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Vatican says aliens might be without original sin
Posted by mattclark • 5/14/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: aliens, vatican
The Vatican's chief scientist has been quoted saying that alien species may exist after all and might in fact be without original sin. He also said humanity might be the 'lost sheep' of the universe, and also said he believes the big bang is the most logical theory of how the universe began.
For more background I've written a post about it
www.mattmetrodude.com/2008/05/vatican-says-aliens-might-be-without-original...
Without turning this into a religious discussion, what does everyone else think?
User Comments
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Lol. I read that, they are even having a celebration of Darwin. -
After all, only Christians believe in original sin. Why would extraterrestrials be born with original sin?
Seriously, though: this does not come as a surprise: The Catholic Church, as an institution, doesn't reject science-- Catholic affiliated universities are still very important centers of learning. You really have to look at other Christian denominations to find flat-out rejections of scientific thought.
Before anyone mentions Galileo: the Church's conflict with Galileo was far more nuanced than generally believed-- much of it revolving on whether or not data from a telescope (an instrument that had never been applied to astronomical observation before) was to be trusted.-
Kudos!
You're informed about this. ( more of my thoughts at apatheticlemming.blogspot.com/2008/05/vatican-says-belief-in-aliens-doesnt.... ) -
The BBC reported Fune as saying he had speculated on aliens and original sin,
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7399661.stm -
mattclark, Thanks. Got it.
Very interesting, but again, nothing new: A protestant philosopher, C. S. Lewis, who had a suspiciously Catholic outlook, speculated that - in principle - there could be a set of people who had not fallen, and so were not subject to original sin.
Interesting. I'm collecting links left and right here! - and have added them as an appendix to my post. -
C.S. Lewis was an Anglican so there is nothing "suspicious" about the fact that his theological ideas were close to Catholicism. Theologically speaking the Anglican communion is very close to the Roman Catholic Church. The main differences are in terms of organization and ecclesiastical matters.
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Twisted thinking. Last week they also said people could have evolved.
From what, apes? So God was an ape since we're all made in his image.
NOT!!
The Vatican is in the Bible... Revelation chapter 17 & 18. But we'll soon find out.-
Hi, I'm one of 'those people.'
And, current evolutionary theory says that apes, monkeys, and Andy Warhol all descended from a common ancestor, further back on the tree.
I'm curious: which one of us was made in God's image? Me? The late Emperor Hirohito? James Earl Jones? The late Apache leader Geronimo?
Sorry, I'm sure I'm misunderstanding you. -
Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
"our image" refers to the father son and holy spirit... other translations say likeness. I'm going to go a step further and add, from a Christian perspective, that since God foresaw himself coming into the world as Jesus, and Jesus came as a person, then he made people in the same form that he as Jesus would come. -
Well, apes do exhibit many of the signs of moral behavior that we once thought of as uniquely human-- or at least the element of human most in the image of the divine.
What does "In His image" mean anyway? I have ten fingers and ten toes-- are you saying that God has ten fingers and ten toes? Because if you are, and you base your beliefs on the Bible, you are committing idolatry. Obviously the "In His image" is meant to be taken as a spiritual image-- and evolutionary theory neither affirms nor denies the existence of souls or whether or not non-human primates have souls.
Besides-- even from a theological perspective-- there is no reason to assume that the creativity of an eternal and infinite God would not coincide with the best explanation that science could provide. In fact, most learned theologians would say that they do coincide. -
God created both man and animals on the sixth day, in one single day. That doesn't give much time for any evolving.
Even more confusing is that he created the plants and vegetation on the 3rd day, and did not create the sun and moon til the fourth day. How long could all that vegetation last without sunlight if these days do not represent literal days, but thousands or millions of years as some scientists might argue.
