Extra terrestrial and Church teaching

[Irishcyclist]

There has been a lot of media coverage of apparent evidence of UFO activity observed by US military. Evidence of filmed alleged UFO
has been released.

This prompted me to consider, has the Church a view as to the existence, or not, of intelligent extra terrestrial life?

Genesis tells us that God created all of the heavens and the Earth. The stars and planets that we see when we observe the Universe is God's work.
But as far as I am aware Scripture does not refer to what those planets and stars may contain, except to say that they are the work of God.

Has the Church put forth a teaching as to the existence of intelligent extra terrestrial life, and if so what is that teaching?

[Greg]

Our Lady is Queen of Heaven and Queen of the Angels as well as the mother of God.

Those intelligent non-human creatures would therefore occupy a lower rung of dignity in the order of God's creation. Inasmuch as God had not incarnated himself as a Smarg, and a Regilate and a Vulcan or made a Wookie female his son's mother and the Queen of Heaven.

Had they never committed Original Sin that would be unjust.

Had they all committed Original Sin (how?) and there were dozen of planets of aliens scattered around the Milky Way and millions through the Universe, then by what justice would humans be singled out for this special treatment and special honour.

Or does God operate a system of impregnating a holy female on every planet, incarnating himself as one of their species, and turning his mother into a 'Queen of Heaven', a fairly redundant title when there are 20 million such "queens".

I am afraid if aliens arrive in their spaceships, then Christianity is finished, left without credibility, because they will be so advanced in science and their understanding of the universe, to travel across the vast distances of space, that when they laugh at our myths and tell us tales of other beings' strange myths to cope with the unescapeble inevitability of death I will believe them.

But cheer up because it will probably never happen.

[roland]

...'This prompted me to consider, has the Church a view as to the existence, or not, of intelligent extra terrestrial life?'

If the church has an official view I'm not aware of it. As an aside there is a consensus growing that the UFO phenomenon could be demonic in origin.

[nmoerbeek]

There has been a lot of media coverage of apparent evidence of UFO activity observed by US military. Evidence of filmed alleged UFO
has been released.

This prompted me to consider, has the Church a view as to the existence, or not, of intelligent extra terrestrial life?

Genesis tells us that God created all of the heavens and the Earth. The stars and planets that we see when we observe the Universe is God's work.
But as far as I am aware Scripture does not refer to what those planets and stars may contain, except to say that they are the work of God.

Has the Church put forth a teaching as to the existence of intelligent extra terrestrial life, and if so what is that teaching?

I think that various authors have commented on what makes Man a unique creature made in the image of God and as an indirect conclusion we could come to a belief that we are the only creatures with the ability to reason. 

I also think that the evidence put out is quite weak.  Of course there are a significant number of people out there today who have through years of reading Sci Fi novels are very eager to have aliens proven to be real.  It also fits nicely into the evolutionary world view that mankind is not something special but just the logical consequence of time and matter.

As for me the amount of physical evidence against intelligent extra terrestrial life far outweighs this one video. Granted it might be more fascinating to me if I was a pilot and understood what excited the pilot so much about a blob of an object in the distance.  I also wonder if he saw the thing with a naked eye or just through his computer and the government spending 22 million dollars to investigate it is nothing, it probably costs more money to develop a software patch for their payroll system.  It wasn't even secretive, it just was lost amongst the endless bureaucracy that is government accounting. 

The fact that the person who ran the government program is now trying to raise money to continue his study raises more red flags.
Taken from this article https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html?src=twr

[Irishcyclist]

There has been a lot of media coverage of apparent evidence of UFO activity observed by US military. Evidence of filmed alleged UFO
has been released.

This prompted me to consider, has the Church a view as to the existence, or not, of intelligent extra terrestrial life?

Genesis tells us that God created all of the heavens and the Earth. The stars and planets that we see when we observe the Universe is God's work.
But as far as I am aware Scripture does not refer to what those planets and stars may contain, except to say that they are the work of God.

Has the Church put forth a teaching as to the existence of intelligent extra terrestrial life, and if so what is that teaching?

I think that various authors have commented on what makes Man a unique creature made in the image of God and as an indirect conclusion we could come to a belief that we are the only creatures with the ability to reason. 

I also think that the evidence put out is quite weak.  Of course there are a significant number of people out there today who have through years of reading Sci Fi novels are very eager to have aliens proven to be real.  It also fits nicely into the evolutionary world view that mankind is not something special but just the logical consequence of time and matter.

As for me the amount of physical evidence against intelligent extra terrestrial life far outweighs this one video. Granted it might be more fascinating to me if I was a pilot and understood what excited the pilot so much about a blob of an object in the distance.  I also wonder if he saw the thing with a naked eye or just through his computer and the government spending 22 million dollars to investigate it is nothing, it probably costs more money to develop a software patch for their payroll system.  It wasn't even secretive, it just was lost amongst the endless bureaucracy that is government accounting. 

The fact that the person who ran the government program is now trying to raise money to continue his study raises more red flags.
Taken from this article https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html?src=twr

Thanks NM.

I was just interested to see if the Church had an official policy on the issue.

From my research I cannot locate any policy by the Church on the topic. I suppose any such policy would have to be predicated upon Scripture as well and certainly there is nothing in Scripture which casts light on to creation except for references to God creating the Heavens and the Stars.

Whether the apparent silence of the Bible with regard to the existence of intelligent extra terrestrial life, is proof that no other life exists outside of Earth, is highly debatable of course. And a different subject!

[Miriam_M]

THIS:

Our Lady is Queen of Heaven and Queen of the Angels as well as the mother of God.

