Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 3:55pm

The Hiding

I doubt that any extraterrestrials ever visited the Earth. If they exist and have the technology to visit here, why is it always so obscure, hidden and vague? Why not just land in Times Square or on The White House lawn. One might argue that maybe they don’t want to panic the natives, but with the many claims of close encounters of every kind, you’d think they’d mess-up now and then and be visible to the masses. In addition, with everyone walking around with a smartphone for the past 10 years or so, one would think we’d have plenty of recordings and selfies with E.T. by now.

I can imagine an atheist or agnostic having similar doubts about God. If God is real, why doesn’t he just show himself? Why the hiding? After all, observation brings certainty, right?

Not always. When watching a magician or illusionist, reality is not entirely visible to us unless we are allowed to probe deeper. The illusionist only allows you to see what they want you to see and nothing more. This is what makes their craft possible.

Observation also depends on your mode of reasoning. God is not an object like a cat or a tree or “flying spaghetti monster”. Think of trying to observe something like “time”. I can’t hand you a chunk of time. Time is not observed directly. We only know time exists by its effects and other ways of thinking. Imagine two fish in the ocean trying to find water. They may search the entire ocean and never find it. We do not look for water in the ocean like we look for other objects. Generally, we do not say there is water in the ocean. We are more apt to say the ocean is water.

God doesn’t want our observation; he wants our love and if we say, “God is love” this brings another approach altogether.

Suppose your mother says “I love you”. How do you know it’s true? The words “I love you,” are just an outward expression (a thing of the air). You may have observed that your mother has done many good things for you, but this could be only out of a sense of duty, or perhaps she raised you well to prevent embarrassment; to avoid being seen as a mother who failed. Even if all her observed mannerisms show that she loves you, you cannot know it as an objective fact. You can only believe in it, then reciprocate it and nurture it.

God as love also relates to the Sabbath. Recently, a deacon at our parish gave a homily about the hiddenness of God in terms of the Sabbath. He learned of the Hebrew word “olam”, which is often translated as “world” or “universe”, and is derived from a verb meaning “hidden”.

He explained that in Genesis God creates the universe and everything in it in six days (olam) and rests on the on the seventh day. God is also hidden, since he is not contained by his creation like we are, or a flying spaghetti monster would be. The Sabbath is meant to be a window in which we can metaphorically “see” the hidden God and rest in his presence. Given this, we can understand why the Sabbath has the upmost importance. It’s the room we make for God within space & time. This is where we do more than “observe”; we love and rest in God’s presence.

So when is our Sabbath time? First and foremost, it is the Mass as we remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. There are also other acts of piety like personal prayer, Eucharistic adoration and other devotions. All this was nicely tied into the Gospel reading for last Sunday (Mark 6:30-34). Jesus tells his apostles to, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” Jesus leads his followers to Sabbath time. A good shepherd knows that trying to only observe God will accomplish nothing. Only by actively entering into God’s love does one begin to believe in it, then reciprocate it and then nurture it.

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Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Friday, July 23, AD 2021 7:51am

Why do aliens hide?
https://youtu.be/qXw6hC7hxBA

DW
DW
Friday, July 23, AD 2021 9:54am

Maybe they are here … disguised as radical liberals … positioning for universal trans-alien rights.

Bob Kurland
Admin
Friday, July 23, AD 2021 2:40pm

There was a recent SCS (Society of Catholic Scientist) Conference that dealt with, among other topics, the search for ETRs (ExtraTerrestial Rational beings). I’ve posted one article here on one of the SCS conference topics (the chemistry of life–presence of prebiotic molecules outside the earth) and am writing another–search techniques (including those for ETRs).

Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Friday, July 23, AD 2021 3:19pm

Beautiful post. What I’d like to know is why God went to the trouble of creating this vast and unknown Universe if the creatures He created in His image and likeness (us) and who Ge sent His only Son to die for, weren’t going to use it or see it. Did He create it for Himself? We are confined to Earth as it’s the only habitable planet for us and our knowledge of the Universe is mainly limited to our solar system and some theories beyond. So why did God create such immensity and for whom did he create it?

Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Friday, July 23, AD 2021 5:57pm

What an artist.

David WS
David WS
Friday, July 23, AD 2021 7:47pm

The question of whether God Created other corporeal beings in His likeness is an interesting question. Did they also Fall and if so were also redeemed by a Savior in their corporeal likeness? Or did they not Fall? Or did they Fall and were not redeemed.

