Would the Church baptize aliens if they come to Earth?

[LoveGod102]

Well, for where we are, we’re not too shabby - this is just a planning group being organized

space.com/11200-nasa-100-year-starship-interstellar-travel.html

but there are people in legitimate places such as NASA seriously considering these matters

nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/scales.html

There’s a minimum range of time for the right kind of star and planetary system to form, for life’s building blocks to arise on it and then get to the point comparable to single-celled organisms then multicellular, and then to animals and so on.

An intelligent race eventually capable of spaceflight would obviously first need to develop to the point of being tool-using, then technological. Depending on how physically nimble they are, how large their “brains” are, what their society is like and how cooperatively they work together, they might be far ahead of us, at the same level, or still up-and-coming.

***We may be the first. We may be the only. Or not. We may never know. Some feel it’s a waste of time to speculate about such things; others, like yours truly, find it fascinating even if it only yields better science fiction.

Once again I must point out that the odds of the nearest star, the one mentioned that’s the closest, 4-something light years away, being the one from which another civilization would visit us are probably higher than the odds of some other star system further away being the special one. So the aliens would have to come from a place more*** than 4 lightyears + change. Maybe 8 ly, or 22, or 135, or ??? Or we would have to go one of those distances to meet them. Unless they’ve colonized the Centauri system or set up an outpost there.

Exoplanets are being discovered, and through spectral analysis it’s going to become more and more possible to learn if they have the chemical elements life needs, and even the “signatures” that life is present upon them.

I find it quite fascinating as well. I’m a big sci-fi fan. Doctor who Christmas special is on tonight and I can’t wait!
But I do seriously consider the possibility of alien life. It bugs me that some Catholics, of all people, think it is simply out of the realm of possibility that aliens exist. Who are we to say that God couldn’t have created other people? (I realize I am paraphrasing what someone else posted earlier on.)
Frankly though, even if we can never contact aliens, they likely still exist.

 

[LibralAteoJesus]

Well many atheists tend to not believe in God because his existence can’t be proven. For those who don’t believe for lack of proof, then why would you believe in aliens, when their existence can’t be proven?

The question is reversed for believers, most atheists don’t believe in any known personal aliens but there is great possibilties for other beings to exist on some other billions existent planets in this immense universe. Most atheists don’t deny the possibility of the existence of creator(s) no matter how this possibility could be tiny to them, but they deny so hard the existence of personal gods, miracles, magic, mythological imaginary stories or beings, fairy tales and the so - claimed truth of any obviously man- made religion that appears to them as non sense indoctrination and fabrications of ancient times.

 

[3DOCTORS]

I find it quite fascinating as well. I’m a big sci-fi fan. Doctor who Christmas special is on tonight and I can’t wait!
But I do seriously consider the possibility of alien life. It bugs me that some Catholics, of all people, think it is simply out of the realm of possibility that aliens exist. Who are we to say that God couldn’t have created other people? (I realize I am paraphrasing what someone else posted earlier on.)
Frankly though, even if we can never contact aliens, they likely still exist.

Come on over to my fledgling group Exoplanets and Astrobiology from a Catholic Perspective if you’re interested! forums.catholic-questions.org/group.php?groupid=1809 Would enjoy having this discussion in depth!

 

[PRmerger]

It bugs me that some Catholics, of all people, think it is simply out of the realm of possibility that aliens exist.

I am a realist and a skeptic by nature, so until there’s evidence for intelligent life, I will remain a doubter.

Who are we to say that God couldn’t have created other people? (I realize I am paraphrasing what someone else posted earlier on.)

I would never say that God couldn’t have created other people.

I just say, “Show me some evidence that He did!”

Frankly though, even if we can never contact aliens, they likely still exist.

Why do you say “likely” to exist?

 

[mikekle]

I find it quite fascinating as well. I’m a big sci-fi fan. Doctor who Christmas special is on tonight and I can’t wait!
But I do seriously consider the possibility of alien life. It bugs me that some Catholics, of all people, think it is simply out of the realm of possibility that aliens exist. Who are we to say that God couldn’t have created other people? (I realize I am paraphrasing what someone else posted earlier on.)
Frankly though, even if we can never contact aliens, they likely still exist.

Those people dont realize they are being offensive to God, as by saying they dont believe in ANY other intelligent life anywhere out in the universe is to say God is not capable of creating other life. We know from the bible that God is highly creative, just look at the wide variety of life that has been on earth, dinosaurs to mankind!!! WOW…It is nonsensical to recognize this and even suggest God created NO other intelligent life on other planets, before or after us.

