Will ET Be Here Soon? NASA Brings Scientists, Theologians Together To Prepare

[astr0144]

Will ET Be Here Soon? NASA Brings Scientists, Theologians Together To Prepare.



Looking for extraterrestrial life is akin to a search for a cosmic needle-in-a-haystack, as evidenced by the above incredible Hubble Space Telescope image showing approximately 10,000 galaxies.

In large part, thanks to NASA's Kepler spacecraft, more than 1,400 planets have been identified beyond Earth.

A few days ago, NASA tried closing the gap between life on Earth and the possibilities of life elsewhere. The space agency and the Library of Congress (image below left) brought together scientists, historians, philosophers and theologians from around the world for a two-day symposium, "Preparing For Discovery." Their agenda: To explore how we prepare for the inevitable discovery of extraterrestrial life, be it simple microbial organisms or intelligent beings.


"We're looking at all scenarios about finding life. If you find microbes, that's one thing. If you find intelligence, it's another. And if they communicate, it's something else, and depending on what they say, it's something else!" said astronomer, symposium organizer and former chief NASA historian, Steven J. Dick.

"The idea is not to wait until we make a discovery, but to try and prepare the public for what the implications might be when such a discovery is made," Dick told The Huffington Post. "I think the reason that NASA is backing this is because of all the recent activity in the discovery of exoplanets and the advances in astrobiology in general.

"People just consider it much more likely now that we're going to find something -- probably microbes first and maybe intelligence later," he added. "The driving force behind this is from a scientific point of view that it seems much more likely now that we are going to find life at some point in the future."

Among the many speakers at last week's astrobiology symposium, one has raised a few international eyebrows in recent years.

"I believe [alien life exists], but I have no evidence. I would be really excited and it would make my understanding of my religion deeper and richer in ways that I can't even predict yet, which is why it would be so exciting," Brother Guy Consolmagno, a Jesuit priest, astronomer and Vatican planetary scientist told HuffPost senior science editor David Freeman.

Consolmagno has publicly stated his belief that "any entity -- no matter how many tentacles it has -- has a soul," and he's suggested that he would be happy to baptize any ETs, as long as they requested it.

"There has to be freedom to do science. Being a good scientist means admitting we never have the whole truth -- there's always more to learn." Consolmagno also doesn't think the public would panic when or if it's revealed that alien life has been found.

"I really think it would be a three-day wonder and then we'd go back to worrying about reality TV or the crazy things going on in Washington -- that's the way human beings are. Because I think most people are like me: we expect it's out there. And our reaction would be, 'Wow, thank heavens. It's about time."

Earth is no longer the center of the universe, nor is it flat -- at least that's the currently accepted thinking among most scientists. And we now know, conclusively, that there are a lot more planets than the ones in our own solar system.

"The number of habitable worlds in our galaxy is certainly in the tens of billions, minimum, and we haven't even talked about the moons. And the number of galaxies we can see, other than our own, is about 100 billion," Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at California's SETI Institute told HuffPost.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/22/nasa-astrobiology-alien-search_n_5860714.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

[zorgon]

Will ET Be Here Soon? NASA Brings Scientists, Theologians Together To Prepare.

NASA, a Federal Gov Institution getting in bed with the Church?

OH NO WE ARE DOOMED

Hallowed be the Ori!!!

Sigh  I hope this is not how they plan disclosure... Pope has already said he is ready to Baptize them

[Norval]

Religionists and scientists, , , , 

[Pimander]

Sigh  I hope this is not how they plan disclosure... Pope has already said he is ready to Baptize them

I bet they will think he is insane?  Can you imagine the Martians tapping in.  There could be a cosmic war: The battle to be the first baptised ET! 


SOURCE: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/06/xbox-live-arcade-wednesday-cute-things-space-war/

[rdunk]

"Pope has already said he is ready to Baptize them"

This is a senseless and unknowing statement for the Pope to make. The disobedience by man in the Garden of Eden is what put Earth-man under the curse of sin and death - and all of the resulting "stuff" to free man from that curse, including "baptism" is for all those under that curse. IMHO, ET's would not be under that same curse, and thus exempt from water baptism, which symbolizes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in the action of the one being baptized.

Fact for sure, we do not know what we do not know about ET's!

[burntheships]

There could be a cosmic war, some say it has happened in the past;
for all we know ET may not be on our side, consider Norvals thread:
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=7369.msg103046#msg103046

Perhaps ET is not interested in "repentance" . 

[rdunk]

NASA, a Federal Gov Institution getting in bed with the Church?



Sigh  I hope this is not how they plan disclosure...

If this "togetherness" is actually happening, this would likely result in the scheming plan of "How To Break It To Them Gently" approach to disclosure. Talk about what we might learn, with the various variation possibilities of ET's and all of the such, so that when it is finally "disclosed", no one is actually surprised!! Now is that just brilliant - ha ha ahha!