If they Fell and were not redeemed they would remain in darkness, and in no way would have had the light to create technology capable of visiting other planets.
That leaves redeemed or never to have fallen. Either way, if they did make it to Earth, it’s rather obvious where they would rush to once arriving…

Adoration.

I believe we alone are corporeal beings. I know God is Real, and so too Angels and demons. So why did God create a Universe so ancient and vast? I’m sure there are a myriad of reasons, but one in respect to time was to contain the evil one who fell like lighting at the beginning of time. God Knew of the possibility of evil at the beginning of time.

(it’s late and a Friday, and I’m philosophizing. )

Ezabelle
Ezabelle
Saturday, July 24, AD 2021 2:10am

I sometimes think the vast universe is Gods way of keeping our humility in check. Who are we, but barely a speck who rely on His infinite Love and goodness. And yet His only Son died for us.

Frank
Frank
Saturday, July 24, AD 2021 7:18am

I must offer hearty Amens to all the comments on this thread. Wonderful topic! In the true meaning of the word “wonderful.”

David WS
David WS
Saturday, July 24, AD 2021 7:43am

On a lighter note.. Just where would one hide a spacecraft on a water planet, covered by oceans averaging 2.3 miles in depth?
Hmmmm.

OrdinaryCatholic
OrdinaryCatholic
Saturday, July 24, AD 2021 9:56am

“So why did God create a Universe so ancient and vast?”

Because He could and no matter how uppity we humans get thinking we are so intelligent in our technology and what we have accomplished all God has to say is: “Yeah? Well if you’re so smart top my creation, for everything that you have made was possible because of everything I created from nothing for you to make it with. Without me you don’t exist.”

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Saturday, July 24, AD 2021 11:07am

I apologize in advance.

I’ve communicated this on numerous occasions.

ET refuses to contact us because mankind is too stupid to talk with.

Plus, he travels quadrillions of light years [ET physics is totally different than ours] and all we have is evidence of his crashed UFOs and mangled ET corpses hidden in Area 51, or sumptin.

I’ve been advised [by the brightest people] not to shoot big foot when I’m deer hunting. They say it would enrage the aliens.

I apologize.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Saturday, July 24, AD 2021 2:42pm

The probability of abiogenesis (life arising from inanimate matter spontaneously) times the number of habitable worlds in the universe (both guestimates) must approach of be equal to 1 (or greater) for life to exist elsewhere in the universe. If the number of habitable worlds is 1.0E+24 and the probability of abiogenesis is 1.0E-27 (I have seen both these numbers thrown around by reputable scientists as BEST cases), then in all likelihood there is NO life elsewhere in the universe. Period. Why? Well, the best case that life may exist elsewhere in the universe is [ 1.0E+24 * 1.0E-27 = 0.001 = 0.1% ]. There are too many fine tuning factors (cosmic and chemical) that go into abiogenesis driving the numbers to improbable.

Now yes, there are many other things to consider. How old a solar system is, how old a habitable planet is, whether or not that’s planet’s evolution occurs at the same cosmic time scale as ours, whether or not that planet orbits a star close enough that its inhabitation can detected by us, the distance of light years (often tens of thousands of light years of separation), etc. And I haven’t even considered that there is a different between the probability of life elsewhere (abiogenesis) and the probability of intelligent life (an altogether different matter). Remember that life appeared on Earth very soon after its formation some 4.5 billion years ago, but intelligent life appeared only very recently, maybe some 200 or so million years ago at most with the appears of the first true hominids. And considering Earth goes inhabitable at 5 billion years due to normal evolution of the sun, intelligent life’s appearance occurs very close to the end of habitability – a very small window on cosmic time scales. All those things go into what’s called the Fermi Paradox – if there is intelligent life, then why haven’t we detected any? Distance between stars and non-coincidence on a cosmic scale of when they appear and when we appear.

And no, any sufficiently advanced “people” able to travel tens of thousands of light years aren’t going to spend their time buzzing aircraft carriers and annoying Naval pilots.

I think the universe is empty except for humanity. I could be wrong. Detecting a single unicellular life form on Mars, or on one of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn will demonstrate that the probability of abiogenesis approaches 1 (imagine: life arising spontaneously from inanimate matter on two different worlds separated by tens if not hundred of millions of miles in the same solar system). If that’s the case, then all bets are off (and as T. Shaw suggests, the aliens are staying away because we’re too darn crazy and violent).

BTW, when I talk about intelligent life, I am discounting the imbeciles in Congress and the Democratic Party. Another years aliens would flee this planet – “You kill your own offspring?”

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