The Vatican -Embracing the Probability of Extraterrestrial Life?

This week the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Sciences is holding its first major conference on astrobiology, convened on private Vatican grounds in the elegant Casina Pio IV, formerly the pope's villa. The gathering of prominent scientists and religious leaders from around the world suggests that some of the most tradition-bound faiths are seriously contemplating the possibility that life exists in many forms beyond Earth. 

The five-day conference is chaired by the religious leader of the highly regarded Academy, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo. Scientists including atheists are offering presentations on subjects as varied as how life might have begun on Earth; what newly found "extremophile" microbes living in the most challenging habitats on our planet might tell us about possible life on others; and how life forms might be detected in our solar system, or how their bio-signatures might be found on and around the many distant exoplanets.

The Vatican's new initiative was signaled this summer by its chief astronomer who says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations perhaps more evolved than humans.

"In my opinion this possibility exists," said the Reverend José Gabriel Funes, head of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict XVI, referring to life on other planets.

"How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere," he said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. The large number of galaxies with their own planets makes this possible, he noted.

Asked if he was referring to beings similar to humans or even more evolved than humans, he said: "Certainly, in a universe this big you can't exclude this hypothesis."

In the interview headlined, "The extraterrestrial is my brother," Funes said he saw no conflict between belief in such beings and faith in God.

"Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God. This is not in contrast with our faith because we can't put limits on God's creative freedom. Why can't we speak of a 'brother extraterrestrial'? It would still be part of creation."

Funes, who runs the observatory that is based south of Rome and in Arizona, held out the possibility that the human race might actually be the "lost sheep" of the universe. There could be other beings "who remained in full friendship with their creator," he said.

Funes commentary is a giant step away from the historical record that includes the Inquisition, which condemned Galileo in the 17th century for insisting that the Earth revolved around the Sun. The Roman Catholic Church did not rehabilitate him until 1992.

Funes said he believed as an astronomer that the most likely explanation for the start of the universe was "the big bang," the theory that it sprang into existence from dense matter billions of years ago. But he said this was not in conflict with faith in God as creator. "God is the creator," he said. "There is a sense to creation. We are not children of an accident."

He added: "As an astronomer, I continue to believe that God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the product of something casual but children of a good father who has a project of love in mind for us."

Posted by Casey Kazan.

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Babelfish -Universal Translator Will Allow ET to Speak English
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Advanced Civilizations in the Universe -A Galaxy Insight
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James Cameron & Arthur C Clarke on 2001 A Space Odyssey 
MIT Asks: How Would Extraterrestrial Astronomers Study Earth?
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Source link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110601899.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/14/news/vat.php

Comments

[Dredd]

It would be a good thing if religion & science stopped some of the useless rear view mirror "where we came from" ideological wars, replacing them with cooperation by focusing on "where we are going".

[Jack Butler]

Who cares what the Vatican thinks? Not exactly the leading edge of scientific research. Just got around to saying, well, uh, you know, uh, looks like this Galileo fellow we confined to his house was, well, you know, uh, right.

What the Vatican thinks is relevant only because it affects how many humans will either begin to make assumptions about the nature of the universe that bear a modicum of resemblance to the facts, or will continue to waste their brains in a gilded flurry of preposterous received images and doctrines.

[jebus]

Holy Mother of God, I have not laughed so hard in days. Vatican Observatory! No conflict between extraterrestials and faith! Stop, stop, please, oh man my side is starting to hurt.

[Mike McLoughlin]

Why is it secularists mock people of faith when these people make sincere attempts to embrace an expanded worldview that includes many of the things secularists hold dear? Can Catholics who believe in a Creator God not contribute to the advance of astronomy? Wasn't the fellow who first proposed the possibility of a "big bang" origin to the Universe a Jesuit priest and scientist, deeply committed to a Creator God, who had the courage to suggest the Universe had a beginning and who was roundly criticised by the secularists of his day who believed the steady state hypothesis? Are there any Daily Galaxy commenters out there willing to applaud this move by the Vatican? Or will this comment page be full of the usual nonsense that secularists use to dismiss people of faith?

[Hamy]

It never ceases to amaze me the lengths to which some people will go to preserve their absurd beliefs. Not miraculous enough the fact that life exists at all, but they demand that a greater miracle exists in the form of some elegant, ubiquitous and omnipotent entity that created it all 'in his image'.
Which stage of evolution is represented by this image? Is god a single celled microbe, a dinosaur or, as it seems they would have it, a simian biped with too much time on his hands? It is no good to mollify such garbage with, 'we can't exclude the possibility.' There is no god! We don't need one. And it betrays neither one's human integrity, principles nor faith to think it. It is perfectly possible to retain a humanitarian outlook, a sense of awe and wonder and a desire for perfection without a benevolent grandfather telling us we should. Just look at the Hubble pictures and you feel awe in the face of such vastness all around us. Look at DNA and you feel humbled to be a part of such an organism as Life. Instead of watching the horrors of the daily news and calling on someone to come and fix it all for us, just accept that the struggles we face are microcosmic by comparison to all those that have gone before and, if I read it all correctly, we seem to have survived for quite a while without Old Beardy. That said, if this upcoming symposium leads to their enlightenment, then let the catholics go for it and wish them luck.

