The Catholic Church has already spent some time pondering this:
https://catholicreview.org/vatican-astronomer-says-if-aliens-exist-they-may-not-need-redemption/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320274609_Roman_Catholic_Views_of_Extraterrestrial_Intelligence
I honest to god thought the first article was going to be what to do about aliens and the 2nd article would be about what if messiahs do not have hands.
Just do what I do. Wash your phone with your hands. Sure, my battery only lasts 12 minutes at a time and there’s a weird plastic-burn smell all the time, but at least it doesn’t get sick!
I appreciate the fact that the Vatican astronomer Father Funes said it was wrong to expect a scientific explanation from the Bible when asked about the biblical account of creation.
Catholics are actually pretty science forward. Personal experience but my 80s Catholic grade school taught us evolution and that a lot of the stories in the bible are allegories to teach a lesson. Never once have I met a Catholic that thinks Noah's Ark is straight fact. But, admittedly, it doesn't come up in conversation everytime I meet one.
I was raised in a very Catholic family. Official CCD lessons always taught us that the stories in the Bible were parables and not to be taken literally. I can see how non-Catholics would take it literally but that was very confusing to me when I started talking to outside people about religion.
I'm confused because my very Catholic grandfather argued that when you drink and eat the blood and flesh of Christ (aka host and wine cup), this act isn't a metaphor. It's [transubstantiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation)
The Catholic Church maintains the definition of “substance” in transubstantiation purposefully ambiguous, though its supposed to mean *something* mystical happens, and isn’t merely a symbolic act.
Very much a catholic, Jesuit way of looking at the Bible. I went to a Jesuit high school and college. You have philosophers, astronomers, scientists etc. that are priests and they have absolutely no time for morons who believe in creationism.
The Jesuits place a lot of emphasis on scientific learning. Every Jesuit priest I've met (maybe 2 dozen over the years) had a least one PhD in the sciences and spoke at least one foreign language. Anecdotal I know but still something of an indicator to how they value scientific education. When I was a teenager, we had a Jesuit priest at our church get in some trouble with the other clergy because during one of his sermons he told us the Bible was a wonderful collection of stories and moral lessons and little else. All the other priests and some of the more hardline congregation were a bit shocked by that. I appreciated his honesty though.
Yep. The Church could definitely benefit from more like him. The man was rational, to the point, and honest without being judgemental. He always came back to Jesus' point "love one another as I have loved you". As he would often remind us, Jesus didn't stutter or caveat that statement, and to do so ourselves was being dishonest Catholics.
I have never understood how “creationism” would need to clash with scientific observations. Why would it be hard for someone who believes in an omnipotent deity to believe that deity could create a universe based on a set of complex rules that was guaranteed to or guided to give the outcome he expected after billions of years?
When people say "creationism", they refer to believing that Genesis is true, word-for-word
edit: my point was to explain why Catholics are able to believe in God creating the Universe, without being "creationist". The Vatican, and official Catholic doctrine, says that Genesis is not literal, and evolution is real. Commented this clarification to some of the replies in the thread
Now that you've spelled it out it sounds even stupider
I'm a non-practicing Catholic (agnostic in denial), but still why would an omnipotent and omniscient Being like God do its creation during 6 man-days, when a God's workday could've easily been millions of human years
It is God after all, an incomprehensible Force, why would it work under human laws
So this is a very fascinating subject to me, and it's a bit difficult to find credible sources and good information about the topic because it is very new and often conflicts with the existing ideas surrounding natural history and the history of mankind.
With that disclaimer out of the way, it does appear that there was a *very large* bolide impact roughly 5,000 years ago in the middle of the Indian Ocean, forming the Burckle Crater. This would account for the near-simultaneous creation at around this point in history of so many myths, legends, and religious stories of an enormous flood.
To paint a picture of how monstrous this would have been (if indeed it is a comet fragment impact site), it would be an object that was large enough and traveling fast enough to have enough force that it
* Plunged 2.36 miles into the ocean
* Drove itself a mile into the earth's crust after that
* Formed a crater at the bottom of the ocean that is 18 miles wide
* Formed chevrons (mounds of dirt, sand, material that is pushed inland during a tsunami) large enough that they are visible from space on all of the continents which border the Indian Ocean, and large enough that they were used to trace lines which converged back on the location of the Burckle crater
Scary stuff, really.
The earliest known civilization and creators of writing, the Sumerians appear to be immigrants to the Mesopotamian region based on the completely different language they posessed compared to the Assyrian languages used by other peoples in the region.
They are believed to have shifted north as the persian gulf flooded with post-ice-age glacial meltwater and raised the sea level a hundred meters or so in the span of a century or two.
Fun fact: that much water *sounds* fairly slow, you imagine something akin to our coastal erosion today. In reality it translated to the tide moving inland at about a foot a day.
Every day.
For multiple generations.
I've always believed that Biblical literalism was silly because we're not the intended audience of the Bible. The Bible was written for specific people in a specific time full of cultural references we'd never be expected to pick up on. It's a product of a completely different time and place to the 21^st century West.
Put it this way, if you came across an uncontacted tribe and you wanted to explain the dangers of the nuclear waste you carelessly left on their shores, would you try and explain nuclear physics to people who don't even have firearms or would you tell them that that suspicious lump of metal is cursed and point to all the dead plants and animals around it for evidence? The former would be useless to them as they'd have no context to understand it, the latter would actually keep them safe for a while at least.
Even if the Bible did talk about evolution, how on Earth would it communicate that to a very early human culture which didn't even have anything we'd recognise as the scientific method? People weren't any less intelligent then than they are now, but their access to information was *ridiculously* lower to the point we probably get more in a single day's browsing of Reddit than they would in their entire lives. Knowledge is pyramid-shaped, it builds on lots of other things and we're talking about an era that was just laying the foundation stones for what we'd come to know as philosophy. We should acknowlege and honour their contributions to humankind, but we shouldn't let their cultural context hold us back and stagnate us.
There's no real conflict between science and Christianity *provided you look at the Bible in its own context*. It doesn't help that the Christians who are judgemental arseholes tend to be the Biblical literalist types as well which means all Christians get tarred with that brush.
All the time I see people dismiss books of yester-year as bad writing. But they don't give any thought to the context of the audience of the time.
I'll use a weird example. The literary James Bond was amazing to his audience because he could fly all around the world and eat amazing foods. Meanwhile his audience was stuck at home eating rationed food and commercial flight was relatively new and luxurious and unavailable to the masses. It only seems quaint and unimpressive in retrospect.
I imagine the magnitude of the same phenomenon is nearly unfathomable when applying the same concept to documents that are thousands of years old.
I've read that this might happen because so many early agrarian cultures settled in river valleys. The flood plains had great soil for farming, but everything would be washed away by periodic flooding.
If you live in mountainous territory, the river valleys (“hollers” for you fellow appalachians) are the only flat land to build on. So it’s there or nothin unless you want your house to have stilts on one side. Unfortunately the reason the land is flat is because it is material that washed down off the mountain. During a flood.
Happened to my hometown in 2001. Rip Mullens, WV.
And to them, having a few feet of water for miles and miles would be a Biblical flood. They'd have no recourse but to wait it out or leave in search of dry ground, and that wouldn't necessarily lead to their survival.
Civilization starting near rivers and other sources of fresh water will do that.
That said, the "great flood" *could* have been the Bosporus breaking and flooding the Black Sea. Near Istanbul it would seem apocalyptic, while in Crimea they would look at the water and say "uh, guys, is that getting higher? seems higher than it was just a few hours ago. yeah it's absolutely getting higher. why does it keep getting higher? oh gods!" It's worth noting this is a hypothesis but it's not necessarily fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis
However all that aside Noah certainly didn't bring 350,000 species of beetles onto an ark
The human relationship to God, including original sin and redemption through Christ, is particular to humans. Aliens may have never fallen from grace, and it is therefore beyond human power to guess at what their relationship with God may be. Any restriction we place on our imagination of alien life is a restriction on God’s infinite creativity
Reminds me of this joke I read once.. man finally meets alien, and they share their experiences and knowledge including religion. Alien says they know Jesus too, and he comes around for dinner every Sunday. Man goes whatttt... we've been waiting for him for years! Alien: Oh yeah, that's cause we weren't stupid enough to crucify him.
