Cross-posted @ the Atheist Oasis
Pope Francis Says He Would Baptize Martians If They Asked
In a homily delivered Monday, Pope Francis said he’d totally baptize Martians if they showed up at the Vatican demanding to be baptized.
He was trying to illustrate the point that everyone has the right to receive the Holy Spirit — even aliens from faraway planets.
“If tomorrow, for example, an expedition of Martians arrives and some of them come to us … and if one of them says: ‘Me, I want to be baptized!’, what would happen?” the pontiff said, according to AFP.
He defined these hypothetical beings as “green men, with a long nose and big ears, like children draw.” For extra emphasis, he added, “Who are we to close doors?”
Which immediately open the flood doors for all the UFO maniacs everywhere. Impossible hypothetical meet extremely unlikely hypothetical. The result? Phantasmagorical nonsense. It’s all guesswork. Even Drake’s equation is pure surmise. (Yes, you guessed it: I’m more a fan of the Fermi paradox, though it’d be cool to have other species traveling amid the stars.)
And…little green men from Mars? Does this clownhat realize it’s not the 1950’s anymore? Is this a rhetorical question?
Still, I suppose that it shouldn’t be too shocking: transubstantiation, virgin birth, zombies. What’s one more wack-a-doodle-doo?
Till the next post, then.
1 comment:
Eh, it's just an attempt to preemptively avoid the theological implications of the fact that more or less inevitably, life will be discovered somewhere that isn't Earth. They missed the boat on some other basic things — the Earth has no special place in the universe, humans aren't special animals — and so in each case the obvious true-ness of the science was a direct contrast to the position they took against it. By saying that it's okay if there are sentient things Out There somewhere, the Pope is trying to avoid the otherwise-inevitable "the Earth isn't even the only inhabited planet, which Christians have always said, so therefore Christians are wrong... again."
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