Pope's Astronomer Would Love To Baptize an Alien 308
Ponca City, We Love You writes "The Guardian reports that Guy Consolmagno, curator of the pope's meteorite collection and a trained astronomer and planetary scientist, says 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.' Consolmagno adds 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 baptize an alien? 'Only if they asked.' Consolmagno dismisses the ideas of intelligent design as a pseudo-scientific version of creationism. 'The word has been hijacked by a narrow group of creationist fundamentalists in America to mean something it didn't originally mean at all. It's another form of the God of the gaps. It's bad theology in that it turns God once again into the pagan god of thunder and lightning.'"
It'll make great TV (Score:5, Funny)
I can see it now... the ships land at the UN and...
Alien: Greetings. We come in peace.
UN: Where do you come from?
Alien: A distant galaxy nearly 10 billion light years away. Our world has no crime, no disease, no wars; we value learning as the pinnacle of achievement. We have been waiting 2,000 of your years for the moment when Humanity is ready for contact. We feel the time is right.
UN: Why are you here?
Alien: We came to be baptized. Praise Jesus!
or not...
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If that happened, I would hurl.... Or many would suspect it was a hoax by the vatican...
article didn't define "entity" (Score:3, Insightful)
The most interesting thing about the idea that a soul starts to exist at conception is the logical conclusion that this can
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It would probably be picked up as a pilot by FOX. They love making faith win at the end of their shows; how many times has the atheist House been outsmarted by a patient who has faith? Multiple episodes.
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how many times has the atheist House been outsmarted by a patient who has faith?
Oh please. How boring would that show be if everything happened for logical and fully understood reasons. Of course there's going to be people who disagree with his analytical approach, and of course they're going to be right every once in a while.
Or would you prefer it if he was somehow always magically correct?
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Uhm... you're joking, right?
Pay attention. The most House ever gets is a "God sent us to you" bit. The whole "he works in mysterious ways" thing.
The episode with the nun was hilarious that way.
I guess the trick is you have to ask? (Score:2)
This baptism thing has me confused. If every entity has a soul then why not baptize my dog? Is it because the dog has to ask or at a minimum be cabable of understanding what it means? Well then what about babies then. Is there baptizement meaningless until they reconfirm it later in life? Finally what about all the bacteria in my gut. Do we share a common soul?
If the sole criteria is that you have to be a sentient entity cable of accepting christ as your savior, at least potentially (to cover the ba
Re:I guess the trick is you have to ask? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why many Christians disagree with infant baptism.
So if a dog or gorilla understood the implications of baptism and wanted to be baptised, then I personally see no reason why the dog or gorilla shouldn't.
Even a reasonable Atheist should allow such a creature the freedom to do so, despite disagreeing with it.
FWIW, I think it may not be such a great idea to keep creating more and more transgenic animals (or even very advanced AI). It looks like society wouldn't be able to handle/treat such creatures appropriately.
Just because it can be done now doesn't mean it should.
Better wait till we grow up first.
Reasonable atheists don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
What we care about are the constant invasions of the religious into our non-religious lives. Why can't I buy beer on Sunday? Why can't Linda and Gwen get married? For that matter, why can't Linda, Gwen, Melissa and Steve get married? Why is it expected that I put my hand on a bible in a courtroom? Why does my money say things I cannot possibly agree with (I don't trust in God, you see)? Why has my patriotism, as expressed by the pledge of allegiance, been hijacked into a totally false declaration of subservience "under god"? Why do my kids encounter religious dogma in public schools? Why am I forced to carry the tax load for the religious, when I in no way support their existence, outlook, dogma, or teachings?
If they want to dunk each other in the water, so what? That's not the problem. That's never been the problem. The problem is they don't limit their religion(s) to themselves. And in turn, that converts my general attitude from "don't care" to "religion is an obstacle to reasonable life."
