Cosmic Theology

[American Deist]

Many people don't understand just how massive the universe really is. Light travels at 671,000,000 mph and it takes light anywhere from 100,000 to 180,000 Earth years to cross our galaxy, the Milky Way. Our little galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, with each star potentially containing several planets in orbit around it, just like our Sun. On top of it, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known universe. Some of those galaxies are so far away that light has been traveling from them for billions of years and is just now visible to us.

On Earth, our years are approximately three hundred sixty-five days and six hours long. That is why every four years we have a "leap year;" to account for those accumulated twenty-four hours. Other planets have a different length of time that makes up a year, which is simply how long it takes for a planet to orbit its star. For example, Mars takes six hundred eighty-seven days to orbit the Sun. Obviously Mars would not have the same calendar as Earth. Bear that in mind as we think on a cosmic scale.

We know that there are other galaxies with planets. Science and technology allows us to see the shift in brightness when a planet passes in front of its star. The ancients that wrote the Bible did not have such luxuries. Early mankind had Earth centered religions because of the lack of science and technology. The belief that Earth is the center of creation is called geocentricity. The Roman Catholic Church held that belief for centuries, and even put Galileo on trial for challenging it. The Church was eventually proven wrong...again.

Now think about life on other planets. I am of the opinion that we are not alone in this universe. The odds that Earth is unique with sentient beings is astronomically small. How small are those odds? Well, let's say each star has 1 planet, and each galaxy has 100,000,000,000 stars (VERY conservative estimate). We know that the Hubble has tracked at least 100,000,000,000 galaxies. Whew! What does all of that mean? If only 0.0000001% of those planets have alien life, there are 1 billion alien civilizations!

[(100,000,000,000 x 100,000,000,000) x 0.0000001%]

Those other planets, whether in our galaxy or one that is billions of light years away, do not follow our Earth based calendar. They do not share our history, culture, theology, or language. If other planets have intelligent beings, and those beings developed religions just like we did, do you think that they would use the same stories, names and dates? No, of course not! Their holy books would differ greatly from ours.

Just because we lack the means to visit those planets does not mean that life is nonexistent elsewhere in the cosmos. It is asinine to even think that, especially if your opinion is based off archaic writings written by people that thought the Earth was the center of creation. Heck, our own Sun is not even the center of our galaxy; we're on one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way.

The birth of Jesus is celebrated throughout Christendom on December 25th, of the Earth calendar. Why December 25th? Well it is not because that was Jesus' actual birthday! That day was selected during the reign of the Roman Empire. Not only did the Romans hold a Saturnalia festival in late December, but northern and western pagans throughout Europe also celebrated various festivals around the same time. To top it off, Emperor Aurelian established the feast of the birth of Sol Invictus on December 25th. Rome controlled much of the world during the time of Jesus and for several centuries after. The dates and festivals were already in place, so the simplest thing for Christians to do was to adopt what was already in practice and make it their own.

The concept of a creator deity is most likely not unique to Earth. That can be inferred because civilizations across the world, that did not have any known contact with each other, came up with the idea of gods and goddesses. If it happened here, it could happen elsewhere. Interestingly enough, that very concept would be the common denominator between planets with intelligent life. The name of the deity is merely based on the language spoken. For example, in English one might say God, but in German it would be Gott. In Arabic it is Allah. The name is irrelevant, it is the belief that matters.

Does it all sound crazy? For many people I am sure it does. But for those that think outside of the box, especially on a cosmic scale, it not only makes perfect sense, but it also expands your religious outlook. Suddenly, our pettiness on Earth seems rather silly.

[American Deist]

I have been asked before about radio communications and why haven't we picked up on other civilizations if they exist. We have been broadcasting radio waves from Earth for just over 100 years. Radio waves travel through the vacuum of space at the speed of light. Surely we would have picked up on something by now, right?

It would take radio waves 26,000 Earth years (at the speed of light) to travel to the center of our galaxy, and another 26,000 to get a reply back (if something was there). So we have about 51,900 years to go before we could expect a reply from the center of the Milky Way.

Besides, radio waves in space do not travel in all directions, they travel in a line as electromagnetic radiation. We would have to be zeroed in on a specific target and vice versa, in order to send/receive a message. If you are off target by a fraction of a nanometer, you will miss a planet that is light years away.

That does not include the hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known universe. Get comfortable, because you are going to be waiting for a while. We are mere infants when it comes to exploring the cosmos. It will only be 60 years this October from when Earthlings first put something into orbit.

[Divine Insight]

Is there a question for debate?

As someone who has loved science both as a hobby and as a career I am fully aware of the incomprehensible expanse of the known universe. I would be truly shocked if Earth is the only life-infested planet in the universe. It's far more likely we are actually a rather mundane example.

As far as dreaming is concerned (i.e. in terms of an imagined cosmic theology), there is really no end to what I can imagine just within the universe in which we already find ourselves. It would be great if it turns out that we do somehow reincarnate throughout the vastness of the universe over unimaginable time scales. That's a nice fantasy to be sure.

