Does Jesus love space aliens, too?
flockwoodAn interesting post in the Times of London about universe-al salvation. The Scriptures say that God so loved “the world” that he gave his only begotten son, that “whosoever” believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
But does this love extend to other-worldly life forms? If they exist? That is the question. In a universe with only nine planets, it seems likely that earth may be the only place where intelligent life flourishes. But what if there are 9 billion planets? Or 9 trillion planets? Or — and here’s where it gets really interesting — what if there are limitless planets? If there is other life out there, is God its author and is Christ its savior?
November 12th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
I assume the reference to 9 planets counts Pluto. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to the status of “dwarf planet”, which it shares with Eris (formerly known as Xena), which is farther out in the Kuiper belt. So at the moment, our solar system officially has only 8 planets, at least until the IAU revisits the definition of “planet.”
In addition to planets, some moons may be able to sustain life. For example, one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus, is believed to have water below the surface.
Just wanted to keep the astronomy up to date.
November 13th, 2009 at 6:49 am
An interesting question which will not be fully answered until we find that we are not alone. A similar question, raised by many Christian concepts of the End Times, seems to allow for aliens to meet Jesus and the risen by traveling here is spaceships, unless the entire multiverse is to be transformed as well. Of course that may be the case, but stay tuned.
November 13th, 2009 at 9:40 am
I think we need to keep the main thing the main thing. All we know certain now is that this is the only planet containing intelligent life. We begin to divide our minds and the church essentially when we get into these notions. People need to focus directly on Christ & what we are given & what’s known. I believe God has limited our will so that His may be sovereign.
Also, one forgets Revelations speaking of Earth…which is evidenced to mean this planet.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Thank you for that astronomical update, Forsan . . . and here I thought Pluto was a dog! (Which leads to the question, if Pluto is a dog and can’t talk, how can Goofy, another dog, talk?) Of course, Pluto was the Greek God of the depths, leading the old French Lick (Indiana) Spa to call its tonic Pluto Water, with the motto “When nature won’t, Pluto will.”
Pluto has some significance in Christian theology, too, because some scholars think that early church references to Christ’s descent into hell are veiled references to a Roman Empire tourist attraction, the Plutonium of Hierapolis, a deep cave (plutonium in those days meant a place where one could go to the depths) near some of the early churches of Paul.
November 13th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Caleb, there actually is a strong link between the dwarf planet and the Disney character. Pluto, the heavenly body, was named in 1930, and Disney introduced the character Pluto the same year, named in honor of the planet, or whatever it is.
November 14th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I wondered about that, Forsan. I knew the 1930 date, of course, but didn’t know the Disney connection.
November 15th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
If we talk about Jesus, the Son of God and savior of human souls, we need to have preconditions before we further study and elaborate His love to include aliens that answer the question : 1) faith on Him as a Christ (savior), 2) believing the Bible nothing but whole truth and truth is described not as “I” see, but God sees. Without these two preconditions discussion would go nowhere. Mater of facts as Saint Paul defined faith in Hebrews 11:1 that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:3 he also said “by faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command (now scientifically proved up to big bang), so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible”.
We know Christ came into this world in “00” AD and He was born in Bethlehem. All, gospel talked about is about human souls. If in distance future science discover intelligence being in outer space, then God may have different sets of bible like book for their (aliens’) salvation, if needed for them. We do not know many things, but all we know God is Almighty and He created this universe. Finding human like intelligence in distance planet would not prove non-existence of God, many people think of, unless science prove who ignite the “Big Bang”..
November 15th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Julian, your faith in the literal truth of the Bible is very impressive. I haven’t heard anyone suggest that Jesus was born in the year zero in modern times. Even the fundamentalists realize that they didn’t start numbering our calendar years from Jesus’ birth until years later, and didn’t exactly know when he’d been born. So, you don’t have to believe he was born in the year zero in order to believe what the Bible says; it doesn’t have any numbers in it, and the clues derived from the text are not exactly amenable to exact calculation. As for the Bethlehem part, that’s doubtful, too. I’d recommend a wonderful book (now in two volumes) by the late Raymond Brown, one of my favorite theologians, called “The Birth of the Messiah,” for a bit more advanced and nuanced view of the biblical birth narratives.