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What we care about are the constant invasions of the religious into our non-religious lives. Why can't I buy beer on Sunday? Why can't Linda and Gwen get married? For that matter, why can't Linda, Gwen, Melissa and Steve get married? Why is it expected that I put my hand on a bible in a courtroom? Why does my money say things I cannot possibly agree with (I don't trust in God, you see)? Why has my patriotism, as expressed by the pledge of allegiance, been hijacked into a totally false declaration of subservience "under god"? Why do my kids encounter religious dogma in public schools? Why am I forced to carry the tax load for the religious, when I in no way support their existence, outlook, dogma, or teachings?
All good questions, but if I may, I'd like to address two in particular. As for the "swearing on the Bible" thing, the assumption is that you will be so frightened of the eternal fiery torment that awaits you, should you fail to tell the truth after touching a book and promising otherwise, that you will, trembling in fear, tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or..., the book itself is imbued with magical powers that compel the swearer to speak only truth. Judges, trial lawyers, and others who han
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That's why many Christians disagree with infant baptism.
Correct. Some sects, like the Amish, don't perform baptisms until the person is an 'adult'. Typically between 16 and 25 years old.
Personally, I think it carries more significance.
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It might carry more significance, but really makes no difference. You can baptize a baby and then brainwash it for 16 years, or you can brainwash it for 16 years and then baptize it. The latter might be slightly more moral, but the difference is so minor as to be insignificant.
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It might carry more significance, but really makes no difference. You can baptize a baby and then brainwash it for 16 years, or you can brainwash it for 16 years and then baptize it. The latter might be slightly more moral, but the difference is so minor as to be insignificant.
I guess that's why I joined the church when I came of age. Oh wait, I didn't.
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And if you had been baptized, you may have left when you came of age. As I said, it's largely insignificant, and your personal anecdote doesn't change that.
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Whoa.. stirred up the hornet's nest. I'm simply curious why you'd say that. It sounds like a passive aggressive comment to me and it simply doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things. Atheists do not want to take away freedom of religion. (I don't know of any that do...) However, I know some Atheists who seek to "educate" others (just as highly religious people try to "educate" others.) Both sides have their puppets and puppet masters. My post was questioning the motive as you why you put that
Re:I guess the trick is you have to ask? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I asked in another post what the intent of him even putting that statement in there was. That was my sole inquiry.
It sounded to me like a "jab" or a false stereotype. Like the Atheist is such an immoral person that they wouldn't agree that aliens have a choice. I equate it to: "Even a reasonable (Christian/Muslim/Democrat/Republican/singled out group) would agree." What does being an Atheist have to do with the alien's choice? What does being anything have to do with agreement. There seems to be some
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sole criteria
So in order to have a soul, you have to fulfill the sole criteria?
"Sole criteria," get it?
Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.
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I suppose this ought to include Gorillas then since they are able to converse by sign language and thus have the potential for religious instruction
Hey Magilla, if you accept Jesus as your saviour, I'll give you this banana, which is proof of God's existence!
Re:I guess the trick is you have to ask? (Score:4, Funny)
How would you baptise an octopus? Raise it out of the water? Sprinkle holy air on it?
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>>Alien: We came to be baptized. Praise Jesus!
You ought to read Sawyer's book, Calculating God.
It's about an atheist curator of a natural history museum when an alien spaceship lands nearby.
They get into a long conversation, and the aliens are completely befuddled why he doesn't believe in God. If you look at all the cosmological constants, they say, it seems pretty clear the universe was engineered to support life.
Atheist: "But if there were multiple universes, we'd naturally be in one that can suppo
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There is also the ancient astronaut theory, something we've been studying as of late (mainly because it's interesting, and because there is a lot of interpretive evidence supporting it).
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If we grant the fellow his premises(which I in no way agree with; but theism/atheism arguments are boring at this point), humans must be baptized in order to achieve salvation because of original sin and the resultant human concupiscence. That was a particular event that occurred somewhere in the ancient middle/near east on a small rocky planet orbiting a not especially distinguished star.
