July 5, 2011 • 39 mins
Space Religion: Will humans leave religion behind when they become an interplanetary species? Not hardly. Join Robert and Julie as they discuss how belief systems may change as a result of space exploration, on off-world colonization or extraterrestrial contact.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie
had If you read or say I know I've asked
you this before, but if you read or scene Dune,
I have seen parts of it in the past. But
(00:25):
I think when I say parts of it, like it
was on some sort of secondary cable channel on this Saturday,
and it might have been during a time in my
life where I was a little bit tired in the
morning and I just sat there in the couch, So
I cannot say that with fidelity. I watched it, you know,
from the beginning to end. Okay, well, well that's that's fair.
Um that classes muster. Yeah, well yeah, I mean I
(00:46):
remember watching the film in bits and pieces on cable
TV when I was younger, and then I read it,
and then I read it again. But there's this thing
that that shows up in it called the Orange Catholic Bible.
Done for anyone who's not definitely or be you know
space epic Um space opera, uh story that takes place
on too far distant worlds long after Earth has has vanished,
(01:09):
but there's still all these human civilizations out there on
different planets, and they still have religion. Um. And the
book and the books kind of deal with the emergence
of a new religion, but the one that they have
taken with them is this thing they call the the
Orange Catholic Bible, or that's that's their text anyway, which
I always kind of picture in my mind being like
a really orange looking but I was just thinking of fanta,
(01:32):
you know, with a big cross on it on it. Yeah.
So it's supposedly a an accumulated book. And like this
is the quote from from Doing Uh, the religious text
produced by the Commission of Ecumenical trans Translators. It contains
elements of the most ancient religions including and uh he
names a couple here that I think are made up,
(01:54):
but also Christianity, Catholicism, uh, Buddhism, Islam, and Supreme Commandment
is considered to be quote thou shalt not disfigure the soul. Um.
So what I what I really like about this is
the idea that you know, this decided that in some
far distant future we still have taken religion with us.
(02:15):
Though it is altered its form. It just as religion
and belief. Human belief alters just you know, from generation
to generation. Yeah, it evolves over time. And uh, and
it's such a fascinating area of thought, not only because
I like to you know, we're kind of future so
I like to imagine what what are humans gonna be
doing in the future, What are they gonna be thinking?
How are they going to be perceiving their world? But
(02:38):
it's does stir a lot of debate because or maybe
just angst because on one hand, there are people that
are that are very adamant about the idea that that
we should just leave the religion at home. It should
be sort of a church and state thing here. Yeah,
or and also that like science is is gonna is
the thing that's gonna get us, that gets us into orbit.
It's not it's not faith, it's not belief, it's not
(03:01):
myth or lore or any of these things. Uh, it's
it's solid facts. It's it's it's science. And science should
be the thing that we take with us. It's the
thing that propels us. And that that if we bring
all these these outdated ideas of gods and goddesses into
into the cosmos with us. Then we're just bringing trouble
with us. Well that it maybe could hamstring our understanding,
right right, Okay, so in that sense that that the
(03:24):
two shall never sort of coexist in this example, right,
But that's not necessarily the case. I mean, what if
I'm not wrong too? It is that Carl Segond who
said that he felt like it at some point in
in the future that there might even be a science
based religion that could bridge Yeah, Sagan is um we
all wear turtlenecks. Oh, that would be great, we have
(03:45):
that that cool haircutting. I would do it. Yeah. I
think there's definitely an argument that we're no matter where
we go as a species, um, at least as far
as we you know, not not getting into ideas of like,
you know, human consciousness changing based on O our what
it currently is to be human. Um, we're gonna bring
this world view we're some sort of worldview with us.
(04:07):
Now what pieces we used to construct it? You know,
that's kind of uh up for grabs. Um. It kind
of becomes like, you know, buffet religion, where I like
to imagine people choosing only the healthiest uh bits from
the buffet to take with them into the future and
leaving the the fatty, uh, disgusting or intolerable um items
(04:30):
on the buffet. Yeah, that's stuff that gives you poopy
tubes later on. Yeah. Yeah, well that that is nice.
But this is a lot of yeah, and this is
what could happen. Yeah, and this is a lot of
me talking. But we're gonna discuss other people's ideas. And besides,
let's talk about Okay, so we've had some space exploration.
Let's talk about, um, you know, what people have observed
in space religion. Why because that's not a big topic
(04:52):
that comes up when you say, oh, okay, well you
know there's a space mission and so on and so forth. Yeah,
if we were going to keep outer space religion free,
we kind of already screwed of that one up because
because we've we've actually seen some interesting examples of uh. Well,
for start, let's start off with Christianity, since uh, it
was largely um, you know, just by having stance of history, um,
(05:13):
christian men who wound up in space before most other religions.
So um, we have, for instance, buzz Aldrin in the
nineteen sixty nine, who consume convenient communion bread and wine,
on the Moon. Yeah. Now he didn't get to transmit
the ceremony back to Earth because NASA had it was
already in kind of deep water because they let the
(05:35):
Apollo eight crew read from the Book of Genesis for
Christmas and they transmitted that and uh, and so there's
a big lawsuit. Um. But but yeah, buzz Aldrin having
communion on the moon. Okay, Well, you know what, you
gotta get your wine in there. I get it. Although
I understand that's it's a deeper, more symbolic thing going
on than just ingesting wine. I get it. Yeah. And
(05:57):
then uh, and then people have continued to when they
have faith, to bring it with them and uh. And
sometimes they'll bring some rather interesting articles of faith with them.
Faith with him. This was just in two in the
in two thousand nine, but cosmonaut Maxim Serav reported that
the Russian Federal Space Agency has a small cash he
of religious items on the International Space Station, including a
(06:18):
reliquary cross, which allegedly contains a piece of the original cross.
Uh that Jesus was crucified on it. Yeah. Now, for
those of you aren't familiar, this has been a common
thing throughout history since the Crucifixion, uh, you know, took
place that they would have these holy relics, little pieces
of the Cross. And I've also heard it argued that
(06:39):
if you were to take every alleged piece of the
True Cross and we're to reassemble the true Cross, the
true Cross would be enormous. It would be like the
size of a supermarket or something. Okay, so they would
have to go in and really like it changed the
engineering on them. Well, there's there's a lot of fraudulent pieces,
So I'm not saying that they definitely have a piece
of this true men know, historic goal, um, you know thing,
(07:01):
but but they they they think they or they have
a piece that claims to you know, and have a
bit of the True Cross. So it's just kind of
fascinating that they're religious relics in space right now. Even um,
of course we've had the Jewish faith. Judaism has gone
into a space before in the form of kosher food.
(07:23):
It's already appeared on orbital menus and uh, which you know,
it makes sense to me in a way because if
you're a vegetarian, you probably would want vegetarian food and space,
right not necessarily that that's associated with any sort of religion.
But um, yeah, you know, I mean there are certain
things that you're trying to adhere to write if you
have certain diet hairy restrictions, be they health related or
(07:43):
faith related. You know. The one of the big things
about space food is you want people to eat the food.
That's why we've had this. There's been a lot of
work that's gone into making space food edible and not
only edible but tasty and and like Taylor fitting the
menu two individuals on these different space missions. So you know,
you want this dude to eat, you want him to
(08:04):
be healthy or heat or she in orbit. So yeah,
if they have a certain dietary restriction, even if it's
purely religion based, then they're gonna they're gonna do what
they can to make it work. Okay, So so far,
I don't really see any of these things sort of
interfering with the mission itself, right right, you know, because
because other things that like um, astronaut Jeff Hoffman uh
took like a drado into space to just you know,
(08:25):
to spin it around because that's kind of gimmick and cool,
right um and uh, and and there was this there
was an experiment where they lit the candles on a
on a menorah and they were like looking at how
the flame is spherical, uh, which is just cool, okay
um and uh yeah, so this is not really getting
in the way of anything. Um. Now there's another whole
(08:48):
fascinating area, and that's the idea of taking Islam into space. Yeah.