Those intelligent non-human creatures would therefore occupy a lower rung of dignity in the order of God's creation. Inasmuch as God had not incarnated himself as a Smarg, and a Regilate and a Vulcan or made a Wookie female his son's mother and the Queen of Heaven.

Had they never committed Original Sin that would be unjust.

Had they all committed Original Sin (how?) and there were dozen of planets of aliens scattered around the Milky Way and millions through the Universe, then by what justice would humans be singled out for this special treatment and special honour.

[Miriam_M]

If the church has an official view I'm not aware of it. As an aside there is a consensus growing that the UFO phenomenon could be demonic in origin.

And it's my view as well.

[Miriam_M]

ALSO THIS:

Of course there are a significant number of people out there today who have through years of reading Sci Fi novels are very eager to have aliens proven to be real.  It also fits nicely into the evolutionary world view that mankind is not something special but just the logical consequence of time and matter.

[Gardener]

I stand in the camp of those who consider it a demonic deception. Many have reported when they have an abduction/encounter style experience and call out the name of Jesus, the experience ceases immediately, some indicating the entities became visibly disturbed at the mentioning of His Name.

I would not be surprised if a great deception occurs with a supposed manifestation of an alien race.

[Innocent Smith]

...'This prompted me to consider, has the Church a view as to the existence, or not, of intelligent extra terrestrial life?'

As an aside there is a consensus growing that the UFO phenomenon could be demonic in origin.

I agree. If it exists it is most likely a partnership between U.S. Military and U.S. intelligence assets.

So yeah, demonic in origin to be sure.

Other than that, the supposed sightings would most likely be a manifestation of ideas through over active imaginations provided by the Entertainment Programming we have been exposed to over the past 100 or so years.

The idea of another race of intelligent creatures somewhere else in the universe would seem impossible based upon our knowledge of God. The earth and the entire universe were created for the Father's Son. So the idea in itself would seem to me to be blasphemous. Are we to assume there would be multi-2nd Person's of the Holy Trinity? The idea is as ludicrous to me as the idea of multi-verses.

But that does not mean we are "all alone" in the universe. We have Heaven, earth, Purgatory, or the Church Triumphant, the Church Militant and the Church Suffering. All the Angels, Saints and Heavenly Host. Along with the Dragon and all his demons.

My advice would be to concentrate on more interesting "para-normal", or to put it in a nicer way, the extraordinary works of God. Like the fact that every Mass is crowded whether of not a soul, or server, is even assisting the priest. We know that all the Angels, Heavenly Host, the Saints and the Holy Trinity are always present.

Once we know and truly believe that, what else is there to be on the lookout for? Why busy the mind with such trivial nonsense?

[Irishcyclist]

I agree. If it exists it is most likely a partnership between U.S. Military and U.S. intelligence assets.

So yeah, demonic in origin to be sure.

Other than that, the supposed sightings would most likely be a manifestation of ideas through over active imaginations provided by the Entertainment Programming we have been exposed to over the past 100 or so years.

The idea of another race of intelligent creatures somewhere else in the universe would seem impossible based upon our knowledge of God. The earth and the entire universe were created for the Father's Son. So the idea in itself would seem to me to be blasphemous. Are we to assume there would be multi-2nd Person's of the Holy Trinity? The idea is as ludicrous to me as the idea of multi-verses.

But that does not mean we are "all alone" in the universe. We have Heaven, earth, Purgatory, or the Church Triumphant, the Church Militant and the Church Suffering. All the Angels, Saints and Heavenly Host. Along with the Dragon and all his demons.

My advice would be to concentrate on more interesting "para-normal", or to put it in a nicer way, the extraordinary works of God. Like the fact that every Mass is crowded whether of not a soul, or server, is even assisting the priest. We know that all the Angels, Heavenly Host, the Saints and the Holy Trinity are always present.

Once we know and truly believe that, what else is there to be on the lookout for? Why busy the mind with such trivial nonsense?

I take those points that you make, IS.

The reason I ask the question is that I reckon we are going to see a lot of chatter in the popular culture about alleged extra terrestrial activity, UFO activity, etc.
Rightly or wrong, this popular culture permeates the entire world around us, including the Church to some extent.

In that context, it is important to set out clearly what the Church says, or does not say, about those aspects of popular culture relating to alleged extra terrestrial activity, UFO activity.

And if there is such activity, the Church needs to be able to correctly diagnose such activity and prescribe how to address the occurrence.

I am in agreement fully with what you say about Mass and trying to meditate upon just what takes place at each and every single Mass where one is present at.

[John Lamb]

Aliens are the modern equivalent of fairies, and sci-fi is the modern equivalent of fairy tales.
Do aliens & fairies exist? Possibly as the guise of demons.

[Quaremerepulisti]

There has been a lot of media coverage of apparent evidence of UFO activity observed by US military. Evidence of filmed alleged UFO has been released.

Eh....

"Media coverage" != "credible evidence".

https://www.sciencealert.com/ufo-nasa-iss-sighting-debunked-fireballs-video-james-oberg-not-aliens

OTOH, this is hardly "demonic"; the demons would have done a much better job.  This is just human sensationalism, nothing more.

This prompted me to consider, has the Church a view as to the existence, or not, of intelligent extra terrestrial life?

Not officially, no.

None of the arguments made here against it are absolutely conclusive, but it seems unlikely that it would exist.

[Miriam_M]

sci-fi is the modern equivalent of fairy tales.

Thank you.

[Gerard]

If I remember correctly, the Church answered the question through a clerical error regarding a dubia.   The short answer was, "We don't know." 

Charles Coulombe and Professor William Biersach made a very entertaining and interesting fireside chat on the topic. 


[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88L4c6gMq9o[/yt]