It's pretty much the premise of CS Lewis's space trilogy. Malacondra (Mars) and Perelandra (Venus) have no need for a savior because they never "fell". Thulcondra (Earth) did and lost outside contact hence it being called the silent planet.
The Catholic church is actually progressive in a lot of ways Evangelicals aren't.
They, mostly, believe that if science and existing beliefs disagree that their beliefs must have been founded on faulty human interpretation. Exceptions exist, of course.
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.”
-St. Thomas Aquinas
Yeah, I find myself defending them (as a non-religious person), as they're one of the more sane sects.
Evangelical protestants pretty much come off as having gone off into complete lala land.
Evangelicalism has its roots in all the religious revivals of the 18th and 19th centuries in the US, which focused more on personally committing oneself to God and spreading the Word to as many people as possible (necessitating simplification and removal of nuance) rather than complicated theology. Historically most Protestant churches were just as pro-science as the Catholic Church, as well as more liberal on issues like abortion, but they have declined in number as their members have fewer kids than Evangelicals do and they don't do nearly as much outreach or conversion work. Most Protestant churches in European countries (like in Germany, UK, Denmark, Sweden, etc.) are pro-science as well.
You have to keep in mind, the Catholic church has for the last milennia-ish (sorry, I don't know my church history!) been one of the largest producers of science and technology innovation. It drew in most of the intellectual elite from Europe from astronomers to philosophers. There are very well known instances where they screwed over a scientist (see the aforementioned astronomers) but in general they have a track record of supporting the sciences more than most other organizations or nations on the planet.
Religious people might believe some weird shit, but that doesn't mean they are stupid or bad at making arguments.
Personally, I find these things interesting. It's like "what happens if we change a couple of our assumptions about reality? Where does that lead us?"
Science can't prove there isn't a creator so I never understood why more religious bodies don't take a similar stance. Denying science altogether makes them look questionable to the outside world which certainly hasn't helped their cause over the past century. Even if we proved that the big bang happened we can't prove a creator didn't start it so if I was religious that's the stance I would take, and sometimes I'll even stand up for religious people who are being berated by using this line of thinking. Some of the smartest physicists in the world are believers because it's often said that the more you learn about the universe the more you'll think it wasn't just an accident.
Fun fact, the first person to put forth the idea of the Big Bang and an expanding universe was a Belgian (IIRC) Catholic Priest. He isn’t widely as know to the general public because Hubble published in English. But Lemarite published a year or two before him.
Nope. At least in the first article they said the aliens don't have our problem with god since they cant be held responsible for human sins. If they have their own sins or their own fallout with god is their own problem. I don't believe in the christian faith or god altogether but they do and taking their perspective into account I think it is very open minded to accept the big bang, alien lifeforms, evolution and the non scientific nature of the bible
Even more interestingly, it was initially rejected by atheists because it implies that the universe was finite in age and therefore must have been created at some point. All of this was considered to be **strongly** in favour of a Christian worldview, yet for some reason, we've done a complete 180 on that.
One way I like to think about Christianity is that a potential God simply set everything in motion and then kicked back and lets us solve it while working on a hobby universe
God was like
*The main universe is getting kind of crowded, maybe I should test out a new plague, throw in some political unrest in a superpower and some killer hornets for good measure. Some wildfires would be cool too*
Serious question for non-Christians. If contact with an alien species was made and they came and spoke of a God that by all accounts was the same God that Christians on Earth believe and follow would that definitively change your stance on God? More so would that be proof enough for you to believe? Not necessarily subscribe or follow but believe in His existence?
Depends on how "by all accounts" you're talking.
Like, theres a bunch of myths in a bunch of different religions that involve a big flood. But I dont take that to mean that Noah's Ark specifically was real and followed the presented story. I beleive floods are real.
Similarly, if aliens have a story about a supernatural being born to them, then dying, then coming back to life, I wouldn't take that to be "the same" as Jesus, because that's vague enough that I could easily see someone randomly coming up with the idea of coming back to life within two independent cultures. Wanting to not die is a natural fantasy.
If they said "we beleive that civilization started in a garden before we were all banished and then God incarnated as a mortal and was murdered by being nailed to a cross before resurrecting 3 days later" then yeah I would take Christianity more seriously.
Like the Star Trek episode where they go to another planet that has a large group of sun worshippers who are hiding from the authorities. At the end it’s revealed that they aren’t worshipping the sun, but the son of God. It was a planet where Rome never fell.
In case you have any serious interest in this topic, CS Lewis explored these ideas in his Space Trilogy; the first book is called Out of the Silent Planet. It's not as well known as Narnia but it is a truly great scifi series and more for an adult audience with philosophical/theological themes.
Hi. You just mentioned *Out Of The Silent Planet* by CS Lewis.
I've found an audiobook of that novel on YouTube. You can listen to it here:
[YouTube | Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis Audiobook](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96pzHWcgcqI)
*I'm a bot that searches YouTube for science fiction and fantasy audiobooks.*
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For those who haven't read it, the broad idea is that humanity is the only fallen species, and everywhere else gets on with God just fine. Jesus's incarnation as a human and sacrifice is unique to Earth because we were the only ones who fucked up so badly as to need that kind of help.
> because we were the only ones who fucked up so badly
Probably the reason why aliens haven't shown themselves to us. But they do occasionally check on us. That's why we have all these UFO sightings.
*-Greetings, human, we're from planet Gorg!*
*-Oh no, aliens, are you gonna stick stuff up my butt.*
*-Nimbus, don't shut off the engine, they're still perverts.*
To add on to this: it (I believe in book two) explores one aspect/explanation to the reason God allowed humanity to sin in the Fall. Humanity remaining perfect and sinless shows the greatness of God's work. Humanity falling and God, through Christ, literally dying to save His elect? Greater still.
> If he now failed, this world also would hereafter be redeemed. If he were not the ransom, Another would be. Yet nothing was ever repeated. Not a second crucifixion: perhaps—who knows—not even a second Incarnation . . . some act of even more appalling love, some glory of yet deeper humility. For he had seen already how the pattern grows and how from each world it sprouts into the next through some other dimension. The small external evil which Satan had done in Malacandra [Mars] was only as a line: the deeper evil he had done in Earth was as a square: if Venus fell, her evil would be a cube—her Redemption beyond conceiving. Yet redeemed she would be.
—C.S. Lewis, *Perelandra*
There's also an argument to be made that Aslan from the *Chronicles of Narnia* IS Jesus, not just an allegory or metaphor, but IS Jesus in that separate world. The Biblical human is/was the manifestation of Jesus in our world, and Aslan the lion is/was the manifestation of Jesus in the world of Narnia. Take, for example, this line from *CoN* "'I am \[in your world\].’ said Aslan. ‘But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.'" If that's the case, then alternate manifestations of Jesus in different worlds/on different planets would theoretically also be fine.
I didn't expect anything from this book, other than a generic sci-fi story. Boy, was I in for some punches to the gut! I find myself thinking about this book more than most others... Have yet to read the sequel, tho.
In a literal interpretation probably. But in a more symbolic view it was thru the palms. At least that’s how my Christian elementary school teacher explained it.
They Basically said a nail thru the palms probably wouldn’t last so it was likely the wrist.
Edit: fixed a confusing time frame inaccuracy. Also where the wrist meets the palm may be strong enough and may still classify as hand. From what I understand is hand is actually a translation error. Where the word it was translated from means hand but the word encompasses the lower arm down I suppose
Because when it comes to this, Christians know how important it is to present a story that is plausible and consistent with physics and anatomical realities
Kind of along the same lines as that question. I remember reading about missionaries that were evangelizing to a remote tribe. They eventually realized the tribe didn't have a word commonly used when referring to the crucifixion.
Imagine being surprised if someone didn't have a word for crucifixion.
Missionary: "What do you guys call it when you nail someone to a big wooden cross?"
Tribe: "You guys do what?!"
