Earth 2.0 and God

Earth has “an older, larger cousin.”

Yesterday, NASA made the announcement that its Kepler mission had confirmed the existence of “the first near-Earth-size planet in the ‘habitable zone’ around a sun-like star,” a recently discovered exoplanet designated Kepler-452b.

This is a momentous announcement for two reasons. First, this is a milestone in the search for life—including intelligent life—on other worlds. Second, as we approach closer each year to the technology for interstellar spaceflight, it is important for us to find Earth-like planets as candidates for potential human colonies. (If you find this idea of interest, please visit our Facebook group, “Humanity Must Go to the Stars.”)

A Huffington Post columnist has taken this discovery and confirmation in a controversial direction, a direction with important implications for human cultures on Earth—and a direction that I believe is stunningly misinformed, and that has the potential to do great harm.

Jeff Schweitzer, a Ph.D. in marine biology and neurophysiology, and former White House senior policy analyst, published a column on HuffPost yesterday with the (rather arrogant) title, “Earth 2.0: Bad News for God.” Schweitzer starts off well enough:

The discovery of Kepler-452b is not likely to see the public swoon with a collective rendition of Kumbaya. But this Earth 2.0 is a huge if under-appreciated discovery, not because Kepler-452b is unique but for just the opposite reason; there are likely thousands or millions or even billions of such earth-like planets in the universe. The discovery of just one such world is good evidence for many more: after all, we know of 100 billion galaxies each with as many as 300 billion stars (big variation per galaxy). Astronomers estimate that there are about 70 billion trillion stars. Math wizardry is not necessary to conclude we did not by chance find the only other possibly habitable planet among that huge population of stars.
 With this discovery, we come ever closer to the idea that life is common in the universe. 

At this point, however, Schweitzer begins to go off the rails.

… let me speculate what would happen should we ever find evidence of life beyond earth even if you think such discovery unlikely. I would like here to preempt what will certainly be a re-write of history on the part of the world's major religions. I predict with great confidence that all will come out and say such a discovery is completely consistent with religious teachings. My goal here is to declare this as nonsense before it happens. I am not alone in this conclusion that religion will contort to accommodate a new reality of alien life.

It is important to look at that link that Schweitzer produces to support his contention that “religion will contort to accommodate” the discovery of alien life. The link is a quick survey of what the astronomer David A. Weintraub found in the course of researching his book, Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How Will We Deal With It? Contrary to what Schweitzer implies, Weintraub shows that several religions—including Hinduism, some forms of Buddhism, and Islam—have long held that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. Together, these religions have about 3 billion adherents, or close to half the population of the world, who will not have to do any special contortions at all to “accommodate” the discovery of alien life; they already believe that alien life exists, and in intelligent forms, as well. (Adherents of some smaller religions, such as the Bahá'í, also have this belief.)

As the survey of Weintraub’s book points out, even some Christian religions—including my own, the faith of the Latter-day Saints (LDS), also known as Mormonism—have long embraced the belief that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists. (The LDS read this belief described in their unique scriptures, including the Doctrine and Covenants [D&C 76:24] and the Book of Moses [Moses 1:29-35].)

The largest Christian group in the world, of course, is the Roman Catholic Church (with over 1 billion adherents). Some Roman Catholic scholars have been receptive to the idea of extraterrestrial life for a long time. Yes, the friar Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for this belief at the beginning of the 17^th century, and Galileo’s support for extraterrestrial life was suppressed soon after. However, starting in the 20^th century, a number of Catholic thinkers have found room for the concept of intelligent extraterrestrial life within a Catholic framework. (For example, the essays published in 2000 by Ernan McMullin and George V. Coyne, S.J., are particularly stimulating; see the references below.)

Despite what Schweitzer claims and implies, then, many of Earth’s religions have believed—some for millennia—that the universe contains a multitude of worlds with intelligent inhabitants.

Why does any of this matter? It matters because Schweitzer’s essay is another instance of the long-standing claim that there is an inherent conflict between science and religion. Although there certainly have been times when religionists have done monumental harm to the cause of scientific knowledge—as scientists have said some remarkably stupid things about religion—I do not believe in an inherent, logically necessary conflict. Beyond that, I think that we do harm to ourselves and the human voyage to knowledge of our inner and outer universe when we fall prey to the belief that there is such an inherent conflict.

Accurate knowledge about both religion and science—and mutual respect and understanding between those who are illuminated by one, the other, or both—would truly be On The Mark.

