Is there life in outer space?

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Zekariya said:
Then he would be fully God, fully Man, and fully something else. That would be Theologically incorrect. šŸ˜‰
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No. Again, I didnā€™t say that. Christ is fully God (The Son) and fully Man. If the Son were born of another species, then that union of the Son and that species would be a different incarnation than Christ.

After allā€¦ he is called The Son of Man. Had it not occurred to you that there could also be Sons of other species in the universe?

Likewise, God told us through scripture that he knows each of the Heavenly hosts (stars) by name. There wouldnā€™t be an intelligent species without his involvement, so if there is such a species, then I would ask whether they have a Trinitarian worship with their own incarnation of the Son. If not, I would avoid them.
 
DaddyGirl said:
We would have been told?
There are a lot of things we were not and are not told and are left to either remain unaware of or to discover on our ownā€¦this may be one of them.

And as everyone always says, God works in mysterious ways.

.
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We are in a terible fight for our salvation.
How would they relate to this fight of ours? How do you know on which side would they be ?
 
Is it necessary for intelligent creatures to have souls?

A Dolphin is more intelligent than a snailā€¦ But greater intelligence does not mean a soul.

Just a thoughtā€¦
 
DaddyGirl said:
We would have been told?
There are a lot of things we were not and are not told and are left to either remain unaware of or to discover on our ownā€¦this may be one of them.

And as everyone always says, God works in mysterious ways.

.
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This ^ We really canā€™t put limits on the creative power of God. More and more exoplanets are being discovered and itā€™s getting rapidly more possible to detect ones with the correct conditions for life. Now that may just mean really basic organic matter or really rudimentary organisms.

Also, even if sentient life has arisen elsewhere, there may be too much distance for us to come into contact with it. It could be in a completely different galaxy in a faraway galactic cluster. We just really donā€™t know.

Iā€™m a sci-fi fan, in case that isnā€™t obvious already, and I think itā€™d be cool if we met some good aliens (and not so cool if we met evil ones! :eek:) but that too is up to God. Maybe IF God created other races of sentient beings, He made the Universe vast so that He could deal with each race separately, at least for the ā€œtime beingā€ (which is a kind of abstract concept anyway, in that God is outside of time anyway).

People in parts of the Earth far distant from the Holy Land didnā€™t hear the Gospel preached for centuries but that doesnā€™t mean it didnā€™t apply to them. If intelligent aliens exist, and if God gave them immortal souls, we can trust Him to figure out the details of their salvation if they need salvation - and maybe they were fortunate enough not to have sinned.

Iā€™m not trying to be heretical or anything else, Iā€™m just saying letā€™s wait and see and not be afraid. God is Love. Weā€™ll be fine.
 
Iā€™ll worry about aliens when I see them.

My guess is that ā€œlifeā€ as a chemical process leading to self-organizing-and-growing organisms, could exist in many, many forms other than our water-oxygen bodies or ecology, many of which we will never see, because they are incompatible with our world, even if they managed to grow bodies with cognitive minds capable of space travel.

The number of planets is indeed great, but the cubic mileage of space is greater still. It is extremely unlikely that minded bodies have evolved to our level or beyond, near enough to us that we would hear their radio signals.

And even if we did hear them, we couldnā€™t tell such a signal from noise.

IMNAAHO, we should save the wear on our neurons from conjecture about aliens and use them instead to work off our Purgatory.

ICXC NIKA.
 
GEddie said:
Iā€™ll worry about aliens when I see them.

My guess is that ā€œlifeā€ as a chemical process leading to self-organizing-and-growing organisms, could exist in many, many forms other than our water-oxygen bodies or ecology, many of which we will never see, because they are incompatible with our world, even if they managed to grow bodies with cognitive minds capable of space travel.

The number of planets is indeed great, but the cubic mileage of space is greater still. It is extremely unlikely that minded bodies have evolved to our level or beyond, near enough to us that we would hear their radio signals.

And even if we did hear them, we couldnā€™t tell such a signal from noise.

IMNAAHO, we should save the wear on our neurons from conjecture about aliens and use them instead to work off our Purgatory.

ICXC NIKA.
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We canā€™t rule out that they could have a different biochemistry altogether - after all, oxygen can be toxic and flammable in the right circumstances. Aliens made of different substances might not be able to get close to us, or we to them, without exploding or igniting or something! Although it may be that our carbon-based, oxygen breathing biochemistry is optimal for developing sentience. The juryā€™s still out on a lot of things, really.šŸ¤·

I think those of us who are sci-fi geeks enjoy this kind of speculation, while others feel it a waste of time. To each her or his own. :tiphat:
 
brian614 said:
Is it necessary for intelligent creatures to have souls?

A Dolphin is more intelligent than a snailā€¦ But greater intelligence does not mean a soul.

Just a thoughtā€¦
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Dolphins and snails both have souls. In Latin, soul is ā€œanima.ā€

An animal is a being with a soul!

Just not a ā€œrational soulā€, which can power a cognitive mind. So far, only the human body is known to be compatible with those.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
Dolphins and snails both have souls. In Latin, soul is ā€œanima.ā€

An animal is a being with a soul!

