There was a brief flurry of surprise a while back that Richard Dawkins acknowledged the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and that it was even possible that aliens might have visited Earth — for some reason, creationists thought this was hilarious, although it’s actually a very clear element of scientific thought. We can admit a possibility — Dawkins even admitted the possiblity of a god in The God Delusion — but that does not imply that we think there is evidence for such a thing, and evidence is a necessary prerequisite for an idea to enter the purview of science. It was a little strange to see giddy creationists pointing out a commonplace statement, as if it somehow revealed a confusion in Dawkins’ mind, when it really just exposed the ignorance in their own.
Well, I expect a repeat performance now. A Vatican astronomer said intelligent beings could exist in outer space, and that this does not contradict their religion. To which I can only say, sure, big whoop, not a big deal — it’s just speculation.
Of course, being a Vatican astronomer, he’s got to go on and assert that these beings were created by God, and might be free of original sin, yadda yadda yadda. It’s pretty much all vapor, but I still expect a good creationist howl of protest.
I’ll never understand how the (generally) scientifically inclined Jesuits reconcile with the extreme conservative portion of the church.
I guess that’s part of the reason why I left.
I, for one, welcome our new divinely-created overlords.
My imagination’s going a bit, now. SCENE: we meet the aliens. For the craic, it’s the vatican observatory that made first contact. The Jesuits are called to convert them that Jeebus is their sav… oh. Hang on.
Ummm…
Alien: a being in or from outer space and not native to the Earth; extraterrestrial
Jesus Christ: a being in or from the sky and not native to the Earth; extraterrestrial
I don’t see why they’d believe in one and not the other.
Nope! Being a Vatican astronomer he said that intelligent beings could exist on other planet because it doesn’t contradict the bible.
The science, well, that’s something else… Let’s look at the bible first, shall we?
Religiots in space……….]]]]]]]
Well there’s always a possibitity of a god… But there’s no evidence I have to worship it, that I should give a rat’s ass about it and that it gives a rat’s ass about me.
JESUS! IN SPACE!
The Vatican talks about aliens, and there’s the press conference that NASA are doing later today where they’ll announce a major discovery of something they’ve been looking for for 50 years.
Are they preparing us for something? :raised eyebrows:
Well, it’s like the song says, “Our God is an Awesome God.” Which, if you’re going to have a god, it’s best to have an awesome one. And what is more awesome than a God who brings his only begotten son to be crucified by sentient beings all over the universe?
Damn, that kid has it rough.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve beaten my head against some creationist’s wall over that point.
“And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates”.
Surely all of them would be as they would not be descended from Adam and Eve!
Father Funes, may be a respected scientist, but not by me.
/insert head into backside
Well you wouldn’t want to have to give up your clearly priviliged place in the universe eh? All that cosmos out there is quite clearly ours and ours alone, it’s simply there for when we get bored.
/remove head from backside
As to Nasa’s announcement later today, expect some x-ray related goodness!
I this guy has discussed this before, even going so far as saying God may have had to send Jeebus down in the body of the locals as a saviour. As priest-talk goes I thought that was a fairly entertaining bit of science fantasy fiction.
James Blish who wrote “a case of conscience” about a Catholic priest meeting an “unfallen” alien race was apparently mailed the official vatican guide for dealing with ETs. Given how long he’s been dead this ain’t news.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Case_of_Conscience
Keep up the good work
Maybe they will even find an alien god.
“To strengthen its scientific credentials, the Vatican is organising a conference next year to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the author of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.”
That should be good fun.
re: #13
It’s been done before-what else is Aslan but Jeebus in a lion suit for the Narnians?
It is always good to cover one’s bets. Especially if you are the Vatican. The Astronomer (guy in charge of staring into heaven) in particular….
#16: Well sure, but when it comes down to it, space aliens are way cooler than talking beavers in wardrobes. Therefore, Funes little fantasy is better than Lewis’s.
QED bitches
I can see it now:
Passion of the Christ IV: First Contact
I’m just waiting for David Puddle to chime in at this point…
Clarke’s short story “The Star” has a Jesuit not only discovering evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence, but losing his faith because of it…
I won’t give away the excellent ending to tell you why, though. Just look it up.
I can’t remember the name but a while back I read an interview with some cardinal or bishop who was asked if beings on another planet would be tainted by original sin.
He replyed, yes and they would have to be saved.
I cannot discribe the chill that went down my spine at that prospect.
peter g
Damn it, PZ, I thought I’d beaten you for once! LOL.
