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Why do I blog, why do I pursue this poor paying guaranteed starvation diet profession? Because of people like Ken Ham! Lovable young earth creationist and cartoon come to life Ken Ham, of Creationist Museum fame. This week Ham is worried about wasting money on the space program because that will lead us astray and possibly straight to space hell:
Salon — Why? Well, according to Ham, who also runs the Creation Museum in Kentucky, there’s no point in spending money on finding extraterrestrial life for a couple of reasons: First, the search is a deliberate rebuking of God, and second because aliens are already damned to hell.
“I’m shocked at the countless hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent over the years in the desperate and fruitless search for extraterrestrial life,” Ham wrote. “Of course, secularists are desperate to find life in outer space, as they believe that would provide evidence that life can evolve in different locations and given the supposed right conditions!” Ham continued later in the post.
Ham does concede that the Bible does not specifically mention whether or not there is alien life. However, he is skeptical.
“And I do believe there can’t be other intelligent beings in outer space because of the meaning of the gospel,” Ham wrote. “You see, the Bible makes it clear that Adam’s sin affected the whole universe. This means that any aliens would also be affected by Adam’s sin, but because they are not Adam’s descendants, they can’t have salvation. One day, the whole universe will be judged by fire, and there will be a new heavens and earth. God’s Son stepped into history to be Jesus Christ, the “Godman,” to be our relative, and to be the perfect sacrifice for sin — the Savior of mankind.”
“Jesus did not become the ‘GodKlingon’ or the ‘GodMartian’! Only descendants of Adam can be saved. God’s Son remains the “Godman” as our Savior,” Ham continues. “In fact, the Bible makes it clear that we see the Father through the Son (and we see the Son through His Word). To suggest that aliens could respond to the gospel is just totally wrong.”
So, the aliens, which don’t exist but might, are all going to hell because Jesus is not down with non hominid alien biology. Not sure how a green-skinned babe that used to date Captain Kirk fits in, but non humanoids are definitely hellbound, puppeteers, Martians, and probably Clarke’s Overlords would sure be there — as they should be! And if we get mixed up with any of them, I guess we are hellbound too. And we’re not heading to just any old regular hell either, we’re talking alien hell.
Think I prefer robot hell from ‘Futurama’ myself – but then I am only human!
(Also I believe the green skinned lassier from Star Trek (TOS) was an Orion girl but given the number of stars inOrioan that hardly narrowas it down much at all. Well, just a bit.
lassier = lassie.
No, no dog jokes here please – even if they are man s best friend.
Nothing like a happy dog to make your heart sing – but not meant in that way! ;-)
“To suggest that aliens could respond to the gospel is just totally wrong.”
Sure, aliens could respond to the gospel. With hysterical laughter (or its equivalent). And then avoid us.
I might have my physics wrong on this one, but as I understand it, if “Adam’s sin affected the entire universe” to have the effect on the whole universe simultaneously would mean that a signal had traveled the whole universe instantaneously, much faster than light. Which is impossible. So, if the universe is only 6 kiloyears old, the universe is only Fallen out to a distance of six thousand light years. Warp drive technology would thereby allow us to escape original sin much better than magic Jesus blood ever could.
He just admitted he couldn’t count to ten, right? Otherwise it would be billions of dollars. Or perhaps he just doesn’t know that.
Looking it up, I find:
SETI: Total budget from 1980-2014: $151 Million
Ark Encounter (phase1): $73 Million (projected)
Anyone besides me think that SETI is worth more than twice that of a fake wooden boat?
Well of course there are no aliens anyways, the bible says clearly that stars are just tiny lights in the dome of the firmament just like those glue-on one you can buy at Hobby Lobby.
The fact that every rocket ever launched has bounced back to earth proves it.
Ham is failing to read his Bible literally again. Much like when he insists that dinosaurs roamed the Earth with humanity before the Flood.
Literally speaking, the Bible doesn’t say anything about life on other planets – it doesn’t really say anything about other planets at all. There is nothing in the Bible that precludes an alien species from having an Adam and an Eve who made a different choice. Or even the same choice.
Of course it kind of implies that there can’t be life on other planets, what with how the sky is supposed to be a dome and God is supposed to live in the upper atmosphere of a flat earth. But Ham refuses to read those bits literally as well since reading them literally would make him look ridiculous even to his fellow travellers.
Just when I thought fundie Christians couldn’t get any crazier… they go and prove me wrong.
OK, just what if aliens exist and they don’t need a savior, because their Adam & Eve listened to God and didn’t eat any banned fruit? What if they were just smarter than us?
Well the RCC, which as an institution is somewhat more ‘gifted’ in theological discourse..i.e has a lot more historical claim to making up bullshite and hawking it as ‘gospel’ .. besides being a rather major player in the delusion scam it has a more pragmatic if not more circumspect attitude to this question…
http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=dedestaca&id=410
It seems that Hambones penny ha’penny fleecing operation is not only out gunned in ‘fistikated’ theology but totally screwed as to how they stack up in actual bums on pews against one of the oldest xtian corporations on earth.
favog wrote:
An intriguing possibility. Of course, if so, warp drive wouldn’t help us any since we’ve already been contaminated. But any aliens outside the 6kly-radius shell could still get off scot free if they got the hell away from us post haste (see what I did there?)
I wonder, with the ever-expanding size of the original-sin bubble, is it dissipating? Maybe by now it’s no worse than, say, original naughtiness?
Then there’s the other possibility — perhaps original sin underwent a period of superluminal inflation. Hey, it could happen. If that was the case, we’re all doomed, dooomed.
Ken Ham has missed his calling. With his ability to extrapolate from impossible premises, he might have become a first-rate science fantasy writer.
So out of the hundreds of billions of planets that could have life, Earth is the only one that’s eligible for salvation? What a coincidence! That’s the planet Ken Ham lives on!
Kind of wasteful on God’s part, though. Either he created countless worlds that can never be populated, or he filled them with creatures that are automatically damned for eternity.
Inventing new ways for his non-existent god to be a total dick.
I admit this is the one thing I do like about religion/the Bible. Attempts to justify it in the face of increasingly difficult contradictions make for the most amusing contortions.
And I like a lot of the weird rituals religion comes up with.