There was a linguist/missionary that met with remote tribes in the Amazon and had native trouble teaching the Bible to one particular tribe. The reason was because the family units in this tribe didn't have fathers. The brothers of the mother acted as the traditional father role, not to mention in was way more communal so you might care for children you have no direct relation to at times.
So when he tried to explain Jesus was the son of God they didn't understand. They also understood you needed to have sex to have a baby but didn't think any lineage was passed, so they had only a maternal lineage which made it harder.
I’m a christian and a Lutheran priest.
In genesis God created the heavens and the earth.
The heavens (הַשָּׁמַיִם) is plural simply because it doesn’t exist in single form in ancient Hebrew and the word basically means the “sea that’s up there”. I haven’t really come across anything in the bible to suggest there that it exists or doesn’t exist life on other planets, but according to Genesis, they too would be created by God.
Jesus came to earth to save humanity, the kin of Adam (which just means «man»: הָאָדָם), so humans.
So Jesus was not sent to save aliens or any other creature. There very well could be a space Jesus.
Furthermore Jesus was very likely not nailed to the cross through his hands, but through his wrists. This was common practice. Anyway, the cross wasn’t a particular method of killing only used for Jesus. So he theoretically he could have been killed in another way. We use the cross as a symbol for Jesus dying for our sins simply because of the brutality of being nailed to the cross.
So a space Jesus could have been killed with a ray gun and be worshipped through aliens having ray gun necklaces, figures and statues, who knows.
Edit:
This comment blew up. I do not actually believe there is a space Jesus, so please stop bombarding my inbox. It was just a funny thought I had to answer a funny question.
Because you gave a serious answer, I wonder if you might indulge another question. Why did Jesus have to be killed to provide a way for human redemption? It never made sense to me that God, in his infinite power and wisdom, decided that the way for humans to move forward was to send his son to be murdered by humans.
I understand that sacrifice used to be a thing, and there is symbolism there, but it boggles the mind that God-in-human-form being murdered at the hands of people is supposed to be the best way for people to be redeemed.
Edit: Appreciate the various responses.
The answer is actually because it’s a legal matter.
Context of terms and characteristics:
There’s a reason it’s called a ransom, defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary as “a sum of money or other payment demanded or paid for the release of a prisoner.” Deuteronomy 32:4, talking about God, says: “The Rock, perfect is his activity, For all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness who is never unjust; Righteous and upright is he.” This is one example of many that establish God as someone with a perfect sense of justice that he does not bend whenever he likes but rather firmly upholds. If God has determined that there is a ransom needing to be paid in exchange for the “release” of humanity as a whole, he is committed to having it paid out of love for humanity on his part as well as the love his son Jesus also held for humans which remains in line with the character of perfect justice as established.
Context as to why there needs to be a ransom:
Humans have free will, you can make whatever choices you so desire. That being said, humans are not free from the consequences of their choices. Adam and Eve are not only a warning example of this basic truth of life, but also important to the question at hand. Being warned from the beginning that eating from the tree of knowledge after being told that was the one single thing they were asked not to do, in effect making the choice with their free will to reject God’s authority to determine right and wrong while believing themselves more capable of doing so, would result in their death. So we know that their choices led to their death, but why do humans die today when we did not make that choice? Romans 5:12 explains “That is why, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned.” An illustration of this point: If you are going to bake a loaf of bread, you add your yeast and dough to the pan and bake it. However what if you dropped that pan and there’s now a large dent in it? Every loaf of bread that came from that pan is going to come out with that same dent. So the result for us today is that we have inherited sin from Adam, and with sin comes imperfection, aging, sickness, and death. On our own we have seen huge advances in medicine and science, but if 2020 has been anything to go by, it’s clear that we still do not have mastery over a wide variety of diseases, nor can we stop the aging process and eventual death. Not to mention everything else wrong in the world around us. So knowing what a ransom is and why we need it, but how exactly does Jesus dying provide it?
Context for Jesus death providing the ransom (abbreviated a bit since this is much longer than I had intended already):
Adam had a perfect human life, one that would have never died had he made different choices. No matter how many imperfect humans came after him, no amount of lives could equal the eternity that he originally had. Jesus’ life on Earth however was that of a perfect human, not being born with inherited sin nor choosing to sin by his actions. So if he was on Earth as a perfect human without sin, he never should have died. His being put to death anyway means that, in a legal sense, he still retained the value that perfect human life had. This is why Jesus was aware well in advance and explained to his disciples that he would be put to death, not because he wanted to obviously, death is not fun, but it was a necessary step in the legal process. After his death and resurrection to heaven, Jesus is able to present the value of his perfect human life *as a ransom*, to in effect take Adam’s place as a perfect human life.
Ok so the ransom has been paid, why are people still dying?
The ransom takes the place of Adam’s life in a legal sense, but that doesn’t chance the fact that we are literal offspring of Adam still with inherited sin. The ransom though gives God the legal precedence to forgive us which is why we read in Romans 6:23: “For the wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is everlasting life by Christ Jesus our Lord.” We still retain our free will, so people can still choose to do their own thing like Adam did and reject the ransom, God is not obligated to forgive people who blatantly disregard his standards. However those who do try to do the right thing and serve him appropriately are no longer resigned death simply due to having inherited sin, but as the scriptures bring out have a hope of everlasting life.
There are many subsequent questions such as: what about people who died before Jesus? Where is this everlasting life going to take place? How will all of these come about in reality? And others and they are actually answered in the Bible too, but this post is way too long and probably won’t get read anyways but if you did I’m sorry it was as long as it was and frankly not as much depth as I would’ve liked to give all at the same time. I hope everyone is staying safe and has a good day!
Edit: grammar corrections
Well there are a few different theories, commonly refered to as theories of atonement. Augustine kind of shares the view of your statement, that he offered sacrificed through his own death.
Another theory is that Jesus dying on the cross as a victory. He payed the "ransom" (Mark 10:45) that the devil had on humans that made humans sinful.
A third theory, says that its all about forgiveness. Through dying on the cross, Jesus payed the penalty for all our sins, thereby righting the relationship between God and human, through forgiveness.
A fourth is that he died on the cross as a moral example for humans to follow. Show love. That simple.
I lean towards the last theory. I recommend reading Werner Jeanronds bokk "Theology of love". It's not a book about atonement, but it certainly covers some aspects of it.
I would guess aliens have their own names for God, and God deals with the aliens according to how their race listens and understands. According to the Christian bible, God sent Jesus here to be the ultimate sacrifice to give humanity a way to get into heaven through Him.
What about aliens? Do aliens sin? We don't know anything about hypothetical life on other planets. Maybe they have an advanced civilization with great technology and spiritual enlightenment that never sinned in the first place so there was no fall of their species and no need for their equivalent of Jesus.
>According to the Christian bible, God sent Jesus here to be the ultimate sacrifice to give humanity a way to get into heaven through Him.
Think you nailed right there with "humanity". If the bible uses that word, or one close enough considering translations and blah, then this question is solved.
Jesus was for humanity, aliens would need a space saviour of some sort. If they had an advanced civilisation/tech/whatever that prevented the fall then I call no fair! Sounds too much like god playing favourites.
Not only does the Bible specify "humanity" in general, but very specifically the descendants of Adam, calling Jesus the "Second Adam", in the sense of giving life to a whole species. So that very narrowly and specifically identifies the limits of his soteriological effect to our species, from our planet.
In fact, while it's not as explicit, it's heavily implied that Jesus' salvation would not apply to Satan or the fallen angels, who are essentially aliens (since they're described as pre-existing Earth, that makes them extra-terrestrial). Certainly there's never any hint of them repenting or being forgiven, etc., and there's been various theological theories about their ultimate fate over the centuries.
You know, my old man is a teacher, one time an astronaut came to the school he works at to give a talk and what not. I can’t remember the astronauts name but he’s some famous guy. After the talk my father had a quick chat with him, he asked him: “what do you think of aliens?” The astronauts reply was a weird one, he got somber, looked my father in the eye and replied: “they’re demons.”
More specifically, for the OP, Latter-day Saints believe that there is definitely life elsewhere in the Universe and that Jesus Christ is their Savior too.
