The Vatican says alien life forms may exist:

http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/595321

All hail the Space Pope!
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I thought the Catholic church endorsed evolution. Oh well.

Personally, I think if you believe in God you probably should believe in aliens (why would God make all those planets and put life on just this one?) but who cares what the Vatican says about it anyway? I care what the Church has to say about life on other planets about as much as I care what Einstein says about God, or what Michael Jordan thinks about Ball Park hot dogs franks ....

Well, anyone accepts that, period. Typically when Evolution is used in that context, they're talking Old-Earth Creationism style. Belief in micro-evolution hardly requires an official stance, I would think. That's like saying they endorse the idea of the colour orange.

I think anyone who believes that there is an all powerful being running the show must answer lots of questions much harder than that one.

I'm being tested? Daaaayyyyaaaam .....

It's a self imposed test, 23yrold3yrold. I'll put it another way. If having a self-consistent set of beliefs is important to you, then there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed regarding the existence of an all powerful being. The question you asked was a very minor one in comparison to the others. If having that self-consistency is not important to you then reason and logic are useless with regards to your beliefs, and so it would be a waste of time to "test" you. I'm sure you understand what I mean. :p

Well.. I didn't really mean that I'd be the one asking the questions. To be honest, which are the hardest questions kind of depends on some of the answers. The hard questions kind of follow on from one another, you know? However, I'll put forward a couple of the favourites, just so that you get a flavour of what I'm talking about.

If God is all knowing, and all powerful, and "good"; why does he let bad things happen? Wars, natural disasters, genetic disease, etc... surely God has the power to end these things, but for some reason He chooses not to. Why?

Being all knowing, God must know what each person likely to believe and what they are not likely to believe. He must know exactly what kind of events must occur in my life in order for me to believe in His existence. Obviously it is far more likely that someone growing up in a Christian family (or religion X, if you like) than someone who has never heard of [religion X]. How can it be said that God loves us all equally if he knowingly puts such people at a huge disadvantage. If people are sent to hell for not following a religion they have never even heard of in their entire life, surely that is completely unfair. How can anyone justify this action of a supposed "good" God?

There are many different religions in the world. Many different people who believe in many different Gods and who have many different holy texts. With so many different groups of people citing their holy book as absolute truth, and threatening hell (or whatever) to people who don't join their cause, how can we know which is the real God? Which group of holy people can we trust? Surely it is impossible to know who is right without further guidance, and we have an eternity of happiness or suffering on the line. Why doesn't God give us a hand with these kinds of decisions?

Ok, that's enough for now. Like I said, maybe these questions aren't so hard on their own. The tricky thing is how they can end up cornering someone into really tight spots with the right follow up questions. I don't intend to try to do that here on the forums. I just wanted to point out that there are indeed some tough questions.

Actually there's a very easy loophole out of all those questions: ``we don't know God's mind or his plan, ir probably all makes sense somehow but we are not able to understand it. If we just have faith it will all become clear in the end.'' End of discussion, full stop.

As an atheist I'm obviously playing Devil's advocate here (pun intended). My point is, you can try to be rational about it, but at its core faith is not rational. Try arguing logic against it and at some point people will just go "meh, I don't know God's mind so I can't answer that question."

Anyway, nice cartoon.

If you want some interesting reading, you could read Rama II by A.C.Clarke, but I personally think Rama II was the poorest from the series.

I can on my computer
Though usually those are defined as having a front side but no back side, I think. Or maybe they just call them one-sided? I don't remember :S

A mobius strip happens to have a left side and a right side. They also happen to be the same side.

It's a matter of semantics, but I'd say that if something has only one side, it doesn't have a left and a right side. It just has a side.

Traditionally it means they are in fact damned. When asked how is that fair, you'll get, "Why is it fair that we get to go to heaven and meet a perfect God? What's fair is that we all should be damned." But while it's true that perhaps an unholy person has no business in the presence of a holy god, that doesn't mean the opposite of eternal damnation in hell is a fair punishment...

And I think that illustrates the flaw of most organized Christian religions. They are so wrapped up in defining God and His attributes as if He were describable to begin with. It reminds me a lot of our lovely math discussions of infinity; once you define one thing, something else makes no sense. So Christian religions are left with a juggling act because of their love of defining every last thing as eternal truth.

I think that's how most Christians would respond.

However, it's interesting that free will really isn't a very Biblical idea. At least, not at the level that Christian religions teach it. If you go through the Bible from front to back, you'll see that it is more deterministic. Yes, there are free will teachings, but they are overshadowed by deterministic election. God nudging people along in a certain direction, if you will.

God created Adam. God picked Noah and his family. God picked Abraham. God chased Lot out of Sodom and Gomorrah. God picked Jacob over Esau. God picked Moses. God "hardened Pharaoh's heart". God chose Samson to be a judge while he was "still in the womb." And so on.

Solomon wrote, "So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not." I believe he's simply referring to death in general, but I love his writing because he's very deterministic as well.

In the New Testament, you have God saving Paul (Saul) while he was on the way to go murder some Christians. Jesus said "I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours... My prayer is not for [the disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world." Heavy on the destiny; light on the free will.

Many Christians would respond with, "God picked based on what he saw in them." Well, Paul wrote that "no good thing" dwells in us while we are "dead in our sins." One sin is as infinite sins to a Christian. So picking someone because he's just a bit better than another doesn't seem fair if we are all equally bad and damned to hell.

And what about when God picking Samson before he was born? "Oh, God knew that Samson would be a good judge." Actually Samson was a pretty bad one. And furthermore, if God knew what Samson would do, how is it really free will?

It's problematic to think you have to define God as only having infinitely good characteristics in the way we might think is necessary. A lot of religions doctrine is only considered true because it must be for some other thing to remain true (circular).

Eh, so what's my point? I really don't have one. Well, other than Christianity should be about believing in Jesus and doing good things in his example. It shouldn't be about judging, or damning individuals or groups, or worrying what significance alien life is. Surely God will take care of all that in His own time.