Let There Be Aliens

The Vatican has said alien life would not contradict belief in God. Sam Bowring opinionates.

Is it just me, or has the Vatican gone into overdrive trying to prove it's moving with modern times? Recent announcements include: that evolution and faith aren't mutually exclusive concepts, that genetic engineering is included in a revised deadly sins update, and that the Pope will send blessings via SMS (with the pleasant side effect that you can then use your mobile phone to ward off vampires). The trend continues, and today the Church announced that it does not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

The pope’s astrologer Jose Funes has said "Just as there are a plethora of creatures on Earth, there could be others, equally intelligent, created by God." Ah yes, equally intelligent of course - they wouldn't be more intelligent, no no no. After all, if God created man in his image, we must assume that we represent the apex of intelligence in the universe. To believe otherwise would be akin to saying there are folks out there smarter than God, which certainly wouldn't include the multi-eyed Nibbernauts of the Planet Squirm, that's for sure! Ha ha, preposterous.

Jose also said it was possible that aliens had never committed original sin (when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit), and therefore could have 'remained in full friendship with their creator'. Basically he's saying that these aliens could be goody two-shoes (or depending on their number of legs, goody-five shoes) who have never put a foot (or three) wrong with God. They would therefore be automatically granted everlasting life in heaven, which would be nice! It always seemed a bit rough to me that He damned our entire race because of something committed by two individuals who died before I was born. I can only be thankful that our current court systems don't operate in such a fashion, or else we'd all be in jail because of Bonnie and Clyde, starving to death since there'd be no one left on the outside to bring us apples.

Jose reckons that if the aliens are NOT free of original sin, they may have benefited from an event similar to Jesus coming to Earth in human flesh to redeem us. To me this summons up images of an alien on a cross, except maybe with extra beams to handle the nailing of its many tentacles. Of course there would be breakaway contingents of aliens who never put stock in Alien-Jesus - like those who kept on cutting the tips off their reproductive rods, or hijacking UFOs in order to crash them into important alien buildings, such as the Slime Depository.

It all seems a bit weird really. Maybe the Vatican should stop trying so hard to update itself, and simply stick to where it belongs: in the past.

- Sam Bowring