And and in fact it didn't wasn't there is it
in my Myanmar where they had a big discussion about
the best ways to go into space and they produced
actual guide on un observing um Muslim religion in space. Yeah. Well,
the Malaysian National Space Agents, um they yeah. They back
(09:11):
in two thousand six, the Department of the Yeah, the
same same letter U. The County's the country's Department of
Islamic Development, assembled a team of a hundred and fifty
Islamic scientists and scholars, and they ended up putting together
a twelve page booklet on recommendations for how to conduct
oneself in accordance with Islamic law on space. Because obviously,
(09:33):
when when laws like this are originally laid out, no
one's taking into account space missions. And we're talking about
and specifically here we're talking about of course, their dietary restrictions,
just as there are in uh in judaism Um. Slightly different,
but but they have them. Uh. And then there's the
whole tradition of praying to in the direction of Mecca,
(09:55):
which can be a fairly complicated thing on Earth. As
we discussed in the the episode of Technology be Ancients.
The astrolabe is a rather cosmic instrument that allow that
has allowed for thousands of years individuals to determine Mecca,
exactly the location of Mecca so that they're praying in
the right direction. Yeah, I mean, I have to say
(10:17):
like a lot of this again, doesn't it feels like, Okay,
you're in a you're on a mission, and you're an individual,
and so as you said, you bring up, you're going
to bring your belief system with you and your particular
It's almost like if I went into space, I probably
would have my my my unicorn versus norwhale figurings. I
might bring those with me, but they're both pointy, and
you're gonna bring them in on them just float around
(10:39):
versus Okay, well, as long as they're pointed at each other.
But I can just imagine them flying into someone's eyes
when the shuttle. You know, of course I would tether
them down, but I'm just saying that, you know, we
all bring some sort of cage of ourselves wherever we go,
so it's unavoidable to to bring this. But so so
far it seems like, you know, those are things that
are not necessarily problem on right, and those out of
(11:02):
those recommendations made by the Department of Islamic Development, they
pointed out that like if you you should always attempt
to pray in the direction of Mecca, and that if
you're when possible, but that ultimately it's like if you know,
if you can't figure it out, it's the prayer is
more important than where you're you're pointed. Uh. Likewise, if
you are on a space mission away from Earth, say
(11:24):
you're on your win of Mars, it's perfectly acceptable just
to pray in the direction of Earth. Or the detail
I liked the most, that is, if you can't tell
which direction the Earth is in, you can just your
prayer can be directed quote wherever, because if you because
I'm thinking like, that's the time when you definitely want
to get down to some serious praying when you're on
(11:44):
that spaceship and you have no idea where Earth is
in relation to the ship. Um. And then other stuff
was just like, for instance, they have a daily five
prayer cycle, and if you're not on Earth, then the
twenty four hour cycle is those a little different because yeah,
you'd just been because you end up every time you
you revolve around the Earth, you're gonna fit in five
(12:04):
different prayers. You would just be praying NonStop basically. UM.
So they just said we'll just keep it in line
with the passing of the hours on the planet Earth,
which makes sense all right, so you know, gotta gotta
get some grand rules here. Um. So okay, it's still
though a pretty big topic, right, Um, you know, religion
and space science really. And what I noticed is that
(12:27):
when I was at the World Science Festival, and I
had gone to a panel called the Future of Big Science,
which featured Nobel laureate and physicist Stephen Weinberg, Uh, that
people brought up religion after his talk about you know,
these big future of big science and what might happen um.
And I was actually kind of surprised about that because
he talked more about um, you know, funding and you know,
(12:49):
politics and so on and so forth. Um. But he
took a question from an audience member concerning religion, and
then this person said, do you think that in the US,
because we are so focused on religion every aspect of society,
including science, and this comes up, you know, again and
again about whether the two can co exist, do you
think that that is actually hamstringing the US's ability to
(13:10):
compete in the field of science. And um Winberg was, uh,
you know, he didn't really directly answer that question, but
what he did say is that in the West. Uh.
He says, I don't find an anti science mentality. What
I find is a confusion about what science is. And
(13:31):
he went on to say that this just isn't a
problem in most countries, particularly countries like China and um
and they don't necessarily have any debates about pursuing scientific
endeavors in the face of religion. In other words, their
funding is not attached to any political groups who may
question the the potential of space exploration or scientific endeavors,
(13:59):
even the large Hadron Collider for instance. UM. So that's
I think what Wimberg goes sort of pointing to is
that this is when there can be a problem with
religion and science, because if you have different groups. And
again you talk about religion, you're talking about like incredibly
complex mosaic of religions and beliefs and thoughts and opinions
(14:23):
and trying to fit all of that, you know, under
one heading. That then is directing possibly what what a
government might be doing in terms of scientific endeavors. Really
is sort of like trapping you know, gas in a suitcase. Right. Um,
it's it's a difficult thing to intertwine the two. Yeah.
(14:44):
Now in another country where it's apparently not that big
of an issue, is uh, you know, the whole science religion.
There is India. Um, there's a guy by the name
of their daughter, Ja the Rahman and actually um and
he is a professor of physics Enities at Rochester Institute
of Technology and uh. I actually interviewed him maybe a
(15:06):
year ago, and he's a he's a period of talking
about this particular issue I think on speaking speaking of faith,
which I think is now called being the MPR show. Yeah,
Christ yeah, Christai and uh and he pointed out he
actually wrote an essay called why in science and whine
religion and uh in in in the difference, part of
the problem could be linguistic because in Uh. In the
(15:29):
English language, we have the word why, and that word
has to has has two different senses. There's the there's
the there's the cause why, like why am I unhappy?
Or to put it more simply, what is the cause
of my unhappiness? All right? And the effect that you know,
the effect is dependent upon prior events, so which the
students related to the cost. And then there's the why
(15:51):
in the teleological sense, right, Uh. Teleology is the is
the philosophical study of design and purpose. So if you're
saying why am i? Why am I happy? And you
interpret that in the telological sense, you know, it's this
deep question about the meaning of the universe, geological meaning God,
like you're outside of yourself, so why God me? Do
you why that? But as opposed to why did this?
(16:11):
You know, what were the events that led to this happening? Right?
And uh? You know, like I said, why why are
there humans? Why? Why are we going into space? That
kind of thing? Um? But in the in Tamil, there
are two different words for the each different why. So
I just find that that fascinating that you can say, um,
why are there humans you know on the planet? Why
did why are we the most you know, the involved
(16:33):
species on Earth, and you can say that with it
with just the right word to make it a completely
non religious or even or even philosophical question. So it's
kind of interesting at the end of the day that
humanity really shares more similarities than dissimilarities, right, Like, we
all are pretty blown away by the mysteries of the world,
whether or not we're looking at them through a religious
(16:55):
or a scientific lens, and we all pretty much want
the best for each other in ourselves, right, So it
is kind of fascinating that even though that's that's primarily
the case, we still get down to semantics and we're
splitting hairs and this causes a lot of heartache and mayhem. Um.
But I do think it's interesting, um, But that that
(17:15):
Winberg was saying that, you know, the crux of this
is that it comes down to funding sometimes because you
do have lobbyists that are talking to senators saying, you know,
don't support this or do support this, And so that's
really where where the the I guess you could say
that rubber hits the pavement right in terms of seeing
these ideals play out in concrete ways, And for Winberg,
(17:38):
he is very concerned about the future of science in
America because he sees cuts and funding because people and
it's a heart economy, people don't necessarily want to you know,
support things that are especially space exploration related, And he's
not necessarily saying let's put a bunch of people in
the space. In fact, I think from what I could
tell that he's he's thinking the unmanned missions are the
(17:59):
way to because you can still gather data. Um. But
for him, it's still like, you know, what, what what
Let's figure out what this world is all about. This
is fascinating stuff. We live in it, and this is
the way to do it through science because we're collecting
data every day that that really changes our perspective or
adds to it or you know, makes the sort of again,
this mosaic of our existence a little bit even more um,
(18:22):
amazing and powerful. Right. So, I guess one of the
one of the things is when when when science is
trying to answer those questions, at what point did they
end up asking questions that interfere with the questions that religion, Uh,
some religions claim to answer, right right, yeah, Well, but
this is the cool thing is that we've seen like
for for instance, with Brother g. Consulmanio. He works the
(18:45):
Vatican essentially, Um, he's entered into the arena of planetary
exploration ethics, right, the possible existence of extraterrestrial life and
whether or not aliens would be with or without original sin.
