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