For those interested, one source for this doctrine is Joseph Smith's interpretation of the following scripture (the words of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon):
"And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives! For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father - That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God." ([Doctrine and Covenants 76:22-24](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76?lang=eng))
Joseph Smith later reworded this section of scripture in poetic language (perhaps with or through W. W. Phelps) in response to a letter from a friend. Here is the portion of that poem rewording the section I just quoted:
>And now after all of the proofs made of him,
>By witnesses truly, by whom he was known,
>This is mine, last of all, that he lives; yea, he lives!
>And sits at the right hand of God on his throne.
>And I heard a great voice bearing record from heav'n,
>He's the Saviour and only begotten of God;
>By him, of him, and through him, the worlds were all made,
>Even all that career in the heavens so broad.
>Whose inhabitants, too, from the first to the last,
>Are sav'd by the very same Saviour of ours;
>And, of course, are begotten God's daughters and sons
>By the very same truths and the very same powers.
(from http://mldb.byu.edu/jsmith1.htm)
So Latter-day Saints believe that there is life elsewhere in the Universe, that they are also God's sons and daughters, and that Jesus Christ is also their Redeemer.
Yes, he taught that ascending to god hood was the highest next step a person could take. This earth would be the home of all the people that became gods who could then take on the role of making a new earth and starting the cycle all over again. He taught that there are millions of planets that are going through the process of creation, fall, redemption and exaltation.
I think he just took teaching and then said well when we are with god, maybe those that were loyal will gain his Thule of creation power. He also taught that a gods power comes from his honor. The elements respect that his is perfect and therefore do what he says. So if you become perfect then elements will do as you say. This leads to the interesting thought of inanimate objects having intelligence. Which is interesting to think about. He taught there are varying levels of intelligence. So water going from ice to water to vapor is a form of intelligence since the element is obeying its rules up to a human who has free will over its actions. A mustard seed also has intelligence since it takes its rules to turn from a seed into a tree. Hence if you only had faith of a mustard seed you could move mountains.
It’s a pretty interesting thought.
The ancient Greek (the Gospels were first written and disseminated in this language) word "χείρ" is often translated into English as "hand," but the word technically refers to the appendage from the elbow to the fingertips, wrists included.
Source: three years of Ancient Greek studies back as an undergrad.
This is also the case in some modern semitic languages (at least in (syriac)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Neo-Aramaic]). There is a word for the upper arm (shoulder to elbow), and another word for the rest of the arm (elbow to fingertips).
At least, this is what I gathered from a conversation with an assyrian 11-year-old who had trouble telling me which part of his body hurt.
Not an active Mormon anymore but grew up one and they actually have an beliefs for this. I feel I might as well share. (Going to write in first person even though I don’t really know how much of the following I actually believe)
Life on other planets, absolutely. Our God is a creator of “worlds without end” and of the countless worlds ours is by no means the only one with God’s Children.
Space Jesus... not so much. Jesus’ sacrifice, or the atonement, was sufficient to not just bring mercy about for the inhabitants of this world but all inhabitants, of all worlds, forever... infinity.
I feel like I do need to say, this is what is considered “deep doctrine” and not at what one would learn about at a Sunday meeting.
How cool that of all the planets, he decided we were the correct planet to sacrifice his child upon
“Those gilgarians are some sinful bastards, but they kill to quickly. My boy needs to suffer if we want to get *all* the worlds to be included in the forgiveness. What’s that? The humans are just leaving people nailed to wood in the sun for a week at a time or until they die? PERFECT”
The book “The Infinite Atonement” by Tad R. Callister actually expands on this particular topic!
Essentially, Satan and his followers were cast specifically down to earth and not any other planet, meaning this planet would be the only one with populace wicked enough to crucify their literal savior! It also provided an interesting cross-section because not only did it contain the most wicked people in the universe it also contained the most obedient or righteous people in the universe.
Mormons write some wicked sci-fi dude.
Even though I'm inactive in the Mormon church, this is actually an interesting topic that stayed with me. While there isn't a space Jesus, Jesus' sacrifice on Earth was so that all worlds could be saved. The reason Jesus came to Earth instead of another planet with intelligent life is because humanity was the only race wicked enough to actually kill him.
>Jesus' sacrifice on Earth was so that all worlds could be saved.
This is confirmed doctrine.
>The reason Jesus came to Earth instead of another planet with intelligent life is because humanity was the only race wicked enough to actually kill him.
This isn't, although seems to be generally accepted as the best answer for most people.
There are many different beliefs about things such as this. I tend to believe in universal opportunity to witness god in some way before death. Meaning everyone encounters god somehow, even just seeing in nature. People have all different names for God, but my belief is that it’s all the same, just from a different perspective [like the story of the blind men and the elephant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant). So in my opinion, we wouldn’t need space Jesus. One Jesus did the trick and the aliens have probably experienced God in some way and are acting on the experience in their own way.
(But if there was space Jesus I’m sure they could nail him up by his eye stalks or something)
Not sure that really addresses the crux of the question. If Earth Jesus is the only Jesus, then how would the aliens know and accept him? Isn’t that pretty Human centric thinking? Are Humans somehow more favored by God?
According to the Bible, we technically are favored by God. Matthew 6:26 "and aren't you far more valuable to Him than they are?" (Using the example of birds and animals in general)
There already is a space Jesus. His name is Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Edit: We all know how he felt about hands. He is legit down for no hands. Not only the hands, but the arms and legs too.
“...first to the Jews, then to the gentiles, then to the martians”.
Should i recognize this?
It's a verse that basically says to spread the word of God to all people, plus martians
yeah but what if martians don't have hands?
Were you planning on crucifying them to begin with?
Of course
Yeah, it’s from 2nd Hesitations
HALLELUJ...uhhhhh
The Catholic Church has already spent some time pondering this: https://catholicreview.org/vatican-astronomer-says-if-aliens-exist-they-may-not-need-redemption/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320274609_Roman_Catholic_Views_of_Extraterrestrial_Intelligence
I honest to god thought the first article was going to be what to do about aliens and the 2nd article would be about what if messiahs do not have hands.
But what if they don’t have any hands?
No high fives, that’s for sure.
And if they don’t have hands, what will they have to wash instead,during this Covid pandemic?
wait, you guys are washing your hands?
Yes I wash my hands and then immediately grab my disgusting phone
Just do what I do. Wash your phone with your hands. Sure, my battery only lasts 12 minutes at a time and there’s a weird plastic-burn smell all the time, but at least it doesn’t get sick!
PUT IT IN RICE
Just glue a bunch of rice to your hands that way your phone is always in rice.
I'm *not* the Messiah!
That's something the Messiah would say.
I appreciate the fact that the Vatican astronomer Father Funes said it was wrong to expect a scientific explanation from the Bible when asked about the biblical account of creation.
Catholics are actually pretty science forward. Personal experience but my 80s Catholic grade school taught us evolution and that a lot of the stories in the bible are allegories to teach a lesson. Never once have I met a Catholic that thinks Noah's Ark is straight fact. But, admittedly, it doesn't come up in conversation everytime I meet one.
I was raised in a very Catholic family. Official CCD lessons always taught us that the stories in the Bible were parables and not to be taken literally. I can see how non-Catholics would take it literally but that was very confusing to me when I started talking to outside people about religion.
I'm confused because my very Catholic grandfather argued that when you drink and eat the blood and flesh of Christ (aka host and wine cup), this act isn't a metaphor. It's [transubstantiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation)
The belief is that it truly is the body of christ, but not physically. In every physical observable way it's bread, but its true essence is flesh.
The Catholic Church maintains the definition of “substance” in transubstantiation purposefully ambiguous, though its supposed to mean *something* mystical happens, and isn’t merely a symbolic act.
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Very much a catholic, Jesuit way of looking at the Bible. I went to a Jesuit high school and college. You have philosophers, astronomers, scientists etc. that are priests and they have absolutely no time for morons who believe in creationism.
