Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Well, glad that's settled.
You may have heard - the Vatican has said that it is OK to believe in E.T. No, not that silly puppet, but actual aliens, "our brothers" (like this kind?):
VATICAN CITY - Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.
The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.
"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."
Because - I shit you not -
Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.
And we can't be doing that.
Hmm, I wonder if the good Reverend got an early look at the UFO files just released by the British National Archives:
LONDON - The men were air traffic controllers. Experienced, calm professionals. Nobody was drinking. But they were so worried about losing their jobs that they demanded their names be kept off the official report.
No one, they knew, would believe their claim an unidentified flying object landed at the airport they were overseeing in the east of England, touched down briefly, then took off again at tremendous speed. Yet that's what they reported happened at 4 p.m. on April 19, 1984.
The incident is one of hundreds of reported sightings contained in more than 1,000 pages of formerly secret UFO documents being released Wednesday by Britain's National Archives.
I mean, why not buy into the whole UFO = Aliens Also Created By God thing? If you're in the business of promoting visions of the Virgin Mary and passing judgment on latter-day miracles, you might as well jump in with both feet and claim E.T. = Christ, right?
Jim Downey
Update: A related but more extensive post on this topic can be found at my blog.
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Once you start getting a committee of some kind involved, the aliens will flee in terror. Something along the lines of Bradley's Bromide:
suppose
Now suppose the aliens on some planet (well, they wouldn't be aliens when they're on their home planet) were hermaphrodites. And they get married, just like folks do in California. Would they be waging war on God's plan for holy matrimony? What would fundie aliens have to say about that?
Can't answer for all Fundies, but...
I won't presume to speak for all fundies, but this one would answer:
As I see it, this would be a non-issue. "Marriage" is a human practice predating all organized religious structures - if you except the family and tribe from your definition of 'organized structure'. The churches use marriage as an illustration of accepted eternal truths,, not the truths themselves. And the recent, more novel definitions of 'marriage' fly against the accepted norms that have been worked out through the centuries of human history. It is obvious from even the slightest reading of human history, "marriage", in whatever form precticed, provided the stable framework within which children have been produced and raised by parents (mostly by mothers). Recognizing the parallel relationships of infertile couples and the elderly simply preserves the familiar structure of historic men-women bonding.
I may be biased - no, actually, I am - but it seems to me that if hermaphrodites want to have children, I'd let them have their own.
"Because a girl should have long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean hair, she should not have an unclean home; because she should not have an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord; because there should not be a usurious landlord, there should be a redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution of property, there shall be a revolution." -G.K. Chesterton
<Yawn>
So? This is new?
"There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one's grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past." -G.K. Chesterton
richg, You know, I had
richg,
You know, I had similar sentiments.....but, well, have you ever thought of employing a bit of tact?
My experience has always been that bible-thumpers were really into the idea of extraterrestrials. My father-in-law is the best example of this. He is absolutely obsessed with aliens and everything related to them....he's the source of the Fortean Times in all my bathrooms and scattered around my home that my husband refuses to let me throw away. But breathe a word of atheism and he's in your face telling you you're going to hell.
Personally, I've never really understood the fascination with life on other planets. There are amazing and very strange creatures on this planet, why not on others too? Doesn't seem too novel to me.
My experience has been different...
Huh. That's not what I've run into. The fundies that I know don't seem to be even interested in the question of life on other worlds. And I know a LOT of them.
I'm of the personal opinion that while there may be intelligent life 'out there', there probably isn't. And even if there is, it is of no value to us except as an intellectual diversion.
I was also responding to the follow-up comment about evolution [the Vatican and Darwin]. As far as I know, the Catholic church does not fight science like a select subset of the evangelicals do.
And as for being tactful... Have you seen the kind I receive here? There are a small handful who can disagree with my posts with civility - the rest - well, what can I say?
"Moderate strength is shown in violence, supreme strength is shown in levity." -G.K. Chesterton
My experience has been similar
In my experience, some fundies don't believe in extraterrestrials because "The Bible doesn't mention Aliens, therefor they cannot exist. If aliens did exist surely that would have been on our need to know list and God would have told us." A sentiment that assumes the following:
Aliens are like the dangerous ones in the movies
Aliens are capable of reaching earth (and therefor a possible threat to mankind)
God exists (well, OK, these are fundies, of course they assume god exists)
God tells you everything important that might potentially kill you.
But it really depends on which ones you're talking about.
You might...
The whole "fundies believe in alien life" thing caught me a bit by surprise as well.
As to the Vatican - you might appreciate this take on the matter from Greg Laden. That fits with my read on what has happened with the Catholic Church over the last couple of decades.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Not Angels
There are enough books out that that PROVE!!!!!!!!! that UFOs are really DEMONS!!!!!!!! - they are TOOLS OF SATAN!!!!!!
I don't know - do I need more CAPS or !!!!! ?
.15 timecubes
More caps, more exclamations, more illogical ranting, italics, bold and font changes would all add to the overall feel.
I rate you at .15 Timecubes.
Colored font
Also helps in my experience. Red is a very traditional angry color, but I'm not sure UTI allows font color changes.
As to the timecubes site - Holey mother of crap, that's some highly concentrated craziness.
Uh...
I looked at that Timecube site. Holy Mother! And I thought Dr. Bronner was weird!
Now, THAT's cool!
Made with "Organic Hemp Oil..." I wonder what they do with the rest of their hemp? I doubt they smoke fish with it...
and "Oregon Tilth Certified" to boot. And I live here...
"A thing may be too sad to be believed or too wicked to be believed or too good to be believed; but it cannot be too absurd to be believed in this planet of frogs and elephants, of crocodiles and cuttle-fish." -G.K. Chesterton
Timecubes
I finally got curious enough about the timecube rating system that seems to be in use in the comments on Pharyngula to look up its source.
It's definitely concentrated crazy.
Yahoo Chat
There used to be a guy in Yahoo Chat (Religion) all the time, name of Moses737, who talked about how we were all going to Hell, where we would be tormented by "demon spiders." I always accused him of single-handedly causing a world shortage of exclamation marks.
Well . . .
...some bolding and italics would be a nice touch.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Vatican and Darwin
Apparently next year the Vatican is going to organize a conference on Darwin. That should be entertaining.
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