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References

McMullin, E. (2000). Life and intelligence far from Earth: Formulating theological issues. In S. Dick (ed.), Many worlds: The new universe, extraterrestrial life and the theological implications (pp. 150-175). Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press.

Coyne, G. V. (2000). The evolution of intelligent life on the Earth and possibly elsewhere: Reflections of a religious tradition. In S. Dick (ed.), Many worlds: The new universe, extraterrestrial life and the theological implications (pp. 176-188). Philadelphia, PA: Templeton Foundation Press.

[The image of Earth and “Earth 2.0” is an artist’s conception. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle.]

(Copyright 2015 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

Alien Bacteria and God

This falls in the category of “Potentially a Really Big Deal.”


Dr. Richard B. Hoover, a NASA astrobiologist, announced on Friday, March 4th that he had discovered evidence of alien bacterial life, locked inside a rare type of meteorite. (The Yahoo! News online article may be found here, and the FoxNews online article may be found here.) The scientific article announcing his discovery appears in the current issue of the online Journal of Cosmology, which is edited by Dr. Rudy Schild of the Center for Astrophysics, an institute that is administered by Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution; in plain words, this is not some kind of pseudoscientific or schlock journal.

The essence of Dr. Hoover’s discovery is that several meteorites of a rare type, found in France and Tanzania, contained fossilized filaments, some of which strongly resemble bacteria found on earth, others of which seem to represent bacteria of a previously unknown type (see photo above). These fossils were found immediately after breaking open the rocks in sterile conditions, so they are highly unlikely to represent contamination from the Earth. Several of the meterorites in Dr. Hoover’s sample were observed falling to Earth and were immediately recovered after their fall. The Journal of Cosmology has taken the unusual step of asking 100 scientists to respond to this paper online, making it the most heavily peer-reviewed article in the history of scientific literature.

People will be debating the evidence given in this article, possibly for years. For the sake of discussion, let us assume for the moment that Dr. Hoover’s findings are solid. So what does this all mean?

First of all, as Dr. Hoover indicates, a valid discovery like this would indicate that bacteria somehow exist, at least in fossilized form, in comets and/or meteors, some of which are presumably the debris of life-bearing planets that broke up or were destroyed, say, by collisions with asteroids (á lá the threats depicted in the 1998 fictional disaster films “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact”). The implication here, as Dr. Hoover states, is that “life is everywhere”; that is, life—at least of the microbial sort—is widely distributed on planets outside of our solar system. Of course, if microbial life exists, there is every reason to think that intelligent life has also evolved on other worlds, as well.

Second, as Dr. Hoover also indicates, a valid discovery like this suggests that life on earth may descend from microbial life that was brought to the earth by comets or meteorites.

So, for whom does this all make a difference? My opinion on this might surprise you.


Sure, a valid discovery like this would have implications for those who engage in the study of the universe (cosmology) and the study of life (biology). However, in my opinion, a discovery like this would have some very important implications for vast numbers of people, because of its impact in another field altogether:

Religion.

What does it mean for beliefs about the nature of humankind to think that life exists on other planets? What does it mean for belief in God and the Bible to think that life came to Earth aboard rocks falling from the sky in the distant past?

There are some, I am sure, who will proclaim Dr. Hoover’s discovery as “yet another step in the displacement of humanity from the center of the universe,” or some such. Some have interpreted the discovery of Nicholas Copernicus (that the Earth revolves with the other planets around the Sun, rather than the Sun revolving around the Earth) and the discoveries of Charles Darwin (to the effect that humanity evolved from other animal species) as being earlier such steps. Beyond this, there are many, I am also sure, who will look to Dr. Hoover’s discovery as suggesting yet another way that the Supreme Being is supposedly “unnecessary” to explain the universe and life within it, and yet another way that the Bible supposedly “fails” to explain scientific realities.

All of that is so much stuff and nonsense.

Let’s take that last point first: the idea that the Bible supposedly has failed to explain the origin of life. It is a principle accepted in many spiritual traditions that the Supreme Being—call that Being “God(s),” “Goddess(es),” “The Ground of All Being,” “The Force,” or whatever works for you—the Supreme Being communicates with people in a language that those people can understand. The holy writings of the spiritual traditions of the world were largely written thousands of years ago; these people could no more have understood the biology of bacteria than our great-great-grandparents could have programmed a digital video recorder. It’s not a matter of intelligence; it is simply a matter of the science and technology that people are familiar with at any point in time.