And it turns out that Brother Consomania is also very
cool with terror forming other planets and attempt to foster
(19:06):
life there. So what I'm seeing there and what I
say it's cool is because the conversation is happening. Yeah,
it's not hamstring necessarily. What's going on right now from
his you know, at least from this limited perspective of Consomania,
he's actually taking some of these issues and talking about
them through religious lens and exploring them and not shutting
(19:29):
them down. Um, you know, is it funny that you know,
is it kind of funny to think that he might
be seeking out an alien and then just you know,
trying to uh, that does the alien. Yes, but that's
not necessarily what he's doing. That's just that's really especially
if if water will end up melting the alien and
then he ends up actually kicking off an interstellar war,
(19:49):
that would that would be horrible. Wow. And then yet
flying monkeys will be very angry. Yeah, exactly. Um, just
it just occurs to me the gremlins could never be baptized,
could they if gremlins existed? Or well, what are the
things that turned into grim wins? The magua? Yeah, that's
a whole there. I have a number of scientific um
questions about the magua. Uh. But but we'll get past podcast,
(20:14):
of course. Yeah, but let's talk about like when religion
and science actually worked together in space exploration. You have
a couple of examples. Yeah. One of them that I
really loved, um that I ran across a few months
back is the story of Dr James C. Fletcher. And
this guy served as NASSA administrator from seventy seven eight
eight nine. And this this guy was extremely influential. Like basically,
(20:38):
we can we can almost lay the Space Shuttle program
at his feet. You know, he was he was very
gung ho, like let's get let's get out there, let's
let's explore the cosmos, let's find extra restaurants, let's find
seti um which is and then not something everyone's into
these days. But but but the really interesting thing is
this this guy grew up and was a about member
(21:01):
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints,
the Mormon Church, and and you know he was he was,
he was a believer. And and where it gets interesting
is that and we're not going to go into into
depth about Mormon theology or Mormon cosmology, but it does
involve a universe full of quote worlds without number. And
(21:21):
then then these worlds are, according to to their their religion,
inhabited by intelligent beings. So in other words, that the
religion already includes xtra terrestrial life, like it's already factored
into the design. So it's it's not something where um
and some of the like older you know, Christian religions, um,
(21:42):
more traditional Christian religions, you have this. You know, it's
like there's no room for aliens because there's the the
whole ideas like, well, God made humans, there's Earth. There's
no mention of anything else. And if and if you do,
you're gonna have to, you know, to to directcon it
into the the the overall design. But with the with
the Mormon faith, it's already there. And so that was
one of the driving forces. He was part of the
(22:02):
agenda of that faith. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he wasn't
to have this sort of exploration, right, I mean, he
wasn't like, you know, getting up there, you know, at
NASA making big religious speeches of but it was one
of the things that personally drove him, as did the
whole Like the Mormon faith is also steeped in the
frontiersm you know, because because you know, there the Utah,
the early founders and the early members of the church
(22:24):
where there was a very you know, a frontier mentality,
and there's all in space exploration. You know, that's the
final frontier, right, or at least the next frontier. Well
and then we mean manifest destiny too is always been
part of that, right, which is for another time. But
but yeah, and he also he also it's interesting is
that at the time, like before the nineteen fifties, UM,
people like in the Mormon Church, some of the higher ups,
(22:47):
they were very much against the idea of space exploration.
They were like, like, God's not gonna let you go
too far. He's gonna put limits on that, he's gonna
shut that down. You don't even don't even mess with it.
And he was like he was one of the of
several you know or numerous you know, intellectuals within the church.
We were like, no, that's that's complete hogwash. You know,
don't don't let don't let this stand in the way
of our science, and in fact it should be the
other way around. So so I found that to be
(23:10):
an inspirational story of religion actually drying. Yeah, I thought
that was pretty cool to us all your blog post
on it, and I had no idea about that. So, um,
it's a really good example of that. And then again
to bring up the astrolabe, this is again, this is
um primarily a an invention of UM of the Muslim
(23:31):
community from I can't remember now, but it had has
been in existence for her since the fifth century BCO. Yes, yes,
and um. And what was so cool about this instrument
is that it was improved upon and improved upon for
hundreds and hundreds of years by Muslim cosmologists who wanted
(23:52):
to know again, um, you know where Mecca is and
try to celebrate the important holidays and try to line
up this guy with with their worldview and their beliefs.
And what this did is it helped to usher in
an age of discovery. Later on for us and I say,
age of discovery. We're talking about sailing ships and you know,
(24:12):
discovering other countries, which of course there are parallels with
that in space. Right. Um, of course you don't see
in in some countries now you don't see a lot
of UM funding into space exploration or a lot of
the sciences today, but um, you know, back in the
day mathematics and sciences, this is very much the field
(24:33):
of UM of the Muslim religion, which you know, again
further our understanding today of what we know about the
physical world, which is really cool. So the question is
can the to exist coexist? Will it happen? Will the
discovery of say, extraterrestrial microbes change the face of religion
or will you know, people hold steady in their beliefs. Actually,
(24:56):
I've got a thought on that which I'm gonna get
to right after this quick break. This presentation is brought
to you by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow. Okay, so here's
the thought that I have on on how extracestrial life
(25:17):
could shake religious belief I tend to find that there's
you know, it's like you reach a point and you
and you adopt some sort of worldview, be it like
super religious or just sort of quasi religious. Or you know,
or just sort of feel, yeah, our medium or none,
you still end up taking this on this world view,
and inevitably, like part of the human experience is that
something's gonna come along to shake that. So I feel like,
(25:40):
if say, if you believe in a god, like like
a god that's like say personally involved in your life,
and then like somebody close to you dies or something,
or you turn on the TV and you see something
horrible happening, like, if that doesn't destroy your faith, then
I don't know that how aliens really could. I mean,
that's that's just my sort of take on it. I
feel like, yeah, yeah, that but but that's your one.
(26:03):
And that's just the thing about religion, tune. It's like,
even though they're certain doctrines that people follow, you still
have um people still interpreted you know, on an individual basis. Yeah,
it's I mean, it's called it's a worldview. It's a
personal worldview. It's this it's this bubble that each of us,
even if you you you know, buy it off the
shelf at the super mart along with everybody else, you're
(26:23):
still crap. It's still individual to you. It's it's like
to go back to doing. It's like that shield that
they the energy shield they have around themselves, and you
know it deflects laser blast. Yeah yeah, and you're still
funnel You're funneling it through your experience. So that's that's
whatever is going to come out on the other end
is what it's going to come out. What I thought
was interesting is um that This is from a Time
magazine article from nineteen sixty one, and it is titled Religion,
(26:47):
Space and Scripture. It says Christianity has existed through the
centuries on the assumption that man is the pinnacle of
God's creation. What happens, as Presbyterian theology Professor W. Burnett
East engineer, if it turns out that man is the
pinnacle of only one of God's many worlds. So yes,
I understand what you're saying. But but then there's this,
(27:07):
this this sticky part of it, Like what if NaSTA
called a press conference. They're like, guys, we've got we've
got some good news and bad news. The good news
is we've discovered extraterrestrial life. The bad news is they're
way hotter than us. It's just it's just like they're
just so much more handsome and and and their their
females are just so much more beautiful. It's like we
just feel like crab now yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean,
(27:30):
you know, who knows how how if if this discovery
comes upon us and Hell'll react to it. But I
thought this was interesting. This was from space dot com
uh in an article could extra terrestrial intelligence sway religious beliefs?
And they said, to see what affects the discovery of
extra um, let's just call it et intelligence might have
(27:50):
on religion. Theologian Ted Peters and his colleagues surveyed more
than individuals worldwide from multiple religious traditions, including Catholicism, uh uh,
evangel Evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Mormons, Jews, but
in other non religious groups. They found the vast majority
(28:11):
of religious believers, regardless of religion, were overwhelmingly confident that
they wouldn't suffer a collapse in faith in the face
of evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. In addition, roughly one third
of religious people thought that the faith of other religions
would be threatened, while two thirds of non religious people
thought that aliens would sway the faith of the religious
as a whole. So completely. Actually, what you're kind of
(28:32):
saying there, like your belief is your belief. Yeah, it's
kind of like this little fortress that we build up
against the realities of the world. Um. And I'm not
just religion but all, like we're all any kind of
belief system we take on ourselves, any kind of world view,
even if it's totally non religious, Like, this is our
vision or reality, and it stands as a fortress against
actual reality, and we have to choose when to reinforce
(28:53):
it and when to just let the army come in.
