Pope talks about extraterrestrial life

Delance

Delance

Victory, you say?
This is an interesting discussion about the subject, during this interview of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

It seems somehow obvious to suppose that we cannot be alone in this great immeasurable ocean of stars. We cannot absolutely exclude this hypothesis, because we have no cognizance of the whole breadth of God's thought and his creative work. Yet it is a fact that thus far all attempts to discover anything of this kind have failed. Meanwhile, one strand of thought, scientifically well grounded, tends to regard extraterrestrial life as being extremely improbable. Jacques Monod, for instance, who was certainly not a Christian, says that in view of everything we are able to discover about the world from a biological standpoint, the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial beings is so small as to be verging on the impossible.

What we can say is simply: We do not know. But there are no serious grounds for thinking that similar beings exist elsewhere.

On the other hand, we do know in any case that God took man, on this little speck of dust that is earth, so seriously that he came and lived here himself and has bound himself to this earth for all eternity.

That corresponds to the model fo divine action that is known to us. God always takes up exactly what seems unimportant and shows himself to man in what seems like a speck of dust, or, as in Nazareth, in a little place that is next to nowhere. Thus God always corrects our standards of judgment. It shows that what is quantitatively immeasurable belongs to a quite different order of reality from the immeasurability of the heart, as Pascal has already remarked. What is quantitative has its own indisputable status, but it is also important to see this quantitative value, for instance the infinite size of the universe, in relative terms. One single understanding and loving heart has quite another immeasurable greatness. It corresponds to a quite different order from any quantitative entity, in all its great power, but it is no less great.

Would it be shown in revelation if we had relativfes somwhere in space?

Not necessarily, because God had no intention of recounting everything to us. Revelation was not there to give us a complete knowledge of God's ideas and of all space, with no gaps in it. One of the Wisdom books, often quoted by the Fathers, says about this in one place: God has given us the world to argue about. Scientific knowledge is, so to speak, the adventure he has left to us ourselves. In revelation, on the other hand, he tells us only as much about himself as is needed for life and death.
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Source

This rather sums up how I feel about this subject, even if I have not read this interview before.

Next on TC News: Should mankind convert the Kilrathi?
 
A few months ago, I read a really funny article. It was funny, because the author was stupid enough to claim that the discovery of those miniature people skeletons on Flores should destroy religion. At the same time, it was kind of tragic, because it certainly wasn't the first nor the last such article. It seems that atheists generally believe that religion and non-human sentient life are mutual exclusives. I don't get why people would think that religion would have a problem with extraterrestrial life - it really seems to be a case of crazy atheists projecting their narrow-minded views onto non-atheists.
 
This is interesting stuff to me. It's weird thinking about what intelligent life there could be on other planets out there. A show I saw about it had this scientist complaining that most aliens he saw in movies, no matter how weird they looked, still appear as though they evolved on the planet earth.

It's an interesting notion to me that if there are other intelligent species out there, that they eventually destroy themselves by being too intelligent or they evolve to have smaller brains just to save themselves from extinction. Like when Stephen Hawking suggests that perhaps intelligent life doesn't have a good long-term survival rate. Or in Galopogos where the rest of humankind evolve into these sort of sea creatures with really small brains.

But yeah, I don't see why religion and science can't compliment each other when it comes to seeking extraterrestial life.
 
Very funny article. Yeah, I remember this event. This guy was not the only one. I’m not sure if it was related, but at that time I had a debate with a guy who claimed that advanced neuroscience disproved the existence of the soul. Too bad he was using a somewhat Cartesian, dualistic and, well, heretical (call it heterodox if you will) concept of what a soul should be. So, if advanced neuroscience was disproving that, all the best for the orthodox religious view on the subject. And he was like “But… no… what?”

“Destroy religion”. What a nutcase. Destroy the straw-man of projected prejudice, he should’ve said.
 
Ugh. Christianity / Religion on an internet posting board. This can only go downhill.
 
LeHah said:
Ugh. Christianity / Religion on an internet posting board. This can only go downhill.
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Don't be so pessimistic, Lehah.

Or so optimistic, because the same applies to nearly any conceivable topic. Most of us can probably think of some massive flamewars about pretty mundane technical aspects of WC.
 