Why would an e
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I find the idea of spawned-again Christians with death rays a bit disturbing.
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Baptizing (Score:3, Informative)
He is a Catholic so he can baptize in an emergency. And he is a priest so he can baptize in all cases.
Good read (Score:5, Insightful)
This, believe it or not, is a very good read. It brings up some interesting thoughts on science and how it interacts with religion. It shows that the stereotype of the church is against is untrue. It has some interesting observations on the Catholic church and its views on things.
But, this being Slashdot, I am afraid all we will see is a mindless trollfest.
Re:Good read (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, and I'm glad that the Slashdot summary doesn't try to pick out sensationalist statements like a lot of other blogs have.
For example, the comment about the baptism. A lot of places phrased their summary in an attempt to suggest that he would be running around trying to baptise aliens at the earliest chance. I like that Slashdot included his actual statement which was a response to a question.
"Only if they asked." seems a perfectly fair and rational response to the question.
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Actually the idea of baptizing an alien brings up some interesting theological questions. You have to remember why Christians get baptized in the first place: to remove original sin. You know, the sin of Adam and Eve eating the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. If you stop and think about that assuming that aliens can be baptized has a few problems to it.
Is he assuming that any alien's that we meet had a similar fall, and need to be redeemed? Or is he assuming that Adam and Eve's sin has somehow tainted t
Re:Good read (Score:5, Interesting)
>>You have to remember why Christians get baptized in the first place: to remove original sin
If you consider Original Sin to be a nature that is anything less than perfect (which is what it more or less means these days), it makes sense. Redemption for your fuckups.
>>Or is he thinking that Adam and Eve were the original ancestors of all intelligent beings
Doubtful. Back in the middle ages, the question arose if elves and giants could be baptized. They'd been sending missionaries out to the northern reaches of Europe, where everyone knew giants and elves lived. So the pope considered it, and said, sure. They could be baptized, too, if they wanted it.
So this isn't much of a departure from precedent.
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If you consider Original Sin to be a nature that is anything less than perfect
But, according to theology, we were created perfect. It was only the actions of Adam and Eve, going against the will of God [wikipedia.org], that made us imperfect and requiring baptism. So if you're going to say that aliens are imperfect that would mean that they had a fall similar to humanity's.
That's fine, it answers the question as well as anything, though it does raise the question of why so many of God's sentient creatures chose to disobey him. To paraphrase a Douglas Adams quote: If he the type of guy to go arou
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Or is he assuming that Adam and Eve's sin has somehow tainted the aliens across interstellar distance (after all, it is supposed to taint us across thousands of years of time, why not distance as well)?
Also, how fast is this taint travelling? It certainly couldn't go faster than light - otherwise we would just build spaceships fueled by taint.
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The souls would be subject to quantum entanglement so no travel is necessary.
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Obviously, Adam and Eve had kids, some of them built a space ship and set off to explore space while the others stayed to worship his holiness. The ones who went off to abandon their maker were deformed beyond recognition as punishment. That's why all Star Trek/Wars aliens bear similar resemblance to humans, but are all twisted and deformed by Satan.
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Wait, what? I'm confused by your statement. Original sin is the very foundation of Christianity. Do most non-Catholic Christians choose to ignore Paul?
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the sin of Adam and Eve eating the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge
What if way back when the original aliens naughtily ate the Froob of the Gorblebump? Could modern aliens be absolved by a human version baptism or do they require the alien version?
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Oh wait, I should have read the title instead of the summary.
"Idle: Pope's Astronomer Would Love To Baptize an Alien."
Slightly sensationalist
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Many journalists and "wannabe journalists" are biased against religion, and/or they like to troll (to get more hits/views/purchases).
So they sensationalize stuff.
That's why Michael Reiss lost his job- the media kept claiming that he wanted to teach creationism in schools:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Reiss [wikipedia.org]
With headlines like "Call for creationism in science" and "Leading scientist urges teaching of creationism in schools"
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Agreed. Great article. Knowledge and faith co-existing...who knew?
