The night is dark and full of terrors

Why do we stay in the Church, Steve Skojec asks. He links the Saint Joseph community, where Milo is also found. Here Joseph Sciambra floats an analogy to the Weyland-Yutani corporation, as Aliens portrays it - the best of the franchise. And all are asking: why did Ellen Ripley go back?

Weyland-Yutani is analogous to the Vatican inasmuch as both are Sovereign Corporations. Weyland-Yutani might be answerable to a government, although we nowhere hear of what government might stop it (cf. also Gateway). The Vatican is a government - but it's not a temporally powerful one; it wouldn't take the Italians that long to occupy that hill. The Vatican survives because many people, like myself, believe it has to. Propose here the same dynamic underlies Weyland-Yutani in secular form.

We are unaware of any planets even with the potential for habitability within 30 lightyears of this one. All agree it takes a lot of capital to colonise other planets; the earlier movements of the "Alien" franchise assumes we're not on Star Trek capital. Weyland-Yutani is assumed the only entity that owns such capital, monetary and technological; and I accept that assumption. LV-426 is assumed the only world which can even be terraformed in feasible range of here and I'll accept that one, too.

If you believe that human life deserves to survive, which I do, you will support Weyland-Yutani's mission. You might dispute its means but you support its mission. Ellen Ripley bore one child before these movies, which girl she lost (her story's told in the Isolation game); Ellen cannot bear another. What can Ripley do, but support the best hope for life in future.

If Weyland-Yutani fails, maybe there might come another corporation with those assets; but how long will that take. And what might happen in the meantime? The Alien is still out there. Or worse.

Overviewing this whole argument, I must rate it Pascal-Complete. This logic says we support the Church because we don't have another one. Sciambra, I suspect, finds the logic wanting. I also think we Catholics can do better whilst remaining a "we".