If we discover Extraterrestrial sentient life, can they be baptized?

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

If we discover Extraterrestrial sentient life forms, can they be baptized?

[ARchiv@L]

I think not.

Angels =(beings from outer space) can not, because they are already God's servants.

 

 

[Anna]

17 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

If we discover Extraterrestrial sentient life forms, can they be baptized?

Perhaps by proxy?

[JW Insider]

(Philippians 2:8-11) . . .. 9 For this very reason, God exalted him to a superior position and kindly gave him the name that is above every other name, 10 so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend—of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the ground— 11 and every tongue should openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Not all sentient life can speak. Earthworms for example, not that you needed an example. Yet earthworms are under the ground. I think we should limit it to those with tongues and with the ability to openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, and make a request for a good conscience.

(1 Peter 3:21, 22) 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, is also now saving you (not by the removing of the filth of the flesh, but by the request to God for a good conscience), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 22 He is at God’s right hand, for he went to heaven, and angels and authorities and powers were made subject to him.

Of course, there might be issues. What if we need to baptize them in mercury or liquid sulphur because they are not the kind of carbon based life form that manages well when water is applied to them?

Or if they are mostly made of bone, and the bone is mostly a pumice material, then we might have to drop them from extreme heights to make sure they get fully immersed. (After the talk we meet at the bungee bridge for the baptism.)

That leads to another question. What if, instead of we discovering them, they discover us? I hope they know to baptize humans in water and not, say, liquid nitrogen, or sulphuric acid.

 

[Anna]

I guess all the other controversial topics  have been exhausted But I did think my baptism by proxy was a good idea, the Mormons think so. That would alleviate the problem of  inter-life complications @JW Insider

[JW Insider]

*** it-1 p. 253 Baptism ***
The passage at 1 Corinthians 15:29 is variously rendered by translators: “What shall they do which are baptized for the dead?” (KJ); “on behalf of their dead?” (AT); “on behalf of the dead?” (NE); “for the purpose of being dead ones?” (NW)

I think the Mormons wait until the person is dead, no? Isn't this why they are so interested in genealogies?

[Anna]

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I think the Mormons wait until the person is dead, no?

Yes, based on that scripture you quoted But I'm sure we could find something to fit in with my proposal

[Ann O'Maly]

21 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

If we discover Extraterrestrial sentient life forms, can they be baptized?

It depends.

I think everyone's jumping the gun here. First, you'd have to learn to communicate effectively with them and learn their culture. Then you'd have to send missionaries and have a Remote Translation Office set up in their part of the galaxy. If the missionaries are not eaten or liquefied to become some kind of biofuel for their hover pods, then all's good. However, there might be some problems with internet signals so connection to the org's website on Earth could be an issue. But if those obstacles are overcome (lots of prayer and donations will be needed), an interested life-form would then have to complete two study books, regularly attend the meetings, decide whether it was going to wear either a suit and tie or a dress forever (once the decision has been made, it's irrevocable), actively evangelize its fellow life-forms, and only then would it be considered for water* baptism. 

_{* Unless it professes the heavenly calling, there is no other kind, because Bible.}

[Evacuated]

 

On 4/10/2017 at 3:13 PM, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

 

If we discover Extraterrestrial sentient life forms, can they be baptized?

 

Sorry to pop this terracentic bubble, but isn't it basically exhibiting alienophobic tendencies? (Can't see a way to effectively hijack the word "alienist" at the moment!)

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

My original question had no discriminatory flavor to it.

In Science Fiction, the term is "xenophobic", which locally refers to a hatred or dislike of people of other countries.

PALOMAR MOUNTAIN, CALIFORNIA
Place Of Dreams Fulfilled.

When I was a pre-teenager, about 1957 or so, the Russians awakened the world as if throwing ice water or sleeping planet by launching into space the Sputnik satellite, a small ball about the size of a basketball in orbit around the earth, and several times a day the satellite would travel over the United States of America with its beeping signals, very primitive by today’s standards, and you could stand out in your front yard and look into the night sky and see it pass overhead as a rapidly moving star.
It’s hard to even explain nowadays the galvanizing effect this had on the nations in general and the United States in particular, but as an 11-year-old boy who somehow had picked up the desire to go to space this captured my imagination as much as it scared the imagination of military and political leaders around the world. At the time I had no geopolitical sense whatsoever so I was totally enthralled by what I saw in the night sky.
It’s hard to even explain nowadays the shock effect that this obvious and apparent demonstration of Soviet superiority had on the world and specifically the United States. Overnight, it seemed, the educational system was ramped up to include science and mathematics beyond the imagination of what people had planned merely months before. The Soviet satellite, and the implications of Soviet superiority were the topic of every magazine, every newspaper and every mass media market that existed at that time… Extremely primitive by today’s standards.
As usual, anything that captured the imagination of the American people, could be exploited to make a dollar off of it, and very soon in the exact same manner that the sport of baseball had baseball cards, there were space cards available in every store and outlet that I was aware of. You could buy a pack of space cards with a slab of bubblegum and there would be pictures of space stations, meteor strikes, what we thought the planets look like then, and everything even remotely related to space.