I'd be interested to learn if has he ever read "The Fire Balloons" and what impression it made on him, if any.
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It shows that the stereotype of the church is against is untrue. It has some interesting observations on the Catholic church and its views on things.
It should be pointed out that he is no ordinary priest (actually, he's a monk). He is a Jesuit. [wikipedia.org] An order organized during the renaissance to preach to the more educated people of the time.
Today they are known for administrating most of the church's universities. One of the requirements is to have a minimum of a bachelor's degree.
What about Gingers? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Definitely discuss beforehand (Score:5, Funny)
Christian: Welcome to Earth. Hey, you want to be baptized?
Alien: Sure!
Christian: Lean way back. Okay, here we go.
Alien: [tszzz]
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If that was the case, they probably wouldn't come out of their spaceship. Our atmosphere is filled with water.
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Forever may be right (Score:3, Insightful)
As much as I dislike religion. I've come to accept that probably for a long time to come, we are going to be stuck with it. Because no matter how much we discover and can explain of the universe, no matter how many other worlds and civilizations we discover. There will always be something that can be explained at the time, and people will fear and respect it and even worship it. Probably every generation has had its share of people that thought that they were going to see the downfall of religion in their time.
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As much as I dislike religion. I've come to accept that probably for a long time to come, we are going to be stuck with it. Because no matter how much we discover and can explain of the universe, no matter how many other worlds and civilizations we discover. There will always be something that can be explained at the time, and people will fear and respect it and even worship it. Probably every generation has had its share of people that thought that they were going to see the downfall of religion in their time.
People just do religion. Always have and always will.
Also, I like this astronomer! I think I have heard his position before and liked it then too.
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Not for very long. Religion is at an all-time low, and keeps decreasing. Also true believers are becoming very rare. Lots of people will tell you they believe but don't read the bible, don't go to church, and can't coherently explain what they believe. They're more going with the flow than anything else. In Europe, religion is a highly private matter and you generally don't know who's a believer or not.
Irrational beliefs and "there's something higher" probably will be with us for a very long time, but I thi
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You might want to have a look at the downfall of atheistic communism, the rise of paganism in europe and the rise of christianity in asia.
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Deliberately misconstruing speaker (Score:4, Informative)
Pre-Fallen? (Score:4, Insightful)
I recall having many long conversations with a priest about the possibility of the existence of Aliens. religiously speaking, one of the questions that intrigues me the most is are the aliens corrupted by "Original Sin?" What would society be like if we did not have this tendency to do "wrong" when now one was looking? What if the aliens do not have that tendency? What if they have never "eaten of the forbidden fruit?"
Are they Pre-Fallen or have they fallen?
All events have lessons to be learned (Score:2)
Pre-Fallen: Helpless, scared beings who scuttle around on their little island on a planet theeming with life, but they've yet to explore anything more than the few vegetables on their little island / "garden".
"Fallen":
Predators: Enslaving planet after planet, in order to expand its own agendas and territories. Pretty much stuck on the level of humanity the last 500 years.
Enlightened: Actively monitoring Earth, awaiting the moment humanity is ready for first contact on a global scale. Only allowed to help wi
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In order to become enlightened, ironically, you have to "fall". If humanity never "fell", the bible, Jesus, everything would become meaningless. Wisdom cannot exist without failure, indeed, it totally depends on it.
This also highlights the philosophical problem of trying to ban temptation.
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I've loved the idea of Religion and Aliens.
Good geek fun huh? :-)
What if they have never "eaten of the forbidden fruit?"
Their fall may be quite different in nature, angels had a fall unrelated to fruit.
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Judging from our behaviour down here on earth, I'm not so sure.
Any entity (Score:5, Funny)
— no matter how many tentacles it has — has a soul. Ummm... The Flying Spaghetti Monster??