Although, for it to truly be meaningful it seems that there would need to be some sort of memory of past lives so we can learn from our mistakes, or at the very least some sort of evolving "Karma" where we become more "awakened" and wiser as we move through the reincarnation process.

And while we're imagining such things there's really no need to even stop at the observable universe. We're already imagining multi-universes. So there's really no limit to what we can imagination at all.

~~~~~~

Having said all of the above, I would actually be very happy to live for even 1000 years on earth pretty much as the earth already is minus all the nasty wars, political bickering and violent criminals.

In other words, just living on earth where everyone is friendly and just doing their own thing would be a welcome "paradise". Never mind space travel and exploring new worlds. I'd be happy just having an extended life on a peaceful earth. I could imagine living for at least 10,000 without getting bored just doing the things that are currently possible to do.

Assuming good health for the entire time of course.

In the meantime "reality" could be that we actually only have this one brief life. And that would be sad for me. I'm near the end of my life and haven't done anywhere near the things I would have liked to have done. So yeah even a fresh new 100 year life would be welcomed.

Dream on!

[American Deist]

Is there a question for debate?

Only if you reject the possibility of alien life. Admitting that alien life most likely exists elsewhere in the universe tends to put a cramp in organized religion that is Earth centric. Think about it...

Satan (or the common misconception that Christians refer to as Satan) was supposedly cast out of Heaven and hurled down to the Earth. Unless he has the godlike power of omnipresence, Satan is not on the planet Proxima Centauri. Or Mars for that matter. Christianity has backed itself into a BIG corner, and that is one of the major reasons the Catholic Church had such an issue with Galileo. To suddenly say that the Earth was not the center of creation opened a huge can o' worms.

[Monta]

[Replying to post 1 by American Deist]


"Does it all sound crazy? For many people I am sure it does. But for those that think outside of the box, especially on a cosmic scale, it not only makes perfect sense, but it also expands your religious outlook. Suddenly, our pettiness on Earth seems rather silly."

It certainly expands your outlook religious or not.
Our mystics, space travellers as in OOB have touched on these areas.

Robert Monroe along with others met with some of our space citizens and witnessed the birth of one of them wanting to be born for earth experience.

[Divine Insight]

Is there a question for debate?

Only if you reject the possibility of alien life. Admitting that alien life most likely exists elsewhere in the universe tends to put a cramp in organized religion that is Earth centric. Think about it...

Satan (or the common misconception that Christians refer to as Satan) was supposedly cast out of Heaven and hurled down to the Earth. Unless he has the godlike power of omnipresence, Satan is not on the planet Proxima Centauri. Or Mars for that matter. Christianity has backed itself into a BIG corner, and that is one of the major reasons the Catholic Church had such an issue with Galileo. To suddenly say that the Earth was not the center of creation opened a huge can o' worms.

I agree. But then again, there's no reason why a Christian fundamentalist would need to admit that there exists alien life elsewhere in the universe. Don't forgot Christian fundamentalists are also "Creationists". So they don't need to concede to the idea that life could just evolve naturally throughout the universe. We currently have no actual evidence that this is the case anyway. So we could even be wrong even if life did evolve on earth. It could be possible that the evolution of life is so exceedingly rare that it only happened once in the entire universe. We don't know that this isn't the case.

Life could be "Earth-centric" after all. Even if evolution is true and there is no God.

I personally don't think that will turn out to be the case. But I'm just saying that it COULD be the case. We simply don't yet know.

Think about this too.

If life evolves naturally in the universe then there would need to be a place where it FIRST evolved. It could just happen to be that Earth is that place.

[bluethread]

The reason that the Scriptures are geocentric is not because our planet is the only planet that matters. It is because it is the planet that matters most to us. The intended recipients of the Scriptures are not only not from Proxima Centauri. In fact, they aren't even directed to all humans. We can all listen in on the conversation, but we need to take into account who is speaking and to whom that one is speaking.

[American Deist]

[Replying to post 7 by bluethread]

The reason why the Scriptures are geocentric is because ancient man did not have telescopes. They stood on the earth, looked at the sky, and made up stories to explain what they saw. They did not know any better.

You can't look at the Scriptures through a modern lens. You have to put yourself in their culture, in their geographic location, and in their mindset as uneducated people by today's standards.

[William]

The OP and subsequent posts remind me of why I think of the gods of the bible as being ET.

The reason for this is because all the stories can be understood as literal far better in that context than in the context of having to introduce a supernatural element in order to explain them.

[bluethread]

[Replying to post 7 by bluethread]

The reason why the Scriptures are geocentric is because ancient man did not have telescopes. They stood on the earth, looked at the sky, and made up stories to explain what they saw. They did not know any better.

You can't look at the Scriptures through a modern lens. You have to put yourself in their culture, in their geographic location, and in their mindset as uneducated people by today's standards.

Though I think your judgement regarding THE reason the Scriptures are geocentric is a bit self serving, I agree with you on the best way of understanding them. Even today most people live geocentric lives. Most of us accept information about things out in space, generally by faith, but most of what we say, do and write is geocentric, including science fiction. I can't think of any work of science fiction that accurately represents space as observation and experimentation has established it.