#4,
Over 10 years ago I had a six-song demo by a Michigan rock band named Toy Subway. The standout song was called “Cosmic Nazareth” and postulated Jesus was an ancient astronaut (the lyrics have a UFO touch down in a cornfield and Jesus stepping out).
I thought this was pretty funny, just because the belief in aliens would more-or-less establish that evolution is the primary creative function for species in the universe.
Good post PZ.
I’m looking forward to the movie: Alien vs. Pope
This story was in the Chicago Tribune a few days ago. Some guy commented that aliens contradict the bible since aliens wouldn’t be created in god’s image. Sad really. Considering the size of the cosmic web and the trillions of galaxies why should our orb be the only one with life?
And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates.
The biblical gymnastics that Christians will have to do if such an intelligent sentient alien race is discovered I can only imagine. Oh, the faithful will have to cherry pick the bible on that one to reconcile the belief that God set up humanity (or abandoned us) for Hell and gave a free pass to E.T.
I would think this would pose major theological problems. Beings with souls who are free from original sin? So Jesus would not be their saviour, and thus they genuinely could not be Christians — not that they wouldn’t be historically, but they theologically could not be, and no amount of missionary zeal could get around that logical conundrum.
And what about the creation story in the Bible? It doesn’t suggest there that there were multiple creations, with multiple worlds.
Man, I don’t see how religious people keep their heads from exploding.
Alien: a being in or from outer space and not native to the Earth; extraterrestrial
This is accurate in the rest of the world. In the good ol’ USA, though, the definition is:
Alien: a being in or from outside the USA and not native to the USA; extraUSArial.
I know – I am one.
Two years ago, a Vatican astronomer (George V. Coyne) wrote a piece really blasting Intelligent Design. It appears that Rome is trying to clean up its act after the Galileo fiasco. That article is at the AAAS site, here: Vatican Astronomer Discusses the Harmony Between Science and Faith.
If SETI finds a signal, how long before the Vatican launches a probe to convert the aliens? To be sure, I recommend they freeze the pope and send him.
I’m amused at Father Funes’s name, because I loves me some Jorge Luis Borges.
From the article:
I wonder what he thinks being “free from original sin” would actually result in concerning the beings we may meet? That they don’t have to eternally apologize and prostrate themselves before God for committing such an original sin?
If that’s true, I wouldn’t count on finding them first — they’re enjoying a scientific head start of upwards of 1700 years, so I’m betting on them landing here first.
Oh, if they just hadn’t eaten that damn apple!
Is anyone else reminded of Kang (or possibly Kodos) saying “Our species has been watching your puny planet since it was created. 5000 years ago, by God *sign of cross*”?
#18: What about talking beavers from space who open a wormhole into a wardrobe?
I don’t know if aliens would create much of a problem for many fundamentalists or evangelicals. There’s a whole cottage industry of aliens-are-actually-demons books.
Hmm…I thought of one possible outcome for E.T. Slavery. Yep, they’ll become slaves because the Bible clearly gives humanity dominion over all creatures that God created as Fumes suggest. Yep, the Bible will be spun that way much like Jeremiah 1:5 is used against abortion that any fool who reads the verse in its larger context knows that there is no explicit godly-order against abortion here or anywhere in the bible.
Mark Twain anticipated this in “capt stormfield’s visit to heaven” there are several dozen alien species represented. He riffs amusingly on the problem of what happens if you have an alien species that’s peace-loving herbivores and basically is 100% represented in heaven…
I heard the report about this on NPR and the Vatican Astrologer(excuse me, Astronomer) was described as “widely respected in the scientific community.” Poor deluded sap – someone needs to tell him that first you should find evidence of “souls” and then worry about whether hypothetical aliens have them.
Scidence: U’re doing it Bakwardz!
“You’ve read the book, now see the movie….!”
Plan 9 from Rome
One thing have always found interesting in SF is that in Asimov and Roddenberry universes all the beings on the various planets look pretty much human like.
Asimov even explored this a bit. Was there a single lineage or is the human form simply a common state for an evolutionary path to get to? (I forgot which books asimov discussed that, I think galactic empire series)
Then there is the other SF breeds that look nothing like human (this is I think what we would expect, no?).
If we do find intelligent aliens one day, and they look nothing like us, then they really can’t be made in god’s mage can they?
God just might look like a Tholian.
Well, he might.