I guess yeah, And I still have this question, like, Okay,
you've got the large Hadron collider. Let's say that you
have of a completely like behemoth version of it fifty
two d years and uh, where they're able to you know,
with with this new like souped up large Hadron cludeer,
they're they're basically able to bear out the string theory
and in even the existence of multiple universes. And even
(29:16):
to the point in saying, okay, every action or in
action um is actually creating new actions and other universes. Okay,
So even that I think may not that discovery may
not change people's belief systems. Because and the reason I
think that's interesting is because, uh, you know what would
(29:36):
that mean to religion, which is, you know, sort of
a codified system of more predicated on an afterlife that's
determined by the deeds done in one single universe. You
know what is that that definitely excuse your perception of
of what we're doing here on Earth. Now. Yeah, well,
like to take one of the more I find, like,
I think this would be one of the things that
(29:56):
I would not pick up from the buffet if I
were building, you know, my own plate of of theology,
like to say, take the doctrine of Hell, right, the
idea that in the early version of it, you can say, oh, well,
there's a fiery place in the center of the Earth
where they're devil's poking people's sticks, and then you can
sort of you can sort of explain it away a
little more and say, oh, well, it's more like another planet,
or maybe it's more like another dimension. You know. So
(30:18):
even in the advent of scientific um new scientific data
about the reality of the universe, we can sort of
tweak different police systems to make sense in the new universe.
You know. Well, and you know I'm always uh, even
when that when the thing you're tweaking is kind of,
you know, in my opinion, kind of horrible. I'm always
bringing up cognitive dissonance, right, and this is one of
(30:41):
those instances where that could certainly incite that. Right, Like,
if you've got this one piece of information that you
believe in this other piece of information that's a odds
it it's somehow you're probably gonna make it square even
if it's not square. Yeah, So, uh, this is an
interesting bit just talking about like our our need to
bring religion with us and need to bring world views
with us. There was a there's a great um philosopher, historian,
(31:04):
professor I think it is the University of Chicago by
the name of Merceda aliati Um, author of the myth
of the Eternal Return and all this is very big
into like how crafting of world views and how they
affect everything. Um. Well, he he wrote about this one
particular Australian Aboriginal myth and it concerned um, this tribe
that would that had this pole a right, this sacred pole,
(31:26):
and they would they would they would wander around all
over the place they had they were they were nomadic.
So but so they were never in one place for long,
but they would always have this pole with them. And uh,
these are the words of of of Mercedes Iliati Um.
He says that this pole represented a cosmic axis. For
it is around the sacred Pole that territory becomes habitable,
(31:47):
Hince becomes transformed into a world. The sacred pole, uh
plays an important role ritually during their wanderings. They always
carried with them and choose the direction they are to
take by the direction towards which it ends. And he
goes on from there, but then he adds, for the
poll to be broken denotes catastrophe. It is like the
quote end of the world unquote, a reversion to chaos.
(32:09):
So I find that basically they just if the if
the poll breaks, they lay down on the ground and
wait for death. Well, which is interesting because it all
goes back to the whole thought that we we as
humans need a center. Yeah, and for some people that's God,
but you know a system that holds it all together
because you know, you think of the word decentering, right,
you're off kilter, and a lot of people don't want
(32:32):
to live that way, you know. Um. So for for
for for many it says you know, whatever belief system
provides solace and balance and comfort. Um, that makes sense.
But I like, I love this pole example. Yeah. Yeah,
the idea because it's both encouraging but also kind of
dark because it's the idea. Yeah, we're gonna bring our
(32:52):
our poll with us and where it's gonna it's gonna
keep us sane wherever we go in the cosmos. But
then on the other hand, if the poll brakes were bumming, Yeah,
but the thing, here's the thing. The poll always breaks
at some point because there's entropy. The pool breaks in
our personal lives all the time, right, the poles fine, yeah,
or when the pole breaks, you just got two poles now,
you know nice? I like that. Um. I did want
(33:14):
to mention that just as a sort of recap about
the World Science Festival and this talk that Stephen Weinberg gave.
It was just kind of funny. There's a YouTube YouTube
clip of this. And after Weinberg talk, someone cornered Neil
deGrasse Tyson, who was in the audience, and he asked
Tyson if maybe Tyson would be open from as far
(33:36):
as I can tell, to suggesting to a senator that
we should fund science exploration and the large hydrant collider
and someone and so forth, and the attempt to get
more funding and say that Jesus could exist on an
alternate universe that perhaps you'll deGrasse Tyson should further this
this agenda and again and you know, of course this
(33:57):
was this was a question that was posed in just
and um and Tyson was sort of horrified, but he
was a perfect gentleman um and just sort of said
no and walked away. But um, but again there's just
that's you know, that person was suggesting that because he
was saying, you know, if we can fit the sort
of worldview in here, then perhaps we could get the
funding and we could do more exploration. Um. So funny
(34:17):
clip if you look it up. I will have to
look that one on. Yeah. Well, hey, you know I
have one little bit of listener mail here. Let me
get too real quick a little bit and uh in
this actually these two are our listener mail from our
Facebook page, which is blow the Mind, the same as
our Twitter page Blow the Mind. And U they right. First,
(34:39):
Analeki rights no discussion on neo evolution because we just
had a podcast about are you ready for the neo evolution?
He is complete without mention of Gattica. For a movie
from seven, it is extremely prophetic a society in which everyone,
um that is important has the history of genetic tailoring.
The love child or accidental pregnancy is viewed as as
a liability to employers. Um uh, there's and goes on.
(35:02):
There's a lot of stuff in I can't believe we
didn't bring up Gatica. Yeah, because yeah, I remember seeing it.
I remember it being a fun film. Yeah, I remember
being like, this is very interesting proposition because that you
know that the main character is blowed right and yet
is chosen for exploration, uh, even even though he's not perfect. Right,
So which sort of challenges is our ideas of trying
(35:25):
to tinker with our DNA to the extent that we
reached some sort of perfection. Yeah, and it's a great,
yeah you can do it kind of movie, you know. Yeah,
it is like you're perfect, you go for it. Yeah,
and there's some famous writer in that. There is a
famous writer in there. Yeah, like not Chomsky's not somebody
I don't recall. Somebody is in it, but I recall
(35:45):
Uma in her cheekbones. But yeah, you know, But anyway,
then Alakai adds, I love sci fi because it prepares
us for what may happen, and the idea is expressed
in this fifte year old movie may very well be
a reality sin So yeah, and then um Rick rights
then and says, responding to our our podcast on the
future of toilets. Right. So, for some sociologists, the best
(36:07):
measure of a culture civilization is the distance that can
maintain from its own excrement. For some ecologies, the best
measure of a culture civilization is the degree to which
it can recycle its own excrement. And for some individuals,
the best measure of a culture civilization is the excrements
availability to be put to further use. So, uh, and
I believe he's, uh, he's quoting something here. Um yeah,
(36:32):
I think he's quoting a book here. But anyway, Yeah,
that's that's actually a fascinating way of looking at it.
It's true we have, um for a long time, been
trying to put a disistrating ourselves in an exprement and
as actually even thinking about this book I have about
the history of shoes, and you can see these great
shoes that were in existence. I think some of them
were even like maybe ten eleventh century that are essentially
like huge platforms, which would make sense, like you want
(36:55):
to if you're going through the streets and the streets
are literally paved with excrement, if you could elevate yourself
from that, uh you know, perhaps not get your your
clothing in the muck. Even better, So like high heels
are basically saying my neighborhood is nasty because I have
to just wade through it. Yeah. Um, well, hey, you
(37:17):
know it's like, like I said, Facebook, Twitter blow the
mind of both of those. I'd love to hear anybody's
thoughts about the future of religion, where it's going, where
it should go. Another area that we didn't even get
into is if you had to design a religion to
work in space, what would it be? Because on one hand,
I like to think of the whole like David Eagleman,
possibility and kind of thing where it's like keeping your
(37:38):
mind open to also these new ideas. And then I
love the idea of a theological buffet when you pick
and choose the things that are beneficial uh to to yourself,
which I think we all do to eliminated extent anyway.
But then I was talking to um this guy know who, Yeah,
he actually yeah, he works on the Eve games, Eve
Online games. But his argument was, well, if you were
(38:01):
designing a religion for space, there's not a lot of
room for error in space travel, so you would want
to have a really strict, dogmatic religion to make sure
everybody's doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing on
these different space flights. Well, that would become the religion.
Right at noon, we we gather some data and we
do it internal. Next with saganism once again, what if
(38:23):
we can kind of promote that threat of office and
see if it just takes like hand out pamphlet. Yeah,
we should do like chick like a chick pamphlet about it?