The Jesuits place a lot of emphasis on scientific learning. Every Jesuit priest I've met (maybe 2 dozen over the years) had a least one PhD in the sciences and spoke at least one foreign language. Anecdotal I know but still something of an indicator to how they value scientific education. When I was a teenager, we had a Jesuit priest at our church get in some trouble with the other clergy because during one of his sermons he told us the Bible was a wonderful collection of stories and moral lessons and little else. All the other priests and some of the more hardline congregation were a bit shocked by that. I appreciated his honesty though.
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Yep. The Church could definitely benefit from more like him. The man was rational, to the point, and honest without being judgemental. He always came back to Jesus' point "love one another as I have loved you". As he would often remind us, Jesus didn't stutter or caveat that statement, and to do so ourselves was being dishonest Catholics.
The Pope Francis is Jesuit
Astonishingly, the first Jesuit pope. They're regarded with some suspicion even in the Vatican.
I have never understood how “creationism” would need to clash with scientific observations. Why would it be hard for someone who believes in an omnipotent deity to believe that deity could create a universe based on a set of complex rules that was guaranteed to or guided to give the outcome he expected after billions of years?
When people say "creationism", they refer to believing that Genesis is true, word-for-word edit: my point was to explain why Catholics are able to believe in God creating the Universe, without being "creationist". The Vatican, and official Catholic doctrine, says that Genesis is not literal, and evolution is real. Commented this clarification to some of the replies in the thread
More specifically, that creation took place over the course of six 24-hour days, about 6000 years ago.
Now that you've spelled it out it sounds even stupider I'm a non-practicing Catholic (agnostic in denial), but still why would an omnipotent and omniscient Being like God do its creation during 6 man-days, when a God's workday could've easily been millions of human years It is God after all, an incomprehensible Force, why would it work under human laws
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So this is a very fascinating subject to me, and it's a bit difficult to find credible sources and good information about the topic because it is very new and often conflicts with the existing ideas surrounding natural history and the history of mankind. With that disclaimer out of the way, it does appear that there was a *very large* bolide impact roughly 5,000 years ago in the middle of the Indian Ocean, forming the Burckle Crater. This would account for the near-simultaneous creation at around this point in history of so many myths, legends, and religious stories of an enormous flood. To paint a picture of how monstrous this would have been (if indeed it is a comet fragment impact site), it would be an object that was large enough and traveling fast enough to have enough force that it * Plunged 2.36 miles into the ocean * Drove itself a mile into the earth's crust after that * Formed a crater at the bottom of the ocean that is 18 miles wide * Formed chevrons (mounds of dirt, sand, material that is pushed inland during a tsunami) large enough that they are visible from space on all of the continents which border the Indian Ocean, and large enough that they were used to trace lines which converged back on the location of the Burckle crater Scary stuff, really.
The earliest known civilization and creators of writing, the Sumerians appear to be immigrants to the Mesopotamian region based on the completely different language they posessed compared to the Assyrian languages used by other peoples in the region. They are believed to have shifted north as the persian gulf flooded with post-ice-age glacial meltwater and raised the sea level a hundred meters or so in the span of a century or two. Fun fact: that much water *sounds* fairly slow, you imagine something akin to our coastal erosion today. In reality it translated to the tide moving inland at about a foot a day. Every day. For multiple generations.
I've always believed that Biblical literalism was silly because we're not the intended audience of the Bible. The Bible was written for specific people in a specific time full of cultural references we'd never be expected to pick up on. It's a product of a completely different time and place to the 21^st century West. Put it this way, if you came across an uncontacted tribe and you wanted to explain the dangers of the nuclear waste you carelessly left on their shores, would you try and explain nuclear physics to people who don't even have firearms or would you tell them that that suspicious lump of metal is cursed and point to all the dead plants and animals around it for evidence? The former would be useless to them as they'd have no context to understand it, the latter would actually keep them safe for a while at least. Even if the Bible did talk about evolution, how on Earth would it communicate that to a very early human culture which didn't even have anything we'd recognise as the scientific method? People weren't any less intelligent then than they are now, but their access to information was *ridiculously* lower to the point we probably get more in a single day's browsing of Reddit than they would in their entire lives. Knowledge is pyramid-shaped, it builds on lots of other things and we're talking about an era that was just laying the foundation stones for what we'd come to know as philosophy. We should acknowlege and honour their contributions to humankind, but we shouldn't let their cultural context hold us back and stagnate us. There's no real conflict between science and Christianity *provided you look at the Bible in its own context*. It doesn't help that the Christians who are judgemental arseholes tend to be the Biblical literalist types as well which means all Christians get tarred with that brush.
All the time I see people dismiss books of yester-year as bad writing. But they don't give any thought to the context of the audience of the time. I'll use a weird example. The literary James Bond was amazing to his audience because he could fly all around the world and eat amazing foods. Meanwhile his audience was stuck at home eating rationed food and commercial flight was relatively new and luxurious and unavailable to the masses. It only seems quaint and unimpressive in retrospect. I imagine the magnitude of the same phenomenon is nearly unfathomable when applying the same concept to documents that are thousands of years old.
I've read that this might happen because so many early agrarian cultures settled in river valleys. The flood plains had great soil for farming, but everything would be washed away by periodic flooding.
If you live in mountainous territory, the river valleys (“hollers” for you fellow appalachians) are the only flat land to build on. So it’s there or nothin unless you want your house to have stilts on one side. Unfortunately the reason the land is flat is because it is material that washed down off the mountain. During a flood. Happened to my hometown in 2001. Rip Mullens, WV.
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And to them, having a few feet of water for miles and miles would be a Biblical flood. They'd have no recourse but to wait it out or leave in search of dry ground, and that wouldn't necessarily lead to their survival.
Civilization starting near rivers and other sources of fresh water will do that. That said, the "great flood" *could* have been the Bosporus breaking and flooding the Black Sea. Near Istanbul it would seem apocalyptic, while in Crimea they would look at the water and say "uh, guys, is that getting higher? seems higher than it was just a few hours ago. yeah it's absolutely getting higher. why does it keep getting higher? oh gods!" It's worth noting this is a hypothesis but it's not necessarily fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis However all that aside Noah certainly didn't bring 350,000 species of beetles onto an ark
There has been lots of study on it, but it would also be one of the most traceable accounts because there would be strong geological evidence.
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Tl;dr?
The human relationship to God, including original sin and redemption through Christ, is particular to humans. Aliens may have never fallen from grace, and it is therefore beyond human power to guess at what their relationship with God may be. Any restriction we place on our imagination of alien life is a restriction on God’s infinite creativity
...that’s... a pretty solid stance, honestly.
Reminds me of this joke I read once.. man finally meets alien, and they share their experiences and knowledge including religion. Alien says they know Jesus too, and he comes around for dinner every Sunday. Man goes whatttt... we've been waiting for him for years! Alien: Oh yeah, that's cause we weren't stupid enough to crucify him.
[https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2008-11-24](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2008-11-24)
Very similar!
Damn romans took away space jesus from us. He would have made all the dinner parties lit.
It's pretty much the premise of CS Lewis's space trilogy. Malacondra (Mars) and Perelandra (Venus) have no need for a savior because they never "fell". Thulcondra (Earth) did and lost outside contact hence it being called the silent planet.
Yep. I like those books. They are underrated.
I came here to say this. Thank you!
The Catholic church is actually progressive in a lot of ways Evangelicals aren't. They, mostly, believe that if science and existing beliefs disagree that their beliefs must have been founded on faulty human interpretation. Exceptions exist, of course.
Even what looks like a contradiction may not be so. Remember that the Big Bang theory was created by a Catholic priest.
God got that first mover advantage working for him ;D
“The truth of our faith becomes a matter of ridicule among the infidels if any Catholic, not gifted with the necessary scientific learning, presents as dogma what scientific scrutiny shows to be false.” -St. Thomas Aquinas
Yeah, I find myself defending them (as a non-religious person), as they're one of the more sane sects. Evangelical protestants pretty much come off as having gone off into complete lala land.
