Catholic Church Considering Alien Life?

[Alelou]

Yes, I suppose "crazy" could be interpreted as critical, since it is.

I'm going to try to be a good girl and just steer clear of these topics here.

[Silverbullet]

Since I consider our Galaxy one Trillionth of a Trillionth of our Universe. I am fairly certain that there is intelligent life out there somewhere There may be at the far end of our Universe (wherever that may be) a Galaxy crowcded with Life forms who have formed a Galaxy wide government.

Creator. I believe that there is one Creator for the whole Universe. I know that there are religions who have many Gods but only one Creator.

Now I am going to get into Hot water. It my contention tthat God/Creator has no Sex it is not male or fefmale. It was, is, annd always will be. Not born. I know that there are religions who have a male as the Creator and other that have an Earth Mother. but believe that was done so the people would have a frame of reference.

I once was wondering about an afterlife. I thought if the crator could create this universe an Afterlife would be a piece of Cake. then I thought: What woud be in it for the creator. Nothing. So, An afterlife is fine for us but not needed for a Creator who will always be.

Sorry, got started on Beliefs.

[Aikiweezie]

I firmly believe that anything is possible.
Quantum physics and string theory seem to be leading us into the idea that there might be such a thing as alternate universes or other dimensions. No one here on earth really knows for sure. It's all a guess.
I hope that when we die we get the answer to all these questions.

[JadziaKathryn]

I hope that when we die we get the answer to all these questions.

Now, there is something I think we can all get behind!!!

[Elessar]

It's long, but, if you want a nearly comprehensive refresher on everything astronomy and astrophysics has to say, to-date, on the subject of 'origins', this is a great video I watched earlier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

With a recent public speaking event with Lawrence Krauss. I didn't recognize him by name but if you are like me and have been up many nights watching cosmology and alien life specials, or read "physics of star trek", you'll recognize him. He's pretty brilliant, although I will warn you, that there is some uncensored adult language in this presentation, and also some very strong opinions about religion.

The science is impeccable, though, and lost me at one point.

[Escriba]

Catholic Church's opinion about aliens (and also about everything) is: "We don't care, provided that we still rule."

No, seriously That's why they aren't actually oficially against the "theory of the evolution", because once they saw that people didn't renounce their faith, even after more or less agreeing that we could descend from the same ancestor as the chimpanzees, they didn't care at all. Granted, they haven't oficially supported it, but what can you expect from an organization that oficially admitted that Galileo was right after 500 years?

Um, on rereading what I wrote, I think my use of the icons was in poor taste, but the speculation is okay? I'm glad no one took it badly. Sorry. I like to speculate on the meaning of things.

Actually, I thought Alelou's comment was the more critical. (Nothing personal. Just saying. I think that the Adam and Eve story is eminently less "crazy" than everything including us evolving from slime. Something about the use of "crazy" irked me.)

Well, if it is any consolation my religion teacher in High School was more controversial! He was (is) a priest and we heard that he had had issues with the Vatican. We didn't know why, since he was very nice. The thing is that when he explained the "Adam & Eve" story, after telling us that the snake is a phallic symbol --"but boys, don't think you have a Boa constrictor in your pants" -- he told us that in Hebrew, if I'm not wrong (my memory fails, you know), the name Eve comes from the same root as Adam or something like that. Which, he added, was very nice and a symbol of the loving relationship between men and women. And all the girls were looking at him wearily asking "really?" (because the idea of women not being independent but a part of men is a little... insulting) and he answered "Well, not really, they're a bunch of misogynist platitudes, but I was trying to make it easier for the girls." And then we knew why he had had problems with the Vatican

By the way, don't the Jews believe there was a woman before Eve? Lilith or something?

