New "gods" of the new age

[elrondaragorn]

There is a potential time bomb that no one ever discusses in Theology, problably because the answer is uncertain.Because the church offers no theological guidance on the subject, good Catholics might be deceived. The council of Nicea said “what is not assumed is not redeemed.” In the middle ages people in fairies and elves (i.e. people not descended from Adam and Eve), and some even believed they could nevertheless be redeemed. People no longer believe in fairies, elves, broom-riding witches, etc, but people with a rare sleeping disorder sometimes wake up while still dreaming (hallucinating if you will). In past times they told people about the witches that attacked them in the night. As late as the 19th century people using opium claimed to see “airships” in the sky. In some cases this may have been a psychological issue, and in some cases it could have been a real spiritual attack, because we know drugs and hypnosis can open a door to demonic oppression. To make a long story short, I’m a writer, and a Franciscan University
Graduate. I’ve researched a lot of this on a seccular level, and just like people can be fooled by con artists pretending to have occult powers, what people used to report as “witch attacks” at night are now being reported as UFO abductions. Combined with incompetent use of hypnotism, and demonic deception, I believe that if we don’t try and apply Church teachings to this new “UFO religion” to let people know why it is unlikely that aliens exist (i.e. “what is not assumed is not redeemed”), people could be misled into believing these things are really happening. I worked for a secular question and answer web site for a while until I proved too true to my faith for them. I was answering questions like these from Catholics and non-Catholics. Just like some people believe that magicians that claim to walk on fire, or contact their dead love ones are legitimate, I often got questions online all time about this alien abduction deception. If John Edwards says he can contact their dead loved ones, some of the Catholics IÍve written to completely believe him without question, and the word doesn’t seem to have gotten to them that
Contacting the dead is a sin. I used to be as gullible as they were, and so as long as I could, I tried to help them see their error until the site I was working for stopped letting me answer questions. I’m essentially asking you for information on the spiritual aspect of debunking the UFO cult (until now only Anti-catholic channels like History Channel and Discovery have done this uscing scientific arguments with an anti-catholic bias). It is my hope to educate people as to why, according to church teaching, it is, at the very least, unlikely, that there are children of God not descended from Adam and Eve living elsewhere in the Universe. I posted something about this topic-asking for websites that aaddress the spiritual side of these issues, but the post seems to have dissappeared. I believe it is important to address this issue because the deceiver seems to be using peopleÍs willingness to believe so readily in aliens to undermine our faith. That’s why I wanted information on safe websites to go to to get the spiritual side of the story. Some of the stories IÍve heard are that ñalensî claim there is no God, and some seem to have names of demons. (Now I wonder why.) Aside from the fact that the answer to these questions (e.g. What is not assumed is not redeemed), also affects what aspects of the Theory of Evolution we can believe as Christians, a gullible enough Christian might be misled into abandoning the faith by something said in an ñalleged extraterrestrialî encounter. People say they’ve read that these experiences are deminic, but I can’t find source material on these claims that is safe to read, and yet I want to be able to warn others and back up my claims with verifiable source material other than “This person tolds me…”

 

[Contarini]

I’m not going to be much help with your main request, but I would like to challenge your basic presupposition and ask you to defend it. Why do you think it is contrary to the Faith (or even particularly unlikely from a theological point of view) that there might be other embodied creatures with souls in the universe? As C. S. Lewis pointed out, this would be a problem theologically only if such beings were fallen and God had made no provision to redeem them. But they might conceivably be unfallen, or fallen like demons in such a way that redemption was impossible (i.e., they had chosen clearly and freely to give themselves completely to evil), or fallen and redeemed in some way God has not seen fit to reveal to us.

The argument “what is not assumed is not redeemed” implies that any redemption of non-human creatures would have to come through the incarnation of God as a human being. I don’t think that’s proven. But even if it was, one could conceivably argue that any embodied creatures with rational souls would share ontologically in the nature Christ assumed–i.e., that they would be from a theological point of view “human” even if not biologically so.

