"Eppure si muove."
Posted on 05/13/2008 5:08:28 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
VATICAN CITY - Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.
The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.
"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."
In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.
The interview, headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother," covered a variety of topics including the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and science, and the theological implications of the existence of alien life.
Funes said science, especially astronomy, does not contradict religion, touching on a theme of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made exploring the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.
The Bible "is not a science book," Funes said, adding that he believes the Big Bang theory is the most "reasonable" explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.
But he said he continues to believe that "God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the result of chance."
Funes urged the church and the scientific community to leave behind divisions caused by Galileo's persecution 400 years ago, saying the incident has "caused wounds."
In 1633 the astronomer was tried as a heretic and forced to recant his theory that the Earth revolved around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.
"The church has somehow recognized its mistakes," he said. "Maybe it could have done it better, but now it's time to heal those wounds and this can be done through calm dialogue and collaboration."
Pope John Paul declared in 1992 that the ruling against Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension."
The Vatican Observatory has been at the forefront of efforts to bridge the gap between religion and science. Its scientist-clerics have generated top-notch research and its meteorite collection is considered one of the world's best.
The observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, is based in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town in the hills outside Rome where the pope has a summer residence. It also conducts research at an observatory at the University of Arizona, in Tucson.
There’s no mention of the Americas in the Bible either. Yet we stubbornly continue to exist.
Depends on how you read Revelations.
This is not an official Vatican statement, only the opinion of its astronomer.
Here we go. They’re starting to ease us in to the release of all the Roswell documents.
An ET bit my sister.
.
.
And stuned my beeber.
When exploration of the New World - well, new to Europe - began, the debate on whether these totally different people, the indigenous peoples or “Indians,” were really human or not. The Church decided that they were and therefore they had to be evangelized. And of course, once they were baptized, the cutest of them could be married by Spaniards or other Catholics...hence, the mestizo culture of Latin America.
But it was a genuine debate, because Europeans hadn’t met people outside of their normal idea of “person” until that time. Of course, they didn’t have DNA testing, etc. and couldn’t determine “humanness” on that score.
Interestingly, among Southern Protestants in the 19th century, there was a theory that blacks and whites were created differently and that blacks weren’t quite as human as whites and thus didn’t have to be evangelized. This was basically to cover for states where preaching to African slaves was a crime, sometimes even (on paper) punishable by the death penalty, although I don’t think this was ever carried out or even charged.
What will happen in the future? Go and preach the Gospel to all nations...does this mean only to humans, or if, by some chance, we find creatures with a different, non-human DNA on some other planet some time in the future, does it mean that we preach the Gospel to them, too? Christ is the savior of nations and of the universe, so I would say that there is only one salvation and only one Savior. That is, what makes humans human is that we are made in the Image and Likeness of God, and therefore even other creatures that do not have our DNA but have certain things that enable us to recognize them (love, reason, speech, for example) may have to be acknowledged as one of the “nations” to whom we must preach.
It’s a frightening thought, but then again, who would ever have believed that somebody born of nobodies in the armpit of the Roman Empire would have been the Son of God?
If it happens again, lets' hope the Church doesn't have another Diego de Landa on the committee.
The native Tasmanians were totally exterminated. Since they had lost the use of fire, the settlers did not regard them as human.
Revelation.
No "s"
This was a dispute, because many people in Europe couldn’t imagine that there was anything human outside of what they knew. It took orders from the Pope to make people accept this.
As for exterminating native religions, the sooner, the better. These were vicious “religions” based on fear and the maintenance of a royal house.
Only one Indian in Mexico was ever put to death by the Inquisition, because he had been educated in Spain and knew the difference between right and wrong but still practiced witchcraft. Syncretism was a big problem, but most of the people who engaged in it were too ignorant to know the difference, and hence were simply instructed and told to stop whatever it was they were doing.
On the other hand, Spaniards, particularly the clergy, were severely punished. The great majority of those punished by the Inquisition in the New World were Catholic clergy, sometimes for syncretism, but usually for things such as enslaving the Indians, stealing from them, sexual abuse of Indian women in the missions, etc.
And they were generally punished by being put to death, making it clear that the Church then knew how to react appropriately to evil behavior.
That’s interesting. How did they lose the use of fire?
I have often thought about the whole matter of humanity: what is it that makes us discernible as human beings? We are made in the Image of God, but in what particular aspect? Is it speech (the Word)? Is it love (that is, charity, disinterested love)? Is it memory? What are the signs?
This is news? I didn’t know Churches had a stand one way or the other on this subject. This subject like zillions of other scientific topics are simply not dealt with in the Bible.
"Eppure si muove."
Sounds like an interesting debate. Although not officially the stance of the church, it paves the way for the Church to accept extraterrestrial, sentient beings in the off chance that we ever run into any...
Some interesting discussion here as well: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2015428/posts
Thanks!
But let's muse. First we have to assume that it is even possible that there is such a thing as extraterrestrial beings visiting Earth. (And there's nothing I've seen to make me believe there is).
But if it were so, who and what might they be? Where did they come from? How did they get here? How long have they been here? What do they want?
In this fantastical indulgence we might theorize that
I. They are us — humans whose path diverged from ours at some point in the past, or our descendants somehow arrived from the future. A) Maybe all of humankind arrived together long ago in the past. Our space dwelling “brethren” simply chose to not live in the gravity well of earth but have somehow thrived and survived in the deep reaches of the solar system. B) Humans from the future — the whole time travel thing, etc.
In these instances A) What they want now is probably bad because otherwise they wouldn't be bothering us after all these years. BAD. B) Maybe they're telling the truth about where not to go wrong — or maybe they represent a faction only and have returned to twist history (er..the future) over to their side. BAD
II. They are descendants of an ancient non-human race of Earth dwellers who made the move to space as a catastrophe overcame our planet. They're back now — and they want their planet back. That's bad.
III. They are an actual alien species who have traveled to our system in a “generation ship”. A) Now they are looking at Earth as place to stay. BAD. B) Now they need all our resources (like freeze dried fillet de human) in order to continue their journey to who knows where. BAD C) They are just dropping in to say hello. [Welcome to Earth now go home” BL] Also probably BAD if they are typical slobby, trash littering tourist types. You know — like the guy who chipped off a piece of the Easter Island monument as a souvenir.
IV. They aren't aliens at all. They are in fact fallen angels fooling many people into thinking they are Mr. Spock's cousin. BAD!
V. They are actual aliens who have somehow mastered the technology of faster than light travel (Not possible of course but then none of this is — except maybe IV) A) They are here to study us. BAD. I for one don't feel like being “studied”. B) They want to conquer us. BAD C) They want to eat us. BAD. D) They want to tell us how to have world peace BAD BAD BAD. Nothing worse than a idealist do-gooder for screwing things up. Add high tech to that and you've got a recipe for trouble plenty.
Wait, wait, wait . . . . . . I know this one!!
The extraterrestrial is my brother,
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green patures . . . . .
Population bottleneck. Technology requires certain population levels to maintain. If the human race were choked down to say, half a billion, I bet we'd lose the ability to sustain modern semiconductor manufacturing. 50 million and kiss any new aluminum goodbye, less than a million, and blacksmiths start having trouble teaching mining and smelting iron ore from generation to generation. Less than a few thousand? the finer points of starting fires get lost. A few less and keeping a fire banked gets a little iffy...
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