The Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church. In a five-day conference organized by the Vatican late last year, Jesuit priest and director of the Vatican Observatory, Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes declared: "The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," He said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the “scientific perspective” and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.
Earlier in 2009, the Vatican had sponsored a conference on evolution to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species." Snubbed and declared unwanted at that conference, were proponents of alternative theories, like creationism and intelligent design, which see a higher Being rather than the undirected process of natural selection, behind the existence of species. Oops, extraterrestrials can exist; no Higher Being can! Full Report here
Snubbed and declared unwanted at that conference, were proponents of alternative theories, like creationism and intelligent design, which see a higher Being rather than the undirected process of natural selection, behind the existence of species.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic Church is trying to not make the same mistake it made with Galileo. Rejecting scientific discoveries, including the discoveries of evolutionary biology, makes a religion look bad to educated people.
Of course accepting evolution, and rejecting the religious alternatives like intelligent design creationism, can also cause problems for a religion. For example, evolution by natural selection, which is a basic scientific fact, makes the god idea unnecessary.
So religions have three choices. They can completely reject the discoveries of modern science and lose their more intelligent members. Or they can accept modern science and risk losing their less educated members. Or they can just let the religion go extinct and join the 21st century which has no need for any god.