Re: [asa] Ken Hams it up at the Pentagon

> Based on what God has revealed to us about His purposes, I don't know
> whether I should expect that life is confined to our planet. Neither
> possibility seems to contradict anything I know about His revelation.
>
> Today we find atheists telling us that if God existed, He would have done
> things the way they would have, and since He didn't, that is supposed to
> prove that God doesn't exist.

C. S. Lewis has an essay on the topic, unfortunately one that seems to
get different titles in different collections. He notes that atheists
have claimed that a vast universe with life only here is a problem for
Christianity and that life being common in the universe is a problem
for Christianity. Obviously there's a flaw in the reasoning. He goes
on to note that various possible spiritual statuses for
extraterrestrials would all require no more than a minor adjustment.
Based largely on how humans have interacted with other humans, he
thinks it's probably a good thing for the more vulnerable species (us
or them) that interstellar distances probably make physical contact
with extraterrestrials impossible.

I believe the original publication was titled "Onward Christian
Spacemen" by a magazine editor and that Lewis did not care for the
title, hence the tendency to re-title it in anthologies.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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