Off-Topic: the Mary Sue, a site for “Geek Girl Culture”
has an article about a convention that occurred recently called the 100 year Starship Convention, sponsored by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). One of the presenters was Christian Weidemann from the Ruhr-University Bochum who wondered aloud how religion would change if we discovered proof of life on other planets. Hilarity ensued. First Weidemann stated:
The death of Christ, some 2,000 years ago, was designed to save all creation. However, the whole of creation, as defined by scientists, includes 125 billion galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in each galaxy. That means that if intelligent life exists on other planets, then Jesus or God would have to have visited them too, and sacrificed himself equally for Martian-kind as well as mankind
It appears that the Vatican has already considered this. When questioned about extraterrestrial life, the Pope's astronomer conveyed the
Vatican's position:
He would be “delighted” if intelligent life was found among the stars. “But the odds of us finding it, of it being intelligent and us being able to communicate with it – when you add them up it’s probably not a practical question.”
Speaking ahead of a talk at the British Science Festival in Birmingham tomorrow, he said that the traditional definition of a soul was to have intelligence, free will, freedom to love and freedom to make decisions. “Any entity – no matter how many tentacles it has – has a soul.” Would he baptise an alien? “Only if they asked.”
Some were not nearly as taken with the idea. When asked, Ken Ham
had this to say:
“The person from the Vatican that was quoted in the newspaper reports, if quoted correctly, can’t truly understand the gospel—in my opinion. The Bible makes it clear that Adam’s sin affected the whole universe. This means that any aliens would also be affected by Adam’s sin, but they can’t have salvation.
…
While baptizing an alien might feel good, it would have no more spiritual consequence than baptizing a chicken or a fallen angel. Baptize an alien indeed!”
Once again, it is only Ken Ham that truly understands the gospel. All other ideas have to be false. If a sentient creature from another world were to accept Christ as its savior, that wouldn't be enough? Narrow-mindedness and one-dimensionality, writ large. It is now my fervent hope that we find life on other planets, just so Ham will have to eat his words.
