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.

Any entity

[DevConcepts]

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

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."