All right? Well, yeah, let us let us know if
you're willing to wear germ nuts in the name of science. Uh,
and just go ahead and drop us a line at
blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be
(38:47):
sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from
the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore
the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie
had If you read or say I know I've asked
you this before, but if you read or scene Dune,
I have seen parts of it in the past. But
(00:25):
I think when I say parts of it, like it
was on some sort of secondary cable channel on this Saturday,
and it might have been during a time in my
life where I was a little bit tired in the
morning and I just sat there in the couch, So
I cannot say that with fidelity. I watched it, you know,
from the beginning to end. Okay, well, well that's that's fair.
Um that classes muster. Yeah, well yeah, I mean I
(00:46):
remember watching the film in bits and pieces on cable
TV when I was younger, and then I read it,
and then I read it again. But there's this thing
that that shows up in it called the Orange Catholic Bible.
Done for anyone who's not definitely or be you know
space epic Um space opera, uh story that takes place
on too far distant worlds long after Earth has has vanished,
(01:09):
but there's still all these human civilizations out there on
different planets, and they still have religion. Um. And the
book and the books kind of deal with the emergence
of a new religion, but the one that they have
taken with them is this thing they call the the
Orange Catholic Bible, or that's that's their text anyway, which
I always kind of picture in my mind being like
a really orange looking but I was just thinking of fanta,
(01:32):
you know, with a big cross on it on it. Yeah.
So it's supposedly a an accumulated book. And like this
is the quote from from Doing Uh, the religious text
produced by the Commission of Ecumenical trans Translators. It contains
elements of the most ancient religions including and uh he
names a couple here that I think are made up,
(01:54):
but also Christianity, Catholicism, uh, Buddhism, Islam, and Supreme Commandment
is considered to be quote thou shalt not disfigure the soul. Um.
So what I what I really like about this is
the idea that you know, this decided that in some
far distant future we still have taken religion with us.
(02:15):
Though it is altered its form. It just as religion
and belief. Human belief alters just you know, from generation
to generation. Yeah, it evolves over time. And uh, and
it's such a fascinating area of thought, not only because
I like to you know, we're kind of future so
I like to imagine what what are humans gonna be
doing in the future, What are they gonna be thinking?
How are they going to be perceiving their world? But
(02:38):
it's does stir a lot of debate because or maybe
just angst because on one hand, there are people that
are that are very adamant about the idea that that
we should just leave the religion at home. It should
be sort of a church and state thing here. Yeah,
or and also that like science is is gonna is
the thing that's gonna get us, that gets us into orbit.
It's not it's not faith, it's not belief, it's not
(03:01):
myth or lore or any of these things. Uh, it's
it's solid facts. It's it's it's science. And science should
be the thing that we take with us. It's the
thing that propels us. And that that if we bring
all these these outdated ideas of gods and goddesses into
into the cosmos with us. Then we're just bringing trouble
with us. Well that it maybe could hamstring our understanding,
right right, Okay, so in that sense that that the
(03:24):
two shall never sort of coexist in this example, right,
But that's not necessarily the case. I mean, what if
I'm not wrong too? It is that Carl Segond who
said that he felt like it at some point in
in the future that there might even be a science
based religion that could bridge Yeah, Sagan is um we
all wear turtlenecks. Oh, that would be great, we have
(03:45):
that that cool haircutting. I would do it. Yeah. I
think there's definitely an argument that we're no matter where
we go as a species, um, at least as far
as we you know, not not getting into ideas of like,
you know, human consciousness changing based on O our what
it currently is to be human. Um, we're gonna bring
this world view we're some sort of worldview with us.
(04:07):
Now what pieces we used to construct it? You know,
that's kind of uh up for grabs. Um. It kind
of becomes like, you know, buffet religion, where I like
to imagine people choosing only the healthiest uh bits from
the buffet to take with them into the future and
leaving the the fatty, uh, disgusting or intolerable um items
(04:30):
on the buffet. Yeah, that's stuff that gives you poopy
tubes later on. Yeah. Yeah, well that that is nice.
But this is a lot of yeah, and this is
what could happen. Yeah, and this is a lot of
me talking. But we're gonna discuss other people's ideas. And besides,
let's talk about Okay, so we've had some space exploration.
Let's talk about, um, you know, what people have observed
in space religion. Why because that's not a big topic
(04:52):
that comes up when you say, oh, okay, well you
know there's a space mission and so on and so forth. Yeah,
if we were going to keep outer space religion free,
we kind of already screwed of that one up because
because we've we've actually seen some interesting examples of uh. Well,
for start, let's start off with Christianity, since uh, it
was largely um, you know, just by having stance of history, um,
(05:13):
christian men who wound up in space before most other religions.
So um, we have, for instance, buzz Aldrin in the
nineteen sixty nine, who consume convenient communion bread and wine,
on the Moon. Yeah. Now he didn't get to transmit
the ceremony back to Earth because NASA had it was
already in kind of deep water because they let the
(05:35):
Apollo eight crew read from the Book of Genesis for
Christmas and they transmitted that and uh, and so there's
a big lawsuit. Um. But but yeah, buzz Aldrin having
communion on the moon. Okay, Well, you know what, you
gotta get your wine in there. I get it. Although
I understand that's it's a deeper, more symbolic thing going
on than just ingesting wine. I get it. Yeah. And
(05:57):
then uh, and then people have continued to when they
have faith, to bring it with them and uh. And
sometimes they'll bring some rather interesting articles of faith with them.
Faith with him. This was just in two in the
in two thousand nine, but cosmonaut Maxim Serav reported that
the Russian Federal Space Agency has a small cash he
of religious items on the International Space Station, including a
(06:18):
reliquary cross, which allegedly contains a piece of the original cross.
Uh that Jesus was crucified on it. Yeah. Now, for
those of you aren't familiar, this has been a common
thing throughout history since the Crucifixion, uh, you know, took
place that they would have these holy relics, little pieces
of the Cross. And I've also heard it argued that
(06:39):
if you were to take every alleged piece of the
True Cross and we're to reassemble the true Cross, the
true Cross would be enormous. It would be like the
size of a supermarket or something. Okay, so they would
have to go in and really like it changed the
engineering on them. Well, there's there's a lot of fraudulent pieces,
So I'm not saying that they definitely have a piece
of this true men know, historic goal, um, you know thing,
(07:01):
but but they they they think they or they have
a piece that claims to you know, and have a
bit of the True Cross. So it's just kind of
fascinating that they're religious relics in space right now. Even um,
of course we've had the Jewish faith. Judaism has gone
into a space before in the form of kosher food.
(07:23):
It's already appeared on orbital menus and uh, which you know,
it makes sense to me in a way because if
you're a vegetarian, you probably would want vegetarian food and space,
right not necessarily that that's associated with any sort of religion.
But um, yeah, you know, I mean there are certain
things that you're trying to adhere to write if you
have certain diet hairy restrictions, be they health related or
(07:43):
faith related. You know. The one of the big things
about space food is you want people to eat the food.
That's why we've had this. There's been a lot of
work that's gone into making space food edible and not
only edible but tasty and and like Taylor fitting the
menu two individuals on these different space missions. So you know,
you want this dude to eat, you want him to
(08:04):
be healthy or heat or she in orbit. So yeah,
if they have a certain dietary restriction, even if it's
purely religion based, then they're gonna they're gonna do what
they can to make it work. Okay, So so far,
I don't really see any of these things sort of
interfering with the mission itself, right right, you know, because
because other things that like um, astronaut Jeff Hoffman uh
took like a drado into space to just you know,
(08:25):
to spin it around because that's kind of gimmick and cool,
right um and uh, and and there was this there
was an experiment where they lit the candles on a
on a menorah and they were like looking at how
the flame is spherical, uh, which is just cool, okay
um and uh yeah, so this is not really getting
in the way of anything. Um. Now there's another whole
(08:48):
fascinating area, and that's the idea of taking Islam into space. Yeah.
And and in fact it didn't wasn't there is it
in my Myanmar where they had a big discussion about
the best ways to go into space and they produced
actual guide on un observing um Muslim religion in space. Yeah. Well,
the Malaysian National Space Agents, um they yeah. They back
(09:11):
in two thousand six, the Department of the Yeah, the
same same letter U. The County's the country's Department of
Islamic Development, assembled a team of a hundred and fifty
Islamic scientists and scholars, and they ended up putting together
a twelve page booklet on recommendations for how to conduct
oneself in accordance with Islamic law on space. Because obviously,
(09:33):
when when laws like this are originally laid out, no
one's taking into account space missions. And we're talking about
and specifically here we're talking about of course, their dietary restrictions,
just as there are in uh in judaism Um. Slightly different,
but but they have them. Uh. And then there's the
whole tradition of praying to in the direction of Mecca,
(09:55):
which can be a fairly complicated thing on Earth. As
we discussed in the the episode of Technology be Ancients.
