Does Not Equal is a webcomic by Sarah Ennals – check out the archives, or see Time, Part 1 from last week.
Tag Archives: religion
Time – part 1
Does Not Equal is a webcomic by Sarah Ennals – check out the archives. Part 2 next Sunday!
Catholics on Alpha Centauri?
It seems strange that the same religious body that refused to apologize to Galileo until 1992 for claiming that the Earth was not the center of the universe (among other things) would welcome extraterrestrials as brothers. Yes, it’s true, aliens from another planet would be welcomed with open arms by the Catholic church. Without getting overly reactionary, it seems like an interaction like that would slowly begin to bring us a little too close to a Dune-like scenario of futuristic religious practices that have to cope with an increasingly expansive population – and not all on one planet.
How does one send out missionaries to the other planets in the universe? What would that do to intergalactic politics if there are aliens who have no sense of our history running around as Catholics? It seems like a very perplexing possibility, indeed. The Catholic church assures us, though, that
“Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open — and not necessarily Bible-bearing — arms.”
Modernity brings a lot of things to people, but it seems like a strange change for a religion as large as the Catholic church to express such a new theological stance. Perhaps it’s a good sign of their adaptability; perhaps it’s just a sign of their desire to convert the whole of existence. Who knows? It’s certainly an interesting topic for discussion.
Environmentalism as religion
A late but strong candidate for controversial discussion-point of the month appeared yesterday in the form of visionary physicist Freeman Dyson’s article for the New York Review of Books, in which he detours into a discussion of global warming skepticism.
There’s a lot of interesting points in there, and the replies and rebuttals are coming thick and fast, but what I wanted to focus on was Dyson’s portrayal of environmentalism as a secular religion, because it turned up in my feed reader at almost exactly the same time as another article which claims software-based research suggests religion is an inevitable consequence of evolution.
If that’s the case, one wonders if religion is merely a developmental phase that we’ll eventually grow out of? One thing’s for certain – Creationists probably won’t appreciate the irony of being told their faith is a by-product of a process they don’t believe in.
Second Life enabling better US-Islam relations?
While frequently dismissed as a frivolous diversion (which, to be fair, it is to some), Second Life has the potential to be much more than just “IRC with graphics”.
The technological uses are the most obvious, and already being investigated by companies like IBM; Second Life is an ideal environment for large-scale data visualisation, for example.
Recent mainstream media stories have suggested that Second Life is a haven for terrorist recruitment and money laundering. While the potential is arguably present (and the actuality overstated), the flip-side is that virtual worlds provide a space where more positive forms of cultural exchange can occur – like a Muslim investigative journalist being able to experience a service in a virtual synagogue. [Image by RykerBeck]
The cynic in me suggests that we will export our human propensity for divisiveness wherever we go, be it into outer space or the inner space of the metaverse. But perhaps the lower barriers in virtual worlds will make it easier to overcome the old hatreds … by allowing us to see “behind the veil”, to coin a phrase.