The Quantum Mechanic

http://www.cathnews.com/news/510/56.php

A pocket-sized book published by the Catholic Truth Society in the UK addresses Catholic attitudes to extra-terrestrial life. Independent Catholic News reports that with increasing numbers of people believing not only in the possibility of intelligent life on other planets, but even claiming encounters with aliens, it is not surprising that the Catholic Church is beginning to explore what effect the discovery of sentient ETs might have on Christian theology.

In: Intelligent Life in the Universe? Catholic belief and the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life, author Guy Consolmagno SJ, asks:

• Would humans recognise intelligent life if we saw it?
• Could we communicate with it? Should we even try?
• Is Original Sin something that affects all intelligent beings?
• Is Jesus Christ’s redemption valid for intelligent beings throughout the universe?
• or would other worlds have their own version of Jesus?
• Would the Church send missionaries to ET planets?

[snip]

Brother Guy has advanced degrees in planetary science from MIT and the University of Arizona. He spends his time observing comets and asteroids, and does experiments with the Vatican’s vast collection of meteorites one of the largest in the world.

And just what is the Vatican doing with those meteorites, anyways? :-)

But seriously — those are eminently reasonable questions for an organization like the RCC to be pondering.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 17th, 2005 at 12:32 and is filed under geekage, general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.