But, Julian, you’ve ignored the one intellectual question this whole discussion raises: Why can Goofy, a dog, talk and wear clothes, whereas Pluto, also a dog, can’t talk and doesn’t wear clothes?
November 15th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
And, Julian, one more thing: I don’t think even the fundamentalists insist any more that St. Paul wrote Hebrews; there is no reason to think he did other than the fact that some ancient scribes put his name in the title. The text itself doesn’t identify an author, and the style is totally unlike that of Paul: Origen of Alexandria recognized this as early as the third century, as has every serious scholar since.
November 15th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Caleb, I heard that some modern scholars believe that the letter to the Hebrews was authored by a woman. Priscilla is first mentioned in the book of Acts, chapter 18, and then again in Romans, I Corinthians, and I Timothy. She is obviously a woman of influence in the early church.
November 15th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Caleb, you misunderstood my message above. Date, place and writer of the Gospel is not important to Christianity. Important of Christianity is about facts about Jesus Christ, as a i) historical person, ii) only son of living God, iii) born in a virgin girl (Marry) in a middle eastern country (Bethlehem), iv) died for humanity for forgiveness of sins of the world (by fake trial, God could easily save Him as He (God) did before), etc. Would exact place, time, and authors change the message of Gospel? I believe Christ born some where and some time in this planet and believing Bethlehem as synoptic gospel described is nothing wrong. I also know scholars tracked modern time after death of Jesus Christ (AD). So it is irrelevant whether it was “00” or “1” of base year, unless you do computer programming. Christian do not need exact time with seconds to believe Christ and His teaching. Christmas could be 25th of December, or 6th of January, all we need to celebrate our birth day of our savior. By the term nothing but whole truth of the Bible I mean message of the Bible. Argument with the time and place is irrelevant, because no one could claim 100% accuracy of their claim. Do you believe all facts of Jesus Christ, His deity and promises found in the Bible? Answer to this question is important for any Christian.
It seems to me you are sometimes more conservative than conservative Christian itself. You are sneaky about time and places. It is good for scholarly thought but not necessary to be good Christian. Your quarry about goofy dog and Pluto is still mystery of life, stay tune for science to identify the gene which causes the difference. My recommendation not to wait for science to believe the Bible. The Bible itself is mystery, its 66 books uniquely describe one heavenly glory in different time by different people, and maintained consistency from the beginning to end. No human knowledge could write on some power which they do not see, without divine help.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:33 am
Since this started as an astronomical thread and is now discussing what the Bible says, it’s worth noting that the Bible says that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still in the sky. That might have been possible if the sun orbited the earth, but since the earth rotates on its axis as it orbits the sun, why did the Bible get this wrong? Why didn’t Joshua command the earth to stop spinning on its axis?
Also, my recollection is that there is no year 0. The calendar goes from 1 BC to 1 AD (or 1 BCE to 1 CE). This raises another question — why is the abbreviation BC in English and AD in Latin?
Finally, as to Caleb’s question about Pluto and Goofy, I have no explanation. I’m still working on why the Disney characters have 4 fingers instead of 5.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Julian, while the date or authorship of books in the Bible is indeed not terribly important, I think being intellectually honest is. Where scholarship suggests that a long-held belief is not true, one shouldn’t assert it as true. As to your question whether I believe that the Bible is literally true, no, I don’t. However, as I’ve said many times, what I do believe is literally true is that God loves us and wants us to love each other and act like we love each other. As for Christmas, the only reason we celebrate it when we do is because the early Christians needed a big holiday to replace the pagan bacchanalia that accompanied the winter solstice. Ditto Easter for the spring equinox.