Think of of the quad-trillions of years before man was created by God, and we all know God has ALWAYS been there, it is very unlikely he was not creating then as well, and I would bet he has been creating even after mankind on earth was created. I do not see God as one who would just create one single race of beings and be done with it for good…that makes no sense.

While it is very interesting, it is basically impossible to even guess about what Gods relationship is with all these other planets, it does seem logical some would fall like we did and others did not and are a perfect race, but we have no way of knowing or guessing at these or what they are like. I do hope we learn all this upon death though.

 

[mikekle]

I just say, “Show me some evidence that He did!”

To me, the evidence is the fact we have people all over the world that spot strange aircraft each and every day. Most of these crafts demonstrate abilities that no man made aircraft can do…not even close, Sure, some could be experimental military or govt, but ALL of them…going back to the time before aircraft was even created? Nope, that makes no sense to me. Something is visiting our planet and have been for many 1000s of years.

If even some of these crafts were secret military craft, dont you think we would have seen some of this technology trickle down to modern aircraft/spacecraft by now? Even with the most ultra modern fighter jets, they still use brute force jet power, still very very loud, and cannot hover in one place, and make no sound whatsoever, then take off so fast, it appears that they literally disappear.

 

[PRmerger]

To me, the evidence is the fact we have people all over the world that spot strange aircraft each and every day.

That would indeed be compelling, if we could find no answer to what these strange aircraft are.

But why have none of these aircraft crashed?

Also, could you please provide the info that I asked for earlier? You alluded to the US govt engaging in secrecy in covering up evidence for intelligent life. But certainly all other govts do not have the same secrecy demand and may be quite transparent.

Can you please give us some info from other nations that demonstrate proof of intelligent extraterrestrials?

 

[3DOCTORS]

Those people dont realize they are being offensive to God, as by saying they dont believe in ANY other intelligent life anywhere out in the universe is to say God is not capable of creating other life. We know from the bible that God is highly creative, just look at the wide variety of life that has been on earth, dinosaurs to mankind!!! WOW…It is nonsensical to recognize this and even suggest God created NO other intelligent life on other planets, before or after us.

Think of of the quad-trillions of years before man was created by God, and we all know God has ALWAYS been there, it is very unlikely he was not creating then as well, and I would bet he has been creating even after mankind on earth was created. I do not see God as one who would just create one single race of beings and be done with it for good…that makes no sense.

While it is very interesting, it is basically impossible to even guess about what Gods relationship is with all these other planets, it does seem logical some would fall like we did and others did not and are a perfect race, but we have no way of knowing or guessing at these or what they are like. I do hope we learn all this upon death though.

While I’m a skeptic on the UFO side of things, what you’re saying above is an idea that has actually been around for quite awhile. For instance, a well-known work on the subject is Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds by Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, which was published in 1686 - you can read it here: archive.org/stream/conversationsonp00font#page/n7/mode/2up

 

[DrTaffy]

How can you prove you are rational?

We cannot - the validity of our reason is one of the things we have to take on faith, as we obviously cannot use our reason to prove the validity of that reason!

Nonetheless I have extensive empirical evidence that our reason is valid, so I reject your assertion that "one belief is as valueless as another! "

In other words where did our power of reason come from? Random combinations of molecules?

Natural selection favouring thought processes that give us the best interpretation of the world. Those cavemen who just made a leap of faith that there were no predators around fared less well than those who used reason to help them avoid predators.

 

[DrTaffy]

So you apply the former to theological assertions and the latter to all other matters?

Why the inconsistency?

There is no inconsistency, I apply both to all assertions. I have explicitly applied the ‘willingness to consider the implications of something not yet proven to be true’ to both God and aliens in this very thread, and you have at best no evidence for the assertion that I don’t apply the ‘do not believe in something without evidence’ maxim to both.

I would say that the aliens are far more likely, in my opinion, as they are merely another example of intelligent life, something that we already know to be possible, and we have a good idea of how they could come to be.

Well many atheists tend to not believe in God because his existence can’t be proven. For those who don’t believe for lack of proof, then why would you believe in aliens, when their existence can’t be proven?

Are you and PRmerger by any chance confusing doubting the existence of something, i.e. not making the assertion that it definitely exists, with making the positive assertion that it does not exist?

 

[tonyrey]

How can you prove you are rational?

I didn’t assert that one belief is as valueless as another, but “It is possible we only imagine we are capable of proving anything - in which case one belief is as valueless as another” if reason has originated in random combinations of molecules.

In other words where did our power of reason come from? Random combinations of molecules?

