Vatican: Believing in aliens does not contradict faith in God

Wednesday 14th May, 06:20 AM JST

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Sarge at 10:38 PM JST - 14th May

Madverts, if there is no God, how did you come into existence? Your parents made you, right? Where did they come from? Their parents made them, right? Where did they come from? If we go back so many thousands of years, monkeys, right? Where did the monkeys come from? If we go back so many millions of years, amoebas, right? Where did they come from? Amino acids, right? Where did they come from? Heck, where did our planet come from? It just suddenly appeared out of nowhere, right?
Sarge at 10:52 PM JST - 14th May

One last question:

If there is a God, where the heck did he/she/it come from?
Madverts at 11:07 PM JST - 14th May

Sarge,

The same place the aliens came from. And doubtlessly, the same damned place where I left my car keys.

HTH.
sailwind at 11:08 PM JST - 14th May

All forms of Religion is our feeble attempt to understand God. God has whole universe to take of, not just some third rock planet from some third rate sun out of billions in the galaxy with an ape species that evolved to think it is somehow special.

Time we humble ourselves and realize we are just part of a huge universe that we can barely comprehend and be grateful that the stardust that started all of creation allowed us to look in the night sky and say damn here we here and thank you God.
Madverts at 11:18 PM JST - 14th May

Bah, I still say it's a microbe's (that would be us) attempt at explaining things we cannot and that "God" is a nice and simple "answer" to make The Question that cannot be answered, go away.
lipscombe at 11:34 PM JST - 14th May

an ape species that evolved to think it is somehow special

kind of contradicts your later sentence

be grateful that the stardust that started all of creation allowed us to look in the night sky and say damn here we here and thank you God.

so what was it? big bang? stardust? evolution? god? who should we thank again? bible bashing scientist eh?
Sarge at 11:41 PM JST - 14th May

Actually, I'm quite sure that there are millions if not billions or trillions or gadzillions of aliens out there in the universe. The reason we don't see them: by the time they've developed the technology to leave their planet and their solar system, they've unfortunately also developed the technology to destroy themselves! But I'm confident we're not going to destroy ourselves - heck, otherwise there won't be any Federation of Planets!
KaptainKichigai at 09:21 PM JST - 15th May

The greatest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of them have tried to contact us- Calvin and Hobbes
Nessie at 12:05 AM JST - 16th May

The greatest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of them have tried to contact us

Speak for yourself, Kichigai! ;)
Nessie at 12:12 AM JST - 16th May

If there ARE aliens, I just hope their God is not as nuts as ours are.
DanManjt at 04:02 AM JST - 16th May

Taka, Madverts and Nessie

This thread has spanned over quite a lot of territory.

I'd like to, if I may, focus on the specific nature of the Biblical/Koranic tradition. This tradition is unique in that it is Manichean -- meaning it conceives of the world as the stage in which a cosmic drama is played out between the forces of light (good) and dark (evil). This is a very distinctive quality in world religions. It lends itself easily towards religiosity, self-righteousness and doctrinal hair-splitting. The most uncompromising expression of this dualistic impulse is of course Crusades and Jihads.

Pretty powerful stuff, as I think you, Nessie, pointed out.

I simply do not believe this. I do not believe in Satan. I do not believe there is a sentient and malevolent force that is constant (Evil) and that pops up in varying forms and expressions (disease, warfare, Greed, etc) to torment and lead us astray from the Light. It just does not jive with way I understand how the world works. Germs, not the Devil, cause disease. People are greedy because it has adaptive value, not because we were born sinful.

And since I do not believe in Satan, in Evil with a capital E, I cannot accept that the literal Manichean notion that the world, that history, is the great cosmic story of Good vs. Evil.

Second, the New Testament/Koranic tradition conceives of God as all-powerful, all knowing and all caring -- of His people, notably. Personally, I can conceive of a divinity that encompasses two of these three.

But not all three.

My understanding of the way the world works precludes the possibility that all God is all three. I can see how an all loving and all knowing God must stand by when things go wrong. I can see how an all-powerful and all caring God messes up. I can see how an all-powerful and all knowing God callously allows things like the recent cyclone in Myanmar and the earthquake in China. But an all-loving one?

I must say no. I find the Christian argument silly at best -- a tortured construing that turns the meaning of love upside down -- and at worst an insult to the dignity of man, and because we are supposedly created in a divine image, an insult to the dignity of god. So, no, I reject as wishful thinking the New Testament/Koranic belief in an omnipotent, omniscient all loving God.

I believe, one may say have faith in, Justice. And anyone fan of Isaiah, or Law and Order, knows that Justice can be harsh.

