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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: 2) by metamonkey on Thursday March 20 2014, @10:43PM
No problem, I'm always happy to be a positive ambassador for the Catholic Church. There's a reason we call ourselves "Catholic" and not "Christians," because we don't much like the ideas of christians any more than you do. They're heretics, and generally don't have any rational basis for their heresies. If I agreed with them, either they would be Catholics or I wouldn't be.
As far as the abuse scandals go, we Catholics are also shocked and horrified by those events. No one approves of this behavior. However, you have to realize that we're an organization of 1.2 billion people. Not all of them are going to be nice, but my priest never touched anybody, and my bishop never covered anything up. Compared to the whole of the organization, the incidents were vanishingly small. There should be zero, agreed, but I'm not going to throw out 2,000 years of history for the actions of an exceedingly small number of people.
The Church is a fallible* organization, as it is made by men. But if you want to talk about history, the Catholic Church is the scaffolding on which Western Civilization was built. Our monks in their monasteries kept the written word alive during the dark ages. Many of our priests and monks were scientists, like Gregor Mendel the father of genetics, or the centuries of Jesuit astronomers. The disciplines of modern engineering and architecture were spurred on by the construction of our cathedrals. The contributions to art and music go without saying.
Also, in general, science and democracy go hand in hand with an outsider religion like christianity. The God-Kings of eastern religions nor the statist theocracies of Islam handle dissent very well. Without the Catholic Church, I don't think western science and democracy would have ever come to be. On the whole, the 2,000 year history of the Church has been a net positive for humanity.
*Papal infallibility only applies to matters of faith
Okay 3, 2, 1, let's jam.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday March 20 2014, @11:40PM
But, if reports are true [go.com], the last pope did, and that's part of the reason I hesitate to believe the organization at its deeper roots has changed enough.
On the plus side, I will give credit where it's due. I see a lot of good things being done by, in particular, Catholic hospitals, and I'm a believer in "by their fruits you shall know them" (and the Sufi corollary: "rot at the core spreads outward"). Humans seem to have a need to seek God (and I am not an atheist despite how many attitudes I tend to share with them); It does not surprise me that some of the more notable historical figures involved with important work were some flavor of Christians (although the list of prominent atheists is pretty impressive as well) and, as the most well-organized group, Catholics will be at the top.
I just haven't been able to conclude that the faith itself is a net positive, as opposed to anything else that would have filled the void.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 1) by doubleoh0 on Friday March 21 2014, @03:47PM
"I wish not merely to be called Christian, but also to be Christian." -- St. Ignatius Loyola