Since CS Lewis has already been mentioned, it might do to point out that he himself explored this scenario (unfallen intelligent species on another planet) in his trilogy, “Out of the Silent Planet,” “Perelandra,” “That Hideous Strength.” A secular version of the same scenario is in Ursula K. LeGuin’s novel, “The Word for World is Forest.” The general moral: bring us humans into contact with “unfallen” species and the result isn’t pretty. But as to the unfallen not needing to be Christians since not needing redemption, well, that wouldn’t mean they did not believe in Christ. In fact they would have the kind of knowledge of God that we lack, and so would have direct contact with Christ, that is with the second person of the Trinity. In Lewis’s trilogy, the unfallen races have a name for Christ — they call him Maleldil. Interestingly, the first unfallen races Lewis describes are mortal, and their mortality does not seem to be a consequence of the fall.
The Narnia scenario is actually not of this type — Narnia is clearly a fallen world. So Narnia is not an exploration of this scenario.
#33: You forget that the original sin was trying to know stuff. The sinless beings would presumably be found wondering around a garden in blissful, obedient ignorance.
#35: Hmm dunno. Do they have any cool guns or robots?
In the Robots/Empire/Foundation series, a few characters entertain the hypothesis that human beings are products of convergent evolution, but they eventually figure out that all humanity originated on one world. Life arose on many planets, but it only really diversified on Earth (Robots and Empire implies that this is because Earth has a much higher-than-average concentration of radioactive elements in its crust). The real reason the Galaxy has no non-human intelligences, except for a cameo appearance in the short story “Blind Alley”, is because Asimov’s editor John Campbell kept insisting that humans be portrayed as superior to aliens in some respect. Rather than deal with crypto-racist vibes, Asimov wrote the Foundation series without aliens at all.
/me realizes why he has no friends
Techskeptic @40: Roddenberryverse tends to use humanoids simply from economics and dramatic necessity. Humans can act, and there are simply a lot of human actors available to fill roles in any given drama. Puppeteers, stop-motion modellers and CGI specialists are rarer, therefore more expensive, require more time to work their magic, and the results are less emotionally engaging than using human actors. That said, classic Trek had its share of non-humanoid aliens, from the Gorn to the Organians (in their true form).
Asimov’s Empire novels simply assumed humans were the only sentients in the galaxy (for which assumption an explanation was retconned in later books, I believe). But taken as a whole, Asimov’s ouevre had non-human aliens often enough. See, for example, The Gods Themselves.
#44: no, original sin was trying to be like God, and know *good and evil*. Original sin was not “trying to know stuff”. In the story, Adam names all the creatures — which is a metaphor for “knowing stuff” — already before the fall.
#45: But doesn’t foundation end with the decision to turn the galaxy into a single sentient uber-mind in case aliens from another galaxy come along?
Star Trek had the ancient humanoids to explain their human-centric galaxy.
Well, that’s just awesome. Now ask him about the teapot!
According to the Wikipedia article on “A Case for Conscience” and the brief description of the Vatican guidelines for dealing with extraterrestrials. Part of the process is determining if the aliens have souls or not. I wonder what test they use for determining this, and has it been applied to humans?
@37 Suspect Device,
I think you’re exactly right. Slavery would be most in accord with the Bible, since the aliens presumably wouldn’t look like us and not be “made in God’s image”. They would probably be deemed to be subject to original sin for whatever lunatic reason the animals all had to suffer along with humankind.
This does certainly look like they’re getting the goalposts ready to move. I recently had a creationist tell me that even if humans could create life, all it would prove was that life could be created by intelligence (in previous arguments I’d always heard that creation of life was a barrier reserved to God).
Interestingly, the first unfallen races Lewis describes are mortal, and their mortality does not seem to be a consequence of the fall. – Michael Kremer
Sorry, you’re wrong there. Nothing Lewis wrote is interesting.
@50
“Well, that’s just awesome. Now ask him about the teapot!”
Oh man, I wish I’d said that :(
Similar to “A Case of Conscience” is “The Sparrow” by Mary Doria Russel ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sparrow_(novel) ) in which the vatican sends a ‘mission’ to a newly-discovered planet. Things end badly for the missionaries. :) Good book though…
Or Apollo, or Kirok, or that entity from the appalling bad Star Trek V…
Trek often dealt with gods, although almost always with skepticism.
Sure, but the whole point of Christ is that he is human as well as god, and he was sent to redeem humans, Why would the squid-beings of Altair VI or the methane-breathing animate blimps of the gas giant Proxima Alpha X worship a god in the shape of a species they had never met before? It is completely nonsensical (like much of religion in general, of course, but this situation seems to make the especially clear).
And if these creatures are not “fallen”, would they be living in Paradise? Would they not have disease and death? Just how likely is that?
