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from the in-a-parallel-Vatican-somewhere-in-the-universe dept.
Papas Fritas writes:
"Megann Gannon reports that nearly 200 scientists are attending a conference, called "The Search for Life Beyond the Solar System: Exoplanets, Biosignature & Instruments," co-hosted by the Vatican Observatory with the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory.
The goal of the conference is to bring together the interdisciplinary community required to address this multi-faceted challenge: experts on exoplanet observations, early and extreme life on Earth, atmospheric biosignatures, and planet-finding telescopes. 'Finding life beyond Earth is one of the great challenges of modern science and we are excited to have the world leaders in this field together in Tucson,' says Daniel Apai. 'But reaching such an ambitious goal takes planning and time. The goal of this meeting is to discuss how we can find life among the stars within the next two decades.'
According to the organizers, the conference will cover the technical challenges of finding and imaging exoplanets and identifying biosignatures in the atmospheres of far-flung worlds. Other presentations will discuss the study of life forms that live in extreme environments on Earth, which could be apt analogs for life on other planets. Scientists will give more than 160 research presentations (PDF) during this week's conference and NASA's Astrobiology Institute will broadcast a live feed of the sessions. Catholic leaders say that alien life can be aligned with the Bible's teachings. 'Just as a multiplicity of creatures exists on Earth, so there could be other beings, also intelligent, created by God,' says Father Jose Funes"
(Score: 1) by unauthorized on Thursday March 20 2014, @10:18AM
Actually Jesus would be full fledged alien since he was just the "son of God". He may have looked like a human, but there is no account that his DNA had a shred of Mary's DNA. So yeah, apparently the pastafarians are right, God really is a giant tentacle monster.
[rant]
Then again, this was probably just a metaphor (gee doesn't that sound familiar). I think god could really learn a thing or two about future-proofing his prophetic books. Really, if you want people to believe in your existence, you might as well put knowledge in your prophetic books that the prophet itself could not have made up on the spot. You know, like atoms and quarks, it's not too hard to encode math in text.
Come to think of it, just encode the bloody thing in a giant nigh-indestructible plate of a super-strong alloy that humans could have never produced on their own for a few thousand years. This god really sucks at leaving clear messages. I guess omnipotent doesn't mean "has at least the foresight of an elementary school student".
[/rant]