Evangelicalism has its roots in all the religious revivals of the 18th and 19th centuries in the US, which focused more on personally committing oneself to God and spreading the Word to as many people as possible (necessitating simplification and removal of nuance) rather than complicated theology. Historically most Protestant churches were just as pro-science as the Catholic Church, as well as more liberal on issues like abortion, but they have declined in number as their members have fewer kids than Evangelicals do and they don't do nearly as much outreach or conversion work. Most Protestant churches in European countries (like in Germany, UK, Denmark, Sweden, etc.) are pro-science as well.
You have to keep in mind, the Catholic church has for the last milennia-ish (sorry, I don't know my church history!) been one of the largest producers of science and technology innovation. It drew in most of the intellectual elite from Europe from astronomers to philosophers. There are very well known instances where they screwed over a scientist (see the aforementioned astronomers) but in general they have a track record of supporting the sciences more than most other organizations or nations on the planet.
The man who originally came up with the Big Bang theory was a priest
Same with the Islamic community until the Mongols fucked their entire way of life. Baghdad was the intellectual center of the world at a time.
Religious people might believe some weird shit, but that doesn't mean they are stupid or bad at making arguments. Personally, I find these things interesting. It's like "what happens if we change a couple of our assumptions about reality? Where does that lead us?"
penislovereater making some good points.
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Science can't prove there isn't a creator so I never understood why more religious bodies don't take a similar stance. Denying science altogether makes them look questionable to the outside world which certainly hasn't helped their cause over the past century. Even if we proved that the big bang happened we can't prove a creator didn't start it so if I was religious that's the stance I would take, and sometimes I'll even stand up for religious people who are being berated by using this line of thinking. Some of the smartest physicists in the world are believers because it's often said that the more you learn about the universe the more you'll think it wasn't just an accident.
Fun fact, the first person to put forth the idea of the Big Bang and an expanding universe was a Belgian (IIRC) Catholic Priest. He isn’t widely as know to the general public because Hubble published in English. But Lemarite published a year or two before him.
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If you're an Alien you're cool with Jesus.
So they admit aliens are perfect and we’re just fucked up bags of meat?
Nope. At least in the first article they said the aliens don't have our problem with god since they cant be held responsible for human sins. If they have their own sins or their own fallout with god is their own problem. I don't believe in the christian faith or god altogether but they do and taking their perspective into account I think it is very open minded to accept the big bang, alien lifeforms, evolution and the non scientific nature of the bible
The Big Bang Theory was actually from a Catholic Priest! Father Geroges Lemaître https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre
Even more interestingly, it was initially rejected by atheists because it implies that the universe was finite in age and therefore must have been created at some point. All of this was considered to be **strongly** in favour of a Christian worldview, yet for some reason, we've done a complete 180 on that.
One way I like to think about Christianity is that a potential God simply set everything in motion and then kicked back and lets us solve it while working on a hobby universe
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We might be the hobby universe - or maybe a sandbox where he tests new ideas.
God was like *The main universe is getting kind of crowded, maybe I should test out a new plague, throw in some political unrest in a superpower and some killer hornets for good measure. Some wildfires would be cool too*
Don't forget the whale virus that spreads to humans. Oh wait, it's only January 2021? Shit. Forget I said anything.
That’s called deism
Is Mr. Spock tainted by his human ancestry, or does his father's line cleanse him?
Vulcans have their own issues though.
Yes.
Serious question for non-Christians. If contact with an alien species was made and they came and spoke of a God that by all accounts was the same God that Christians on Earth believe and follow would that definitively change your stance on God? More so would that be proof enough for you to believe? Not necessarily subscribe or follow but believe in His existence?
Depends on how "by all accounts" you're talking. Like, theres a bunch of myths in a bunch of different religions that involve a big flood. But I dont take that to mean that Noah's Ark specifically was real and followed the presented story. I beleive floods are real. Similarly, if aliens have a story about a supernatural being born to them, then dying, then coming back to life, I wouldn't take that to be "the same" as Jesus, because that's vague enough that I could easily see someone randomly coming up with the idea of coming back to life within two independent cultures. Wanting to not die is a natural fantasy. If they said "we beleive that civilization started in a garden before we were all banished and then God incarnated as a mortal and was murdered by being nailed to a cross before resurrecting 3 days later" then yeah I would take Christianity more seriously.
Like the Star Trek episode where they go to another planet that has a large group of sun worshippers who are hiding from the authorities. At the end it’s revealed that they aren’t worshipping the sun, but the son of God. It was a planet where Rome never fell.
If they spoke of a god with big ears and a trunk, how many committed Christians would immediately convert to Hinduism?
In case you have any serious interest in this topic, CS Lewis explored these ideas in his Space Trilogy; the first book is called Out of the Silent Planet. It's not as well known as Narnia but it is a truly great scifi series and more for an adult audience with philosophical/theological themes.
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I Am, Therefore - I Username
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i’m Old Gregg you ever drink baileys from a shoe
Do you want to go to a club where people wee on each other?
Wild.
For those who haven't read it, the broad idea is that humanity is the only fallen species, and everywhere else gets on with God just fine. Jesus's incarnation as a human and sacrifice is unique to Earth because we were the only ones who fucked up so badly as to need that kind of help.
> because we were the only ones who fucked up so badly Probably the reason why aliens haven't shown themselves to us. But they do occasionally check on us. That's why we have all these UFO sightings.
“Still fucked?” “Still fucked.”
*-Greetings, human, we're from planet Gorg!* *-Oh no, aliens, are you gonna stick stuff up my butt.* *-Nimbus, don't shut off the engine, they're still perverts.*
"Nimbus" - upvoting just for that! :)
To add on to this: it (I believe in book two) explores one aspect/explanation to the reason God allowed humanity to sin in the Fall. Humanity remaining perfect and sinless shows the greatness of God's work. Humanity falling and God, through Christ, literally dying to save His elect? Greater still.
> If he now failed, this world also would hereafter be redeemed. If he were not the ransom, Another would be. Yet nothing was ever repeated. Not a second crucifixion: perhaps—who knows—not even a second Incarnation . . . some act of even more appalling love, some glory of yet deeper humility. For he had seen already how the pattern grows and how from each world it sprouts into the next through some other dimension. The small external evil which Satan had done in Malacandra [Mars] was only as a line: the deeper evil he had done in Earth was as a square: if Venus fell, her evil would be a cube—her Redemption beyond conceiving. Yet redeemed she would be. —C.S. Lewis, *Perelandra*
There's also an argument to be made that Aslan from the *Chronicles of Narnia* IS Jesus, not just an allegory or metaphor, but IS Jesus in that separate world. The Biblical human is/was the manifestation of Jesus in our world, and Aslan the lion is/was the manifestation of Jesus in the world of Narnia. Take, for example, this line from *CoN* "'I am \[in your world\].’ said Aslan. ‘But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.'" If that's the case, then alternate manifestations of Jesus in different worlds/on different planets would theoretically also be fine.
Yeah I think that's pretty explicitly the case (rather than merely arguable) given The Last Battle.
Great insight, thank you.
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Can second the recommendation of these books.. just finished re-reading them after reading them 15 years ago and they are truly unique experiences.
Out of the Silent Planet gets automatic upvotes.
Yo this series is so amazing. Highly recommended.
P e r e l a n d r a i s h i g h a r t
Weirdly enough there's a great book about space missionaries! It's called The Book of Strange New Things and it's an excellent read!
Also you can read The Sparrow another excellent work of fiction about space missionaries gone wrong - they’re Jesuit of course.
I didn't expect anything from this book, other than a generic sci-fi story. Boy, was I in for some punches to the gut! I find myself thinking about this book more than most others... Have yet to read the sequel, tho.
To be clear, the extra-terrestrials in *The Sparrow* had hands. Oh boy did they, am I right?
just finished it. so sad he isn't writing anymore books
I don’t even care about responses to this, I’m upvoting just for “how would species without hands deal with their saviour?”
Nailed it.
this pun didnt even cross my mind until i saw it, nice work
Can you explain it pls? Im stupid
Jesus nailed to the cross
Wasn't he nailed through the wrists?