Ray Bradbury covered this territory quite well in the Martian Chronicles collection of short stories. Father Peregrine conversing with the blue sphere of Martian consciousness and finally groveling when he realized what a fool he was. If missionaries take the religious message into space, far future scientists when discussing the origin of religion will have the ‘Theory of Panspamia.’
Star Trek covered the theme of human origins so many times the episodes trip over themselves: Return to Tomorrow, Who Mourns for Adonis, Bread and Circuses, City on the edge of forever, come to mind along with at least 3 episode in TNG whose names I will not bother to look up. The major point of consistency in the Trek universe is that it is all fiction.
#47: Yeah, I know it was about knowing SPECIFIC stuff, but it was still refusing to have a self-appointed tyrant put limits on their curiosity. If I had to bet on who would have the advanced technology out of a fallen species and one that could resist the temptation of arbitrarily forbidden knowledge, my money goes on the fallen every time. (NB all of this within the fiction of course. It is a bit like those arguments about Batman fighting Spiderman)
I did (as I had forgotten the point, not having read it myself) and I noted the illogical and throughly disgusting The New Twilight Zone adaptation of the ending. Another work of art mauled, actually quote-mined, presumably by religious “sensitivity”.
Not strictly, as in all likelihood evolution describes the process of life for most possible organisms, but hypothetically there could be exemptions. If there exist biospheres with slowly metabolizing non-replicating organisms only they would lack the environmental and competitive constraints that enforces evolution.
Sci-fi stories with such beast abound, and some have been written exclusively to construct non-evolutionary organisms. (Can’t remember the name, but one such was on a living polymer mat in an alien sea, presumably not even needing any evolution to get to its current state.)
But as evolutionary life would out compete such singular organisms, they would presumably be the exception. And if and when we can detect alien life by way of their biospheres characteristics, I assume it would be possible to see if they push actively against environmental constraints as evolutionary processes would do or if they are sluggard exemptions.
#54: if you think The Sparrow is good, you must be using the word in some sense with which I’m unfamiliar. Judging by that steaming pile, Mary Doria Russell can’t write either characters or dialogue to save her life. It might have been salvageable with the aid of a good editor, but that didn’t happen. I read it because it was breathlessly recommended to me by an acquaintance; if only I’d considered the fact that they were a Christian, and taken that lapse of good judgement into account…
In summary: suck suck suckity suck.
But see, if you admit that mortal aliens fall within the range of scientific consideration, you have to admit scientifically that immortal gods also fall within the range of scientific consideration. Can’t you understand that logic?
It’s just like with design, if you admit that human designs are detectable through our knowledge about what humans can do, you have to admit that God is detectable due to our lack of any knowledge about what God can or cannot do.
That’s just it, all of you atheists and evilutionists just don’t understand Godly logic. If you admit any possibility to “natural things”, then you have to admit even more possibilities for “supernatural things”, because the gods don’t have limits, since the holy books say that they don’t. Which means that ID is science.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I believe you are all forgetting that the Vatican has already made first contact.
Just the very idea, historically, that the Vatican has an official astronomer is laughable after everything the church did to suppress astronomy.
That is like being the official marshmellow man of the Donner party.
Of course, the missionary shoe could be on the other foot (or tentacle). In Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home, James Tiptree, Jr. published a story, Help, in which aliens come to evangelize us, to the worship of the Great Pupa. But they’ve got their own interdenominational problems…..which they bring to Earth. With advanced weapons.
A Vatican astronomer said intelligent beings could exist in outer space, and that this does not contradict their religion.
Why is this news? Giordano Bruno essentially said the same thing over 400 years ago. The real news is the Vatican has no plans to burn Funes alive like they did Bruno.
Yes, I would expect the party line will be that humans are a special species, and that if there isn’t any original sin adhering to another species they must lack conscience, ergo demons.
They do, but the major applicable retcon is AFAIU the STNG episode where directed panspermia by an ancient humanoid species is responsible (#49). As much making a wreck of evolutionary theory as the episode where crew members supposedly revert to partly ancestral forms due to RNA interference but end up as part spiders and similar goofs.
The Empire retcon that replaced the earlier unlikely “only sentients” was that a group of robots had taken on themselves to terraform planets, killing the native species in the process. That as a chosen part of acting out their “Zeroth Law” obligation.
This retcon was in itself retconned in the later Second Foundation series by other authors. There alien intelligences survived in the galactic core as mostly disembodied but powerful “meme-minds” and the Empire’s replacement is implied to have been planned as a defense against extragalactic similar entities.