The astrolabe is a rather cosmic instrument that allow that
has allowed for thousands of years individuals to determine Mecca,
exactly the location of Mecca so that they're praying in
the right direction. Yeah, I mean, I have to say
(10:17):
like a lot of this again, doesn't it feels like, Okay,
you're in a you're on a mission, and you're an individual,
and so as you said, you bring up, you're going
to bring your belief system with you and your particular
It's almost like if I went into space, I probably
would have my my my unicorn versus norwhale figurings. I
might bring those with me, but they're both pointy, and
you're gonna bring them in on them just float around
(10:39):
versus Okay, well, as long as they're pointed at each other.
But I can just imagine them flying into someone's eyes
when the shuttle. You know, of course I would tether
them down, but I'm just saying that, you know, we
all bring some sort of cage of ourselves wherever we go,
so it's unavoidable to to bring this. But so so
far it seems like, you know, those are things that
are not necessarily problem on right, and those out of
(11:02):
those recommendations made by the Department of Islamic Development, they
pointed out that like if you you should always attempt
to pray in the direction of Mecca, and that if
you're when possible, but that ultimately it's like if you know,
if you can't figure it out, it's the prayer is
more important than where you're you're pointed. Uh. Likewise, if
you are on a space mission away from Earth, say
(11:24):
you're on your win of Mars, it's perfectly acceptable just
to pray in the direction of Earth. Or the detail
I liked the most, that is, if you can't tell
which direction the Earth is in, you can just your
prayer can be directed quote wherever, because if you because
I'm thinking like, that's the time when you definitely want
to get down to some serious praying when you're on
(11:44):
that spaceship and you have no idea where Earth is
in relation to the ship. Um. And then other stuff
was just like, for instance, they have a daily five
prayer cycle, and if you're not on Earth, then the
twenty four hour cycle is those a little different because yeah,
you'd just been because you end up every time you
you revolve around the Earth, you're gonna fit in five
(12:04):
different prayers. You would just be praying NonStop basically. UM.
So they just said we'll just keep it in line
with the passing of the hours on the planet Earth,
which makes sense all right, so you know, gotta gotta
get some grand rules here. Um. So okay, it's still
though a pretty big topic, right, Um, you know, religion
and space science really. And what I noticed is that
(12:27):
when I was at the World Science Festival, and I
had gone to a panel called the Future of Big Science,
which featured Nobel laureate and physicist Stephen Weinberg, Uh, that
people brought up religion after his talk about you know,
these big future of big science and what might happen um.
And I was actually kind of surprised about that because
he talked more about um, you know, funding and you know,
(12:49):
politics and so on and so forth. Um. But he
took a question from an audience member concerning religion, and
then this person said, do you think that in the US,
because we are so focused on religion every aspect of society,
including science, and this comes up, you know, again and
again about whether the two can co exist, do you
think that that is actually hamstringing the US's ability to
(13:10):
compete in the field of science. And um Winberg was, uh,
you know, he didn't really directly answer that question, but
what he did say is that in the West. Uh.
He says, I don't find an anti science mentality. What
I find is a confusion about what science is. And
(13:31):
he went on to say that this just isn't a
problem in most countries, particularly countries like China and um
and they don't necessarily have any debates about pursuing scientific
endeavors in the face of religion. In other words, their
funding is not attached to any political groups who may
question the the potential of space exploration or scientific endeavors,
(13:59):
even the large Hadron Collider for instance. UM. So that's
I think what Wimberg goes sort of pointing to is
that this is when there can be a problem with
religion and science, because if you have different groups. And
again you talk about religion, you're talking about like incredibly
complex mosaic of religions and beliefs and thoughts and opinions
(14:23):
and trying to fit all of that, you know, under
one heading. That then is directing possibly what what a
government might be doing in terms of scientific endeavors. Really
is sort of like trapping you know, gas in a suitcase. Right. Um,
it's it's a difficult thing to intertwine the two. Yeah.
(14:44):
Now in another country where it's apparently not that big
of an issue, is uh, you know, the whole science religion.
There is India. Um, there's a guy by the name
of their daughter, Ja the Rahman and actually um and
he is a professor of physics Enities at Rochester Institute
of Technology and uh. I actually interviewed him maybe a
(15:06):
year ago, and he's a he's a period of talking
about this particular issue I think on speaking speaking of faith,
which I think is now called being the MPR show. Yeah,
Christ yeah, Christai and uh and he pointed out he
actually wrote an essay called why in science and whine
religion and uh in in in the difference, part of
the problem could be linguistic because in Uh. In the
(15:29):
English language, we have the word why, and that word
has to has has two different senses. There's the there's
the there's the cause why, like why am I unhappy?
Or to put it more simply, what is the cause
of my unhappiness? All right? And the effect that you know,
the effect is dependent upon prior events, so which the
students related to the cost. And then there's the why
(15:51):
in the teleological sense, right, Uh. Teleology is the is
the philosophical study of design and purpose. So if you're
saying why am i? Why am I happy? And you
interpret that in the telological sense, you know, it's this
deep question about the meaning of the universe, geological meaning God,
like you're outside of yourself, so why God me? Do
you why that? But as opposed to why did this?
(16:11):
You know, what were the events that led to this happening? Right?
And uh? You know, like I said, why why are
there humans? Why? Why are we going into space? That
kind of thing? Um? But in the in Tamil, there
are two different words for the each different why. So
I just find that that fascinating that you can say, um,
why are there humans you know on the planet? Why
did why are we the most you know, the involved
(16:33):
species on Earth, and you can say that with it
with just the right word to make it a completely
non religious or even or even philosophical question. So it's
kind of interesting at the end of the day that
humanity really shares more similarities than dissimilarities, right, Like, we
all are pretty blown away by the mysteries of the world,
whether or not we're looking at them through a religious
(16:55):
or a scientific lens, and we all pretty much want
the best for each other in ourselves, right, So it
is kind of fascinating that even though that's that's primarily
the case, we still get down to semantics and we're
splitting hairs and this causes a lot of heartache and mayhem. Um.
But I do think it's interesting, um, But that that
(17:15):
Winberg was saying that, you know, the crux of this
is that it comes down to funding sometimes because you
do have lobbyists that are talking to senators saying, you know,
don't support this or do support this, And so that's
really where where the the I guess you could say
that rubber hits the pavement right in terms of seeing
these ideals play out in concrete ways, And for Winberg,
(17:38):
he is very concerned about the future of science in
America because he sees cuts and funding because people and
it's a heart economy, people don't necessarily want to you know,
support things that are especially space exploration related, And he's
not necessarily saying let's put a bunch of people in
the space. In fact, I think from what I could
tell that he's he's thinking the unmanned missions are the
(17:59):
way to because you can still gather data. Um. But
for him, it's still like, you know, what, what what
Let's figure out what this world is all about. This
is fascinating stuff. We live in it, and this is
the way to do it through science because we're collecting
data every day that that really changes our perspective or
adds to it or you know, makes the sort of again,
this mosaic of our existence a little bit even more um,
(18:22):
amazing and powerful. Right. So, I guess one of the
one of the things is when when when science is
trying to answer those questions, at what point did they
end up asking questions that interfere with the questions that religion, Uh,
some religions claim to answer, right right, yeah, Well, but
this is the cool thing is that we've seen like
for for instance, with Brother g. Consulmanio. He works the
(18:45):
Vatican essentially, Um, he's entered into the arena of planetary
exploration ethics, right, the possible existence of extraterrestrial life and
whether or not aliens would be with or without original sin.