[WarToad]

There could be a cosmic war, some say it has happened in the past;
for all we know ET may not be on our side, consider Norvals thread:
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/forum/index.php?topic=7369.msg103046#msg103046

Perhaps ET is not interested in "repentance" . 

Agree entirely.  Consider their technology is thousands of years ahead of us.  Tens of thousands?  More?  What do they stand to get from us?  Nothing.  We're a nuisance species.  We are a violent species.  Constantly at war with ourselves, wasteful with resources, class stratified.

Our planet however?  A gem of a planet.  Liquid water, mineral resource rich, abundant lifeforms.

Our planet is desireable.  Our human species... problematic.  But that can be fixed.

[The Matrix Traveller]

Will ET Be Here Soon? NASA Brings Scientists, Theologians Together To Prepare.

Of course they are ..... Whoever 'they', are being referred to.   

LOL.  Why is it, that the 'human Primate' is hell bent on trying to change the 'Times',
and dream of being in Control ....


The ONLY one in Control, is LIFE, thank goodness.


How can 'they' whoever 'they' are referring to    be coming soonnnnnnn, when some are already here,
and have been for the last few thousand years ?

[Amaterasu]

"Pope has already said he is ready to Baptize them"

This is a senseless and unknowing statement for the Pope to make. The disobedience by man in the Garden of Eden is what put Earth-man under the curse of sin and death - and all of the resulting "stuff" to free man from that curse, including "baptism" is for all those under that curse. IMHO, ET's would not be under that same curse, and thus exempt from water baptism, which symbolizes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in the action of the one being baptized.

Fact for sure, we do not know what we do not know about ET's!

Gotta love a God that punishes People that had nothing to do with the "original sin."  Very fair and just...  Heh.

[zorgon]

Agree entirely.  Consider their technology is thousands of years ahead of us.  Tens of thousands?  More?

Why does everyone assume they are that advanced? A hundred years ago Tesla had the answer but we chose WAR instead of RESEARCH

The only thing stopping us from being the scourge of the Galaxy is a good drive system.  We had the designs for it, the NAZI were working on it and we likely have it in black ops and space command already according to our research

So they do not need to be advanced by much... they only need to have developed a space drive ahead of us.

Then too some Troglodytes could have stolen space craft similar to our reverse engineeering

What do they stand to get from us?  Nothing.  We're a nuisance species.  We are a violent species.  Constantly at war with ourselves, wasteful with resources, class stratified.

Well peace leads to apathy. A race at constant peace does not grow  they stagnate. We saw it with the fall of Rome, we saw it with the fall of Persepolis and we are seeing it today in the USA...

When people have free time and generally a good life they become lazy and apathetic... they forget how to fight and defend themselves and soon the Utopia is easily preyed on from outside

So being an agressive species means we WILL become the scourge of the Galaxy someday soon

It also means that other races out there are more likely to be aggressive rather than passive

Do NOT hold your breath that they are coming here to save us from ourselves. They are likely here to check out the competition and do a threat analysis

Our planet however?  A gem of a planet.  Liquid water, mineral resource rich, abundant lifeforms.

Water is abundant... there are Jupiter size planets of water that we have spotted already. We are in the middle of NOWHERE literally on the fringes of the Galaxy  We are 50 light years above the plane and on the edge of the rim

[Amaterasu]

Why does everyone assume they are that advanced? A hundred years ago Tesla had the answer but we chose WAR instead of RESEARCH

Mainly TPTB chose war, propagandized Us to support it, and They made buttloads of money.

[zorgon]

Gotta love a God that punishes People that had nothing to do with the "original sin."  Very fair and just...  Heh.

Sens all the Gods, Angels, Demons, Seraphin, and other assorted characters in all our Books of Myth are ALL NOT OF THIS EARTH... they are in fact TRUE ET

There is not ONE Book of Myth out there that says they were ever fair... in fact they all promote killing the Infidels (Non believers) and if you don't behave it's the Devil (another ET) to pay

So  it proves my point

ET has hostile intent   

[zorgon]

Mainly TPTB chose war, propagandized Us to support it, and They made buttloads of money.

That does NOT answer my  question.

The question was "Why does everyone assume they must be advanced?"

[The Seeker]

Zorgon, I believe one reason most people assume that ET must be more advanced is based on the age of the universe, our galaxy, and our quaint little ball of rock;

earth herself is supposedly 13 billion years old, and apparently the supposition that any outside races have had several billion years to develop before we crawled out of the slime could play a part in it;

I am of the opinion that any we encounter may be older, but not necessarily greatly advanced; could be on a par with us and just had one or two items work out  quicker than we have...