E.T. Phone Rome?
E.T. Phone Rome?
By Jack Kinsella
The Vatican hosted experts in the fields of physics, biology and astronomy to discuss the newly-developing study of astrobiology.
(Think of it as an advanced form of evolutionary theory in which scientists hypothesize about the origin of extra-terrestrial life).
In case you were concerned that maybe somebody discovered extra-terrestrial life whose origins could be studied and maybe you missed it, don’t worry. You didn’t.
This is the study of evolution. The fact something hasn’t been proved to exist presents no barrier to inventing an explanation for it.
Many of the exhibits in natural history museums are of creatures that evolutionary scientists claim existed before the development of man. They are recreated in minute detail — only nobody ever saw one.
We have no idea what they looked like, let alone how they got there or where they went.
The solidest science we have concerning evolution boils down to an educated guess that would blow up completely in the face of actual evidence to the contrary. But human arrogance being what it is, the less we know, the more we replace the question marks with educated guesses that eventually become accepted as fact.
Questions like “Who are we?” and “Where did we come from?” and “Are we alone in the universe?” have been asked and answered throughout history.
The questions remain the same, but the answers are only as reliable as the next credible guess or the first piece of irrefutable contradictory evidence.
The problem with answering the question through science is that science has to begin after the beginning and pretend that they didn’t. Take the Big Bang Theory. It begins with the Big Bang explosion that was responsible for the creation of the Universe.
But it can’t explain into what the Universe exploded. What was there before the Universe exploded into existence? What contains the Universe now? Who set off the explosion? How did solid matter come into existence out of nothing? Science can only explain it from the “KABOOM” forward.
Why? Because it is beyond man’s capacity to imagine that which does not exist. One cannot imagine a new prime color for the rainbow because none exist. Man cannot imagine what came before the Big Bang because man cannot imagine non-existence.
Non-existence is the absence of the physical. Nobody alive has ever existed outside the physical world (with one notable Exception). There is only one scientific explanation for non-existence. It’s called non-existence — because that’s about as far as our understanding can go with it.
If it exists, we can describe it, think about it, visualize it, try to explain it, by using terms relative to our own existential experience. We can imagine pink elephants because elephants exist and pink exists.
We can imagine ET by injecting ET into our our existence. The hunt for ET is a hunt for life as we understand it. Most scientists are looking for things like water and single-celled life forms.
But the Vatican conference is taking it to the next level. Thirty scientists, including non-Catholics, from the U.S., France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Chile attended the conference, called to explore among other issues “whether sentient life forms exist on other worlds.” According to an AP report:
In an interview last year, Rev. Funes told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that believing the universe may host aliens, even intelligent ones, does not contradict a faith in God.
“How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Funes said in that interview. “Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God’s creative freedom.”
The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.
Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.
Funes said the possibility of alien life raises “many philosophical and theological implications” but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.
Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.
“Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe,” he told a news conference Tuesday. “There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe.”
The idea that we’re not alone in the universe is not without considerable support. One cannot ignore the tens of thousands of eyewitness accounts of UFO’s, including thousands of hours of video footage of what appear to be aircraft unlike anything that exists on earth.
But all that these reams of evidence actually prove is that the objects are unidentified. In a weird sort of way, the harder they are to identify, the more convincing the premise that they are extra-terrestrial.
It is a form of “knowledge” in which the less we actually know about the phenomenon, the more we think we do.
The Big Bang is all about what we don’t know triggering what we claim to understand perfectly. The Vatican’s conference is all about developing a doctrinal and scientific understanding of what we can’t even identify.
The only credible source for answers to questions like Who are we?” and “Where did we come from?” and “Are we alone in the universe?” would be one working from the perspective of personal knowledge, not from the absence of any knowledge whatsoever.
So it seems more than a little odd that the Vatican would turn from the Bible, which answers all three of these questions, to the scientists whose efforts to answer any them simply raises additional unanswerable questions.
