. Okay, here we go.
Alien: [tszzz]

Deliberately misconstruing speaker

[Skexis]

Even reading just the summary, the title does no justice to Consolmagno's response.

Pre-Fallen?

[flogger]

I've loved the idea of Religion and Aliens. :-) Who knows, maybe Angels/spirits/demons are aliens. (Well they are alien to us, but maybe that are ET-type aliens.)

I recall having many long conversations with a priest about the possibility of the existence of Aliens. religiously speaking, one of the questions that intrigues me the most is are the aliens corrupted by "Original Sin?" What would society be like if we did not have this tendency to do "wrong" when now one was looking? What if the aliens do not have that tendency? What if they have never "eaten of the forbidden fruit?"

Are they Pre-Fallen or have they fallen?

• Pre-Fallen: THey are going to be nice and cure our cancer and help us in any way possible.
• Fallen: They are going to wipe us out and destroy us in a way that S. Hawkins is going to say, "I told you so."

Any entity

[DevConcepts]

— no matter how many tentacles it has — has a soul. Ummm... The Flying Spaghetti Monster??

In The Name of The Father, The Son, & Teh Fail

[RobotRunAmok]

I realize that it's trendy to be anti-religion and all, but please... if you're going to jump on the bandwagon try to understand the teensiest background and minimum number of tenets of what it is you are trying to mock, lest you make all the hard-working, educated, clever and industrious atheists look bad.

Re:I guess the trick is you have to ask?

[TheLink]

As the guy said: "only if they asked".

That's why many Christians disagree with infant baptism.

So if a dog or gorilla understood the implications of baptism and wanted to be baptised, then I personally see no reason why the dog or gorilla shouldn't.

Even a reasonable Atheist should allow such a creature the freedom to do so, despite disagreeing with it.

FWIW, I think it may not be such a great idea to keep creating more and more transgenic animals (or even very advanced AI). It looks like society wouldn't be able to handle/treat such creatures appropriately.

Just because it can be done now doesn't mean it should.

Better wait till we grow up first.

Reasonable atheists don't care

[fyngyrz]

What we care about are the constant invasions of the religious into our non-religious lives. Why can't I buy beer on Sunday? Why can't Linda and Gwen get married? For that matter, why can't Linda, Gwen, Melissa and Steve get married? Why is it expected that I put my hand on a bible in a courtroom? Why does my money say things I cannot possibly agree with (I don't trust in God, you see)? Why has my patriotism, as expressed by the pledge of allegiance, been hijacked into a totally false declaration of subservience "under god"? Why do my kids encounter religious dogma in public schools? Why am I forced to carry the tax load for the religious, when I in no way support their existence, outlook, dogma, or teachings?

If they want to dunk each other in the water, so what? That's not the problem. That's never been the problem. The problem is they don't limit their religion(s) to themselves. And in turn, that converts my general attitude from "don't care" to "religion is an obstacle to reasonable life."

Definition of a Soul

[Jason Levine]

He lists the requirements for having a soul as:

- have intelligence
- free will
- freedom to love
- freedom to make decisions

Putting aliens to one side for the moment, as I don't think Lrrr is going to drop in on us tomorrow, I wonder how he feels about some intelligent animals.

Chimps, gorillas and other primates have been shown to fulfill these requirements to varying degrees. Dolphins have also. Would they baptize a dolphin? (How would you do that? Raise it out of water?)

I wondered if anyone ever asked Koko what gorillas think about a creator. Thanks to a Google search, I turned up this exchange:

Francine Patterson: "Who is God?"
Koko: "Me."
Patterson: "Who created the world?"
Koko: "Another woman."
(Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_12_131/ai_n8569017/?tag=content;col1 )

Somehow, I don't think Koko's religious outlook would gel with the Vatican's. ;-)

article didn't define "entity"

[Anonymous Coward]

An octopus has tentacles; does it have a soul? Perhaps "An entity has a soul if it is intelligent enough, and of course if we can see that it is intelligent enough, it must therefore have a soul." Circular logic. Not to mention, such a definition would exclude unborn humans from having souls, and therefore abortion shouldn't be the issue that religions like Catholicism makes of it.

