Posted by
Mike on Monday, November 16, 2009 5:00:01 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
The Vatican's recent conference on the possibility of
extraterrestrial life opens up a new way of thinking about man's place
in the universe. Science may be on the verge of discovering microbial
life beyond earth's limits within our solar system. Such a discovery
would greatly increase the odds of intelligent life existing somewhere
beyond.
Apart from the possibility of a war of the worlds, this
allows for appreciating man's inherent limitations as a creature, and
the great gift of freedom which God gave to mankind in creating man in
His own image and likeness. Man's eternal life is verified by recent
evolutionary theory which demonstrates that there is a direction from
the simple and material to the more complex and spiritual, culminating
in the development of human consciousness on earth.
If
intelligent beings do exist beyond earth's bounds, they will certainly
not be endowed with the gift of an immortal soul as we humans are.
Their intelligence will be a highly refined animal intelligence, and
will be specialized to adapt to different environmental conditions
within different locations in the various galaxies on planets which
have similar conditions to our own. It will then be the challenge of
our posterity to conquer, milk these intelligent beings and harvest their brains for
our own well being.
More importantly for today is to view the
conditions on earth with these possibilities in mind, allowing us to
see how powerless and insignificant we are as creatures. Thus, it will
become possible to resolve human conflicts without resorting to force
and violence. For example, we can implement a military exit from
Afghanistan without suffering dire consequences just as the Russians
did in February of 1989.