{"id":300,"date":"2011-08-17T12:53:37","date_gmt":"2011-08-17T12:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/preacherskid\/?p=300"},"modified":"2011-08-17T18:25:48","modified_gmt":"2011-08-17T18:25:48","slug":"jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus loves the little children; red, yellow, black, white, two legs or eight"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
SETI: Is anybody out there?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thanks an infusion of $200,000 in donations, the SETI Project<\/a><\/em> \u2013 the non-profit organization founded in 1985 to seek out extraterrestrial intelligence \u2013 is back on track. So, 42 radio telescopes near California\u2019s Mount Shasta are active, trying to pick up any E.T.<\/a><\/em> chatter out there amid the stars.<\/p>\n

I hope they get an answer. No, I pray<\/em> they get an answer that we are not alone in this Universe. That would give us a perspective that could brush aside our petty divisions over politics, religions, ethnicities and restore a sense of awe about our place (our tiny place) in the cosmos.<\/p>\n

Of course, some of the folks I remember from my childhood, as the son of a preacher in a fundamentalist Pentecostal denomination, would think that idea is darned near heresy. Indeed, more than a few still do today. (Obviously, not Star Trek<\/em> <\/a>fans).<\/p>\n

You see, those of my co-religionists who slap on the blinders to anything but a literal view of the Bible, and in my opinion err even within the strictures of that mindset, insists that human beings are the only<\/em> creatures to be made in God\u2019s image<\/em>. Meanwhile, skeptics latch on to such dogmatic rigidity to surmise that if E.T. is found, it\u2019s all over for Christianity.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Well, they\u2019re both wrong, and both ignorant.<\/em> As for the former — my brothers and sisters with imagination deficits who dare to lock their idea of God in a tiny little box — I offer the same advice I do to the latter, the agnostics and atheist who delight in pointing out the inconsistency of such limited faith: Read and open your minds.<\/em><\/p>\n

Peruse C.S. Lewis\u2019 sci-fi trilogy<\/a> (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra <\/em>and That Hideous Strength<\/em>), wherein the Christian apologist wrote of a cosmos filled with life \u2013 all of them creations of the Most High — and yet this was a Universe consistent with faith; other favorites of mine are two short stories from Ray Bradbury\u2019sThe Illustrated Man<\/a>: <\/em>In \u201cThe Man,\u201d<\/em> space explorers from Earth land on a planet with intelligent life, only to find that Christ had arrived one day prior, and then the mind-blowing short story \u201cThe Fire Balloons<\/em>,\u201d which has missionary priests encountering life forms that consist only of energy . . . and are without sin.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Say a little prayer for me, human.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oh, and the Bible.<\/em> Read that, too, with an open mind. Perhaps you may come to suspect, as I do, that if and when we find E.T. \u2013 or E.T. finds us<\/em> \u2013 the event will not unravel faith, but affirm and expand it to realms of wonder. Consider:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.\u00a0 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.\u00a0 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.\u00a0 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.\u201d<\/em> (Psalm 19:1-4. New International Version)<\/p>\n