So, when I zing you for inaccuracies about the Bible, that goes not to substance, but to form. Speaking of which, you say there are 66 books in the Bible. The Catholics have more than that; why do you limit yourself to only 66??? And, the answer is, because you’re Protestant. There are all kinds of fuzzy reasons why the Protestants left out some of the books of the Bible, but the original King James Version, which you profess to like, had the extra books in it until they figured out they could print fewer pages and charge the same price by leaving out the questionable ones. Is that a good thing to base theology on? Of course, we Anglicans ride the fence on everything, and recognize the extra ones as sort of quasi-scriptural; we just put them in the back of the Bible or between the testaments.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
But I do still wonder about Goofy and Pluto. I didn’t know the finger thing, Forsan; now, I’ll worry about that, too. The fact that the ducks don’t wear pants is also somewhat disturbing.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Jose, that couldn’t possibly be true, because as Jerry Falwell was clear in pointing out, women in Biblical times were quiet, meek, and certainly didn’t write any books! Or, could our understanding of those times not be quite as complete as we think . . . Interesting scholarship!
November 16th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Forsan, as to AD (Latin) vs. BC (English), Wikipedia suggests that prior to the development of the English abbreviation BC, the Latin term, “ante vero incarnationis dominicae tempus” (“the time before the Lord’s true incarnation”) was sometimes used, and I imagine the abbreviation AVIDT might not have taken hold much. I’d often thought of the same question.
November 16th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Just a passage from our “Pearl of Great Price,” Book of Moses, Chapter 1. Just thought it might be interesting for some of you to see what we believe regarding “other worlds” and the place of the Son regarding those.
27 And it came to pass, as the voice was still speaking, Moses cast his eyes and beheld the earth, yea, even all of it; and there was not a particle of it which he did not behold, discerning it by the spirit of God.
28 And he beheld also the inhabitants thereof, and there was not a soul which he beheld not; and he discerned them by the Spirit of God; and their numbers were great, even numberless as the sand upon the sea shore.
29 And he beheld many lands; and each land was called earth, and there were inhabitants on the face thereof.
30 And it came to pass that Moses called upon God, saying: Tell me, I pray thee, why these things are so, and by what thou madest them?
31 And behold, the glory of the Lord was upon Moses, so that Moses stood in the presence of God, and talked with him face to face. And the Lord God said unto Moses: For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me.
32 And by the word of my power, have I created them, which is mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth.
33 And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.
November 16th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Interesting bit of scripture there, David. Thanks for sharing. (A cynic might say that when it comes to making theological statements about the universe it’s better if you can write your scripture AFTER Copernicus and Galileo.)
Biblical literalists had a hard enough time with the Enlightenment and rationalism. If humans ever do encounter intelligent extraterrestrial life I expect that Christian fundamentalist heads will explode trying to reconcile plain facts with their preconceived theological truths. The culture shock will be too great. We wrestle with issues of sex. what if our new friends have no sexes, or perhaps more than two? We may believe that life is sacred but still struggle with how best to apply that principle in our lives. Could we deal with a civilization that depends on cannibalism for its survival?
Or perhaps the others would view us humans as uncivilized. They might be horrified by our practice of nurturing other living beings just so that we can tear them apart to eat them. Perhaps they would find our warring nature a threat to creation, and decide that humans need to be exterminated for the good of the rest of the universe. Scary thought.
November 17th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Jose, that’s an interesting thought. It reminds me of a sermon that I heard Billy Graham give on tv years ago. He said that someone had asked him if he thought there might be life on other planets. He said that he certainly thought there could be; nothing in the Bible said otherwise. He was asked if those people would have the same religious experiences we would, and believe in Jesus as we do. He then wondered if we might not be the only planet whose people rebelled against God (one supposes he meant that whole snake and apple thing) and needed a sacrifice such as Jesus. Interesting thought: As Jose suggests, we might be the bad boys of the universe.
November 17th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
When we discover extra-terrestial life (the universe is too big to be ours alone), it will not change anyone’s mind about their religion, they’ll just re-define their understanding of God to suit the new reality.
