The Vatican also believes Global Warming is real, and that we must do something about it NOW.

Having been raised, and educated, as a Catholic, I gave up on some of their teachings long ago, and, that was long before they started believing that the cute adorable ET is real.

Maybe if they read their Bibles they might get a clue as to how
history concludes. And no - it doesn’t involve aliens.

“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Is Wikipedia the best you could do on Galileo? The “conventional wisdom” is always sure to fail to mention that Galileo’s observations on heliocentric motion were begun by Copernicus, a Catholic monk who never lost standing in the church. Galileo’s problem was a matter of church discipline, not heresy. He was ordered to revise his book - which probably would have been published and used only in Catholic universities anyway - to clarify that heliocentric planetary was still, technically at the time, a theory. It wasn’t scientifically proven until the 20th century. His other problem was that his book was written in the form of a dialogue portraying the pope as a moronic clown - OK for the Reformation era Europeans, not so much for a man of the church who wanted to remain in good standing. He eventually took his church discipline like a man with a house arrest in the papal mansion, still being treated like the rock star of his time that he was.

As for this or that being declared by “The Vatican,” please learn to be sceptical about that. The MSM will take the word of any secretary or cleric as papal ex cathedra doctrine if it fits their agenda to ridicule and discredit the Catholic faith.

I didn’t believe in ETs when I started, and I still don’t. They’re great for sf novels and all, but once you stop suspending disbelief and start looking at the astrophysics of it, nope. Space is too big and the speed of light is just too impossible a barrier. I contributed to SETI because at the time they were the only program I knew of where you could contribute PC time to astronomy research. I even had an email exchange with somebody at the home office to make sure the research was useful for other things and was assured it was. I stopped contributing not because of my non-belief, but because their feed servers kept disappearing for extended periods of time. These days I contribute to Einstein instead. They look for pulsars using gravitational wave data.

Shameless plugs:

If you are also interested in contributing checkout their website at http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/.

Of course the BOINC system is now being used for lots of other stuff. They list a bunch of stuff at their website (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php) and you can get the software at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

I am still shaking my head at this.

“The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

I didn’t have to get past the first chapter to be able to answer this one.

This is a very valid and worthwhile pursuit. NASA just rammed the moon in pursuit of ice belts. There is a high probability that some form of life may be found someday, even if its microscopic. Its a thought provoking and interesting debate. The ones who will look silly are the ones who seek a literal explanation in the Bible.

Very interesting indeed. Your comment: My own view on the existence of alien life is that Earthlings will look back at the time when humans did not believe in the existence of intelligence alien life in same manner which we now look back at those who believed the earth was flat.” seems to suggest quite a confidence in the existence of ETs.

I had always thought the idea was at least plausible until I began to consider the implications to my faith and what Scripture said about mankind and our sinful nature. To wit, all men originated from one man, and sin entered into men by that man (Romans 5:12). Genesis also records the story (reality, in my opinion) of all creation. I’ll admit that God did not comment as to whether he created “other” non-humans (though that’s a fairly large omission), but He did share to other items of note: 1) God created angels, which serve Him and are unseen, and 2) man’s sin creates a barrier between man and God, which requires a Savior, Jesus Christ.

So what’s the point of all that. Either aliens are 1) sinless and not in need of salvation, 2) God created another Messiah or Jesus died for them too (extremely problematic Scripturally), or 3) sin doesn’t exist.

From the perspective of a Christian with a high view of Scripture, I cannot reconcile the existence of other intelligent/alien life with the creation and redemption of man through God’s only Son.

And on a side note, I’m very unimpressed with these intelligent beings if they haven’t made it earth by now,… or they have, but they’re just so darn shy they won’t reveal themselves.