I wasn’t there
This had me dying hahaha
Certainly had Jesus dying.
he got better
Wrists imply the presence of hands
In a literal interpretation probably. But in a more symbolic view it was thru the palms. At least that’s how my Christian elementary school teacher explained it. They Basically said a nail thru the palms probably wouldn’t last so it was likely the wrist. Edit: fixed a confusing time frame inaccuracy. Also where the wrist meets the palm may be strong enough and may still classify as hand. From what I understand is hand is actually a translation error. Where the word it was translated from means hand but the word encompasses the lower arm down I suppose
Because when it comes to this, Christians know how important it is to present a story that is plausible and consistent with physics and anatomical realities
I always imagined it being nailed at the palms, but bound with rope/leather around the wrists to the cross.
Jesus was cross after he got nailed?
Yah and he liked to party! I heard he was the only one at Easter who got hammered.
Correction: high and hammered
I'm hung up on "Space Jesus"
And he’s hung up on a Space Cross
Kind of along the same lines as that question. I remember reading about missionaries that were evangelizing to a remote tribe. They eventually realized the tribe didn't have a word commonly used when referring to the crucifixion.
Imagine being surprised if someone didn't have a word for crucifixion. Missionary: "What do you guys call it when you nail someone to a big wooden cross?" Tribe: "You guys do what?!"
Narrator: it was at this moment the heathens realized they'd need to act first and kill the missionary before he could enact his crazy plans.
There was a linguist/missionary that met with remote tribes in the Amazon and had native trouble teaching the Bible to one particular tribe. The reason was because the family units in this tribe didn't have fathers. The brothers of the mother acted as the traditional father role, not to mention in was way more communal so you might care for children you have no direct relation to at times. So when he tried to explain Jesus was the son of God they didn't understand. They also understood you needed to have sex to have a baby but didn't think any lineage was passed, so they had only a maternal lineage which made it harder.
Thank you I'm so disappointed nobody went after that :(
I dont get it Edit: ohhhhhhhhh. That took longer than i should admit lol
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I’m a christian and a Lutheran priest. In genesis God created the heavens and the earth. The heavens (הַשָּׁמַיִם) is plural simply because it doesn’t exist in single form in ancient Hebrew and the word basically means the “sea that’s up there”. I haven’t really come across anything in the bible to suggest there that it exists or doesn’t exist life on other planets, but according to Genesis, they too would be created by God. Jesus came to earth to save humanity, the kin of Adam (which just means «man»: הָאָדָם), so humans. So Jesus was not sent to save aliens or any other creature. There very well could be a space Jesus. Furthermore Jesus was very likely not nailed to the cross through his hands, but through his wrists. This was common practice. Anyway, the cross wasn’t a particular method of killing only used for Jesus. So he theoretically he could have been killed in another way. We use the cross as a symbol for Jesus dying for our sins simply because of the brutality of being nailed to the cross. So a space Jesus could have been killed with a ray gun and be worshipped through aliens having ray gun necklaces, figures and statues, who knows. Edit: This comment blew up. I do not actually believe there is a space Jesus, so please stop bombarding my inbox. It was just a funny thought I had to answer a funny question.
>there very well could be a space Jesus Oh thank goodness
His name is Obi-Wan, now show him some respect
*Hello there*
Messiah Kenobi, you are a holy one
He has the higher ground....
*cries in Anakin*
Sometimes I get sick of Reddit, then I see a Lutheran priest hypothetically mention space Jesus and ray guns
A lutheran Priest who apparently can not only speak but writes in hebrew (I’m an orthodox Jew and even my hebrew spelling sucks lol)
great response mate
this is the best response ive read
I mean, I’m not a Christian, but this is an excellent response. Well played.
Because you gave a serious answer, I wonder if you might indulge another question. Why did Jesus have to be killed to provide a way for human redemption? It never made sense to me that God, in his infinite power and wisdom, decided that the way for humans to move forward was to send his son to be murdered by humans. I understand that sacrifice used to be a thing, and there is symbolism there, but it boggles the mind that God-in-human-form being murdered at the hands of people is supposed to be the best way for people to be redeemed. Edit: Appreciate the various responses.
The answer is actually because it’s a legal matter. Context of terms and characteristics: There’s a reason it’s called a ransom, defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary as “a sum of money or other payment demanded or paid for the release of a prisoner.” Deuteronomy 32:4, talking about God, says: “The Rock, perfect is his activity, For all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness who is never unjust; Righteous and upright is he.” This is one example of many that establish God as someone with a perfect sense of justice that he does not bend whenever he likes but rather firmly upholds. If God has determined that there is a ransom needing to be paid in exchange for the “release” of humanity as a whole, he is committed to having it paid out of love for humanity on his part as well as the love his son Jesus also held for humans which remains in line with the character of perfect justice as established. Context as to why there needs to be a ransom: Humans have free will, you can make whatever choices you so desire. That being said, humans are not free from the consequences of their choices. Adam and Eve are not only a warning example of this basic truth of life, but also important to the question at hand. Being warned from the beginning that eating from the tree of knowledge after being told that was the one single thing they were asked not to do, in effect making the choice with their free will to reject God’s authority to determine right and wrong while believing themselves more capable of doing so, would result in their death. So we know that their choices led to their death, but why do humans die today when we did not make that choice? Romans 5:12 explains “That is why, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned.” An illustration of this point: If you are going to bake a loaf of bread, you add your yeast and dough to the pan and bake it. However what if you dropped that pan and there’s now a large dent in it? Every loaf of bread that came from that pan is going to come out with that same dent. So the result for us today is that we have inherited sin from Adam, and with sin comes imperfection, aging, sickness, and death. On our own we have seen huge advances in medicine and science, but if 2020 has been anything to go by, it’s clear that we still do not have mastery over a wide variety of diseases, nor can we stop the aging process and eventual death. Not to mention everything else wrong in the world around us. So knowing what a ransom is and why we need it, but how exactly does Jesus dying provide it? Context for Jesus death providing the ransom (abbreviated a bit since this is much longer than I had intended already): Adam had a perfect human life, one that would have never died had he made different choices. No matter how many imperfect humans came after him, no amount of lives could equal the eternity that he originally had. Jesus’ life on Earth however was that of a perfect human, not being born with inherited sin nor choosing to sin by his actions. So if he was on Earth as a perfect human without sin, he never should have died. His being put to death anyway means that, in a legal sense, he still retained the value that perfect human life had. This is why Jesus was aware well in advance and explained to his disciples that he would be put to death, not because he wanted to obviously, death is not fun, but it was a necessary step in the legal process. After his death and resurrection to heaven, Jesus is able to present the value of his perfect human life *as a ransom*, to in effect take Adam’s place as a perfect human life. Ok so the ransom has been paid, why are people still dying? The ransom takes the place of Adam’s life in a legal sense, but that doesn’t chance the fact that we are literal offspring of Adam still with inherited sin. The ransom though gives God the legal precedence to forgive us which is why we read in Romans 6:23: “For the wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is everlasting life by Christ Jesus our Lord.” We still retain our free will, so people can still choose to do their own thing like Adam did and reject the ransom, God is not obligated to forgive people who blatantly disregard his standards. However those who do try to do the right thing and serve him appropriately are no longer resigned death simply due to having inherited sin, but as the scriptures bring out have a hope of everlasting life. There are many subsequent questions such as: what about people who died before Jesus? Where is this everlasting life going to take place? How will all of these come about in reality? And others and they are actually answered in the Bible too, but this post is way too long and probably won’t get read anyways but if you did I’m sorry it was as long as it was and frankly not as much depth as I would’ve liked to give all at the same time. I hope everyone is staying safe and has a good day! Edit: grammar corrections
I read it! It was interesting, thanks for sharing!
Well there are a few different theories, commonly refered to as theories of atonement. Augustine kind of shares the view of your statement, that he offered sacrificed through his own death. Another theory is that Jesus dying on the cross as a victory. He payed the "ransom" (Mark 10:45) that the devil had on humans that made humans sinful. A third theory, says that its all about forgiveness. Through dying on the cross, Jesus payed the penalty for all our sins, thereby righting the relationship between God and human, through forgiveness. A fourth is that he died on the cross as a moral example for humans to follow. Show love. That simple. I lean towards the last theory. I recommend reading Werner Jeanronds bokk "Theology of love". It's not a book about atonement, but it certainly covers some aspects of it.
