With increasing numbers of people believing not only in the possibility of intelligent life on other planets, but even claiming encounters with aliens, it is not surprising that the Catholic Church is beginning to explore what effect the discovery of sentient ETs might have on Christian theology.
My working assumption maintains that religion is antithetical to long-term survival, and if we do meet extraterrestrials we will discover that they've long since shed metaphysics in favor of what can only be termed a "technology of consciousness" -- perhaps a derivative of the mind-uploading scenarios that color so much transhumanist thinking.
Maybe I'm being dense, but I can't imagine why an immortal and near-omniscient intelligence would want to be "saved."
4 comments:
The transhumanist future may not be Christian but it seems to me that humans need some sort of metaphysical framework. As mortals we crave archetypes.
Mortal come immortal and near omniscient beings would still need archetypes. As science gives us magick like power it might become more likely that we look at our world and our position in it in a somewhat fantastic manner.
Think Ilium and Olympos by Dan Simmons or perhaps The Golden Age. People want heroic ideals, a right and a wrong, punishment, judgement, forgivness, enlightenment.
Think Ilium and Olympos by Dan Simmons or perhaps The Golden Age.
All of which are on my ever-expanding to-read list, by the way.
Jon--
Have you read "Jesus on Mars" by Philip Jose Farmer? Not bad.
"Jesus on Mars" has a sort of "B" movie quality. Basically, it's the Martian "Jesus" (?) testing the faithful along the lines of Blish's "A Case of Conscience."
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