In the West, the two characteristics of our religious tradition identified above naturally serve as the subtext underlying much if not all the disagreement between Believers and Non-Believers. Indeed, the two characteristics and the terms Believer and Non-Believer (Atheist) themselves set the terms and scope of the debate. The theist believes spirituality = divinity = God = Christ. The non-believer disbelieves Christ, therefore God and therefore divinity and spirituality. Notably, both Believer and Non-Believer reduce the nuance of spirituality, belief, and religious practice to a crude ethical dualism, a kindergarten good vs. bad caricature indicative of zealous false dichotomies.

And much feces tossing ensues.
Nessie at 09:27 AM JST - 16th May

DanMan,

I think we're straying from aliens, but...

For starters, the Abrahamic religions hardly have a monopoly on the dualistic idea of good and evil. And the post-Enlightenment Christian tradition has at least the stirrings of skepticism and tolerance of other beliefs, and even non-belief.

As to the question of an omnipotent, omniscient, all-caring God, the religious answer is two-pronged: humans are too dumb or self-centered to understand how things that we perceive as uncaring are actually part of a caring God's plan, and it's not our place to question God anyway. Some people find those explanations satisfying; others don't. The corallary is that, if humans are too dumb to understand God's plan, the idea of human rationality is undermined.

Back to the topic at hand. If there are aliens and they are religious, I would expect their religion to be adaptive as human religions probably have been. We can only hope that the aliens' interests mesh with ours.
DanManjt at 10:32 AM JST - 16th May

Nessie,

Though we may be straying from aliens, I think we are directly dealing with half of the question, y'know, the faith in god part.

So thanks for your reply.

I think much of Madvert's bile towards organized religion results from an understandable skepticism towards and rejection of the various Christian (and Islamic) dogmas, with all their annoying in-your-face demand for respect and privileged seeking for their mythologies.

Notice that I do not include Jewish dogma as a large concern in the West. First, Mani appeared to spread his dogma of moral dualism long after Rabbinic Judaism had retreated from the world. And despite what you say, moral dualism is more pronounced in the “Abrahamic religions” than in others. Second, we don't want to impose our ways on you. After all, we are the Chosen People. The take home lesson for two thousand years of Exile is let "why break my head over what meshugena goyim are up to?! Let them break their own heads." Being a minority imposed limits, y’know. Jews are so few in numbers that we would have a devil of time imposing our ways on the rest of you, despite our Elders control of the banks, media, and so forth. In truth, that branch of Judaism called Christianity sucked most of the drive to convert out of my glorious tradition. In short, Judaism, unlike Christianity is not a Faith based (orthodox) prostelyzing universal creed which purports in an ever-loving God, but rather a Orthoprax, -- as in "She is a practicing Jew." – tribal one believing in Gods Justice.

Nevertheless, your "Abrahamic religions" primarily a problem when the majority of a society and the elite adopt that religion. Case and point: Israel. Modernity, with the creation of Israel, wrenched the Jews back into autonomous history, into politics, and the unsightly confluence of religion and power politics. In Israel, segments of Judaism have rediscovered the appeal and power of dogma, demands for respect and even prostelyzation, as any good Jewish American boy whose taken a bus is Israel knows all too well. What’s more wonderful is these religious bigots have secured a special place in Israeli politics that allows them an inordinately influence on Israeli society and policy in key areas. Sounds familiar? It should. Though under 20% population, they are a determined and effective lobby, affecting, most importantly, settlement policy and relations with the Palestinians.

As far as aliens as faith goes, I’ll let you in on a secret: for Jews, faith is as alien as Zxortac from Planet Xenubia. Its not about faith. It is about god, torah and Israel. Its about being a mench – that is, leading an ethical life. Its about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.

And its about controlling the media.
KaptainKichigai at 12:17 AM JST - 17th May

Holy Blather batman! edit your rambling there, Encyclopedia Brown. This isnt the " I pontificate with my Thesaurus and my Theology thesis on 'Abrahamic religions' " websight. I almost mixed my own bathroom chemicals trying to get through that last post. Lets stick to the subject. Obviously in this day and age, fundamental religion must recognize the scientific possibilties, else they begin to fall into the category of superstition that they once persecuted.
Farmboy at 04:28 PM JST - 19th May

Clearly the Bible says that men are from dust, and women are from ribs. Had men been from plasma and women from tentacles, wouldn't somebody have noted it before now? Still, I suppose it could have been a loose translation... and at any rate, it's nice that the Vatican has fessed up to what revolves around what, and is being so welcoming of our greenish, antennaed neighbors, who I hear chant things like, "Resistance is futile," and other mystical formulae.