Extra-Solar Religion and Science
Introduction
To predict changes in religion that might be expected in the future we need a definition of religion. I suggest
A religion describes a reality in space and time and beyond space and time from which it derieves moral laws, yielding enduring feelings and motivations in its followers who believe its teachings to be true.
To be able to discuss the future relationship between religion and science, we need a comparable definition of science. I suggest
Science describes a reality in space and time in terms of reproducible measurements of predictable events from which it derives timeless laws, yielding enduring feelings and motivations in its followers who believe its teachings to be true.
The dependence of both definitions on the feelings and emotions of individuals indicates a view of reality may sometimes not outlast a generations. Experience shows that both views of reality do change.
Religion
A religion that does not reject the reality established by science will include science’s reality as part of its own reality. To this it may add descriptions of events beyond space and time or not predictable or measurable, except on the basis of enduring feelings and emotions.
Both religion and science seek answers to related fundamental questions. Why are we here? And How did we come to be here? To this is added a third question common to religion and science: What will be the outcome of the processes that brought us here?
Extra-Solar Religion
When religion accepts science’s reality, its answers to these questions change as science’s view of reality changes. Therefore, to predict the nature of how religion will change in the future we need to predict how science’s view of reality changes in the future. Such a change is likely to have occurred already in an extra-solar civilization, so its view of reality will differ from our own.
The reason for expecting a difference is that any message we detect from beyond the solar system will come from a civilization that is very old compared with ours. We can compare relative ages in terms of the length of time since each civilization became able to send and receive messages from planets around other stars. This puts our age at about 60 years. Any extra-solar civilization we encounter is likely to be more than a hundred to ten thousand times older than that [Numbers].
Science, Space, and Time
Our view of reality depends critically how we view space and time. This changed when spacetime became viewed as a four-dimensional unity, with a time dimension like the three dimensions of space. A more fundamental change, in spacetime itself, now appears on the horizon.
Spacetime may be quantized, like the matter and energy that exists within it. That is, made up of spacetime granules, called quanta. These have with the smallest possible dimensions in space and time and are packed together to form a spacetime matrix filling the universe. If this is true, we inhabit two universes, not one. The first is spacetime. The second is an atemporal eternity beyond spacetime, like that recognized by Augustine of Hippo, Spinoza of Amsterdam, and many others. But it differs in containing an energy with spacetime dimensions, and therefore no mass or gravity.
Eternity creates spacetime, allowing creation of a universe full of matter and radiation. It remains within spacetime, touching every quantum. Free of spacetime dimensions, atemporal eternity provides an instantaneous form of communication used in quantum computing and perhaps in spirit communications. A civilization older than ours is likely to have adopted this quantized view of spacetime and found it changes fundamental aspects of science and religion. We should be prepared for this if they call, otherwise we will find their message confusing.
Ethics and Survival
In the meantime, we need to halt the damage to our ecosystem. We need some ethic that nations and religions can agree on, enabling us to change the behavior of the enemy. Which is us.
The basis for such an ethic is discussed next, followed by a summary of techniques of survival that have evolved and important feelings and emotions related to them. Then quantized spacetime is summarized. It suggest that the universe is deterministic, and shows the origin of uncertainty and paradoxical wave-particle phenomena. For religion it suggests the physical nature of an eternity that precedes creation of the universe and provides a basis for religious visions and spirit messages.
Whether we have a future in which to explore this picture of reality depends on the skills of survival that have evolved with over the lifetime of our planet. Of primary interest is how an ethic for survival may be adopted that enhances our chance of adopting a moral approach to our planet. Ethics is the theory of morals and morals are the practice of ethics.
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