November 17th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Cheese, you are right, wonders of creation is so vast, discovering something out of existing in universe, is less convincing to change the believe already rooted by experience as well as biblical truth. It is also true that human capacity is limited by nature. Finding extra terrestrial life or even repeating big bang in laboratory as Europeans are trying to do would be like a drop of water in ocean comparing to remaining seen and unseen objects or laws in the universe. Main obstacle for humanity is that it can not create anything.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Julian,
You don’t give humanity enough credit. We are limited by nature, but we’ve come a long way in 10,000 years when cave paintings and stone tools were quintessential marks of genius. Newtonian physics and calculus are less than 500-years-old, relativity and quantum theory have been around for less than 100 years. Our understanding of the universe is increasing at an exponential rate. We’re discovering things so fast, we don’t even get excited anymore. We found water on the moon, and the general public doesn’t even really care. It’s simply astounding to me how little we’re astounded by great discoveries about our universe.
Let’s take this thread one step further: if we discover a natural explanation for the Big Bang, ruling out a supernatural force as the creator of all mass and energy in the universe, would “god” still be necessary?
November 18th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Cheese, as you said, “We’re discovering things so fast, we don’t even get excited anymore”. It is because we are under the control of economic laws, a) “law of diminishing utilities” and b) law of diminishing returns”. Laws of diminishing utilities already started, no more excitement finding waters in moon, moon walk, or new planet in distance place, billions of light year miles away. Next law would come in effect, diminishing returns, i.e. no more new discoveries, as we find already barrier in new frontier in usage of nuclear power for development, or in transportation sector. We need mechanism which is faster than speed of light to send a probe in deep outer space to get valid information which is trillions of light year miles away, which is impossible by human.
Besides repeating “big Bang” in laboratory, we need, in order to void Holy God in reality, 1) to repeat life (single cell like ameba) in a Petridis with non-living substance and environment, 2) to repeat souls of intelligent being out of a single living cell, and still it is not out of question. May be the last question would be how a void was formed. To rely on science to void Holy God would take billions of earth years; by that time you and I would loose our opportunity to turn to God. Worst decision of all time is not to honor God.
November 18th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Julian, once again, you’re being rather like Doubting Thomas, suggesting that if we just put our fingers in the logical problems with atheism, we’ll see the light. That’s fundamentally opposed to my idea of faith. There is no logic to the belief in God, it’s a matter of pure faith. All one has to do to pop your logical construct is ask the question of where God came from, or as it is sometimes phrased, who created God. If not knowing how the world came to be connotes a belief in God, what does not knowing how God came to be connote? Or, if one takes the view that God has always existed, then one must also take the view that matter also might have always existed.
The fact is that we don’t know much about the origin of anything, and suggesting that God MUST exist simply because we don’t know things is not much of an argument. I like faith better.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Caleb, I agree with you that to find God, out of rationality (science) and faith, faith is the best and easiest way to find and experienced Him today. God is true God and science is also true, but science would take infinite time to draw conclusion where as faith with surrendering to Him, would get the result instantly. That is what I intended to point out with the above logic. I also like to mention here that by faith we believe the Bible is words of God and there is no GIGO (garbage in, garbage out), but here you contradict with your faith. It is true that without The Bible, God would have been absolute “0”.
November 19th, 2009 at 5:21 am
So before the Bible was written down and compiled, God was nothing? God is not powerful enough to work– or even exist– without a companion volume? That’s not much of a God. It’s surely not MY God!
November 19th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Caleb,
How is faith any different from mere wishful thinking? My Hogs don’t win games, because I have faith in them. What makes you think your god exists? Because you want him to? I’m just amazed how a person as logical as yourself can just throw logic to the wind when it comes to this singular question.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Jose, you are unnecessary worry about God’s might. The Bible is video tape of God’s activities since beginning, so that we believe and love Him. His might would not diminish w/o the Bible but we would have been under influence of devil. The Bible itself is a miracle. It is light to see God; it is mirror image of God. When most of human civilization was under dark, some people in Middle Eastern countries recorded God’s mighty-hand-activities for future generation like us and generations to come. Don’t you think human civilization would have been in absolute “0”, if man would not have recorded the scientific developments in books or in videos?