Another possibility, in my view, is that in fact angels and demons are “aliens” in the sense that they have some kind of bodies. I believe this was ruled out by Lateran IV, but I’m an Anglican and don’t necessarily have to abide by the decrees of Lateran IV, though I do give them deference. And it does seem to have been the overwhelming view of the Fathers that angels and demons have “aerial” or “etherial” bodies–the contrary opinion stemmed, IMHO, from some dubious metaphysical currents of the High Middle Ages.

In Christ,

Edwin

 

[Riley259]

I wrote about this subject in another thread. An examination of the probabilities of other intelligent life existing outside our world indicates a staggering number. In addition, the chances of another intelligent life form possessing the capability to get here is equally daunting. The most probable explanation of the unexplained alien sightings and abductions (about 99% of them are naturally explained) is demonic and occult influences. I know, at first read it sounds kinda hokey and speculative but Hugh Ross does present a much more organized explanation than I do in his book, *Lights in the sky & little green men: a rational look at UFO’s and extraterrestrials. *It’s a fascinating book - give it a read.

 

[Exporter]

I respect your effort, your education and curiosity. I believe you wrote that some Catholics may doubt their faith if it is proven that extra-terrestial intellegent life exists. Especially if those life forms from outside the earth have journeyed to our earth. [My definition of extraterrestials excludes angels and demons].

The news of actual extra-terrestials coming to the earth would not have anything to do with the Catholic Faith, in my opinion. It wouldn’t shake my faith at all. I don’t think the early fathers or Scripture deny or even mention extra-terrestials. They were silent on the subject.

I wish I could remember the name of the Vatican Official and the Document that focused on extra-terrestials. That Document stated that it was possible that life existed in other places beside earth. It was released about 2001. Maybe you can do a search for that Document.

 

[Exporter]

From:crisismagazine.com/november2002/feature7.htm

I found this easily.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/images/tfeatures.gif

**Alien Ideas
Christianity and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
**By Benjamin D. Wiker

We tend to consider speculation about extraterrestrials to be a recent phenomenon, a task forced on us by the scientific knowledge we’ve gained during the last century. It’s rather surprising, perhaps, to find out that the debate about whether there is extraterrestrial life stretches back just shy of two and a half millennia.

Given the antiquity of the question, we might be even more surprised to find that the Catholic Church has never issued any formal pronouncement, one way or the other, about the existence of extraterrestrial life.

Yet unofficial pronouncements have recently come from respected sources connected to (but not speaking for) the Vatican. Rev. George Coyne, director of the Vatican Astronomic Observatory, considers the possibility of extraterrestrials an “exciting prospect, which must be treated with caution… The universe is so large that it would be folly to say that we are the exception.” Rev. Christopher Corbally, S.J., another astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, believes that if we discover extraterrestrials, it will entail an expansion of our theology, for “while Christ is the First and the Last Word (the Alpha and the Omega) spoken to humanity, he is not necessarily the only word spoken to the whole universe.”

 

[Exporter]

Theologians have weighed in as well on the subject of extraterrestials. Thomas O’Meara, O.P., professor of theology at Notre Dame, argues, “The history of sin and salvation recorded in the two testaments of the Bible is not a history of the universe; it is a particular religious history on one planet.” For O’Meara, “the central importance of Jesus for us does not necessarily imply anything about other races on other planets… Believers must be prepared for a galactic horizon, even for further Incarnation.”

It would seem, then, that for Catholics the question of whether to believe in extraterrestrials is wide open. Tempting as such speculation is, however, a closer look at the history of the debate in relationship to Christianity might take some of the wind out of our speculative sails.

 

[Exporter]

I am as prepared for the arrival of extraterrestrials as I am for that of elves, and for the same reason: All evidence points to their nonexistence, and yet it remains a very, very remote possibility—so remote that to change our central doctrines to accommodate either possibility would be folly.

Benjamin D. Wiker, a fellow with Discovery Institute, teaches theology and science at Franciscan University. His Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists is now available from InterVarsity Press.

 

[SedesDomi]

We might speculate on the extraterrestrial’s state of grace, while the aliens might be anxious over our salvation* – *so much so that they would be willing to initiate conversion efforts.