Natural selection favouring thought processes that give us the best interpretation of the world.

Is the likelihood of a nuclear holocaust due to the best interpretation of the world? Is the blood-stained history of the human race due to the best interpretation of the world?

Those cavemen who just made a leap of faith that there were no predators around fared less well than those who used reason to help them avoid predators.

The leap of faith that we live in a Godless world has led to human predators responsible for abortion, genocide and euthanasia on an unprecedented scale. The book Irrational Man sums it up in a nutshell. The notion that survival value is the cause of the development of reasoning is patently absurd. Amoeba have outlived many far more intelligent species and the power of reason is likely to produce a nuclear holocaust and** the extinction of all life on this planet…**

 

[PRmerger]

There is no inconsistency, I apply both to all assertions. I have explicitly applied the ‘willingness to consider the implications of something not yet proven to be true’ to both God and aliens in this very thread, and you have at best no evidence for the assertion that I don’t apply the ‘do not believe in something without evidence’ maxim to both.

Fair enough.

So you are not an atheist then. Rather, you entertain the possibility that God may exist, just as you entertain the possibility that intelligent alien life may exist.

I would say that the aliens are far more likely, in my opinion, as they are merely another example of intelligent life, something that we already know to be possible, and we have a good idea of how they could come to be.

I would say that there is not a single–not one iota–piece of evidence for the existence of of intelligent alien life. Not a shred.

But the evidence for God’s existence is quite compelling.

I find it quite spurious and suspect, in fact, that someone who doubts the existence of God, after examining the proofs for His existence, would have an exquisitely lower standard for the existence of intelligent alien life.

When there is not a single scientific study that points to intelligent alien life…and yet n atheist says, “It’s possible”…that just makes me go,

Are you and PRmerger by any chance confusing doubting the existence of something, i.e. not making the assertion that it definitely exists, with making the positive assertion that it does not exist?

So let’s apply that to your position on intelligent alien life. You doubt that they exist? Yes? That is, you are “not making the assertion that” they definitely exist.

Is that a correct explication of your position on intelligent alien life?

 

[DrTaffy]

I didn’t assert that one belief is as valueless as another,

Clarification: by ‘your assertion’ I meant the assertion that you implied you would conclude from the assumption of (your version of) an atheist view of rationality. I realise you accept neither the atheist view nor the conclusion you would apparently draw from it.

Is the likelihood of a nuclear holocaust due to the best interpretation of the world? Is the blood-stained history of the human race due to the best interpretation of the world?

Nope, both are largely due to irrational behaviour such as nationalism and (yes) religion. Rational fields such as science and technology can enable such harmful irrational goals, but they also enable such beneficial goals such as curing cancer and providing clean water or vaccines.

While it is trivial to understand how a mindless imperfect process such as natural selection would lead to humans who would indulge in war, it is much harder to explain how creation by a perfect, omnipotent, benevolent being would do so.

The leap of faith that we live in a Godless world …

Now now, that sort of transparent rhetorical trick only serves to besmirch the image of Catholics. Nobody starts with the assumption that absolutely everything imaginable exists and that the skeptic has to prove that something does not exist, or make a ‘leap of faith’, before he can adopt a worldview without it.

Rather we all start by believing only that for which we have evidence, and a leap of faith is required to believe in something without such evidence.

…has led to human predators responsible for abortion, genocide and euthanasia on an unprecedented scale.

When has such behaviour been caused explicitly by lack of a belief in God? After all theists have perpetrated plenty of similar atrocities, and horrors such as female genital mutilation, corrective rape, human or even child sacrifice and so on are often explicitly linked to religious beliefs.

More to the point, what does any of this have to do with the topic of this thread?

 

[DrTaffy]

So you are not an atheist then.

Of course, I forgot that atheists are the one religious grouping not allowed to define their own beliefs!

Well, I do not believe in God, so I consider myself an atheist, most atheists would consider me an atheist, and most people in general would consider me an atheist.

Rather, you entertain the possibility that God may exist, just as you entertain the possibility that intelligent alien life may exist.

In my opinion intelligent alien life is far more likely than ‘God’ (meaning an omnipotent sentient entity that created everything else that exists) but otherwise that is correct.

I would say that there is not a single–not one iota–piece of evidence for the existence of of intelligent alien life. Not a shred.

But the evidence for God’s existence is quite compelling.

When you indulge in such hyperbole, it is hard to take you seriously. At least in the case of alien life we have hard evidence that it is possible and good arguments that it is very probable, including scientific studies. e.g. Siegfried Franck et al’s reexamination of the Drake equation leading to an estimate of hundreds of thousands of civilisations in this galaxy alone. The God hypothesis has no such evidence.

