Free Republic

Father José Gabriel Funes, the director of the Vatican Observatory, said he was "very skeptical" that the discovery of Kepler-452b will lead to an encounter with extraterrestrial life in the near future. Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the priest reviewed the positions of St. Albert the Great, Nicholas of Cusa, and others on the possibility of extraterrestrial life and said that Jesuit Father Angelo Secchi, a pioneer in astrophysics, thought that there were other inhabited worlds. "It seems that the vast majority of stars in our galaxy ... at least potentially can have planets where life could develop," Father Funes...

Jeff Schweitzer heralded the discovery of an apparent Earth-like planet as a nail in the coffin for religion in a Thursday item on Huffington Post. Schweitzer, a scientist, "rationalist," and former Clinton administration senior policy analyst contended that "with this discovery, we come ever closer to the idea that life is common in the universe," and added that religions would "all will come out and say such a discovery is completely consistent with religious teachings. My goal here is to declare this as nonsense before it happens."The Huffington Post contributor led his article, "Earth 2.0: Bad News for God," by...