Posted by: mothra | May 14, 2008 11:07 AM
Which marries it up quite well – empirically speaking – with the any of the creation stories we humans have ever devised in the first place, doesn’t it? Mmm, irony…
Guys are totally missing the point. Even the Vatican missed it.
Where in the hell did that walking, talking snake come from? You know the one in the garden. There is an explanation for it, you know.
Why was the snake the smartest being in the room?
Who taught him how to talk?
Where was his mommy and daddy? Siblings? Mate(s)? Buddies?
Where was the rest of his kind?
How did he get there?
Where did he come from? Where did he go?
Pretty obvious isn’t it. The snake was a UFO alien. And Genesis was the first sci-fi story. LOL
It’s pretty much all vapor, but I still expect a good creationist howl of protest.
I think you give way too much credit to the brainwashed masses. They will believe whatever they’re told to believe.
That’s von Daniken in a nutshell, give or take a few words.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
If I remember correctly the cretins populating the Vatican at the time roasted alive one Father Giordano Bruno for postulating this very possibility. Are they confessing to murder? Or are we supposed to pretend this horror never happened or was done “for the best interests of the Church?”
Okay, let’s assume for a minute that this little part of their fantasy is also true. There’s little to indicate this is the case, but work with me, people.
Doesn’t that make Heaven a pretty interesting place?
Oh, wait, I forgot; we all sit for an eternity basking in God’s eternal glory. And here I am, prone to leg cramps and all. It’s gonna be a long eternity.
Do they give massages in Hell?
Completely off-topic: I finally got to see a little bit of Thunderf00t and VenomFangX’s war on Youtube. VenomFangX has now challenged Thunderf00t to a debate. Man, that’s not gonna go well, VenomFangX. Dude needs to think twice about that one.
I expecially liked Hovind’s tape about how our polar regions got ice. Wow, that was a stupid one.
#64, Travis that really is quite silly of you.
The church suppressed astronomy well enough to hand to the West the Gregorian calendar you are using!
The problem of souls in aliens was solved by no less than the rather vile human being and wily politician, who was Pope Alexander VI. That in terms of the question of the humanity of the first peoples in the New World. Answer – Rational beings are rational souls (soul not being the Cartesian ghost in the machine btw). A footnote – three souls are fundamental to humanity, vegetative, animal and rational (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny after all).
The existence of soul is predicated by the use of reason as the test of its existence, so yes, there is an empirical test to the degree that reason empirically may be established. The Turing test is as good as any.
As for original sin. Well, there is a cat to let out of the bag. Thomas Aquinas speculated that human clones would be without original sin.
We already have a precedent. In 1492 the Vatican discovered a previously unknown race of alien beings. Their first reaction was to enslave them. This continued until outrage at their genocidal behavior became too vocal, causing the Pope to flip-flop in 1537 and say that the aliens had souls and were actually humans.
#74, IIRC this was giving the theologians fits in the mid-1500s when everyone got talking about artificially-created homunculi, as per Paracelsus. Don’t think they ever worked it out.
This subject used to come up every so often in late-night bull sessions when I was in college. A couple of my Jesusfreak dormmates would raise the ridiculous question of whether [1] humans were the only “fallen” species, [2] aliens were also sinners but they didn’t have Jesus, so we needed to send missionaries “spread the Gospel” to other planets, or [3] Jesus appeared to the aliens as well, the entire rest of the universe was perfectly Christian, and we humans were the only ones who still had a problem accepting Jesus as our “personal Savior.”
They were perfectly serious. GAAAAAAAAAK.
Of course, they were also perfectly serious in believing that someone we knew who had been clinically dead and resuscitated after a heart attack would never physically die because he’d already done it once.
Paging Captain Jack Harkness!
They’ll work around it. And they’ll do it without having their heads explode. Their minds are like egg-cartons, fully compartmentalized with little spill over.
For some reason, all this talk of aliens and Xtianity reminds me of a couple of SF stories, one I’ve read and one I haven’t.
There’s a novella by Michael Bishop called ‘The Gospel According to Gamaliel Crucis’ about the second coming of Christ in the form of a giant praying mantis from space.
And then there’s Harlan Ellison’s postmodern mindfuck ‘The Deathbird’ which completely subverts Genesis by re-casting both God and the serpent as alien beings struggling for influence over humanity. In this story, ‘God’ is utterly bugfuck insane, whereas the snake – written into history as a Satanic figure – is actually the one looking out for our planet’s best interests.
Seriously, read ‘The Deathbird’. It’s genius.
… sorry, what were we talking about again?