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what about an octopus or cows or pigs or fish or chickens?
Those are alien enough, but if they have souls is it correct to eat them? :)
The Vatican dismissing creationism? (Score:3, Informative)
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Um, the Vatican hasn't supported Creationism for as long as I've been alive. That's not meant to be a priest in that comic (unless the artist is as ignorant of modern religious beliefs as you are).
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Based on past performance... (Score:2, Funny)
freedom to love (Score:2)
While the other attributes he lists are inherent in intelligent life, an alien intelligence may not necessarily anything resembling love. Most animals don't mate for life, or are even together more then a few hours. Many animals don't care for their children either.
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While the other attributes he lists are inherent in intelligent life, an alien intelligence may not necessarily anything resembling love.
Now, not getting too far into this topic as we are discussing his comments in the third person and therefore can't really ask him to expand upon them. I don't think he is referring to the basic emotions assigned to monogamous couples.
The biblical 'love' has the same definition problems as the biblical 'know'. The words are similar but the meanings are much different. A
Obligatory... (Score:2)
Firesign Theatre:
"Domini, Domini, Domini. You are all Catholics now"
--
BMO
What if the alien race has their own "Jesus"? (Score:3, Insightful)
What if the alien race has their own "Jesus"? And who's to say which "Jesus" is really the "son of good" and which one is the impostor. Aliens might come here to baptize. And pray to god (if you believe) that they don't use the methods employed by crusaders and the Inquisition. ;-)
Then there's also the issue that the "god created Man in his own image". What if the aliens aren't anthropomorphic?
Wrong cross (Score:2, Interesting)
Equally likely... (Score:3, Funny)
... is that the alien would like to know how the Pope's astronomer tastes with a little alfredo sauce.
Definition of a Soul (Score:4, Interesting)
He lists the requirements for having a soul as:
- have intelligence
- free will
- freedom to love
- freedom to make decisions
Putting aliens to one side for the moment, as I don't think Lrrr is going to drop in on us tomorrow, I wonder how he feels about some intelligent animals.
Chimps, gorillas and other primates have been shown to fulfill these requirements to varying degrees. Dolphins have also. Would they baptize a dolphin? (How would you do that? Raise it out of water?)
I wondered if anyone ever asked Koko what gorillas think about a creator. Thanks to a Google search, I turned up this exchange:
Francine Patterson: "Who is God?"
Koko: "Me."
Patterson: "Who created the world?"
Koko: "Another woman."
(Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1252/is_12_131/ai_n8569017/?tag=content;col1 [findarticles.com] )
Somehow, I don't think Koko's religious outlook would gel with the Vatican's. ;-)
Simak wrote this over and over (Score:2)
This sounds like almost every Clifford D. Simak story, plus a few other writers. I wish I could remember which one of them ran into the problem of trans-substantiation being mistaken for cannibalism :-)
And the aliens think ... (Score:2)
We'd be forced to adopt their religion. (Score:2)
Look at history. Whenever a "new world" was discovered within our own planet, missionaries came across the oceans to teach "the heathens" about their god, whether those godless barbarians wanted it or not.
People take a vast journey usually for one reason: Money. The church comes along because it's politically fortuitous to do so.
Chances are, any beings from outer space are going to be similarly motivated. They are going to come here to take our natural resources, make slaves of our people, and of course, co
Intelligent Design (Score:4, Insightful)
Haven't read the article yet, but I'm curious why there isn't more discussion on his comment about intelligent design:
I know the general Slashdot community looks down on religion, but it'd be nice to see greater distinction between fundamentalists and Christians who are probably generally more in the moderate realm. Unfortunately, when most people hear "Christian," the automatic response is to think that the person is a fundamentalist.
Guy Consolmagno (Score:4, Informative)
Brother Guy Consolmagno (Score:5, Informative)
Absolutely. Several years ago, I heard him talk on the prospects for finding more exoplanets in the future. He's a serious and highly competent scientist.