Given that, it is perfectly understandable that explanations of the beginnings of life on Earth would be given in imprecise, simplified language, rather than in scientifically sophisticated language, in our ancient sacred writings. Taking the book of Genesis in the Bible as an example, sure, it says that the first human was created “of the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7). Well, what else would it say? Of course people are composed of the elements of the earth. The calcium in my bones comes from plants that I have eaten, plants that themselves absorbed the calcium from the soil. The iron in my blood I have taken from plants and the meat of animals, who themselves obtained that iron from the land. Ultimately, the calcium, the iron, and all the other elements of our bodies were created in the heart of stars, which, when dying as novas or supernovas, ejected the heavier elements into the depths of space, where they collected into the planets we know today. Yes: you really are stardust. And we all have indeed been created from that stardust, a small part of which now comprises “the dust of the ground” of planet Earth.

Earlier, in the account of Genesis chapter 1, we read of the sequence in which life emerged: plants, marine life, non-human mammals, and humans (Gen. 1: 11, 20-26). There is nothing here that precludes the earliest step in the chain being bacteria from space, bacteria that came crashing onto our planet within the meteorites at the heart of water-bearing comets. (For that matter, I have always found it interesting that this is the sequence given in Darwinian theory for the emergence of life.)

I have addressed some concerns of some anti-religious skeptics. Now let’s consider the other side of this coin: people who might be inclined to reject Dr. Hoover’s evidence on religious grounds.

Some people think that belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life (especially intelligent life) is somehow wrong because such life is not mentioned explicitly in the Bible. Yet, so often, the Bible speaks of things known only to God: “the secret things belong unto the Lord our God” (Deut. 29:29). We read of at least one “mystery, which was kept secret since the world began” (Romans 16:25). Those who believe the Bible are fooling themselves if they think that all that God has to show humanity is in the Bible as we have it today; that very doctrine is unBiblical.

Several religions—some from ancient times—have taught that extraterrestrial life may exist. The Padma Purana, a Hindu religious text over a thousand years old, discusses extraterrestrial life, including intelligent life. The late Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan summarized evidence from Jewish Talmudic writings to the effect that extraterrestrial life may exist, within a Jewish conception of the universe. Buddhist cosmology teaches of other worlds; some of these represent mental states, but some represent worlds inhabited by non-humans. Within Islam, the 11th-century scholar Fakhr al-Din al-Razi taught that, in principle, God may have created multiple inhabited worlds.

Within Christianity, the Vatican’s chief astronomer in 2008 considered the religious implications of extraterrestrial life, and the Roman Catholic church sponsored a conference in 2009 to consider the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The Latter-day Saint Church (disclosure: my own church) has within its scriptures an account of an ancient prophet who “beheld many lands, and each land was called earth, and there were inhabitants upon the face thereof” (Moses 1:29).

My point: the discovery of extraterrestrial life—either bacterial life, or, at some future time, intelligent life—poses no threat to religious belief, and does not contradict the major religious traditions of the world. For the believer, finding out more about the wonders of the universe and the life within it is only a greater testimony of the power of the Creator.

Knowing that faith has nothing to fear from scientific truth is On The Mark.

(Readers are welcome to comment using the “Comment” link below. Anyone may comment. Readers are also invited to become “followers” of this blog through the box in the upper-right-hand corner, in order to be alerted to future posts.)

[The photo reproduces Figure 3b of Dr. Hoover’s article. The image was created with a Hitachi Secondary Electron Detector using 6000X magnification. It shows one of the objects that Dr. Hoover identifies as fossilized bacteria, “showing hook and calyptra or conical apical shell,” as he puts it. It was obtained from the webpage of the article at the Journal of Cosmology website. It is the belief of this author that, because this article was created by a U.S. federal employee in the course of his official duties, the photo is in the public domain.]

(Copyright 2011 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

{Shout-out to Technorati: This really is my blog. Confirmation code: CGAGUMUJ6U3R .)

Are "Young Americans Losing Their Religion" ?

Over the last couple of weeks, there have been several news reports (such as one by ABC News) regarding the Pew Center study on religion, supposedly showing that "young people are losing their religion," on the basis of the fact that the number of people in America who report "None" as their religious affiliation has grown precipitously over the last few years. However, the Pew study has been widely misunderstood. A proper understanding of this study reveals a lot about American religion over the last century, and points out an important opportunity for American organized religious groups.

