Vatican Says Alien Life Plausible 775
An anonymous reader writes "According to BBC, the director of the Vatican Observatory stated in an article titled 'Aliens Are My Brother' that intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space. 'The search for forms of extraterrestrial life does not contradict belief in God. — Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God.' Mind that this is not the same director who said that evolution is more than a mere theory — that was Father Coyne. I myself agree. There might be intelligent beings created by God in outer space even if there are none here on earth."
Re:Might be life? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:C.S. Lewis came to this conclusion years ago. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:astronomer my asshole. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Catholics (Score:5, Informative)
Re:C.S. Lewis came to this conclusion years ago. (Score:1, Informative)
Let's think about this a little.
If there are other created beings in outer space then they must have another way to salvation since they would not be descendants of Adam. Since we are of one blood (Acts 17:26) and Christ was of that one blood when He came to Earth His blood was shed for the descendants of Adam because it's not just blood that covered sins (Hebrews 10:4,11) but Christ's blood (Hebrews 10:10).
So I take exception because aliens could not be saved by Jesus' blood which is the only way (John 4:16).
Plausible!=not impossible (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Might be life? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And who.. (Score:4, Informative)
Now where's my prize money?
Salvation through Jesus Christ (Score:3, Informative)
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/76/22-24#22 [lds.org]
(Note that there have been a lot of anonymous posts in this thread. I should post anonymous to save my karma, but I wont. Don't mod me down purely out of disagreement. That would be childish. Post instead. I will remain civil.)
Re:Finaly! (Score:5, Informative)
Bzzt, wrong. Group 1 knows the origin of humanity, but doesn't make any strong statements about the origin of life in general, or the origin of the universe. Group 1 merely says that Evolution and the Big Bang obviously happened. Group 1 also says they don't know what happened before that. They can't make any statements about origins, because there isn't any information to work with.
They keep making speculations about origins (particularly with life, since even though it's hard, it's a lot easier than the universe) but there's no consensus or unity. When scientists talk about origins, they're not a "group" at all, except that they're all saying, "Oh yeah? Show me why you think that" to the one who just advanced the speculation.
Re:C.S. Lewis came to this conclusion years ago. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Catholics (Score:3, Informative)
He didn't use the word "metaphor" but "hell is not a place, it is a state of being" sure sounds to me like the traditional idea of hell as a place where the devil tortures you into eternity is a metaphor.
Re:Finaly! (Score:5, Informative)
Evolution has FACTS, falsifiable test, and makes predictions.
Evolution is a fact, it's been proven. There is not scientific argument against it, only people saying it isn't so and lying about it, and refusing to look at any recent evidence.
The creation of the universe is another matter; however they go bacl very close to befor the first second with some very good science. What caused the big bang? Don't know.
neither of these prove or disprove the existence of God, only that the current Biblical interpretation probably isn't literal. Something almost every theologeon will tell you, btw.
If you look at the hebrew, the word interpreted to 'Day' didn't not mean a 24 hours day.
So even in the oldest context, Evolution fits fine with the Bible.
Considering the science is very good, and there are mountains of fact it is obvious that 6 days is not literal as we know a day.
Yes, the origins of life on the planets is pretty well known. Primordial soup and all that.
Re:Mythbusters (Score:3, Informative)
Re:But of course...A Serious Reply (Score:3, Informative)
If a god is omnipotent, then it follows that said god is omniscient. If it thus knows all, then it would come to the quick conclusion that creating natural beings with its morality would relegate itself to obsolescence.
To wit: If a deity is possessed of nothing but righteousness, then we would already have heaven on earth, as there would be no sin. If, however, we do possess the same ethos and moral constructs, then the very presence of sin removes the ability for a deity to be all-compassionate, and so the promise of a blessed afterlife carries no weight. Or, better yet, the afterlife mythos is wrong, and we all return to the ether and dirt upon death. It's thus logical to ask, in all cases: do we still need a deity?
If God is all-capable, why create more than one (possibly flawed) copy with different phenotypes expressing the same "immutable spirit"?
If you're inclined to believing in supernatural origins, then each planet is an ant farm. Nothing more, nothing less.
Re:Finaly! (Score:1, Informative)
Evolution is a fact. Read.
It's both (Score:5, Informative)
Evolutionary Theory also exists ("The Theory of Evolution" is a misnomer as there isn't really one single theory, rather a lot of complementary and sometimes competing theories for parts of what might be considered, in toto, "evolution") also exists in the same sense the Newton's Theory of Gravity and General Relativity exist.
So yes, a theory exists to explain the facts but that doesn't mean there is no fact.
Re:Mythbusters (Score:3, Informative)
I have seen this before.... This strange thing of separating Catholics from Christians. Catholicism is one branch of CHristianity, just like Baptism, Lutheranism, Protestantism etc. is.
There is more to evolution than humans and bones (Score:5, Informative)
Things that are seen as it happens, not just digging up a few bones and constructing a theory.
Those links are just the first two things I found from a quick internet search. However there is an abundance of such observations where evolution can be said to have been observed as a matter of fact.