The most interesting thing about the idea that a soul starts to exist at conception is the logical conclusion that this can only be true if God personally makes one. That's because the process of egg-fertilization is purely a physical/biochemical reaction; anything that can be created by purely physical means can also be destroyed by purely physical means. So, if a soul is to exist immortally, then it cannot begin to exist as a result of a purely physical event such as egg-fertilization; an Act of God would be required, for the NON-physical soul to begin to exist.

Now, God is not an idiot. Will God create a soul for a fertilized egg that contains badly defective DNA and will never grow to term? Is God vindictive instead of Loving, that God will create a soul for a fetus that God knows (because knows everything) will be aborted, JUST so that the woman can then be condemned? And what of twins? Twins do not begin to exist until the fertilized egg "hatches" enough for a blastocyst to emerge; if the blastocyst breaks into two organisms while emerging, then twins (sometimes breaks into three, yielding triplets) are the result. WHEN does God create those extra souls??? Religion claims that souls begin to exist at egg-fertilization; Religions are stupidly ignorant about the actual facts. Then there are organisms called "chimeras", in which two separately-fertilized eggs sometimes merge and the result is just one human body. See the Discovery Health Channel show, "I am my own twin" for more information. Why would God create two souls at fertilization if God knows that a chimera will form?

Re:I guess the trick is you have to ask?

[kevinNCSU]

Jesus Christ this thread is painful, both parties in it need to learn how to read. Neither side said anything about the other limiting choice, the religious dude said any reasonable atheist wouldn't restrict that choice, and then the atheist dude made a comment like the christian dude said atheists were restricting choice and then the religious dude instead of explaining decided to be snippy back and now theres been like 8 replies over a non issue that everyone is in agreement over: Aliens can do whatever the fuck they want. Especially once they harvest our delicious kidneys.

Intelligent Design

[Chibi]

Haven't read the article yet, but I'm curious why there isn't more discussion on his comment about intelligent design:

Consolmagno dismisses the ideas of intelligent design as a pseudo-scientific version of creationism. 'The word has been hijacked by a narrow group of creationist fundamentalists in America to mean something it didn't originally mean at all. It's another form of the God of the gaps. It's bad theology in that it turns God once again into the pagan god of thunder and lightning.'"

I know the general Slashdot community looks down on religion, but it'd be nice to see greater distinction between fundamentalists and Christians who are probably generally more in the moderate realm. Unfortunately, when most people hear "Christian," the automatic response is to think that the person is a fundamentalist.

Guy Consolmagno

[jschen]

Dr. Consolmagno spoke at our decidedly non-religious institute (The Scripps Research Institute) back in February. He often represents Europe in international astronomy meetings, including when they were deciding whether to demote Pluto. In his seminar, he gave us a preview of his book, The Heavens Proclaim: Astronomy and the Vatican. It was mostly showing us pretty pictures in the book and telling us all sorts of interesting anecdotes from his experiences. He also covered a multitude of other topics, ranging from those of purely scientific concern (e.g. figuring out a way to determine the density of a meteorite) to historical controversies (e.g. the church and Galileo). It was one of the most interesting seminars I've attended this year. If given another chance to attend a seminar of his, I would gladly do so. In fact, if I were to know about it in advance, I might even buy a copy of his book for him to sign.

Re:I guess the trick is you have to ask?

[A nonymous Coward]

How would you baptise an octopus? Raise it out of the water? Sprinkle holy air on it?

Brother Guy Consolmagno

[Hartree]

Absolutely. Several years ago, I heard him talk on the prospects for finding more exoplanets in the future. He's a serious and highly competent scientist.

He also is a Jesuit monk. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

(And, he seemed like a heck of a nice Guy. Forgive the pun. :)

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Consolmagno