The search for life on other planets somehow does not at all converge, at first glance, with faith in a higher power, in God. Yet many theologians have already opened their hearts to possibly existing aliens, says the writer Brandon Ambrosino. In 2014, NASA donated $ 1.1 million to the Theological Research Center, an ecumenical research institute in New Jersey, to study the "societal implications of astrobiology."
Some were angry. The Freedom from Religion Foundation, which calls for the separation of church and state, threatened to sue NASA if the agency did not withdraw the grant, and the agency apparently did not respond to these threats. And although the foundation claims that their concern was caused by the confusion of state and religious organizations, he made it clear that he considered this grant a waste of money.
"Science should not worry about how its progress will affect religious beliefs."
The foundation's argument, however, may fade away when the day comes when humanity will have to respond to the detection of aliens. Such a discovery will raise a number of questions that go beyond science. For example, when we ask "what is life?", We ask a scientific question or theological? Questions about the origin of life and its future are very complex and should be studied in various disciplines. And this includes how we should respond to the detection of aliens.
And this is not just an idle fantasy: many scientists argue that the discovery of extraterrestrial life is more a question not if, but when.
There are several reasons to believe so, but the main one relates to the speed with which scientists discover planets outside our solar system. In 2000, astronomers knew about 50 such exoplanets. By 2013, they were already 850, located in 800 planetary systems. That number could reach a million by 2045, says David Weintraub, an associate professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt University.
“We can quite reasonably expect that the number of known exoplanets will soon become, like the stars, completely innumerable,” he writes. Of such discoveries made at the moment, more than 20 exoplanets are located in the “potentially habitable zone” near their star and are similar in properties to the Earth. Among such planets is the notorious Proxima b near Proxima Centauri.
It turns out that the farther into space we can look, the more we have confidence that our planet is not the only suitable place to live.
With a few exceptions, most discussions on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) tend to remain in the exact sciences. But the consequences of such a search go far beyond the bounds of biology and physics, reach the humanities and philosophy, and even theology. As Karl Sagan noted, "space exploration leads directly to religious and philosophical issues." We need to consider whether our faith, our religious beliefs, can adapt to these beings — or whether our beliefs will be shaken to the very core.
Before you skeptically twist your lips, remember and accept for granted that the religions of various nations are still the driving forces in our world, be it peace or war, large or small cells of society, individuals or whole countries.
The development of these questions may become “exotology” or “astrotheology,” as Ted Peters calls them, honored professor of theology at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, reflecting on the theological significance of extraterrestrial life. Peters is not the only one who uses this term - 300 years ago he first appeared in the work of 1714 under the title Astrotheology, or the Demonstration of Being and the Attributes of God from Observing the Heavens.
How unique are we?
What problems can raise the detection of intelligent aliens? Let's start with our uniqueness issues - a question that concerns both theologians and scholars. The search for extraterrestrial life is based on three principles, as Paul Davies believes in his book, Are We Alone? First, it is the principle of the uniformity of nature, which states that the physical processes that take place on Earth can be found everywhere in the Universe. That is, the same processes that gave rise to life can occur everywhere.
Secondly, it is the principle of completeness, which states that all that is possible will be realized. For the purposes of SETI, the second principle states that as long as there are no obstacles to the formation of life, it will be formed; or, as Arthur Lovejoy said, the American philosopher who invented this term, "no genuine possibility of being can be left unfulfilled." According to Sagan, this is because "the origin of life on suitable planets seems to be built into the chemistry of the universe."
The third, the principle of mediocrity, argues that there is nothing special about the status of the Earth or its position in the Universe. This may be the greatest problem for the main Abrahamic religions, who teach that people are purposefully created by God and have a privileged position in relation to other beings.
In a sense, our modern scientific world has been shaped by the recognition of our own mediocrity, as David Weintraub notes.
"When in 1543 Copernicus threw the Earth into orbit around the Sun, the subsequent intellectual revolution [...] swept the remnants of the Aristotelian geocentric Universe into a ballot box of history."
The Copernican revolution laid the groundwork for scientists like Davis, who claim that our "typical planet is located near a typical star in a typical galaxy." Sagan stresses this even more: “We find ourselves living on a small planet with a boring star lost in a galaxy hidden in some forgotten corner of the Universe, in which there are far more galaxies than people”.
