“If we are the products of creation, why couldn’t we have life evolving in other planets as well? There’s nothing that says otherwise,” de Mello told The Washington Post in August. NASA isn't the only institution asking these questions.ĭuilia de Mello, an astronomer and physics professor at Catholic University, said she has several seminarians in her classes who often bring up theoretical questions about intelligent life in the universe and debate what it would mean for the Catholic Church. “No conflict between believing in God and aliens” Or we may discover it next week,” a NASA expert told The Times.Ī NASA expert said that “we may not discover life for 100 years.
“That’s just inconceivable when there are over 100 billion stars in this galaxy, and over 100 billion galaxies in the universe.”ĬTI Director Will Storrar told The Times last week that NASA’s goal for the program was “serious scholarship being published in books and journals” to address the “profound wonder and mystery and implication of finding microbial life on another planet.” Pilcher rejects the idea of Earth being the only planet with life on it: Meanwhile, Carl Pilcher, a former head of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, said that the agency hired theologians to “consider the implications of applying the tools of late 20th (and early 21st) century science to questions that had been considered in religious traditions for hundreds or thousands of years”. Jupiter's moon Europa's stunning surface, which may hold clues to the characteristics of the oceans hidden underneath. Other religious figures, including the Bishop of Buckingham Alan Wilson, Rabbi Jonathan Romain of Maidenhead Synagogue, and Imam Qari Asim of the Makkah Mosque in Leeds, said that Christian, Jewish, and Islamic teaching would not be affected by the discovery of alien life, The Times reported. “Detection might come in a decade or only in future centuries or perhaps never at all, but if or where it does, it will be useful to have thought through the implications in advance.” University of Cambridge religious scholar, Rev Dr Andrew Davison considers the possibility of God creating life elsewhere in the universe, based on his research at Princeton.Īccording to the copy of his book, which the British newspaper The Times accessed, a “large number of people would turn to their religions traditions for guidance” on what alien life means “for the standing and dignity of human life”, noting:
“Religious traditions would be an important feature in how humanity would work through any such confirmation of life elsewhere,” Davidson shared in a blog post on the University of Cambridge site. In his forthcoming book, named Astrobiology and Christian Doctrine, Davison considers the possibility of God creating life elsewhere in the universe, based on his research at Princeton, emphasising the possibility of finding alien life is becoming more real. University of Cambridge religious scholar, Rev Dr Andrew Davison, who also holds a doctorate in biochemistry from Oxford, is among the participants of the NASA-sponsored programme at CTI. The program aims to assess how the world’s major religions would react to the existence of life beyond earth and how such a discovery could potentially impact the concept of God and creation. The centre, which received a $1.1 million NASA grant in 2014, describes its main objective as building “bridges of understanding” between academics of various disciplines, scientists, and policymakers on “global concerns.”Ī program at Princeton University’s Centre of Theological Inquiry aims to assess how the world’s major religions would react to the existence of life beyond earth. The US space agency NASA has reportedly recruited at least 24 scholars so far to participate in a program at Princeton University’s Centre of Theological Inquiry (CTI) in New Jersey. A priest, a rabbi and an imam are among theologians hired by NASA to examine how the world would react if life beyond earth was found on other planets.
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