[Zarkov]

This is a very important paradigm shift in a way of religious thinking,
(one) to believe that Man is made in God's image and with man's abilities,

compared to a more creative God with abilities that could make Man's insignificant.

and THEY are our brothers ?, said the chimp to the Gorilla.

Now the question is, is it now GOD the Creator of ALL as the king or is it to remain as God the personal assistant.

With a more realistic realisation then the full glory of LIFE can be conceived....all LIFE is OUR brothers and sisters...mmmh
and then into an more enlightened world.

There is hope.

[spin0]

"The gathering of prominent scientists and religious leaders from around the world suggests that some of the most tradition-bound faiths are seriously contemplating the possibility that life exists in many forms beyond Earth."

This contemplation of possible extraterrestial life is not a new thing as you seem to suggest. In fact the idea of possible extraterrestial life has been accepted in the Catholic church at least since the 15th century. It's not a new idea and contemplating this idea is not new in the Catholic church or in the Vatican. For example in 1439 papal envoy and later cardinal Nicholas of Cusa wrote about other worlds and possible extraterrestial life in his book "De doctra ignorantia".

Even before him in 1277 the catholic bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier with authorisation by the pope condemned the idea "that the First Cause cannot make many worlds." It means that God, in his omnipotency, could have created more than one world and it was wrong to teach that it was impossible.

The ideas of many worlds and possible extraterrestial life are quite old even in the Catholic church.

"Funes commentary is a giant step away from the historical record that includes the Inquisition, which condemned Galileo in the 17th century for insisting that the Earth revolved around the Sun. The Roman Catholic Church did not rehabilitate him until 1992."

No it's not a step away as the historical record shows us that the idea of possibility of extraterrestial life is old and has already been accepted in the Catholic church for hundreds of years. And the sad condemnation of Galileo has nothing to do with it.

[Nathan from Adelaide]

Why do we give these decrepit, old, irrelevant virgins the credibility of caring what they think about everything?

The Catholics view on birth-control, aids, science, evolution...

Can't we just ignore them and let them drift away into irrelevance finally?

[Dredd]

Other scientists have offered other theories that dark matter is actually molecular hydrogen but have been persecuted like the Catholic Church did Galileo.

Most persecution of scientists for non-conformity comes from other scientists these days.

[Really?]

Are we really not past this petty hatred of the Catholic Church? Are we seriously going to bring up 400 year old mistakes? Yes, the leaders of the church have made mistakes, but so has every other living being on the planet. Let those without sin cast the first stone. (In otherwords: unless you are perfect in every way and have never made a mistake you have no right to criticize.)

[Q]

Everyone has the right to criticize. Whole industries are centered on it. To critique something is part human nature. Get over it.

This news is not monumental to me. The church often comes late to the table.

[Giordano]

- FILM: UFOs in the Bible
- Secrets of the Vatican - UFO's in the Ancient Art...
- How celestials assist humanity with extraterrestrial life... - ABRAHAM... MOSES AND THE SPACESHIPS OF THE GODS... THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM MYSTERY... Messiah - His Spaceships:
http://cristiannegureanu.blogspot.com/2009/10/film-ufos-in-bible.html

[fred palme]

ISIS

Queen of light - in rainbow raiment
Open are thy flame-red lips
Thou kisseth the budding cosmos
Thou divedeth the roots of the universe
Thy scent ignites the beauty of the stars

What in your sun diadem shines to me so brightly?
Is it Sirius?
Or the star of stars
For which i have thirsted since time began?

Always when a wild fire burns in my heart
And i am at the point of death from longing
Suddenly thou art so near
Sparkling with shoals of comets
I am surrounded by thy night-dark hair
And in thine eyes i read the holy word

Praise be to thee thou guardian of life
Thy love opens the seven seals
Open the eyes of the newly-born
Thou closeth the seven circles
Gently closeth mine eyelids
Tomorrow, when i arrive - return - to thee!

The most precious moments
Along my path
Are thine eternity!

[Anthony Platt]

I don't see why people are using this as an opportunity to mock faith. I don't personally believe in god but that to me is just cruel, ideological silliness. People who must always spew vitriol, even at obviously positive developments. If anything, I feel like applauding the Church. In some sense, they have come a long way. I see no reason to put the Church down for this new act. It shows a degree of progress, of changing views, of open mindedness on the part of the Church's leaders, the Pope most of all. I am glad that there is some movement on these types of matters, some signs of flexibility. I may disagree with many of the church's moral stances, but I see no need to discourage this kind of forward progress. We don't always need to fight with the Church. That is just empty bitterness and pugnacity. You see, the Church teaches charity and kindness--- even the enlightened genius (self-proclaimed) atheists have moral lessons to learn sometimes.