He also is a Jesuit monk. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
(And, he seemed like a heck of a nice Guy. Forgive the pun. :)
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Consolmagno [wikipedia.org]
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(And, he seemed like a heck of a nice Guy. Forgive the pun. :)
Yes. He was quite popular with the chemistry and biology crowd at my institute. People always go to post-seminar receptions for the free food and beer. But in this case, much of the audience also chose to go so that they could continue to talk with him after the question-and-answer time had already run out. Nobel laureates excepted, I can't remember another time when so many people spent so much time with the speaker at the reception. It seemed as if it could be interesting talking with him for the whole af
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Other than the fact that none of your points are accurate, you had a very ontopic post.
In The Name of The Father, The Son, & Teh Fail (Score:5, Insightful)
I realize that it's trendy to be anti-religion and all, but please... if you're going to jump on the bandwagon try to understand the teensiest background and minimum number of tenets of what it is you are trying to mock, lest you make all the hard-working, educated, clever and industrious atheists look bad.
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Transubstantiation is the (largely Catholic; most Protestants don't believe this) that the communion wafer and wine literally turn into the body and blood of Christ upon consumption. This is why Catholics aren't really allowed to eat before mass if they intend to take communion. However, the heart of the matter is that the belief is one of literal transformation (although clearly unsubstantiated (no pun intended)). Eating human flesh, when one is oneself a human, is pretty much the definition of cannibal
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damned subordinate clauses... #commafail
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All "pagan" means is "not Christian."
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...and that E.T. would be interested in such nonsense for anything other than anthropological reasons...
Given that science and religion can coexist and that science ultimately displacing religion is wishful thinking by some and not a law of nature(*), who is to say that aliens have no religion? They might.
(*) Going with the meme that all scientific discovery merely reveals the "mechanisms" of God's universe. Ie that the big bang, quantum mechanics, evolution, etc are just such "mechanisms". Given this last point I can not help but mention that the current cosmological theory of creation, the big bang, was
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No. The eating of flesh, and drinking of blood is quite clearly literal.
The Catholic Church is quite clear in its belief structure when it comes to communion. The stale bread, and wine, it is believed by the followers(or should be, or they arent really catholic) that this REALLY becomes the flesh and blood of Jesus, that they then proceed to 'cannibalize' every Sunday.
Eucharist [wikipedia.org]
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Especially since they were and still are by many.
We could argue that the intent of "some" parts were parable even though they were taken literally. The intent is hard to discern. The Four Gospels and the Pauline epistles were certainly taken literally from the start (not that they all started at the same time) and without authorship issues of the epistles it's pretty obvious they were exactly meant to be taken li
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Thus, gay people have no soul.
Love is not the same as sex or marriage. Love is presumably part of this but one who remains unmarried is still free to love.
Please note that I am not against gay marriage. Just pointing out your logic error.
O rly? That means he agrees with me that to indoctrinate and baptize children should be illegal and prosecuted. Yay!
Huh? What? Are you suggesting parents DON'T have the right to request this? I didn't realize that sprinkling water on a child's head was assault....
Now circum
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Love and sexual attraction are two different things. Otherwise loving your kids would make one a pedophile.
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You mean it doesn't? AHH, I has been teh lied to!
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Catholics (at least the local bunch of them, not sure if this is a global opinion) have no problem with homosexual people, only homosexual sex. Just remain celibate with your partner and you're golden.
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How does an animal not have at least a glimmer of Free Will? They can certainly at least feign it pretty well.
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Exactly. Where does he think the term "herding cats" comes from? I'd argue they have a lot more intelligence than Terri Shiavo too.
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The Catholic rape jokes got a lot less funny for me this weekend. I met a group of women who'd been raped by priests as children.
A more accurate headline might be "Pope's astronomer tries to divert attention from the paedophilia/homophobic/anti-woman/anti-contraception/nazi-atheist/third-world-Britain scandal during visit to UK".