But how could a believer reconcile this with the belief that people are the crown of God's creation? How can people believe that they are an apple in the eye of the creator, if their planet is only one of billions?
The discovery of intelligent aliens can have a similar effect on a person's Copernican self-understanding. Will such a discovery not lead to the fact that believers feel their insignificance, and, as a result, make people doubt their faith?
Most likely, this fear is mistaken. The statement that God is involved in the life of the people never required earth-centered theology. Psalms, sacred to Jews and Christians, claim that God gave names to all the stars. According to the Talmud, God flies 18,000 worlds overnight. And Islam insists that “everything in the heavens and on the earth” belongs to Allah, as stated in the Quran, which implies that its rules extend far beyond the limits of one tiny planet. The same texts opaquely make it clear that people have a special meaning for God, who, in fact, is busy with many things.
Secondly, we do not leave the word “special” only for unique, unique, separate phenomena. As Peters says, the discovery of life anywhere else in the universe does not compromise God's love for earthly life, "as parents' love for a child is not minimized due to the birth of this child's brother or sister." If you believe in God, why assume that he is capable of loving only a few of his star children?
Revelation
Do religious texts themselves mention a possible alien life? "What is most important in religion," writes the Catholic priest and theologian Thomas O'Meara, "so is the statement of some kind of contact within and yet outside of human nature." For Jews, Christians and Muslims, this implies a written revelation, although it depends on the specific historical situations in which it occurred initially. The best theologians recognize these limitations. Some of them, however, do not recognize, and for them, along with believers like them, the discovery of aliens can be alarming.
Weintraub believes that evangelicals may have trouble finding extraterrestrial life, as they follow their Scripture with a high degree of literalism. Their hermeneutic heritage goes back to Luther's Sola Scriptura, the battle cry of the Reformation, which confirms that “only Scripture” is necessary for understanding God's plan of salvation. A notable exception is the evangelist Bill Graham, who in 1976 told the National Enquirer that he "firmly" believes that God created alien life "far in space." These believers claim that any other written work or idea should be judged and judged by the Bible. Take, for example, Darwin’s theory of evolution, which some evangelicals reject on the grounds that according to the Bible God created the world in seven days.
If you asked one of these Christians if he believed in alien life, he would first try to remember what the Bible says about God's creation. Finding no confirmation of alien life, he could conclude that humans are alone in the universe. For some of this, it follows that Scripture states that there is no rational life anywhere else. Of course, he may remain open to the discovery of alien life, but he will not have to reconsider the divine revelation in the most convenient way: let him go with some epistemic humility.
Secondly, he will deeply reflect on the concept of the Incarnation, according to which God is fully and uniquely embodied in a man from the first century called Jesus of Nazareth. According to Christianity, salvation can only be achieved through the death and resurrection of Jesus. All paths lead to God and, in essence, pass through him. But what does this mean for other civilizations that live somewhere else in the universe and who are completely unaware of the history of Jesus?
Thomas Payne raised this question in his work in 1794, arguing on the topic of multiple worlds. Belief in an infinite number of worlds, Payne argued, "makes the Christian belief system both small and ridiculous and dissipates it in the mind, like feathers in the air." It is impossible to confirm both at the same time, he wrote, and "he who believes that he believes in both, believes little in both." Isn't it absurd to believe that God "must give up care of everyone else" in the worlds he created in order to come and die in this? On the other hand, “do we assume that every world in innumerable creation” has its own versions of visits to God? If this is true, Payne concludes, then this person "will have nothing left but to travel from world to world in endless succession of deaths with fleeting intervals of life."
In a nutshell: if Christian salvation is possible only for beings whose worlds have experienced God's incarnation, this means that God's life was spent on visiting many worlds in space, where he was quickly crucified and resurrected. But it seems highly absurd to Paine, why he rejects Christianity.
There is another way to address this issue, which Payne did not come to mind: perhaps the embodiment of God in the history of the Earth “works” for all creatures in the Universe. This option is offered by George Coyne, a Jesuit priest and former director of the Vatican Observatory.
