Abstract
Christianity emerged two millennia ago, as the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth developed and codified a set of beliefs, built around Jesus’s life, teachings, death and reported resurrection. Over a period of several centuries, early Christian leaders determined which books and other writings would be included in what would eventually be known as the Roman Catholic Bible. By the end of the fourth century, C. E., the contents of the Roman Catholic Old and New Testaments had been canonized.
To believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian system of faith at once little and ridiculous.
Thomas Paine (Paine, T. (1796). The Writings of Thomas Paine: The Age of Reason—Part I and II, vol. IV. Collected and edited by Moncure Daniel Conway. Project Gutenberg ebook; 2012.)
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Notes
- 1.
Davies, P. (2003, September) E.T. and God. The Atlantic Monthly.
- 2.
Romans 5:12.
- 3.
As quoted in O’Meara, T. F. (2012). Vast Universe (p. 91). Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.
- 4.
As quoted in McColley, G., & Miller, H. W. (1937). Saint Bonaventure, Francis Mayron, William Vorilong, and the doctrine of a plurality of worlds. Speculum, 12(3), 386.
- 5.
Initia doctrinae physicae. Corpus Reformatorum, 13(1), 221, as quoted in O’Meara, T. F. (1996). Christian theology and extraterrestrial intelligent life. Theological Studies, 60, 6.
- 6.
Campanella, T. (1937). The Defense of Galileo, Mathematician of Florence (McColley, G., Trans.) In Smith College Studies in History (vol. XXII, Nos. 3–4, p. 66).
- 7.
Lactantius, quoted in The Discoverers (p. 107), by Boorstin D. J. (1983). New York: Random House.
- 8.
Campanella, T. (1937). The Defense of Galileo, Mathematician of Florence (G. McColley, Trans.) In Smith College Studies in History (vol. XXII, Nos. 3–4, p. 15).
- 9.
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae Selectae, 1, 80 (pp. 178–179) (M. L. W. Laistner, Trans.) In Thought and Letters in Western Europe (pp. 184–185).
- 10.
A reference to the fictional hero of The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a Voyage thither by Domingo Gonsales (London, 1638), a novel written by the English bishop and science fiction writer Francis Godwin.
- 11.
Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens (1629–1695 C. E.), who discovered the rings of Saturn and Saturn’s largest moon Titan.
- 12.
Leibniz, G. W. (1949). New Essays Concerning Human Understanding (p. 342). (A. G. Langley, Trans.) La Salle, IL: The Open Court Publishing Company.
- 13.
Paine, T. (1880). The Age of Reason (p. 38). London: Freethought Publishing Company.
- 14.
Ibid, p. 44.
- 15.
Ibid, p. 45.
- 16.
O’Meara, T. (2012). Vast Universe (p. 82). Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press.
- 17.
Bonting, S. L. (2003, September). Theological implications of possible extraterrestrial life. Zygon 38(3).
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Weintraub, D.A. (2014). Setting the Stage for Modern Christianity. In: Religions and Extraterrestrial Life. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-05056-0_7
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