Aliens // Current

Mars needs Catholics

The Vatican has hosted a conference to study the possibility of alien life in the... more

callenstewart
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Ancient Aliens: History Channel's 2009 Documentary: The Pyramids

A highlight of the pyramids from the Ancient Aliens documentary...... more

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Ancient Aliens: History Channel's 2009 Documentary

Are we ready to accept the theory of Extraterrestrials as Gods?... more

jmsrmy
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Signs From Above

Our take on the week: The release of an apocalyptic movie prompts NASA to debunk 2012... more

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Four hundred years after Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for his belief in the "plurality of worlds" (aliens), scientists and religious leaders gathered this week at a seemingly more open-minded Vatican for a conference on astrobiology (aliens).

The meeting focussed on current science, rather than the theological quandaries thrown up by the possibilty of other life forms beyond this planet. But that hasn't stopped debate spilling over outside the conference.

Yesterday I spoke to Paul Davies, a cosmologist from Arizona State University, just after he addressed the conference. In his view, the possibility of other civilisations - potentially more intelligent than our own - puts Christians “in a real bind”. Specifically, he says that nobody's satisfactorily addressed the question of whether aliens get saved. “The Catholic church offers a very species specific brand of salvation. Noone says that Jesus came to save the dolphins and certainly not little green men,” he said.

The possibility of extraterrestrial life does not pose the same problems for Eastern religions, which tend to be less Earth-centric, or Islam, which speaks explicitly of life beyond Earth, he said.

The Vatican does not have an official position on alien life forms, but a number of its scientists have spoken out on the issue. Father Jose Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory told the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, that the possibility of “brother extraterrestrials” was not incompatible with Catholic theology.

William Stroeger, an astrophysicist at the Vatican Observatory Research Group and a Jesuit priest, agreed: “There might be fundamentalists for whom the two things are incompatible but mainline congregations - Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists - would not have a problem with this,” he said.

Stroeger pointed out that the Catechism introduced after the second Vatican council states that there can be no conflict between science and religion. “If there’s a contradiction it means that we haven’t understood or interpreted one of them correctly,” he said.

This may be the case, but I agree with Davies that this isn't a trivial issue for theologists. Giggle factor aside, the question of whether Jesus would save aliens goes right to the heart of Christian beliefs. If you believe that "intelligent life" equals having a soul, then you have to ask where you'd draw the line. If scientists found dolphins on a distant planet, they would be mad with excitement at having found something so smart. But what would theologians make of them?

http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/11/does-jesus-save-aliens.html?farkFour hundred years after Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake... more

TravG73
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Exopolitics: Vatican ready to welcome aliens?

Is the Vatican ready to welcome aliens into the church? According to Jesuit Father... more

locutus
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Vatican Looks to Heavens for Signs of Alien Life

"VATICAN CITY - E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

"The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.

Funes said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue."

The Vatican created the "Big Bang Theory" to mimic the story of the Virgin Mary. It is a complete lie, just like Black Holes and Al Gore's cult of Global Warming.

For thousands of years ancient people have been charting the heavens with precision. They always knew the Earth was round from seeing the Earth's shadow on the moon during lunar eclipses, which they knew when were going to happen. They even had accurate dimensions of the Earth from mathematical computations on the angles of the horizon.

The Vatican has one of the biggest observatories in the world. If you think the Church doesn't know science, you are sadly mistaken. They told the people the Earth was flat back then and they're telling us the the Big Bang myth today. What they know and what they tell are two different stories...NASA too.

Those who are excommunicated today, will be vindicated tomorrow. Check out my Electric Universe group or just research the theory and learn from today's excommunicated scientists."VATICAN CITY - E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for... more

rodstradamus
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Are Violent Video Games Preparing Kids For The Apocalypse?

You can never be too prepared! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTbYUd1jUc4

remanns
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US Navy Was Ordered To Listen For Martian Broadcast

"It seems that a SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) experiment happened... more

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Forbez DVD - Playing: The Fourth Kind (Trailer)

doggeman
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Avatar Theatrical Trailer

http://www.wallpaperez.info/wallpaper/movie/Avatar-1940.jpg

remanns
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23 days ago
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5 comments

STARSHIP DIMENSIONS

Interactive and Comparative Starship Sizes From Multiple Sources

remanns
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PUPPY DEFIES GRAVITY!!!

(....but not for long)

remanns
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'Avatar' Photos

More and more fresh photos of "Avatar" have been making their rounds. After a number... more

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Oct 30, 1938: The War of the Worlds

Orson Welles broadcasting The War of the Worlds. Adapting freely from H.G. Wells'... more

Kazaam
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Why isn't the Milky Way "Crawling with self-designing mechanical or biological life?"

In his famous lecture on Life in the Universe, Stephen Hawking asks: "What are the chances that we will encounter some alien form of life, as we explore the galaxy?"

If the argument about the time scale for the appearance of life on Earth is correct, Hawking says "there ought to be many other stars, whose planets have life on them. Some of these stellar systems could have formed 5 billion years before the Earth. So why is the galaxy not crawling with self-designing mechanical or biological life forms?"

Why hasn't the Earth been visited, and even colonized? Hawking asks. "I discount suggestions that UFO's contain beings from outer space. I think any visits by aliens, would be much more obvious, and probably also, much more unpleasant."

Hawking continues: "What is the explanation of why we have not been visited? One possibility is that the argument, about the appearance of life on Earth, is wrong. Maybe the probability of life spontaneously appearing is so low, that Earth is the only planet in the galaxy, or in the observable universe, in which it happened. Another possibility is that there was a reasonable probability of forming self reproducing systems, like cells, but that most of these forms of life did not evolve intelligence."

We are used to thinking of intelligent life, as an inevitable consequence of evolution, Hawking emphasized, but it is more likely that evolution is a random process, with intelligence as only one of a large number of possible outcomes.

Intelligence, Hawking believes contrary to our human-centric existece, may not have any long-term survival value. In comparison the microbial world, will live on, even if all other life on Earth is wiped out by our actions. Hawking's main insight is that intelligence was an unlikely development for life on Earth, from the chronology of evolution: "It took a very long time, two and a half billion years, to go from single cells to multi-cell beings, which are a necessary precursor to intelligence. This is a good fraction of the total time available, before the Sun blows up. So it would be consistent with the hypothesis, that the probability for life to develop intelligence, is low. In this case, we might expect to find many other life forms in the galaxy, but we are unlikely to find intelligent life."

Another possibility is that there is a reasonable probability for life to form, and to evolve to intelligent beings, but at some point in their technological development "the system becomes unstable, and the intelligent life destroys itself. This would be a very pessimistic conclusion. I very much hope it isn't true."

Hawkling prefers another possibility: that there are other forms of intelligent life out there, but that we have been overlooked. If we should pick up signals from alien civilizations, Hawking warns,"we should have be wary of answering back, until we have evolved" a bit further. Meeting a more advanced civilization, at our present stage,' Hawking says "might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus. I don't think they were better off for it."In his famous lecture on Life in the Universe, Stephen Hawking asks: "What are the... more