Stained glass at St John the Baptist’s Anglican Church http://www.stjohnsashfield.org.au, Ashfield, New South Wales. Illustrates Jesus’ description of himself “I am the Good Shepherd” (from the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 11). This version of the image shows the detail of his face. The memorial window is also captioned: “To the Glory of God and in Loving Memory of William Wright. Died 6th November, 1932. Aged 70 Yrs.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Four hundred years after Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake for his belief in the “plurality of worlds” (aliens), scientists and religious leaders gathered this week at a seemingly more open-minded Vatican for a conference on astrobiology (aliens).
**************************************************************************************************************
Yesterday I spoke to Paul Davies, a cosmologist from Arizona State University, just after he addressed the conference. In his view, the possibility of other civilisations – potentially more intelligent than our own – puts Christians “in a real bind”. Specifically, he says that nobody’s satisfactorily addressed the question of whether aliens get saved. “The Catholic church offers a very species specific brand of salvation. Noone says that Jesus came to save the dolphins and certainly not little green men,” he said. The possibility of extraterrestrial life does not pose the same problems for Eastern religions, which tend to be less Earth-centric, or Islam, which speaks explicitly of life beyond Earth, he said. *************************************************************************************************************
Stroeger conceded that the discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe would pose a challenge, but said that it would not be insurmountable. “There are some difficult issues to resolve, such as whether Jesus as saviour is the one who saves everyone in the Universe or if there are other equivalent salvation events that take place elsewhere in the Universe,” he said. I was left feeling slightly mind-boggled at how you would even begin to answer such a question.

Full Story:http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/11/does-jesus-save-aliens.html?fark

Related articles

• “What does it mean that Jesus saves?” (prhayz.com)
• What Are The Heavens Telling Us? (vineoflife.net)
• Are Aliens from Other Planets Visiting Earth? Most Definitely According to Lou Baldin, Author of a New book, Coming Clean on UFOs and ET (prweb.com)
• Alien Dna. (ceceyahweh.wordpress.com)
• Free to Be Me and Jesus is the Key (thisdaywithgod.wordpress.com)

Categories: Miscellany

Tags: aliens, Arizona State University, christianity, earth, Extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrials, Giordano Bruno, Islam, jesus, Paul Davies, religion, Renaissance