RoR: Forum

Post 0

Wednesday, May 14 - 7:54am

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Sheeesh! I thought God made man in his image. There's no chance that aliens will look like us.

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it --I give every green plant for food. And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (1:26-30)

In an interview published Tuesday by Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures.

So, we'd still be superior to them and rule over them. I see.

Sam

Post 1

Wednesday, May 14 - 8:38am

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Damned if they Do?

What the "hell" is the problem with this announcement? The debate has existed in the Church in one form or another for centuries.

Being created in God's image means his spiritual image (a free and reasoning mind) not his physical image. Catholicism does not embrace biblical literalism like some protestant sects.

As for the use of the word creature, it is a matter of translation and connotation. Creazione in Italian refers to the act or the abstraction. Creatura refers to a specific created thing. According to the Church we are God's creatures, the product of his creation.

Had the Church said anything else, that too would have been a source for ridicule from those who simply want to mock rather than to comprehend. While fundamentalists want to ban Halloween, Tolkien and Harry Potter, the Church urges tolerance.

It's one thing to criticize where criticism is due. It's absurd to criticize the Church for making a moderate, reasonable and unobjectionable pronunciation based on its principles. Accusing the Church of Old Testament literalism and being ignorant of the connotations of the word creature don't strengthen an atheist's argument, they reveal his ignorance.

Justice requires that we understand our opponents' actual arguments and counter them in good faith. This type of smear job is no better than Whitaker Chambers' review of Atlas Shrugged. It's one thing to criticize, another to make juvenile mischaracterizations.

Objectivists don't need to make the epistemological and rhetorical errors of their intellectual enemies.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 5/14, 10:40am)

Post 2

Wednesday, May 14 - 11:49am

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Do you suppose this ties in with the fact that Catholics prefer Hillary?

Post 3

Wednesday, May 14 - 12:25pm

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Ted:

Please instruct me. Wikipedia seems to state that the "Church" includes fundamentalists.

Many believe the Church, as described in the Bible, has a twofold character that can be described as the visible and invisible church. As the Church invisible, the church consists of all those from every time and place, who are vitally united to Christ through regeneration and salvation and who will be eternally united to Jesus Christ in eternal life.

In your view, would fundamentalists also agree with the Vatican's chief astronomer?

Sam

Post 4

Wednesday, May 14 - 3:57pm

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Well, that's Wikipedia for you, Sam!

The Church, when capitalized, usually refers to the Church of Rome when the context is explicitly Catholic or is pre-Reformation and post-Nicene. Many Protestant sects refer to themselves as congregations and the like, but the Mormons and other denominations certainly refer to their hierarchies as the Church in their contexts. The context matters. But I have never read anyone use the term "Church" in capitals just to refer to modern Christian sects (plural) in general. I think my use is unambiguous. The capitalization you refer to in wikipedia is a modern theological Platonism, not found in the original Greek redactions nor generalizable to modern non-ecumenical use. Note the inconsistency of capitalization in your own quote.

I would assume that almost all fundamentalists strongly condemn the (Catholic) Church's corrupt papist "accomodation" with worldly secularists.

I shouldn't presume to tread any further on Jesuit prerogatives. Cardinal Ratzinger has a rather large number of published works, and he was the prior head of the former Inquisition. Maybe Ed Hudgins or someone else here has a Jesuit friend who can comment.

[greatly revised]

(Edited by Ted Keer on 5/14, 5:45pm)

Post 5

Wednesday, May 14 - 4:06pm

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Peter, that statement is as careless as saying that blacks vote Democrat. I know certain self-identified blacks and Catholics who take offense at such pronouncements.

-revised-

Oops, Peter, did you mean that Hillary is an alien? If so, good joke. Sorry for the thin skinnedness.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 5/14, 9:50pm)

Post 6

Wednesday, May 14 - 9:53pm

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Did Jesus come to these aliens?
Was He born of a virgin alien?
Did he die an alien death and was he alienly resurrected?

(Inquisitional minds demand to know.)

Post 7

Thursday, May 15 - 11:33pm

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A Case of Conscience

James Blish explored this question, although not in the terms you put it, Michael. It is a classic and well worth reading. Follow the link above for the listing on Amazon.

As for Alien Resurrection, that was my favorite of the Alien movie sequels. But it had little to do with Catholic theology and I doubt that the Vatican has commented upon it.

The Church seems to have decided that there is no need to make such a priori cosmotheological pronouncements, a policy of which Rand would surely have approved.

Tolkien viewed his world as one some 7,000 years before the incarnation of Christ. Lewis's Narnia deals with an alternate world where Aslan represents a Christ. Narnia's "fall" is different from the "fall" of Adam and Eve, so the incarnation and eschatological details of Narnia differ from those of Earth. I have not been able to stomach his Perelandra series, so I cannot comment on those works. Lewis's Screwtape Letters is quite good, and is being filmed. I can also strongly recommend atheist A. N. Wilson's biography of Lewis. Both Hitchen's and Rand excoriated Lewis, but certain of his works, such as The Abolition of Man (on modern education as an indoctrination in relativism and how not to think) is quite excellent.

Ted Keer

PS I remember much preferring Prince Caspian to Wardrobe, and expect it to be quite a blockbuster.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 5/15, 11:34pm)