As for similarities between man and apes... you could draw similarities between other species as well. If God planned all this creation, many different species have things in common. That doesn't mean they evolved from one another. It just means they have similarities. -
Sorry vfanblog, but everybody knows that the Genesis isn't supposed to be taken literally, it is a metaphor to explain the origin of men, furthermore, why can't God choose to create men through evolution, after all, He isn't subject to the lines of time, "A thousand years are like a day" for Him! And by the way, you should know that Revelation was referring to the Roman Empire, who persecuted Christians, not to the Catholic Church! -
1517freespirit,
A strong suggestion: "everybody knows" isn't necessarily true. Even widespread assumptions are not necessarily universal.
One example is the 'common knowledge' that Rome expelled the Jews from Israel to help the Christians. I learned about this in a rather long comment on on of my bolgs ( anotherwaronterrorblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/inside-islam-faith-vs-fanatics-... ).
I was so impressed by this revelation (not Revelations), that I devoted a post to the matter ("Nero Was Working for the Christians: Who Knew?" anotherwaronterrorblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/nero-was-working-for-christians... ).
The point is, when you find yourself saying "everybody knows," it's time to take a very close look at what you 'know' is true, and both how and why you know it. -
La biblia es una libro escrito por pastores ignorantes hace 2500 años, no la uses como fuente de conocimiento. Saludos. -
"The bible is a book written by ignorant shepherds 2500 years ago, not to be used as a source of knowledge. Greetings."
Hablo un poco Espanol. -
vfanblog-
You are free to believe what you want to believe, but your statements have neither scientific nor theological validity.
The point is that there are many people who have no trouble reconciling their religious faith with scientific reason-- you just happen not to be one of them. -
Yes, I'll agree that not "everybody knows." Because I have taken the Genesis account quite literally. If people can choose which parts of it are factual, and which are fiction, then why bother with it? I am more of a either we believe in it or we don't type person.
I believe in evolution within a species, but not from species to species.
I believe "Rome" is the city on 7 hills spoken of in Revelation 17 & 18, past tense, present and future tense. The judgement coming on it described in Revelation 18 takes place on "The Day of the Lord", and the reason for the judgement will be because of persecution of those who hold the "Testimony of Jesus." -
Nonetheless, the thread is about a priest and scientist who is reconciling his scientific speculation with his religious imagination. If you absolutely choose to reject one part of the equation (such as science) then you've placed yourself outside the conversation.
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I always find it curious when people say they take a literal translation of the Bible. Read it real closely and tell me if you're life is being led by that literal translation. Of course, my favorite for pointing that out is Exodus.
Take a history class in cultures. You'll find that virtually every culture had stories that are amazingly similar to those in the Bible and many of those are vastly older than when much of the Bible is written. Kind of makes me go Hmmmmmm
I think there is much to learn from the parables in the Bible, just as much as there is to learn in the Qur'an Hindu and Buddhist teachings and many more.
By the way, you stated that you believe in Genesis literally and you can't pick and choose, but if you aren't following the instructions in Exodus, then aren't you picking and choosing there? -
I apologize, I said Exodus, when I meant Leviticus.
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About your assertion about the Vatican statement and original sin: Where did you read that?
The Reuter's article made no reference to original sin, or possible state of grace of extraterrestrials.
Seriously: If the Vatican statement did include that, I'm interested. If it's something you think the Vatican official might have said, I'm interested, too: but I'd like to know which it is. And, where you got your information.
(Thanks for the Reuters link, BTW - good article.)-
Thanks for the additional link. I've taken the liberty of linking back to this thread on Apathetic Lemming of the North.
About original sin and space aliens - read it in the BBC article. Very interesting. And, theologically speaking, plausible. It raises some interesting points, too.
Again with the C.S. Lewis stuff - that writer speculated, decades back, that the vast distances between stars might be a sort of cosmic quarantine, to keep people like us from spreading the infection. Interesting idea. (Sorry, to my embarrassment, I can't find the citation for that right now - my library is in the attic, mostly, and our oldest daughter is improving its organization. It may be years before I find some things.)