Both God and little green men have claims made for direct evidence of their existence, and while some UFOlogists’ claims do suffer from the “hey, if you look carefully you can see that it is just a flock of birds” demise, so many claims of proof of God’s existence wind up with the miraculous crying statue’s tears turning out to come from a leaking sewage pipe.

I reject both sets of ‘proof’, while you want to dismiss one lot of evidence as entirely nonexistent while touting the other as indisputable.

When there is not a single scientific study that points to intelligent alien life…and yet n atheist says, “It’s possible”…that just makes me go,

There is proof that it is possible. We know that intelligent life is possible since (snarky Monty Python songs aside) look around you and there it is. We have zero evidence that it is possible for a sentient entity to exist without a physical body or even a space-time continuum, or any of the other claims that are made for ‘God’.

There are also scientific analyses showing that it is probable, also something that the God hypothesis cannot claim.

I have nowhere claimed, nor would I claim, that it is proven.

So let’s apply that to your position on intelligent alien life. You doubt that they exist? Yes? That is, you are “not making the assertion that” they definitely exist.

Is that a correct explication of your position on intelligent alien life?

Yes.

How on earth is that not blindingly obvious?

 

[PRmerger]

Of course, I forgot that atheists are the one religious grouping not allowed to define their own beliefs!

You are certainly permitted to define your own beliefs.

I was just applying your own paradigm to limn your inconsistent application of “proof”.

As it stands currently, you are demonstrating a shockingly illogical, inconsistent position.

You doubt God exists, as there is no proof.
Yet…you entertain the possibility that intelligent alien life exists,** even when there is no proof.**

Not a shred.
No studies.
No evidence.
Nothing.
Nada.

[SIGN1]Not one iota of evidence for the existence of intelligent life in other worlds.[/SIGN1]

And yet you entertain the possibility that they exist. An atheist. Who says, “Show me proof that God exists and I will believe!” while also saying, “I believe that intelligent alien life could exist, even if I have never seen a single piece of evidence for their existence!”

Puzzling. And curious. Very curious to me.

 

[PRmerger]

In my opinion intelligent alien life is far more likely than ‘God’ (meaning an omnipotent sentient entity that created everything else that exists) but otherwise that is correct

Can you offer some evidence for their existence? Anything? Some sort of intelligent verse that they have perhaps written? Artistic endeavors that they have left behind as a relic?

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

That would indeed be compelling, if we could find no answer to what these strange aircraft are.

But why have none of these aircraft crashed?

Also, could you please provide the info that I asked for earlier? You alluded to the US govt engaging in secrecy in covering up evidence for intelligent life. But certainly all other govts do not have the same secrecy demand and may be quite transparent.

Can you please give us some info from other nations that demonstrate proof of intelligent extraterrestrials?

I don’t know what the strange aircraft we see are, but I doubt if they are extraterrestrials. This is not because I don’t think they exist, because I’m sure extraterrestrials do exist. The reason I think that they are not coming here in spacecraft is that I don’t think that civilizations that are that far advanced past us would trouble themselves with travel in the temporal sense. They would have realized what we will likely soon realize. What I think we may soon realize is that the exploration of space is not the final frontier. I think the exploration of consciousness is likely the final and greatest frontier. An advanced culture that finds occasion to understand this would quickly realize that one doesn’t have to physically travel somewhere to know what is there. There is no need for astronauts in a civilization of psychonauts, meaning that the exploration of consciousness will bring about an increased awareness of the intuitive aspects of mind as well as the cognitive.

Specifically, aspects of our capabilities that we have spent little time in cultivating thus far will likely yield unimaginable results once we start to spend some time on them. Things such as remote viewing and precognition are not outside of the toolkit of the human mind, and they are vast untapped potentials waiting to be investigated and developed more fully. But even without these, the technologies produced simply by the cognitive mind would logically enable advanced civilizations to surmise what exists on a distant planet when accompanied by some simple deduction. 150 years ago, no one dreamed that today we would see what was happening on the other side of this planet in the manner in which satellite communications has enabled us to do, or that we could store the entire corpus of human knowledge in a fully accessible shared memory that is available at our fingertips on small tablets we use in our living rooms, bedrooms, cars, ships and on aircraft where people travel at 600 miles an hour 30,000 feet above the earth. Even now, we are able to look at distant worlds with space based telescopes, and with a little deduction from the known actions of certain elements such as the colors they produce, posit with considerable accuracy the atmosphere, temperature, age and mass of distant worlds. In 50 years we will be able to do far more than this.

