Looks like the Vatican is going to have to start investing in rocket technology, so they can put a Catholic church on Mars and start converting all the green skinned heathens.

After all, those green-skinned love slave girls like to fuck like space bunnies. Remember Captain Kirk encountered one on Star Trek? They need to be taught shame, fear, humility, duplicity, and all those other values which the Catholic church instilled (or tried to instill) upon the aboriginal peoples of this continent.

"Why does science need religion?"

The better question might be, why do so many scientists need religion?

I've never understood the idea that science and religion can coexist in any way but to completely ignore each other.

Science proclaims the value of lending limited, provisional belief to any given proposition in proportion to its ability to explain the universe and its conformance to observable data.

Religion proclaims the value of lending absolute belief to certain specific propositions regardless of the evidence.

Science does not allow the strength of your belief, the size of your congregation, the history of your faith, the moral behavior of its adherents, the consequences of belief or disbelief, threats of hellfire or promises of eternal salvation as arguments for the truth value of a proposition.

Religion does not allow an article of faith to ever, ever be found to be untrue. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, religion demands that you continue believing until you or someone in authority (depending on the organization of your church) is "vouchsafed a personal revelation" that the evidence is in fact trustworthy and the now defunct article of faith can either be dismissed or proclaimed to be a "metaphor" for something.

Science proclaims all knowledge to be provisional, likely faulty and subject to revision.

Religion proclaims certain knowledge to be not only beyond all doubt, but even beyond all QUESTIONING. Oh, don't ask THAT! God might get mad at you!

Saying that science and religion need each other is like saying that rationality and irrationality need each other. If it wasn't for irrationality, how would you even know what rationality was?

No, science doesn't need religion. You never need to square up your data and findings in a scientific paper with biblical prophecy or papal proclamations. Jesus had nothing interesting to say about cell division or astronomical objects because he was unfamiliar with these things because he was an ordinary human being.

Religion is childish superstitious nonsense and should be discarded completely.

>>>>>>>Just another example of making claims that go beyond the evidence even hypothetical claims that go beyond what reason permits. <<<<<<

The search for intelligent life elsewhere is not restricted to a few Vatican scientists. You remember Carl Sagan, don't you?

>>>>>>Would that entail that they lack free will?<<<<<<

Not necessarily. After all, Adam and Eve were not born with original sin yet they chose to sin. Further, the angels are sentient beings who are free of original sin, though they are not human persons.

Original sin is really Augustine's baby----Jews have never accepted it and neither have the Orthodox churches, which go back as far as do the Roman / Western ones. (Indeed, in its inception, Christianity is an Eastern, not Western, religion.) Many Protstants follow Augustine when they think they are following the Bible.

>>>>>>>Do they run around naked all the time? <<<<<<
Not if they live among cacti.