Quarto said:
A few months ago, I read a really funny article. It was funny, because the author was stupid enough to claim that the discovery of those miniature people skeletons on Flores should destroy religion. At the same time, it was kind of tragic, because it certainly wasn't the first nor the last such article. It seems that atheists generally believe that religion and non-human sentient life are mutual exclusives. I don't get why people would think that religion would have a problem with extraterrestrial life - it really seems to be a case of crazy atheists projecting their narrow-minded views onto non-atheists.
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The writer seems to use the word "religion" to describe the relatively small number of Christians that believe the Bible to be literal in its creation account. It is these people that really say humans are a distinct seperate creation. Those are the people he is really referring to.

The guy is a fool for painting with such broad brushstrokes to use the word "religon", as he is hopelessly and demonstratably wrong. Even if he wrote "Christian" he would be wrong too, as most Christians accept mainstream science. It annoys me actually as it helps add to the Creationist claim that much of mainstream science is an Evil Atheist Conspiracy.

Quarto, I dont think its true that atheists generally believe that religion and non-human sentient life are mutual exclusives.

Ed
 
Delance said:
Don't be so pessimistic, Lehah.
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You expect me to be pessimistic when you're teetering on the second rule of the CZ? Not to mention, the internet will let anyone on in this day and age?
 
Shipgate said:
. A show I saw about it had this scientist complaining that most aliens he saw in movies, no matter how weird they looked, still appear as though they evolved on the planet earth.
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I dont have a quote from him but I heard that Lucas said that he based all his creatures off the natural world.

In a nutshell the reason why most (if not all) fictional aliens couldnt have evolved is because they violate taxonomy (for starters). A simple example of which would be a horse with wings, or a dog with a insect head. Plants will always be plants, they can never evolve into insects. You cant hop the branches on the evolutionary tree. Also when we concieve of what aliens might be like we invariably come up with something that is a mishmash based on real life creatures. All evolution is just a matter of (usually subtle) genetically-induced changes in proportion, be it in the size, shape, or chemical percentages of an existing organism in whole or in part. Every new thing is just a new version of whatever its ancestors were.

Ed
 
Edx said:
The writer seems to use the word "religion" to describe the relatively small number of Christians that believe the Bible to be literal in its creation account. It is these people that really say humans are a distinct seperate creation. Those are the people he is really referring to.
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Yeah, except that it doesn't apply to them, either. Even such people have long ago dealt with the effects of taking the Bible too literally.

Consider that bit in the Bible that says man was created in God's image, for example. Which image would that be? White? Black? Yellow? This may seem like a weird and trivial question today, but remember that there was a time when people seriously debated the question of whether a white man could reproduce with a black woman. Because if the white man was God's image, than the black man obviously could not be. But of course, was it the blond white man that was God's image, the redhead, or the black-haired man? So, people pretty quickly worked out that "God's image" doesn't actually refer to visual resemblence.

It'll be the same with extraterrestrial life. No matter how some extreme fundamentalist might interpret the Bible on this subject today, if he faces extraterrestrials that prove him wrong, he won't say, "Oh, this Bible is useless, I've had it with religion". He'll simply accept that he was wrong in his interpretation.

Quarto, I dont think its true that atheists generally believe that religion and non-human sentient life are mutual exclusives.
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I did say 'crazy atheists'... I would think there's also the non-crazy kind out there :p.
 
When I think about it the Bible does prove that extra-terrestrials (or at least sentient non-humans) exist, infact in several different races. Bonus points to anybody who can tell us all who they are.
 
Aplha 1-1 said:
When I think about it the Bible does prove that extra-terrestrials (or at least sentient non-humans) exist, infact in several different races. Bonus points to anybody who can tell us all who they are.
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I can only think of the nephilim at the moment. Unless you're one of those people that thinks the cloud Jesus ascended into was infact a UFO.
 
Originally Posted by Dyret
I can only think of the nephilim at the moment. Unless you're one of those people that thinks the cloud Jesus ascended into was infact a UFO.
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Actually I completey forgot bout those guys although I'd say they're 50/50 :p
It's the beings of fire, Angels, that I was attepting to shed light on. I haven't read all of the good book (just revalations and the bits about my namesake) but I'm sure they where around before man and definately not created on Earth
 
If you think angels were aliens, you've been reading too much Daniken :p.

(though, technically, I suppose they are extraterrestrials, since they're not of this world)
 
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