It is because of such things as exploration of consciousness, and advances in technology that I offer the idea that a very advanced species would have no need to travel somewhere to know what is there. To think that highly developed civilizations perhaps a thousand or even just a hundred years ahead of our own would need to fly around in metal cigars or disks to explore other planets is a very 19th century mentality that I think we need to get past. Finding intelligent sentient life in outer space will in my opinion be the result of the exploration of inner space.

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Can you offer some evidence for their existence? Anything? Some sort of intelligent verse that they have perhaps written? Artistic endeavors that they have left behind as a relic?

Good evening PR Merger. I hope you are enjoying your popcorn. We know that there is intelligent life in outer space. We know it to exist on a smallish planet that circles a medium sized sun on the outer reaches of a spiral galaxy called the Milky Way. We also know that the universe and all things in it are fractal in nature, which means that everything is built on the same repeating patterns over and over again, and while they produce a good deal of diversity, the same patterns can be seen at work in all things. This in turn means that the same basic processes are at work in all places, and the appearance of something in one place increases the likelihood of the appearance of something similar in another place where conditions are similar.

And conditions are already known to be similar in lots of places in the very small sector of the universe that we can observe with telescopes. The same elements are found everywhere. The same methane that exists as a gas on earth appears as liquid on the moon of a far off gas giant in our own solar system. Beyond that, monomers that are joined together in a repeating fashion to form more complex molecules called polymers are existent everywhere in the universe. On this planet, these resulted in such things as DNA and life forms, and we have clearly seen that life has an appetition to grow, thrive, evolve and create more life wherever it takes root. And life has clearly taken root in this universe because we have seen it here on earth. And because of the demonstrable fractal nature of creation, it is likely that what develops with certain elements under certain conditions in one place will likely have strikingly similar results when the same elements and conditions are present in another place. Life throughout the universe isn’t merely a matter of mathematical probability. It is a matter of both probability and practical observation.

Meanwhile, I do not contest the existence of God. I believe in God. I just think God is bigger than the figure portrayed in Judaic lore, and heavily interested as well as actively engaged in matters far beyond the reaches of ancient Palestine, and the traditions that emanated from that single civilization among many civilizations on this planet, much less those that are strewn about the fathomless cosmos.

 

[PRmerger]

We know that there is intelligent life in outer space

I asked for evidence for intelligent alien life.

It is a matter of both probability and practical observation.

The former is really the only compelling argument. The latter is nonsensical. There is nothing that has been observed which tells us of intelligent alien life.

As for the former, that “the universe is really, really, big, so it means that there has to be intelligent life on some other planet!” is fine to speculate on. But I wouldn’t bet my money until we have something more…scientific, empirical and logical to convince me.

 

[tonyrey]

Good evening PR Merger. I hope you are enjoying your popcorn. We know that there is intelligent life in outer space. We know it to exist on a smallish planet that circles a medium sized sun on the outer reaches of a spiral galaxy called the Milky Way. We also know that the universe and all things in it are fractal in nature, which means that everything is built on the same repeating patterns over and over again, and while they produce a good deal of diversity, the same patterns can be seen at work in all things. This in turn means that the same basic processes are at work in all places, and the appearance of something in one place increases the likelihood of the appearance of something similar in another place where conditions are similar.

And conditions are already known to be similar in lots of places in the very small sector of the universe that we can observe with telescopes. The same elements are found everywhere. The same methane that exists as a gas on earth appears as liquid on the moon of a far off gas giant in our own solar system. Beyond that, monomers that are joined together in a repeating fashion to form more complex molecules called polymers are existent everywhere in the universe. On this planet, these resulted in such things as DNA and life forms, and we have clearly seen that life has an appetition to grow, thrive, evolve and create more life wherever it takes root. And life has clearly taken root in this universe because we have seen it here on earth. And because of the demonstrable fractal nature of creation, it is likely that what develops with certain elements under certain conditions in one place will likely have strikingly similar results when the same elements and conditions are present in another place. Life throughout the universe isn’t merely a matter of mathematical probability. It is a matter of both probability and practical observation.

Meanwhile, I do not contest the existence of God. I believe in God. I just think God is bigger than the figure portrayed in Judaic lore, and heavily interested as well as actively engaged in matters far beyond the reaches of ancient Palestine, and the traditions that emanated from that single civilization among many civilizations on this planet, much less those that are strewn about the fathomless cosmos.

A convincing post, Gary.