Gotta put on my erstwhile Bible scholar hat for just a second. A Christian theologian might well say that we come into contact with species not guilty of original sin every day–our dogs and cats, for example. But it is not just humanity that is subject to “the fall.” According to Romans, all of creation is “in bondage to decay” because of Adam and Eve’s sin. Pauline theology says that it’s not just humanity that needs redemption, but all of creation, which humanity sold into slavery to death through Adam and Eve’s disobedience in Eden. Please note that I am no arguing for this, that I find it really stupid, and that I am atheist. I just think we should know what a Bible-based Christianity is likely to claim about aliens. Might as well get some use out of that Biblical Studies degree now that I reject the truth of everything I learned earning it.
A Vatican astronomer said intelligent beings could exist in outer space, and that this does not contradict their religion.
Well, heck no it wouldn’t contradict Christianity — it would make Christianity even MORE true and special than they thought it was! Just like when you pray, don’t get what you want, and then realize that God gave you what you needed in terms of a life lesson instead!
“The Vatican announces that faith can only be strengthened, never weakened. Dog bites man. News at 11.”
The director of SETI (I forget her name, the Jodie Foster character in Contact was based on her) gave a talk for the Center for Inquiry once in which she speculated that, if we ever did meet up with an intelligent extra-terrestrial alien species, the likelihood is that their planet would either have ONE religion, or no religion at all.
Her reasoning was that religion was so divisive, and led to such hostility against the out-groups, that any civilization which could survive long enough to be capable of sending people to other galaxies would have had to have resolved religious conflicts in one of the only two ways possible: general agreement about a sectarian “God” enforced by complete and longterm totalitarian dictatorship — or consensus on atheism arrived at rationally.
Jill Tarter?
CJO #82
Probably Jill Tarter. I heard her speak at the time, and they reprinted the talk later in Free Inquiry.
The Vatican has issued a strong defense of Charles Darwin humanistic faith in the origin of life, voicing stout criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally. Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin’s theory of evolution were “perfectly compatible” if the Bible were read correctly.
It’s not surprising, many of Catholicism doctrines and statements are not biblical. So in light of that, their idea of religion can evolve with change. They can fit anything even aliens or supposed life on Mars and make it agree with their doctrines.
One of the things that always bothered me about Star Trek DS9 was that they really didn’t take the wormhole aliens/Prophets thing as far as it could have gone. It could have been a great opportunity to explore how scientific explanations for your god could strengthen some people’s god belief and weaken others’, but instead it was just sort of “oh yes, there are Prophets in that wormhole, how nice for the Bajorans!”
No one ever questioned the prophets = pure good / pah wraiths = pure evil religious assumption either, which also bothered me
Man, if I were a silicon-based lifeform on the molten surface of Globniz VI in the Small Magellanic Cluster, I would be super-pissed that those damned humans screwed up all of creation for the rest of the inhabited universe.
Oh, they are, Tulse. They are.
#77:
OMG, his name wasn’t Kenny, was it?
And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates.
That’s not just funny, he’s actually trying to set some precedent here. If aliens are free of original sin, there’s no need for them to accept Jesus, yadayadayada. So our friend is telling the aliens that if they show up, they won’t have to deal with our crazy shit!
That’s some long term planning there. If they could just have thought of that before 1492…
One question I’d like to ask this astronomer from the Vatican: Will the Rapture occur planet-by-planet, or will the entire universe experience the Rapture at the same moment?
Original sin has no bearing on this. Even before the fall, in the first genesis story, humans were given dominion over all other creatures. Ergo, if we find other creatures,on Globniz VI or Hispaniola, we’d enslave them.
I think the funniest part of this article had to be the first four words: “The Pope’s chief astronomer”
The Pope has his own chief astronomer! I wonder what Galileo would have to say about that position….
Unrelated, but I just saw this on Roger Ebert’s Q&A page:
Q. Readers want to know if the Movie Answer Man is too PC to review “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”?
Ruddy Spencer, Tucson, Ariz.
A. The last I heard, it is not considered Politically Correct to agree with Darwin. I think it is more like, oh, intelligent.
Catholics don’t believe in the Rapture, so it’s a moot point.
IANAT (I am not a theologian), but I’m pretty sure Catholics don’t believe in the Rapture.
Anne and Eve crashed landed in a place they came to call Eden. Try as they might, they couldn’t repair the saucer (which burnt down, fell over, and sank into the swamp). The girls realised they were stranded on this horrible alien world.
The local wildlife was vicious, with bloody red claws and teeth. They called all the nasty critters “snakes”, in the same way you or I call the annoying ants ruining our picnic cdesign proponentists.