Assessment
One of the earliest descriptions ever recorded of a UFO reads this way:
“I saw a great storm coming from the north, driving before it a huge cloud that flashed with lightning and shone with brilliant light. There was fire inside the cloud, and in the middle of the fire glowed something like gleaming amber…As I looked at these beings, I saw four wheels touching the ground beside them, one wheel belonging to each. The wheels sparkled as if made of beryl. All four wheels looked alike and were made the same; each wheel had a second wheel turning crosswise within it. The beings could move in any of the four directions they faced, without turning as they moved. The rims of the four wheels were tall and frightening, and they were covered with eyes all around. – Ezekiel 1:4-7, 15-18 (NLT)
What Ezekiel was describing were four angels — the cherubim that stand guard around God’s Throne. The wheels within wheels, the ability to defy the rules of gravity, the impossible speeds, the rims of the wheels encircled with eyes…does it sound familiar?
The fact the Vatican would turn from the Bible to science for answers to existential questions is simultaneously stunning, yet somehow unsurprising. The Vatican has been the number one choice of Bible scholars throughout history as the probable host of the religion of the False Prophet during the Tribulation.
According to Revelation 13, the False Prophet is pictured has having two horns like a lamb, but who speaks as a dragon, clearly symbolizing a kind of counterfeit Christianity espousing a Satanic form of doctrine.
A doctrine that finds no conflict between theology and the belief in the evolution of extra-terrestrial life is not Biblical. The entire theme of Scripture posits man as a unique creation of God. The earth is presented as the dwelling place of Satan and his angels.
In this setting, Satan’s rebellion, ie, “I will be like the Most High” is permitted to play out to its logical conclusion. Satan wanted to rule and be worshipped — God permits it within the closed environment of earth to prevent sin from escaping into and corrupting the universe.
The ultimate purpose is to demonstrate that God’s judgement against sin as the ultimate corrupter of all creation was justified. The secondary purpose was to allow mankind to choose whether to embrace or reject fellowship with God.
The introduction of an extra cast of extra-terrestrial characters into the Biblical narrative undoes it completely. Will these aliens be perfect, even as God is perfect? Or will they be as flawed and sinful as we? Will they have their own version of a Redeemer? Or are they unredeemable?
Does God love them as He does man? Why didn’t He mention them? (Or maybe He does).
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. – Genesis 6:4
For me, the significance of this story isn’t whether or not there are UFO’s. If something is flying that can’t be identified, then that is a UFO. There are lots of things flying that defy identification. Saying “there are UFOs” is hardly the same as believing in intelligent alien life — UFO’s are unidentified until they are identified.
Daniel says the political antichrist will be a prince of the revived Roman Empire of the last days. The treaty that eventually resulted in the restoration of the old Roman Empire was the 1948 Benelux Treaty.
The Apostle John says that the antichrist will have complete control of a global economy so centralized that he will be able to restrict the ability to buy or sell down to the individual level.
The computer age began with the invention of the transistor in 1948. The global economy was born out of the 1948 General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trades that is today the World Trade Organization.
The Apostle John says that the False Prophet will head up a global religious system that will have the trappings of Christianity but the doctrine of Satan. The World Council of Churches was created in Amsterdam in 1948.
Central to all Bible prophecy is the existence of Israel, whose miraculous restoration in 1948 continues to reverberate throughout the community of nations fully sixty years later.
The modern UFO era began with the Air Force’s ‘Operation Blue Book’ in 1948 following an unexplained series of sightings by credible pilots over the Arizona mountains and the alleged crash of a UFO in Roswell in 1947.
Now we find the Vatican arguing that perhaps the existence of extra-terrestrial beings from outer space might inhabit these strange sightings from the heavens — without creating any conflict with Bible theology.
And they are right, in a curious sort of way.
According to Bible prophecy, among the events that will signal the soon return of Christ are “strange sights in the heavens”. They are forecast to come in conjunction with the fear of falling asteroids, weird solar activity, the fear of global warming, the rise of global government, the rise of apostatic Christianity and the coming of a strong delusion.
“And when these things BEGIN to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28)
Maybe by watching for the False Prophet to arise from Rome, we’re looking in the wrong direction.
Maybe he lands there.
This Letter was written by Jack Kinsella on November 11, 2009.