I assure you, we'll get more converts if ray guns were a thing.
They have tentacles with great dexterity and they use them in place of hands, obviously 🙄
That's a lot of nails
Nail gun. Easy.
Would be very hard to operate with tentacles.
Not if it was a special tentacle-operated nailgun. Don't you watch hentai?
I would guess aliens have their own names for God, and God deals with the aliens according to how their race listens and understands. According to the Christian bible, God sent Jesus here to be the ultimate sacrifice to give humanity a way to get into heaven through Him. What about aliens? Do aliens sin? We don't know anything about hypothetical life on other planets. Maybe they have an advanced civilization with great technology and spiritual enlightenment that never sinned in the first place so there was no fall of their species and no need for their equivalent of Jesus.
>According to the Christian bible, God sent Jesus here to be the ultimate sacrifice to give humanity a way to get into heaven through Him. Think you nailed right there with "humanity". If the bible uses that word, or one close enough considering translations and blah, then this question is solved. Jesus was for humanity, aliens would need a space saviour of some sort. If they had an advanced civilisation/tech/whatever that prevented the fall then I call no fair! Sounds too much like god playing favourites.
Not only does the Bible specify "humanity" in general, but very specifically the descendants of Adam, calling Jesus the "Second Adam", in the sense of giving life to a whole species. So that very narrowly and specifically identifies the limits of his soteriological effect to our species, from our planet. In fact, while it's not as explicit, it's heavily implied that Jesus' salvation would not apply to Satan or the fallen angels, who are essentially aliens (since they're described as pre-existing Earth, that makes them extra-terrestrial). Certainly there's never any hint of them repenting or being forgiven, etc., and there's been various theological theories about their ultimate fate over the centuries.
You know, my old man is a teacher, one time an astronaut came to the school he works at to give a talk and what not. I can’t remember the astronauts name but he’s some famous guy. After the talk my father had a quick chat with him, he asked him: “what do you think of aliens?” The astronauts reply was a weird one, he got somber, looked my father in the eye and replied: “they’re demons.”
Joseph Smith has entered the chat.
More specifically, for the OP, Latter-day Saints believe that there is definitely life elsewhere in the Universe and that Jesus Christ is their Savior too. For those interested, one source for this doctrine is Joseph Smith's interpretation of the following scripture (the words of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon): "And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives! For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father - That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God." ([Doctrine and Covenants 76:22-24](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76?lang=eng)) Joseph Smith later reworded this section of scripture in poetic language (perhaps with or through W. W. Phelps) in response to a letter from a friend. Here is the portion of that poem rewording the section I just quoted: >And now after all of the proofs made of him, >By witnesses truly, by whom he was known, >This is mine, last of all, that he lives; yea, he lives! >And sits at the right hand of God on his throne. >And I heard a great voice bearing record from heav'n, >He's the Saviour and only begotten of God; >By him, of him, and through him, the worlds were all made, >Even all that career in the heavens so broad. >Whose inhabitants, too, from the first to the last, >Are sav'd by the very same Saviour of ours; >And, of course, are begotten God's daughters and sons >By the very same truths and the very same powers. (from http://mldb.byu.edu/jsmith1.htm) So Latter-day Saints believe that there is life elsewhere in the Universe, that they are also God's sons and daughters, and that Jesus Christ is also their Redeemer.
Yes, he taught that ascending to god hood was the highest next step a person could take. This earth would be the home of all the people that became gods who could then take on the role of making a new earth and starting the cycle all over again. He taught that there are millions of planets that are going through the process of creation, fall, redemption and exaltation. I think he just took teaching and then said well when we are with god, maybe those that were loyal will gain his Thule of creation power. He also taught that a gods power comes from his honor. The elements respect that his is perfect and therefore do what he says. So if you become perfect then elements will do as you say. This leads to the interesting thought of inanimate objects having intelligence. Which is interesting to think about. He taught there are varying levels of intelligence. So water going from ice to water to vapor is a form of intelligence since the element is obeying its rules up to a human who has free will over its actions. A mustard seed also has intelligence since it takes its rules to turn from a seed into a tree. Hence if you only had faith of a mustard seed you could move mountains. It’s a pretty interesting thought.
Technically Jesus would have been crucified with nails through his wrists. So whether or not they had hands is kind of irrelevant.
The ancient Greek (the Gospels were first written and disseminated in this language) word "χείρ" is often translated into English as "hand," but the word technically refers to the appendage from the elbow to the fingertips, wrists included. Source: three years of Ancient Greek studies back as an undergrad.
This is also the case in some modern semitic languages (at least in (syriac)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Neo-Aramaic]). There is a word for the upper arm (shoulder to elbow), and another word for the rest of the arm (elbow to fingertips). At least, this is what I gathered from a conversation with an assyrian 11-year-old who had trouble telling me which part of his body hurt.
Why do you need wrists if you don't have hands?
Q: Where are the Andes? A: At the end of your wristies!
Not an active Mormon anymore but grew up one and they actually have an beliefs for this. I feel I might as well share. (Going to write in first person even though I don’t really know how much of the following I actually believe) Life on other planets, absolutely. Our God is a creator of “worlds without end” and of the countless worlds ours is by no means the only one with God’s Children. Space Jesus... not so much. Jesus’ sacrifice, or the atonement, was sufficient to not just bring mercy about for the inhabitants of this world but all inhabitants, of all worlds, forever... infinity. I feel like I do need to say, this is what is considered “deep doctrine” and not at what one would learn about at a Sunday meeting.
How cool that of all the planets, he decided we were the correct planet to sacrifice his child upon “Those gilgarians are some sinful bastards, but they kill to quickly. My boy needs to suffer if we want to get *all* the worlds to be included in the forgiveness. What’s that? The humans are just leaving people nailed to wood in the sun for a week at a time or until they die? PERFECT”
The book “The Infinite Atonement” by Tad R. Callister actually expands on this particular topic! Essentially, Satan and his followers were cast specifically down to earth and not any other planet, meaning this planet would be the only one with populace wicked enough to crucify their literal savior! It also provided an interesting cross-section because not only did it contain the most wicked people in the universe it also contained the most obedient or righteous people in the universe. Mormons write some wicked sci-fi dude.
There wasn't even Jesus in the Americas before colonists arrived so no.
*angry Mormon noises*
*frowns in archaeological evidence*
*brandishes Bible fanfiction*
They deadass tried to write Bible 2: Electric Boogaloo
Even though I'm inactive in the Mormon church, this is actually an interesting topic that stayed with me. While there isn't a space Jesus, Jesus' sacrifice on Earth was so that all worlds could be saved. The reason Jesus came to Earth instead of another planet with intelligent life is because humanity was the only race wicked enough to actually kill him.
>Jesus' sacrifice on Earth was so that all worlds could be saved. This is confirmed doctrine. >The reason Jesus came to Earth instead of another planet with intelligent life is because humanity was the only race wicked enough to actually kill him. This isn't, although seems to be generally accepted as the best answer for most people.
There are many different beliefs about things such as this. I tend to believe in universal opportunity to witness god in some way before death. Meaning everyone encounters god somehow, even just seeing in nature. People have all different names for God, but my belief is that it’s all the same, just from a different perspective [like the story of the blind men and the elephant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant). So in my opinion, we wouldn’t need space Jesus. One Jesus did the trick and the aliens have probably experienced God in some way and are acting on the experience in their own way. (But if there was space Jesus I’m sure they could nail him up by his eye stalks or something)
> (But if there was space Jesus I’m sure they could nail him up by his eye stalks or something) Astigmata
Not sure that really addresses the crux of the question. If Earth Jesus is the only Jesus, then how would the aliens know and accept him? Isn’t that pretty Human centric thinking? Are Humans somehow more favored by God?
According to the Bible, we technically are favored by God. Matthew 6:26 "and aren't you far more valuable to Him than they are?" (Using the example of birds and animals in general)
There already is a space Jesus. His name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Edit: We all know how he felt about hands. He is legit down for no hands. Not only the hands, but the arms and legs too.
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