If memory serves, it’s through these space cards that I became aware of the great observatory at Palomar Mountain, the Palomar Observatory, which took seven years to build as I later found out and was truly as magnificent piece of technology such as the world had never seen before.
By the age of 13, I had become so enthralled with Palomar Mountain and Palomar Observatory that I hungrily absorbed any and all information I could find about it, and vowed that when I grew up I would make a pilgrimage to Palomar Mountain and feast my eyes on the giant eye that could see across the universe and unravel the secrets it contained. By understanding the universe, as an aside, it occurred to me that I could understand the mind of God, which is partially true.
So with this in mind, I have provided the link below so that if you’re not familiar with Palomar Observatory, which is in Southern California, you can review the Wikipedia link, which will add a great deal to your understanding and appreciation of the poem “Infinity”, by Rosser Reeves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palomar_Observatory
………. About 1963 or so I discovered a old yellow science fiction book in the upper levels of my library at the high school I attended, and I believe I read all the science fiction that they had in the school at that time and in this old yellow science fiction book was this poem.
I was so stunned by the magnificence and scope of the poem, that I have tried my entire life to commit fully to memory, and several times I did, but that was then, and this is now. I can still recite the poem pretty much from memory, if I have it written down before me so I can glance down and see what comes next.
If you remember the old advertising slogan “… Melts in your mouth not in your hand”, that M&M candy company used to use on television, the same guy that invented that slogan, is the guy that wrote this poem.
All of this having been said, with great pleasure I present to you as if it were my personal gift ……….. the poem, “Infinity”, by Rosser Reeves.
INFINITY by Rosser Reeves
=======================

The probing eye of Palomar peers skyward to reveal
A billion molten, fiery stars in our galactic wheel...
And shows that even this great disc
Is but a firefly burning,
Within a much more monstrous wheel,
Slowly, slowly turning.

May not this next celestial wheel
Be but an atom's glow in some big molecule of stars
In some huge flake of snow?
For may not space flow on and on from door to opening door,
Like seas that open into seas and never reach a shore?

If in our atom's tiny flame a billion stars are whirled
And millions of these lonely suns has each a captive world,
Just follow to the trillionth power and on beyond to see,
What must be true when ciphers link down to infinity.

Somewhere red planets swing around a triple silver sun,
And pale, pale rainbows interlock their arches one by one.
Somewhere, dark girls upon their brows grow curving, scarlet horns,
And ride in tinkling gardens on great golden unicorns.

Somewhere rains of diamonds fall on foaming, milk-white seas,
Where rockets follow streaming light from star to star with ease.
And soft-eyed girls with honeyed lips swim up to sing and free
Their water-weighted lashes from their native shining sea.

Great blue-white giant blazing suns control a thousand spheres
Where reptiles march in glistening ranks and fight with jeweled spears;
Where lizards lounge on ivory thrones
And keep to weave and spin, to clean their overlapping scales,
A smooth-skinned race of men.

Somewhere crustaceans think like Gods and muse eternal laws
And write the music of the spheres with clicking bony claws.
Or beetles, fish and furry things emerge as sentient breeds,
Or, working with atomic fires are thinking centipedes.

Or, coal-black spiders sway in webs
Beneath chill alien moons,
And finger gemlike instruments to strum immortal tunes.
Or serpent-men on serpent worlds evolve to racial prime,
And glide in fourth dimensions where
The riddle solved is time.

For if there is no end of worlds and nature keeps her laws,
Who knows which life will win which world:
The hands...the coils...the claws?
So feathered things and crawling things
And creeping things all go
Their separate ways on separate worlds,
Around, above, below.

If God employs infinity His wonders to perform,
And there's no end of endlessness,
Can there, then, be a norm?
Would God give souls to sentient beasts
Or would they still be clods?
If evolution is God's way,
Whose image, then, is God's?

An endlessness of worlds implies a world of every kind:
Worlds where our past repeats itself until the end of time.
Worlds where our future's far events enact themselves before;
Where every closing portal means another opening door.

So if there is infinity, if endlessness is true,
Somewhere, Napoleon walks again the fields of Waterloo;
And somewhere, always, in the depths of time's vast shoreless sea,
Upon the ghastly Hill of Skulls,
Christ hangs upon the tree.
===============================================

 

…. it appeared in "The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, Tenth Series" in 1961. The cover price is/was 45¢!!

The editor's comment: "The author is chairman of the board of a large corporation, and we confess we find it intriguing and comforting to know that a man whose workday is devoted to the harsh realities of multi-million-dollar profit and loss has in him that good old-fashioned sense of wonder."
.

[Evacuated]

2 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

My original question had no discriminatory flavor to it.

Just seemed a hint of presupposition that an "Extraterrestrial sentient life form" would have a need of baptism. Apologies for any misunderstanding.

 https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/22527-jws-in-space/

 

[Anna]

11 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

All of this having been said, with great pleasure I present to you as if it were my personal gift ……….. the poem, “Infinity”, by Rosser Reeves.
 

Great poem, enjoyed it a lot! Thanks.