And it turns out that Brother Consomania is also very
cool with terror forming other planets and attempt to foster
(19:06):
life there. So what I'm seeing there and what I
say it's cool is because the conversation is happening. Yeah,
it's not hamstring necessarily. What's going on right now from
his you know, at least from this limited perspective of Consomania,
he's actually taking some of these issues and talking about
them through religious lens and exploring them and not shutting
(19:29):
them down. Um, you know, is it funny that you know,
is it kind of funny to think that he might
be seeking out an alien and then just you know,
trying to uh, that does the alien. Yes, but that's
not necessarily what he's doing. That's just that's really especially
if if water will end up melting the alien and
then he ends up actually kicking off an interstellar war,
(19:49):
that would that would be horrible. Wow. And then yet
flying monkeys will be very angry. Yeah, exactly. Um, just
it just occurs to me the gremlins could never be baptized,
could they if gremlins existed? Or well, what are the
things that turned into grim wins? The magua? Yeah, that's
a whole there. I have a number of scientific um
questions about the magua. Uh. But but we'll get past podcast,
(20:14):
of course. Yeah, but let's talk about like when religion
and science actually worked together in space exploration. You have
a couple of examples. Yeah. One of them that I
really loved, um that I ran across a few months
back is the story of Dr James C. Fletcher. And
this guy served as NASSA administrator from seventy seven eight
eight nine. And this this guy was extremely influential. Like basically,
(20:38):
we can we can almost lay the Space Shuttle program
at his feet. You know, he was he was very
gung ho, like let's get let's get out there, let's
let's explore the cosmos, let's find extra restaurants, let's find
seti um which is and then not something everyone's into
these days. But but but the really interesting thing is
this this guy grew up and was a about member
(21:01):
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints,
the Mormon Church, and and you know he was he was,
he was a believer. And and where it gets interesting
is that and we're not going to go into into
depth about Mormon theology or Mormon cosmology, but it does
involve a universe full of quote worlds without number. And
(21:21):
then then these worlds are, according to to their their religion,
inhabited by intelligent beings. So in other words, that the
religion already includes xtra terrestrial life, like it's already factored
into the design. So it's it's not something where um
and some of the like older you know, Christian religions, um,
(21:42):
more traditional Christian religions, you have this. You know, it's
like there's no room for aliens because there's the the
whole ideas like, well, God made humans, there's Earth. There's
no mention of anything else. And if and if you do,
you're gonna have to, you know, to to directcon it
into the the the overall design. But with the with
the Mormon faith, it's already there. And so that was
one of the driving forces. He was part of the
(22:02):
agenda of that faith. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he wasn't
to have this sort of exploration, right, I mean, he
wasn't like, you know, getting up there, you know, at
NASA making big religious speeches of but it was one
of the things that personally drove him, as did the
whole Like the Mormon faith is also steeped in the
frontiersm you know, because because you know, there the Utah,
the early founders and the early members of the church
(22:24):
where there was a very you know, a frontier mentality,
and there's all in space exploration. You know, that's the
final frontier, right, or at least the next frontier. Well
and then we mean manifest destiny too is always been
part of that, right, which is for another time. But
but yeah, and he also he also it's interesting is
that at the time, like before the nineteen fifties, UM,
people like in the Mormon Church, some of the higher ups,
(22:47):
they were very much against the idea of space exploration.
They were like, like, God's not gonna let you go
too far. He's gonna put limits on that, he's gonna
shut that down. You don't even don't even mess with it.
And he was like he was one of the of
several you know or numerous you know, intellectuals within the church.
We were like, no, that's that's complete hogwash. You know,
don't don't let don't let this stand in the way
of our science, and in fact it should be the
other way around. So so I found that to be
(23:10):
an inspirational story of religion actually drying. Yeah, I thought
that was pretty cool to us all your blog post
on it, and I had no idea about that. So, um,
it's a really good example of that. And then again
to bring up the astrolabe, this is again, this is
um primarily a an invention of UM of the Muslim
(23:31):
community from I can't remember now, but it had has
been in existence for her since the fifth century BCO. Yes, yes,
and um. And what was so cool about this instrument
is that it was improved upon and improved upon for
hundreds and hundreds of years by Muslim cosmologists who wanted
(23:52):
to know again, um, you know where Mecca is and
try to celebrate the important holidays and try to line
up this guy with with their worldview and their beliefs.
And what this did is it helped to usher in
an age of discovery. Later on for us and I say,
age of discovery. We're talking about sailing ships and you know,
(24:12):
discovering other countries, which of course there are parallels with
that in space. Right. Um, of course you don't see
in in some countries now you don't see a lot
of UM funding into space exploration or a lot of
the sciences today, but um, you know, back in the
day mathematics and sciences, this is very much the field
(24:33):
of UM of the Muslim religion, which you know, again
further our understanding today of what we know about the
physical world, which is really cool. So the question is
can the to exist coexist? Will it happen? Will the
discovery of say, extraterrestrial microbes change the face of religion
or will you know, people hold steady in their beliefs. Actually,
(24:56):
I've got a thought on that which I'm gonna get
to right after this quick break. This presentation is brought
to you by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow. Okay, so here's
the thought that I have on on how extracestrial life
(25:17):
could shake religious belief I tend to find that there's
you know, it's like you reach a point and you
and you adopt some sort of worldview, be it like
super religious or just sort of quasi religious. Or you know,
or just sort of feel, yeah, our medium or none,
you still end up taking this on this world view,
and inevitably, like part of the human experience is that
something's gonna come along to shake that. So I feel like,
(25:40):
if say, if you believe in a god, like like
a god that's like say personally involved in your life,
and then like somebody close to you dies or something,
or you turn on the TV and you see something
horrible happening, like, if that doesn't destroy your faith, then
I don't know that how aliens really could. I mean,
that's that's just my sort of take on it. I
feel like, yeah, yeah, that but but that's your one.
(26:03):
And that's just the thing about religion, tune. It's like,
even though they're certain doctrines that people follow, you still
have um people still interpreted you know, on an individual basis. Yeah,
it's I mean, it's called it's a worldview. It's a
personal worldview. It's this it's this bubble that each of us,
even if you you you know, buy it off the
shelf at the super mart along with everybody else, you're
(26:23):
still crap. It's still individual to you. It's it's like
to go back to doing. It's like that shield that
they the energy shield they have around themselves, and you
know it deflects laser blast. Yeah yeah, and you're still
funnel You're funneling it through your experience. So that's that's
whatever is going to come out on the other end
is what it's going to come out. What I thought
was interesting is um that This is from a Time
magazine article from nineteen sixty one, and it is titled Religion,
(26:47):
Space and Scripture. It says Christianity has existed through the
centuries on the assumption that man is the pinnacle of
God's creation. What happens, as Presbyterian theology Professor W. Burnett
East engineer, if it turns out that man is the
pinnacle of only one of God's many worlds. So yes,
I understand what you're saying. But but then there's this,
(27:07):
this this sticky part of it, Like what if NaSTA
called a press conference. They're like, guys, we've got we've
got some good news and bad news. The good news
is we've discovered extraterrestrial life. The bad news is they're
way hotter than us. It's just it's just like they're
just so much more handsome and and and their their
females are just so much more beautiful. It's like we
just feel like crab now yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean,
(27:30):
you know, who knows how how if if this discovery
comes upon us and Hell'll react to it. But I
thought this was interesting. This was from space dot com
uh in an article could extra terrestrial intelligence sway religious beliefs?
And they said, to see what affects the discovery of
extra um, let's just call it et intelligence might have
(27:50):
on religion. Theologian Ted Peters and his colleagues surveyed more
than individuals worldwide from multiple religious traditions, including Catholicism, uh uh,
evangel Evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Mormons, Jews, but
in other non religious groups. They found the vast majority
(28:11):
of religious believers, regardless of religion, were overwhelmingly confident that
they wouldn't suffer a collapse in faith in the face
of evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. In addition, roughly one third
of religious people thought that the faith of other religions
would be threatened, while two thirds of non religious people
thought that aliens would sway the faith of the religious
as a whole. So completely. Actually, what you're kind of
(28:32):
saying there, like your belief is your belief. Yeah, it's
kind of like this little fortress that we build up
against the realities of the world. Um. And I'm not
just religion but all, like we're all any kind of
belief system we take on ourselves, any kind of world view,
even if it's totally non religious, Like, this is our
vision or reality, and it stands as a fortress against
actual reality, and we have to choose when to reinforce
(28:53):
it and when to just let the army come in.