“How could he be God and leave the aliens in their sins? God chose a very specific way to atone for people. He sent His only Son Jesus to them. Did God do it for the aliens? This is deeply embedded in Christian theology ... the concept of the universality of God's redemption and even the notion that all creation, even the inanimate, takes part in its redemption in some sense. ”
There is another possibility. Salvation itself can only be an earthly concept. Theology does not require us to believe that sin affects all intelligent life in the entire universe. Perhaps people are extremely nasty. Or, speaking a religious language, perhaps the Earth was unlucky to become the only place where Adam and Eve appeared. Who said that our star brothers morally fell and need spiritual redemption? Perhaps they have achieved a more perfect spiritual existence than we have at the moment in our development.
As Davis notes, spiritual thinking requires animals to be both self-conscious and “reach a level of intelligence at which they can evaluate the consequences of their actions.” On Earth, this kind of knowledge exists at best for several million years. If life exists elsewhere in the Universe, then it is very unlikely that it is in the same stage of development as we. And given the huge length of time of the Universe, it is likely that a part of another life is much older than us and is further on the evolutionary path. Thus, "we might expect to be the least spiritually advanced in the universe."
If Davis is right, then, unlike popular works of literature, people will not teach their stellar brethren about God. Training will be completely different. In addition, other civilizations could understand the Divine in countless other ways, and they could all be compatible.
Identity
But what about the separation between denominations? How could the discovery of aliens affect religious identity? In the history of Philip Klass, “We have a Rabbi on Venus,” at some point in the future, the Jewish community on the planet Venus holds the first interstellar neo-Zionist conference. Among those present - a reasonable type of aliens named "Bulba", which arrived from a distant star Riegel. The Jews at the conference are perplexed by the physical appearance of the bulb, their gray spots and tentacles. They decide that the bulbs cannot be people, and therefore cannot be Jews.
It was decided to appeal to the rabbinical court in order to decide how the Jews should treat new visitors. What will happen, they ask, if one day people will find aliens who want to be Jews? “Will we say: no, this is completely unacceptable?”
The rabbis conclude that this answer is not very good and they offer a paradoxical solution to the Venusians. “Here are Jews - and here are Jews. Bulba will belong to the second group. "
The farce of this story is reinforced by the fact that we recognize that religion is inherent in some tribalism. A statement about any identity, belonging, can divide the world into groups: they and we. But with the participation of religion, this division occurs in the cosmic dimension: we and they, and God, are on our side.
Perhaps this is a more difficult task for Judaism and Islam than for some forms of Christianity, which pay less attention to daily rituals than other religions. Islam requires its adherents to follow certain standards of behavior throughout the year. During prayers, it is necessary to look in the direction of Mecca and pray five times at a certain time during the day, physically kneeling and falling down. In many religions fasting and pilgrimage to certain places is observed. But unlike Islam, modern Judaism is not so attached to the place because of the tragic history of exile and diaspora.
What, then, is necessary to accept aliens into the religion of Earth? What will they have to do? Praying five times a day? Perhaps their planet rotates differently than ours, and the days are much shorter - will they pray as often? Will they be baptized? To communion? Build a tent on Sukkot? We generally imagine that aliens will have a physical structure, like ours, although there is no reason to believe this. What to do?
Perhaps, to some, this will seem a bit frivolous exotology, but the point is this: all our religious identities are centered on the earth. There is nothing wrong. Religion is a purely human invention.
The end of religion?
If we wake up tomorrow morning and see the news that we have come into contact with intelligent aliens, how will religions react to this? Some believe that discovery will set us on a path that will lead to an end, to the overgrowth of religion. One of the studies conducted by Peters showed that two times more non-religious people than religious, believes that the discovery of alien life will put an end to the earthly religion (69% and 34%, respectively).
But to assume that religion is too weak to survive in a world with aliens is to spit in the face of history. Because this assumption underestimates the “degree of adaptation that has already taken place,” as Peters says. With a few exceptions — creationism, violent fundamentalism, same-sex marriage — religions often adapted without much fuss to the various paradigms they encountered. Of course, its versatility and flexibility is evidence that there is something in religion that resonates with people at the deepest level.
Some aspects of religion will have to be reconsidered, but completely refuse - no, says O'Meara. “If being, revelation, grace come to other worlds besides the Earth, it fits into the modest self-understanding of Christians” - and we can add to the self-understanding of any religion. Nevertheless, it is not a question of addition or subtraction: it is a way to see everything in a new way.
Many religions have always believed that the names of the stars gives God. Is it hard to believe that God gives the names and inhabitants of these stars? Или, возможно, они сами дают имена Богу?
The article is based on materials .
Comments
Post a Comment