DARPA-sponsored symposium explores impact of Full Disclosure on Earth's religions

Source: Dateline Zero

 Would full disclosure cause confusion among the world’s religions? This was a major topic of consideration being picked apart by philosophers and theologians this past weekend, at a DARPA-sponsored symposium.

Though extremely controversial, the100 Year Starship Symposium, in Orlando Florida, decided to tackle questions surrounding Religion and the existence of intelligent Alien life. Naturally, while the broader topic of “religion” was the topic of discussion, it seems that the symposium was more about ‘Christianity and the existence of intelligent Alien life.’ An article at Space.com reports many of the thinkers at the symposium have concluded that discovery of intelligent aliens “could present a special dilemma” for the world’s religions. “Christians, in particular,” Space.com reports, “might take the news hardest, because the Christian belief system does not easily allow for other intelligent beings in the universe.”

At a panel on the philosophical and religious considerations of visiting other worlds, philosophy professor Christian Weidemannof Germany’s Ruhr-University Bochum titled his talk ‘Did Jesus die for Klingons too?’

“According to Christianity, an historic event some 2,000 years ago was supposed to save the whole of creation,” Weidemann said. “You can grasp the conflict.”

“It seems to be only a problem of Christianity,” Waltemathe said in his presentation. In Islam, for example, Muhammad was a prophet, or messenger of God, not God incarnate, so additional prophets could have simultaneously visited other planets to save extraterrestrial species, he said. And Hindus already believe in multiple deities, so accommodating more to guard over alien civilizations may not be difficult.

Preparing for possible First Contact?

Clearly, not all Christian leaders would react poorly to meeting other intelligent extraterrestrial life. Rather, some church leaders seem be ready to embrace intelligent extraterrestrials with open arms. Here are some interesting recent intriguing examples of this fact from the Vatican:

In 2008, the director of the Vatican observatory, Father Gabriel Funes, said it’s possible that intelligent life exists on other planets. And since aliens would be part of God’s creation, their existence would not contradict the Catholic faith. “That doesn’t contradict our faith,” he explained, “because we cannot put boundaries to God’s creative freedom. As saint Francis would say, when we consider the earthly creatures to be our ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’, why couldn’t we also talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? He would still be part of creation.”

The following year, the Vatican held a conference on extraterrestrial life, an event intended to mark an International Year of Astronomy. This led to some interesting speculation that the Catholic Church could be preparing for for “extraterrestrial disclosure.” A booklet from the event, titled , is still available via the Vatican website [pdf].

In 2010, Brother Guy Consolmagno, the Jesuit astronomer and MIT grad who works at the Vatican observatory, said he would be perfectly comfortable baptizing aliens. “Only if they asked,” he said.

Strange things are afoot if DARPA is thorwing money at these kinds of discussions. However, it’s a good sign that the major religions would adapt to a disclosure that ‘we are not alone’ if theologians are even bothing to have this conversation.

Full article at Dateline Zero