Many believe that faith is wishful thinking, but it is not. Christian faith is based on mirror image of God in the Bible as well as rationale of humanity. To see mirror image of God in the Bible one need to wear 3D (three dimensional) glass in mind, w/o 3D glass, one would see nothing.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
That’s the whole point, Cheese. It’s inexplicable. No logic to it at all. That’s why it’s called faith. Faith, like a good jump shot, is a gift from God. I have it. Others don’t. I can’t make a free throw. Others can.
You’re right that faith without action is not likely to lead to results. Your faith in your beloved Hogs might not help them win games, though prayer can’t hurt. But what if the team weren’t the Hogs, but your local park league team. If you had faith in them that would be good, but if you went out and helped them in their practices and taught them strategy and teamwork and good sportsmanship, that would be great. Faith is like that. Faith in God (or Allah, or Buddah) is okay, but what counts is action. When you get right down to it, my faith is pretty well summed up in the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, in which it all boils down to loving one another and not allowing pride to get in the way.
Now, many people say that you can do all this without a belief in God. That’s true. Many people do. And I have no problem with that, and I don’t think God has a problem with that. I think God would have a problem with people who put too much emphasis on belief over action. The Bible says that faith without works is dead, and that’s one part of it I do believe (most of the rest I don’t much believe).
But bear in mind that I come at this from a little different perspective from many people who post on here. I’m an old fashioned Episcopalian, an Anglican of the old liberal school, of the type that value liberal arts education and progressive social policy. And tweed. Being an Anglican, to me, is separate and distinct from being a Christian. Historically, we Anglicans have chosen to be Christians, and we have chosen to believe many, but not all, of the things that more conservative Christians believe. However, the mainstream of the church is veering ever leftward, and I don’t doubt that most Episcopalians today are little better than agnostics in what they actually believe. At some point, I suspect that the Episcopal Church will decide that belief in God is optional, and I wouldn’t be opposed to that.
November 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Caleb,
I asked you how is faith any different from mere wishful thinking. I don’t doubt your sincerity in believing in God (and I like rockin’ the ganj too), but where do you draw the line? When is it okay to suspend the rules of logic? You’re a lawyer; you would never move to suspend the rules of logic in court. How does religion get this special status that says we cannot apply logic and reason to it? How can you formulate arguments about someone else’s religious beliefs and use “There’s no logic to it at all” to justify your own? How can you demand sense, reason, and logic from others, and waive them for yourself?
November 20th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Good point cheese, but I have to support Caleb on this. He thinks my beliefs are silly, and I think his are. God or the Great Buddha or the Giant Earth Mother Turtle may think we’re all being silly.
The whole problem here, in my silly opinion, is that we can’t get our minds around the concept of eternity. We can describe infinity in calculus, but even our brightest minds can’t fully comprehend it. But we do know it exists. Like Pluto the non-speaking dog, we see evidence of something more but we are powerless to understand it. Enlightenment does seem to exist, however, so I’m not going to knock over other people’s personal insight.
As David Duke quoted from Mormon scripture above, God said “for mine own purpose I created them.” God might as well be saying, “You don’t have a prayer of comprehending this with your feeble minds, so don’t even try.” However, one must wonder then why Moses got this vision and comprehension of every living thing in the first place. I think God sees our exponential growth to further understanding in these modern times and is simply letting us know He is aware of our dilemmas but not to worry, He has a “purpose.”
Concerning us being the “bad boys” of the universe, there might be some truth to that. We Mormons have speculated that Jesus’ atonement was for all of God’s creation (it is said to be an “infinite” atonement), meaning that He had to come to the only world where the inhabitants would actually kill their God. However (there is always a big “however”), in our theology, when Satan tempted Eve, he was “only doing that which had been done in other worlds”–that is, giving the fruit of knowledge to God’s creations thus necessitating a redemption that was also done in other worlds (presumably by similar means). Soooo… what this boils down to is that we simply don’t know.