I guess yeah, And I still have this question, like, Okay,
you've got the large Hadron collider. Let's say that you
have of a completely like behemoth version of it fifty
two d years and uh, where they're able to you know,
with with this new like souped up large Hadron cludeer,
they're they're basically able to bear out the string theory
and in even the existence of multiple universes. And even
(29:16):
to the point in saying, okay, every action or in
action um is actually creating new actions and other universes. Okay,
So even that I think may not that discovery may
not change people's belief systems. Because and the reason I
think that's interesting is because, uh, you know what would
(29:36):
that mean to religion, which is, you know, sort of
a codified system of more predicated on an afterlife that's
determined by the deeds done in one single universe. You
know what is that that definitely excuse your perception of
of what we're doing here on Earth. Now. Yeah, well,
like to take one of the more I find, like,
I think this would be one of the things that
(29:56):
I would not pick up from the buffet if I
were building, you know, my own plate of of theology,
like to say, take the doctrine of Hell, right, the
idea that in the early version of it, you can say, oh, well,
there's a fiery place in the center of the Earth
where they're devil's poking people's sticks, and then you can
sort of you can sort of explain it away a
little more and say, oh, well, it's more like another planet,
or maybe it's more like another dimension. You know. So
(30:18):
even in the advent of scientific um new scientific data
about the reality of the universe, we can sort of
tweak different police systems to make sense in the new universe.
You know. Well, and you know I'm always uh, even
when that when the thing you're tweaking is kind of,
you know, in my opinion, kind of horrible. I'm always
bringing up cognitive dissonance, right, and this is one of
(30:41):
those instances where that could certainly incite that. Right, Like,
if you've got this one piece of information that you
believe in this other piece of information that's a odds
it it's somehow you're probably gonna make it square even
if it's not square. Yeah, So, uh, this is an
interesting bit just talking about like our our need to
bring religion with us and need to bring world views
with us. There was a there's a great um philosopher, historian,
(31:04):
professor I think it is the University of Chicago by
the name of Merceda aliati Um, author of the myth
of the Eternal Return and all this is very big
into like how crafting of world views and how they
affect everything. Um. Well, he he wrote about this one
particular Australian Aboriginal myth and it concerned um, this tribe
that would that had this pole a right, this sacred pole,
(31:26):
and they would they would they would wander around all
over the place they had they were they were nomadic.
So but so they were never in one place for long,
but they would always have this pole with them. And uh,
these are the words of of of Mercedes Iliati Um.
He says that this pole represented a cosmic axis. For
it is around the sacred Pole that territory becomes habitable,
(31:47):
Hince becomes transformed into a world. The sacred pole, uh
plays an important role ritually during their wanderings. They always
carried with them and choose the direction they are to
take by the direction towards which it ends. And he
goes on from there, but then he adds, for the
poll to be broken denotes catastrophe. It is like the
quote end of the world unquote, a reversion to chaos.
(32:09):
So I find that basically they just if the if
the poll breaks, they lay down on the ground and
wait for death. Well, which is interesting because it all
goes back to the whole thought that we we as
humans need a center. Yeah, and for some people that's God,
but you know a system that holds it all together
because you know, you think of the word decentering, right,
you're off kilter, and a lot of people don't want
(32:32):
to live that way, you know. Um. So for for
for for many it says you know, whatever belief system
provides solace and balance and comfort. Um, that makes sense.
But I like, I love this pole example. Yeah. Yeah,
the idea because it's both encouraging but also kind of
dark because it's the idea. Yeah, we're gonna bring our
(32:52):
our poll with us and where it's gonna it's gonna
keep us sane wherever we go in the cosmos. But
then on the other hand, if the poll brakes were bumming, Yeah,
but the thing, here's the thing. The poll always breaks
at some point because there's entropy. The pool breaks in
our personal lives all the time, right, the poles fine, yeah,
or when the pole breaks, you just got two poles now,
you know nice? I like that. Um. I did want
(33:14):
to mention that just as a sort of recap about
the World Science Festival and this talk that Stephen Weinberg gave.
It was just kind of funny. There's a YouTube YouTube
clip of this. And after Weinberg talk, someone cornered Neil
deGrasse Tyson, who was in the audience, and he asked
Tyson if maybe Tyson would be open from as far
(33:36):
as I can tell, to suggesting to a senator that
we should fund science exploration and the large hydrant collider
and someone and so forth, and the attempt to get
more funding and say that Jesus could exist on an
alternate universe that perhaps you'll deGrasse Tyson should further this
this agenda and again and you know, of course this
(33:57):
was this was a question that was posed in just
and um and Tyson was sort of horrified, but he
was a perfect gentleman um and just sort of said
no and walked away. But um, but again there's just
that's you know, that person was suggesting that because he
was saying, you know, if we can fit the sort
of worldview in here, then perhaps we could get the
funding and we could do more exploration. Um. So funny
(34:17):
clip if you look it up. I will have to
look that one on. Yeah. Well, hey, you know I
have one little bit of listener mail here. Let me
get too real quick a little bit and uh in
this actually these two are our listener mail from our
Facebook page, which is blow the Mind, the same as
our Twitter page Blow the Mind. And U they right. First,
(34:39):
Analeki rights no discussion on neo evolution because we just
had a podcast about are you ready for the neo evolution?
He is complete without mention of Gattica. For a movie
from seven, it is extremely prophetic a society in which everyone,
um that is important has the history of genetic tailoring.
The love child or accidental pregnancy is viewed as as
a liability to employers. Um uh, there's and goes on.
(35:02):
There's a lot of stuff in I can't believe we
didn't bring up Gatica. Yeah, because yeah, I remember seeing it.
I remember it being a fun film. Yeah, I remember
being like, this is very interesting proposition because that you
know that the main character is blowed right and yet
is chosen for exploration, uh, even even though he's not perfect. Right,
So which sort of challenges is our ideas of trying
(35:25):
to tinker with our DNA to the extent that we
reached some sort of perfection. Yeah, and it's a great,
yeah you can do it kind of movie, you know. Yeah,
it is like you're perfect, you go for it. Yeah,
and there's some famous writer in that. There is a
famous writer in there. Yeah, like not Chomsky's not somebody
I don't recall. Somebody is in it, but I recall
(35:45):
Uma in her cheekbones. But yeah, you know, But anyway,
then Alakai adds, I love sci fi because it prepares
us for what may happen, and the idea is expressed
in this fifte year old movie may very well be
a reality sin So yeah, and then um Rick rights
then and says, responding to our our podcast on the
future of toilets. Right. So, for some sociologists, the best
(36:07):
measure of a culture civilization is the distance that can
maintain from its own excrement. For some ecologies, the best
measure of a culture civilization is the degree to which
it can recycle its own excrement. And for some individuals,
the best measure of a culture civilization is the excrements
availability to be put to further use. So, uh, and
I believe he's, uh, he's quoting something here. Um yeah,
(36:32):
I think he's quoting a book here. But anyway, Yeah,
that's that's actually a fascinating way of looking at it.
It's true we have, um for a long time, been
trying to put a disistrating ourselves in an exprement and
as actually even thinking about this book I have about
the history of shoes, and you can see these great
shoes that were in existence. I think some of them
were even like maybe ten eleventh century that are essentially
like huge platforms, which would make sense, like you want
(36:55):
to if you're going through the streets and the streets
are literally paved with excrement, if you could elevate yourself
from that, uh you know, perhaps not get your your
clothing in the muck. Even better, So like high heels
are basically saying my neighborhood is nasty because I have
to just wade through it. Yeah. Um, well, hey, you
(37:17):
know it's like, like I said, Facebook, Twitter blow the
mind of both of those. I'd love to hear anybody's
thoughts about the future of religion, where it's going, where
it should go. Another area that we didn't even get
into is if you had to design a religion to
work in space, what would it be? Because on one hand,
I like to think of the whole like David Eagleman,
possibility and kind of thing where it's like keeping your
(37:38):
mind open to also these new ideas. And then I
love the idea of a theological buffet when you pick
and choose the things that are beneficial uh to to yourself,
which I think we all do to eliminated extent anyway.
But then I was talking to um this guy know who, Yeah,
he actually yeah, he works on the Eve games, Eve
Online games. But his argument was, well, if you were
(38:01):
designing a religion for space, there's not a lot of
room for error in space travel, so you would want
to have a really strict, dogmatic religion to make sure
everybody's doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing on
these different space flights. Well, that would become the religion.
Right at noon, we we gather some data and we
do it internal. Next with saganism once again, what if
(38:23):
we can kind of promote that threat of office and
see if it just takes like hand out pamphlet. Yeah,
we should do like chick like a chick pamphlet about it?
All right? Well, yeah, let us let us know if
you're willing to wear germ nuts in the name of science. Uh,
and just go ahead and drop us a line at
blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be
(38:47):
sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from
the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore
the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
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