[Silverbullet]

Escriba, Yes Lilith was evil and turned in to a monster (If I remember the story right, Been a hell of a long time since I read the story.) Not sure where she came from. In the bible (old Testement) Adam and Eve are in paradise and the only people on earth (Or that is the way I got it) but apparently not. Just God's chosen couple? After Adam and Eve got booted out of paradise, had some kids. one of the boys went to the land of Nod and married a woman there. Now where did Nod come from? If all there had been was paradies and Adam and Eve the only people on Earth.

[justTripn]

In the Star Trek universe, humans did evolve from slime (TNG, "All Good Things," Act 7, verse 52.)

[Alelou]

TNG, "All Good Things," Act 7, verse 52.)

[Distracted]

It's long, but, if you want a nearly comprehensive refresher on everything astronomy and astrophysics has to say, to-date, on the subject of 'origins', this is a great video I watched earlier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

With a recent public speaking event with Lawrence Krauss. I didn't recognize him by name but if you are like me and have been up many nights watching cosmology and alien life specials, or read "physics of star trek", you'll recognize him. He's pretty brilliant, although I will warn you, that there is some uncensored adult language in this presentation, and also some very strong opinions about religion.

The science is impeccable, though, and lost me at one point.

Fascinating science. Very unpleasant and bigoted man. Must be interesting to be married/otherwise involved with the guy. I feel sorry for his significant other. Can you imagine trying to have a discussion with him about anything if he didn't agree with you?

[Elessar]

It's long, but, if you want a nearly comprehensive refresher on everything astronomy and astrophysics has to say, to-date, on the subject of 'origins', this is a great video I watched earlier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

With a recent public speaking event with Lawrence Krauss. I didn't recognize him by name but if you are like me and have been up many nights watching cosmology and alien life specials, or read "physics of star trek", you'll recognize him. He's pretty brilliant, although I will warn you, that there is some uncensored adult language in this presentation, and also some very strong opinions about religion.

The science is impeccable, though, and lost me at one point.

Fascinating science. Very unpleasant and bigoted man. Must be interesting to be married/otherwise involved with the guy. I feel sorry for his significant other. Can you imagine trying to have a discussion with him about anything if he didn't agree with you?

I know, I'm sorry, but I warned you

I found a lot of his 'asides' to be amusing... hybrid agnostic/scientific atheist that I am... but I could certainly see without any effort whatsoever how many of them would be very insulting to a person of even moderate religious conviction.

See, I had not heard of the triangle experiment with the big bang background radiation and testing the Universe's spatial curvature directly. That was fascinating, and actually a little hard for me to follow.

Probably the coolest thing in that presentation was the CG diagram of the "inside of a proton". Absolutely fascinating. I'm sure that involved a lot of quark studies... woot for virtual particles!

What's truly fascinating about our perspective of physics these days is that we have the intellectual capacity to have invented these constructs like virtual particles and vacuum energy and dark energy and dark matter.... that EXPLAIN all of these bizarre observational phenomena, but unto themselves, make no sense whatsoever.

[Escriba]

But sometimes teology is an excuse for great scientific discoveries.

It's fascinating the story I once heard about. It's about the nature of light. Descartes and Newton had different opinions about it, because their different religions. Descartes, as a Catholic, wanted the light to be white. Newton, a Protestant, on the other hand, claimed that in fact, white light was the mix of several other colors. And guess who was right

I saw the story in a great documentary about, precisely, light. It told a lot of stories, like how the equinoxes were calculated because the Church needed to calculate when Easter was going to be (in the old days the years used to begin in Easter) or how Bacon invented the glasses. If I just could remember the title of the documetary... It was worth it.

[Asso]

In the Star Trek universe, humans did evolve from slime (TNG, "All Good Things," Act 7, verse 52.)

I have to remember this!

[Linda]

I wasn't going to say anything more, but I just can't resist - it is the trickster in me, I guess: Vulcans (in the Star Trek universe) know for certain that Humans, at least, evolved from slime. And the Chosen People of the universe? Why it's the Vulcans of course. Any Vulcan can tell you why, and probably will - at great length.

[Asso]