Deciding to set up a home whilst awaiting rescue–what else was there to do–they talked and talked about what to do if rescue never came. The rambling discussions were written down on scraps of bark, skins, and stone tablets, all (unfortunately) now lost. We only have corrupted excerpts, copied years later by bored goatherders, called bible for reasons no-one has ever fathomed.
The famous story of Anne’s rib is an example of the weird tales. As far as modern scholars have been able to reconstruct events, the girls eventually realised rescue would never come, but apparently could not bear the thought of dying abandoned and alone. So they decided to conceive, which both being girls, was a bit of a problem. It’s thought the story of rib transplant is a highly garbled version of an IVF procedure.
Where Anne and Eve are buried–where Eden is(? was?)–is not known. About all that is agreed on is they crashed c.6Ky ago.
I sure hope that when the aliens come that they look like the Overlords from Childhood’s End. Oh, please, please, please!! I’d probably die of laughter, and die happy.
Also, way to go, Adam and Eve for inventing entropy. :P
The bible describes Snake as an intelligent being, more so than the beasts made by god, although it doesn’t say extraterrestrial. This non-human intelligent being not made by god knew that god lied about the Tree, that instead of killing you it would make you ‘become as gods’. Eve proved Snake was right when she didn’t die, instead ‘her eyes were opened’, she ‘knew good and evil’, and used her new godlike knowledge to help Adam ‘become as one of us”, gods/aliens. Eve was smart enough to believe the honest being instead of the liar who forbids learning and trashes the environment. In time honored Xian tradition, Paul blames it on the woman.
We are approaching the End Times, in which Snake’s buddies will return, and see what we’ve done here, and kick ass and take names.
“…big whoop, not a big deal — it’s just speculation.”
True enough. But the way it’s been reported in the pop news is ridiculous beyond belief, like: “VATICAN SAYS IT’S OK TO BELIEVE IN ALIENS”
Of course the creationists will counter with their “howl of protest” and declare it’s NOT OK to believe in aliens.
Whatever.
Meanwhile, people inclined to either religious camp have their marching orders on what’s ok to believe in and what’s not.
As PZ says, it’s just a SPECULATION. On this possibility there is only evidence of a suggestive and circumstantial kind to pin any “belief” on one way or the other. We just don’t know enough yet to put a belief to anything. A universe full of the very same ingredients and conditions that led to life on Earth may persuade a reasonable person to EXPECT it has happened elsewhere (even frequently) but the application of that onerous belief-thing is wildly out of place on this question and countless others that are pronounced upon.
The pattern of indoctrination is so blindingly obvious that it boggles the mind how belief-junkies can fail to see it. When facing any question, those who follow superstitious tradition are compelled to pass judgement, even on the most inane issues and without a shred of examination, on whether to believe or not believe according to the dictates of their crud (er, creed). That’s what their “belief” is really all about: judgements that have been passed along to them.
Just how sincere can any of their “personal beliefs” possibly be if they must be dictated by authority?
Macleod #8 says, “…there’s the press conference that NASA are doing later today where they’ll announce a major discovery of something they’ve been looking for for 50 years…Are they preparing us for something? :raised eyebrows”
There isn’t much they are “preparing us” for, so you can lower your brows.
The “major discovery” you speak of was finding that a supernova remnant that’s been observed near the central region of our galaxy since the 1980’s is much younger than previously supposed – it would have exploded (our time) only 140 years ago instead of the previous estimate of between 400 and 1000 years ago.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/14may_galactichunt.htm?list118136
If you’re an astronomer, it’s a pretty big deal. It’s been a small puzzle why we haven’t seen any supernova go off in our galaxy since 1680, even though astrophysicists expect 2 or 3 to explode every century. But it’s a SMALL puzzle because we’re also situated in the plane of our galaxy, which for supernovae, is a pretty lousy place to monitor our galaxy from, since most of them would be substantially obscured by interstellar dust.
@#99 Arnosium Upinarum —
“Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.” -Thomas Paine
Another faintly relevant science fiction short story – Harry Harrison’s “An Alien Agony”: Catholic missionary goes to convert the impressionable alien natives of a primitive planet, who then reenact the crucifixion with him in the starring role.
Personally, I prefer Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘Starglider’ alien interstellar probe which appears in his novel “The Fountains of Paradise”. The ultimate rationalist machine.
#95
I was raised a Catholic and though we didn’t call it a rapture we were taught that something similar would happen. the main difference was that Mary and (I think) the saints are already in heaven.