What the Pew Study Really Means

What the Pew study really shows is that the number of people who have no affiliation to organized religious groups (churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, meetings, circles, etc.) has grown a great deal over the last few years. However, these young people are not "losing" their religion, so much as they are showing that they never had a serious or deep affiliation to a religious group from the get-go.

This should be no surprise. For years, many organized religions in America failed to engage their members in meaningful religious education beyond adolescence. That's a problem: personal faith that is 'frozen' in development at adolescence often cannot cope with the demands of adult life. This leaves family tradition, community ties, and habit as forces that kept many people tied to the religious groups in which they were raised.

However, the influence of tradition and community waned in America, as people began to move around the country a great deal more after World War II. Some people kept a nominal religious affiliation, but did not seriously involve their own children in any particular religious group. Now their descendants have no real ties to any religious organization.

However, every situation creates opportunities.

The Opportunity for Outreach

This presents a great opportunity for religious groups to make significant outreach efforts to those who define their religion as "none of the above," the so-called "religious 'nones' " (as they are referred to in the academic fields of the sociology and psychology of religion). At best, this would mean offering spiritual education to help people face life's issues on a mature spiritual level--more mature than what adolescents usually learn in classes to prepare for Christian Confirmation, Jewish Bar or Bat Mitzvah, and so forth. But will the religious groups of America make these efforts? Only time will tell. However, my sense of the situation is that those groups that do will grow and have a greater voice in shaping our society, while those who do not will fade.

So what do you do with all this? If you happen to be involved in a religious group, I would suggest two things. If you do not happen to be involved in a religious group, I have a different suggestion.

What Those With a Religious Affiliation Might Do

A fair number of the people who read this blog are members of religious organizations. (I know that this blog passes before the eyes of Catholics, Protestants, Latter-day Saints ["Mormons"], Jews of various inclinations, Muslims, members of the Society of Friends ["Quakers"], Wiccans, Gnostics, and Buddhists; I'm sure there are other groups represented as well in this blog's readership. Of course, many readers are honorable "nones.") Most of my readers who are affiliated with a group seem to be of what I would call the 'kinder' variety--less likely to burn people who differ at the stake, more likely to engage in dialogue for mutual understanding--and this variety of religion and spirituality, within any group, is something the world needs more of.

However, kinder is not necessarily better informed. I remember being shocked some years ago at the serious lack of religious and spiritual knowledge held by the students I taught at the University of Central Florida (where I taught the psychology of religion, among other courses). My impressions were confirmed by the grim findings reported in Stephen Prothero's excellent 2007 book, Religious Literacy. (For example: a significant number of American's actually believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. You can't make this stuff up.)

So, my first suggestion is really two-fold: (a) If your religious group offers spiritual education at the adult level--offering you a grounding in the teachings of your faith, and an adult level understanding of it--then participate in it; (b) however, if it does not, then help to institute such a spiritual education program within your congregation. Every spiritual tradition I know of has literature that can be used to create such programs. It can be done. If organized religion is to have a productive role in promoting individual and societal growth in 21st century America, it must be done.

My second suggestion: Expose your children in a serious way to your tradition. I mean the teachings, the ritual, the celebration, and discussions of spiritual issues in the home. I know that, in many cases, I am "preaching to the choir" (or coven) here, but it is still worth saying.

What Those With No Religious Affiliation Might Do

Now, to my friends the honorable "nones": Allow me, please, to invite you to an investigation of organized religious traditions. There are many good resources in this area; Huston Smith's The World's Religions is a good overview of the heart of several traditions. (This is a great book. However, it is an overview. Within every tradition he describes, there are many organized groups, and he often does not speak at the "specific group" level; for example, he says little or nothing about my people, the Latter-day Saints. He also is weak regarding neo-paganism; for which, see Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon. So, Smith is a place to start one's study, not the endpoint.)

There is a power that comes of being grounded within a lineage of teaching, a 'tradition.' Much wisdom has accumulated over the course of centuries within organized religious traditions. In my opinion, it is worth exposing oneself to these, to see what resonates with one's soul. Good fortune to you in your journey.
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I posted an earlier version of this in response to an on-line article at The Huffington Post (THP). I invite you to visit my profile at THP, see my other comments that are indexed there, comment on them--even become an official "fan" of my writing on THP, if you like.
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The picture, of the ruins of St. Bridget's Kirk, was taken in 2006 by Simon Johnston, who owns the copyright. The picture is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License.