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The Vatican is smoking dat good dope, too. -
If I were a devout Christian, this would make me wish I was an alien. -
Sorry vfanblog, but everybody knows that the Genesis isn't supposed to be taken literally, it is a metaphor to explain the origin of men, furthermore, why can't God choose to create men through evolution, after all, He isn't subject to the lines of time, "A thousand years are like a day" for Him! And by the way, you should know that Revelation was referring to the Roman Empire, who persecuted Christians, not to the Catholic Church!
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1517, "everybody" doesn't know that. There are certainly Christian sects that believe the Bible is to be taken literally in its entirety.
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The Vatican is wrong. Science has known for a long time that aliens are sinners, especially when it comes to coveting their neighbors' wives. Aliens are just terrible about that. That is a scientific fact.-
Can you prove that, or is that just Hollywood speaking through you?
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Matt, I will prove it at 3:30pm EDT. Please stay tuned.
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Los curas están al pedo y hablan boludeces.
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"The priests are [to fart?] and speak boludeces."
I'm not sure what "boludeces" means. -
Norski: "boludeces" = "non sense stuff" Greetings.
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Historically, the Vatican doesn't make changes without overwhelming evidence that they are wrong.
The conspiracy theorists will be screaming "what do they know... what do they know"... -
They are without original sin, in the Vaticans eyes, until they don't put money in the offering bowl...(wink wink)-
Yep, 'everybody knows' what those Catholics are like.
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mostro,
Por favor, hagan uso de Inglés en este hilo.
Und nicht davon ausgehen, dass die Menschen dumm-Köpfe, nicht verstehen Ihre Sprache.
Don't assume that people are dummies who do not understand your language.
It's obvious that you can use English fluently, since you read and understood the contents of this thread.
I stuggest strongly that, as a courtesy to those not so multi-lingual as yourself, that you post comments in a language which those reading this thread are more likely to understand: in this case, English.-
Hello Norski, when I said "everyone knows" I was speaking from my personal experience, since that kind of questions are more than settled, at least at my country (Portugal), where I never heard anybody, catholic or not, say otherwise... I forgot that in many other places this is not so. But I also think that, in their hearts, reading such a beautiful poetic text like genesis, people would be able to differentiate it from an historical text, it doesn't take a college degree or a extraordinary analysis capability, but who am I to judge...
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I think they are being very logical about what is out there. Why would humans be the only living thing in this vast universe? It is interesting that they mentioned the Big-Bang.
caseybrownmyers.blogspot.com -
I don't know much about religion and haven't even read the whole of the Bible, but in my humble opinion, I'm inclined to believe that when the Bible says God made man to His image it meant to His Spiritual nature, with His Spiritual attributes whatever they may be.
I think the more science advances, our minds evolve too along with our comprehension of the universe and interpretation of divine scriptures; inevitably, science and theology will come closer with time.
In part, I believed this after I read "In Search of the Particle God" many years ago. Wouldn't be able to give you an accurate synopsis of the book but it basically tells how scientists where already on the "tail" of a particle they suspected was impinging into our material world from "the other side," the energy that gave substance to our material world and very susceptible to our mind energy or so. -
Someday I hope to have my own chief scientist.
That would be cool.
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Oh a good dose of Richard Dawkins could be done with in this thread. And Robin Lane Fox.
Ben -
I'd rather not believe in any religious doctrines which makes me free of any sin. -
They are up to something, I’m telling you. -
This is an interesting thing to ponder. Of course, we're assuming a humanoid alien species - which may be a problem with our understanding. We don't view animals (and by "we" I'm referring to Roman Catholics) as having "original sin", so why would aliens be any different?
I guess what I"m getting at is that anything from a single celled organism to a little green man could be an "alien" - so at what level would they be humanlike enough to be expected to have a "soul" with which original sin could be born affixed to?
I admit I haven't read the links yet. -
Oh my. -
Yes , there is a species without original sin. They are called humans.
although I like jesus very much, i can't tolerate that original sin garbage. -
Next the Vatican science department will be advising people that claim to have alien encounters - to listen to what the aliens say - after all they are without sin! we are the 'lost sheep'! Wait for it...it will happen! This world is getting crazier and crazier...
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