However, you would go to a funeral and the priest would say that so and so is now in heaven! So the teaching very vague as the church was more concerned with what you do with your rude bits (unless you are a priest and they don’t want to know)
I liked David Beaver’s take on this over at Language Log:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=150
LOL!
^_^J.
JM@102: That’s a pretty lame sci-fi story … given the fact that that is pretty much the opening for the movie The Mission, starring Robert DeNiro.
TomJoe #105; Alien Agony was published about 1962 (internet speculative fiction database), and The Mission, starring Jeremy Irons, was released about 1986 (internet movie database). Perhaps both were based on an incident that did happen somewhere. Or maybe it’s just a logical conclusion one can derive, and use in a story.
Maybe the pope can communicate with the Vogons. Oh shit, the pope is a Vogon!!! Nooooooooooooooooo
So, they did not find a teapot in a solar orbit.
But the Vatican says it’s okay if they did, it might have been put there by the aliens.
Right. Um, can I go back to watching Dr Who now ?
I prefer BBC’s fiction.
Check the Pegasus Galaxy first. Watch out for Wraith.
Blake@46:
/me realises why you will find a whole BUNCH of people via these here interwebs who’d love to match you geek-for-geek and be friends.
This is in the same level of cluelessness as Hamer’s gay gene, Jensen’s gene(s) for “x” and other nonsense.
A “gene” for adventurousness? Even if there is such a thing, Medved ignores the environmental stimuli of poverty, war, being a non-inheriting secondborn son, etc., as well as epigenetic factors.
@#111 SocraticGadfly —
Wrong thread, but…
This reminds me of the Gay Scientists Isolate Christian Gene video.
Life in other parts of the universe is far more believable than the belief in a supernatural sky fairy that religion tries to push on to everyone ignorant enough accept it.
#92 Yup, he has a whole obervatory of astronomers at his beck and call. Galileo, whose personality would be best described as the most alarming quirks of Chris Hitchens and Ben Stein in one person, was also wanting in on the act. Galileo’s distress is slightly more complex than the bad old catholics against the good skeptics.
In terms of predictability the Ptolomean model is as good as any, astronomically. Its maths are beyond insane. Copernicus’ model not only arises out of skepticism but a deep scholastic theology that God is simple and so nature should be reducibly simple as well. Of course that is the theological conviction which drives you guys in this place. Irreducible complexity has no place in the scholastic world view since that is profoundly at odds with the theological conviction of the simplicity of God.
A little off track, the following from the Roman Catholic Church’s official rag (OR 5-6 May 2008) by Fiorenzo Facchini, quite expectedly speaks of a divine intervention in the emergence of humanity and states that this intervention “does not represent an unwarranted intrusion (of theology) in the field of science — as is the case with intelligent design — but is called for in order to explain the presence of man’s spirit” CNS source.
One of the fringe benefits of apostasy is that I am no longer disturbed by the theological implications of extraterrestrial life.
Galileo would not have been surprised at the notion of a Vatican astronomer – the Vatican wasn’t opposed to astronomy as such, only to heliocentricism, and employed astronomers for calendarical and other purposes.
Well who knows. I don’t believe in aliens so much. However, it is interesting that Dawkins thinks it is possible that the planet earth could possibly have been seeded by aliens.
If I was going to do my best to put doubt in people’s minds about Christianity and all of the other religions in the world I would make a deception so that it makes it appear as aliens have seeded our planet.
Dawkins would believe it and so would most of the atheists here if they met the aliens and dawkins.
Sure, it sounds like something totally crazy and nuts now, but if that ever happened it would be the best way to get rid of religion altogther.
That would be a great sci-fi book. Aliens and the Anti-Christ. hmmm, I should start writing this one now. ;-p I might be able to get it on the History channel. :-p
Dawkins would believe it and so would most of the atheists here if they met the aliens and dawkins.
I keep waiting for Spenny to show up and pwn Kenny with an even more profound statement.
Of course Catholics believe in aliens. Doesn’t anyone watch South Park?
Don’t forget about the Galgameks.
Christian aliens.. now there’s a scary thought.
The Vatican, like the majority of Christian churches, accepts science and does not hold to a literal reading of what Christians call the Old Testament.
“Beings with souls who are free from original sin?” James Blish wrote a whole book about this, A Case of Conscience. It’s famous; it won a Hugo nearly 50 years. He then went on to write 2.5 more books about the philosophical relations of science and religion; the other 2.5 are Doctor Mirabilis, a fictional biography of Roger Bacon, and The Devil’s Day, a grim thriller about black magic. They are cranky and difficult for a modern reader; I still recommend them.
Caw!