Vatican - "The extraterrestrial is my brother," - PhillyBlog

Colin P. Varga · #1 (**permalink**) 05-14-2008, 12:28 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080514/...EJ.AkuarbtiBIF

Colin P. Varga · #2 (**permalink**) 05-14-2008, 12:52 PM

http://www.phillyblog.com/philly/772313-post201.html

fires_long_ago · #3 (**permalink**) 05-15-2008, 09:22 AM

Very interesting!

This reminds me a little of the passage in Ray Bradbury's book The Martian Chronicles, where the Episcopal priests go to Mars as missionaries. They find out that the Martians look like floating crystal spheres, so they build a church with a glass sphere representing Christ above the altar...they invite the Martians to come to Mass, and it turns out that the Martians are already perfected beings who don't sin and know all about God and have no need for church.

Colin P. Varga · #4 (**permalink**) 05-15-2008, 12:24 PM

Sounds a little like when the British Missionaires went to India and found people already converted to Christianity long ago, but of course they were Catholic so I guess there was a need to convert them to Protestant.

peacemover · #5 (**permalink**) 05-15-2008, 06:22 PM

I thought this was a bit unusual- but actually pretty clever on the part of the Vatican leadership- sort of how Paul utilized the "temple to the unknown god" as a bridge to reach a whole new group of people with the message of the Christian gospel. Still searching for the exact passage- but it is a powerful story...

Mixiboi · #6 (**permalink**) 06-15-2008, 04:39 PM

http://www.wired.com/science/space/n...alien_religion

Quote:

"will be inconsistent with the existence of God or at least organized religions." But such predictions tend to come from outside Christianity. From within, theologians have debated the implications of alien contact for centuries. And if one already believes in angels, no great leap of faith is required to accept the possibility of other extraterrestrial intelligences.

Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open -- and not necessarily Bible-bearing -- arms.

Finally someone with some sense.....

Quote:

"The main question is, 'Would religion survive this contact?'" said NASA chief historian Steven J. Dick, author of The Biological Universe. "Religion hasn't gone away after Copernican theory, after Darwin. They've found ways to adapt, and they'll find a way if this happens, too," Dick says

Of course, if anything I learn from us humans..you can make money off of anything....Just gotta adapt.