And this from Mark 13:27, \u201cAnd He will send His angels and gather His elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, and back to the \u201cimage of God\u201d<\/em><\/a> thing. No, it doesn\u2019t mean God has two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears or even a physical body, for that matter. (Taking poetic biblical descriptions of the Creator literally would also mean God has wings, breathes smoke and fire, or is a lion or a dove, etc.)<\/em> No, to me, the image thing refers to potential and character: creativity, intelligence, appreciation of beauty, a sense of morality and the desire for relationships to give and receive love.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s get a little wild here, my fellow carbon-based life forms. If we someday meet intelligent beings from, say, Alpha Centauri . . . creatures who prefer to build rather than destroy, to create art, to live by an ethical code and have the curiosity to have reached out to us . . . who\u2019s to say they, too, aren\u2019t in the \u201cimage of God\u201d<\/em> ? <\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, and even if they look more like spacefaring jellyfish<\/a><\/em> than humanoids.<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t stretch your mind that far? Well, then, maybe your God is far, far too small.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks an infusion of $200,000 in donations, the SETI Project \u2013 the non-profit organization founded in 1985 to seek out extraterrestrial intelligence \u2013 is back on track. So, 42 radio telescopes near California\u2019s Mount Shasta are active, trying to pick up any E.T. chatter out there amid the stars. I hope they get an answer.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":432,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,84,14,244,8,17,85,6,7,3,1],"tags":[246,133,245,247],"class_list":["post-300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-christ","category-ethics","category-extraterrestials","category-faith","category-nature","category-heaven","category-power","category-pop","category-pks","category-uncategorized","tag-c-s-lewis","tag-ray-bradbury","tag-seti","tag-star-trek"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus loves the little children; red, yellow, black, white, two legs or eight - Preacher\u2019s Kid: Honest Faith, Real World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus loves the little children; red, yellow, black, white, two legs or eight - Preacher\u2019s Kid: Honest Faith, Real World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Thanks an infusion of $200,000 in donations, the SETI Project \u2013 the non-profit organization founded in 1985 to seek out extraterrestrial intelligence \u2013 is back on track. So, 42 radio telescopes near California\u2019s Mount Shasta are active, trying to pick up any E.T. chatter out there amid the stars. I hope they get an answer.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Preacher\u2019s Kid: Honest Faith, Real World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-17T12:53:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-17T18:25:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/preacherskid\/files\/2011\/08\/seti-300x212.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"remims\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jesus loves the little children; red, yellow, black, white, two legs or eight - Preacher\u2019s Kid: Honest Faith, Real World","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jesus loves the little children; red, yellow, black, white, two legs or eight - Preacher\u2019s Kid: Honest Faith, Real World","og_description":"Thanks an infusion of $200,000 in donations, the SETI Project \u2013 the non-profit organization founded in 1985 to seek out extraterrestrial intelligence \u2013 is back on track. So, 42 radio telescopes near California\u2019s Mount Shasta are active, trying to pick up any E.T. chatter out there amid the stars. I hope they get an answer.…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html","og_site_name":"Preacher\u2019s Kid: Honest Faith, Real World","article_published_time":"2011-08-17T12:53:37+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-08-17T18:25:48+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/preacherskid\/files\/2011\/08\/seti-300x212.jpg"}],"author":"remims","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html","name":"Jesus loves the little children; red, yellow, black, white, two legs or eight - Preacher\u2019s Kid: Honest Faith, Real World","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/preacherskid\/files\/2011\/08\/seti-300x212.jpg","datePublished":"2011-08-17T12:53:37+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-17T18:25:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/#\/schema\/person\/8a8939f8ac7f7fd8a0c906f2c12c2b63"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/preacherskid\/files\/2011\/08\/seti-300x212.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/preacherskid\/files\/2011\/08\/seti-300x212.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/2011\/08\/jesus-loves-the-little-children-red-yellow-black-white-two-legs-or-eight.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jesus loves the little children; red, yellow, black, white, two legs or eight"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/","name":"Preacher\u2019s Kid: Honest Faith, Real World","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Robert Mims","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/#\/schema\/person\/8a8939f8ac7f7fd8a0c906f2c12c2b63","name":"remims","description":"In 30-plus years as a journalist, I have written about subjects as varied as business, science, politics and the environment to sports, history and religion. Over the past 20 years, I have also freelanced magazines and ghostwritten numerous books with biographical, inspirational, historical and sociological themes. Among my awards over the years I most treasure earning regional recognition from the Society of Professional Journalists as Religion Writer of the Year, and finalist honors for both the Religion Newswriters Association's Templeton and Cornell feature writing prizes.","sameAs":["http:\/\/mimsmedia.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/author\/remims"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/432"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/preacherskid\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}