Just not a ā€œrational soulā€, which can power a cognitive mind. So far, only the human body is known to be compatible with those.

ICXC NIKA
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Are you implying that animals will see salvation?

I know we must respect animals and nature but am not sure they are infused with the immortal soul of Manā€¦ And that was my earlier point that creatures from outer space may just be flesh not infused with an immortal soul.

Please explain what I am missing. Thanks in advance
 
brian614 said:
Is it necessary for intelligent creatures to have souls?

A Dolphin is more intelligent than a snailā€¦ But greater intelligence does not mean a soul.

Just a thoughtā€¦
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All plants and animals have souls. What they donā€™t possess is a spirit. A soul is just the life force of that creature or plant. If you decide to pinch your fingers, it is your soul which allows you to control your body. In humans, itā€™s just the (when living) neurological system of our bodies.

A spirit is different from a theological perspective. Angels, for example, lack souls. They are all spirit. Other animals have souls but no spirit. We have a soul and a spirit, which makes us unique, as far as we know.

There may be others in the universe who also were created in the image of God (they are material creatures who also possess a soul). I donā€™t see how that is in anyway impossible. Indeed, I think some of the wording used by Christ himself seems to suggest as much.
 
Rete said:
All plants and animals have souls. What they donā€™t possess is a spirit. A soul is just the life force of that creature or plant. If you decide to pinch your fingers, it is your soul which allows you to control your body. In humans, itā€™s just the (when living) neurological system of our bodies.

A spirit is different from a theological perspective. Angels, for example, lack souls. They are all spirit. Other animals have souls but no spirit. We have a soul and a spirit, which makes us unique, as far as we know.

There may be others in the universe who also were created in the image of God (they are material creatures who also possess a soul). I donā€™t see how that is in anyway impossible. Indeed, I think some of the wording used by Christ himself seems to suggest as much.
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You are correct Rete, my apologizesā€¦

I should restate my earlier post. Why do we think life outside of this planet would be blessed with both body and spirit?
 
brian614 said:
Are you implying that animals will see salvation?

I know we must respect animals and nature but am not sure they are infused with the immortal soul of Manā€¦ And that was my earlier point that creatures from outer space may just be flesh not infused with an immortal soul.

Please explain what I am missing. Thanks in advance
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The soul is the life.

Anything alive has a soul.

Again, the word in Latin is anima, whence we have the terms ā€œanimatedā€ (moving, creatures with anima can move) and ā€œinanimateā€ (lifeless).

But there is natural life, and there is spiritual life. Animals have a natural soul, human life, a spiritual soul.

ICXC NIKA
 
brian614 said:
You are correct Rete, my apologizesā€¦

I should restate my earlier post. Why do we think life outside of this planet would be blessed with both body and spirit?
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If they live in physical space, they must have a body. Body is required for extensional being.

Spirit is more problematic. We have no examples of beings with a cognitive mind and neither spirit, nor spiritual soul; but there could easily be such.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
The soul is the life.

Anything alive has a soul.

Again, the word in Latin is anima, whence we have the terms ā€œanimatedā€ (moving, creatures with anima can move) and ā€œinanimateā€ (lifeless).

But there is natural life, and there is spiritual life. Animals have a natural soul, human life, a spiritual soul.

ICXC NIKA
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Thanks for the clarificationā€¦ I should have specified ā€œspiritual soulā€

Why the speculation that other life forms would have a spiritual soul?

I am guessing this is all just speculation and their are no answers we can obtain unless we made contact with themā€¦
 
According to Catholicism, there canā€™t be any fallen life. Maybe we can cause them to fall. We might have to preach to them, then.
 
brian614 said:
Thanks for the clarificationā€¦ I should have specified ā€œspiritual soulā€

Why the speculation that other life forms would have a spiritual soul?

I am guessing this is all just speculation and their are no answers we can obtain unless we made contact with themā€¦
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Even if there were contact, we could never make sure.

Science and theology alike are still puzzling out the relation of our animae to our human bodiesā€¦!!!

ICXC NIKA
 
Thereā€™s got to be an ā€˜upper world.ā€™ I really believe in another world that guides and controls our world. From where does technology come? How else could our world grow to over seven billion people without it crashing? Our innate wit is simply too puny to account for all the high tech advances that you see in this world. Heck, please tell me if you have the innate wit to figure out how to mass produce simple boxes of toothpicks. Let me say that none of us have the innate wit to figure out the production process, especially the designing and building of the machine necessary to produce toothpicks? None of us have the innate wit to accomplish this. Now consider how our technology and world advanced so drastically over the past 150 years. Consider having to build the machinery and tooling necessary to produce computer chips. Such engineering feats, again, is far, far beyond our puny innate wit. Go ahead, and try to figure out how to mass produce simple toothpicks!
 
brian614 said:
You lost me, some Angels have fallen and they have lifeā€¦
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Iā€™m not arguing- just speculating. Arenā€™t angels pure spirit? They also canā€™t be redeemed if theyā€™ve disobeyed God.
 
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