One other thing. It is also Mormon doctrine, and my own personal belief as well, that God, being eternal, was never created, nor did He ever “create” anything. Joseph Smith taught that all matter, including “spiritual” matter is eternal. This includes ourselves. God merely “organized” us (whatever that means) into His spiritual children and heirs before we were ever born into mortality. This mortal life is merely a step in our progression to becoming like He is, which, since time has no meaning to God, we already are. Whoa, I got to lay down for a minute!
Okay, I’m back. Joseph Smith, of course wasn’t the first to postulate the eternal nature or indestructibility of matter, but he was a genius at codifying it all into a Christian doctrine. It is interesting to note however, if you choose to believe such things, that he was virtually unschooled and did not have access to much of the works of previous philosophical thinkers and Eastern mystics. So, he either came up with these things all on his own (certainly possible) or he was really inspired with visions from God. Or, as my brother would say, he simply must have gotten hold of some REALLY good weed.
Mormons have always taught that truth about God and the universe can be found in virtually all religious traditions–even truth that we Mormons don’t currently have. Joseph Smith also asked God, if you wish to believe this, if the books of the Protestant Apocrypha were worthy of study and inclusion. The Lord replied that there was indeed a lot of truth in them, but like the Bible, much had been corrupted and a few elements were simply outright fantasy, but we have all we need to keep us occupied in the Bible as it exists and the Book of Mormon and modern day revelation. We will always be given more as we, as a whole people, are ready for it. Not holding my breath there, though.
I’m not trying to make anyone believe any of this. I’m just sharing some insight I’ve found. I think we can only “discover” truth, it has always existed. We are only in a world or dimension, or whatever, where truth can be corrupted (rearranged out of order so that it is non-functioning) so that we can understand the difference. Light and darkness, yin and yang, and so forth.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Thanks for the shoutout, John. Cheese, I understand your point. Much of spiritual belief is a-logical; it is simply beyond the bounds of logic. As to where to draw the line, I don’t know that I can give a coherent answer, other than that my own personal belief in God doesn’t mean that I ignore logic anywhere; it just means that I think there is a God out there. Will he or she help me hit a free throw? Apparently not. Will she help me be a better person? Maybe it’s my own wishful thinking, but yes, I think so.
And that’s the part that interests me, not having a philosophical debate about whether a God exists, or whether the Bible (or the Book of Mormon, or the Koran) is accurate. The great liberal preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick, in one of the Riverside Sermons, preached that the question of the gospel is not whether it is true, but whether we will make it true by our own actions. I suppose a placebo God would do as well in those circumstances, but my particular faith says there’s more. If that’s illogical, then so be it. I am an old line Episcopalian, after all, and I imagine we have more eccentricity than logic most of the time.
December 7th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Forsan is wrong. Our solar system does NOT have only eight planets, and the IAU is not the arbiter of reality. Their view represents only one view in an ongoing debate. Pluto is still a planet. Only four percent of the IAU voted on the controversial demotion, and most are not planetary scientists. Their decision was immediately opposed in a formal petition by hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. One reason the IAU definition makes no sense is it says dwarf planets are not planets at all! That is like saying a grizzly bear is not a bear, and it is inconsistent with the use of the term “dwarf” in astronomy, where dwarf stars are still stars, and dwarf galaxies are still galaxies. Also, the IAU definition classifies objects solely by where they are while ignoring what they are. If Earth were in Pluto’s orbit, according to the IAU definition, it would not be a planet either. A definition that takes the same object and makes it a planet in one location and not a planet in another is essentially useless. Pluto is a planet because it is spherical, meaning it is large enough to be pulled into a round shape by its own gravity–a state known as hydrostatic equilibrium and characteristic of planets, not of shapeless asteroids held together by chemical bonds. These reasons are why many astronomers, lay people, and educators are either ignoring the demotion entirely or working to get it overturned.