Religion and Space

[Acamar]

Just a thought I had one day...

The universe is incomprehensibly vast. The earth takes up 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000003%, or 3x10^-60 % of the volume of the universe, and because of the expansion of space, most of the observable universe is physically impossible to reach.

If the universe was created by a deity, there are a few possibilities:

1. The universe is basically a sandbox or a simulator: life is an unintended emergent feature, and there is no real intended purpose for us. This is basically Deism, almost at agnosticism.
2. As most religions seem to claim, modern humans are special enough to be saved by a manifestation of God, on Earth, sometime in the not so far future. This implies that 99.999999999999....999% of the universe is background scenery. This view seems incredibly arrogant to me, and it would be ridiculously wasteful. It would be like growing a bacterial colony in a single petri dish placed on a completely featureless planet that cannot otherwise support life.
3. There are many alien civilizations out there: the universe is teeming with life. 
4. We are not meant to stay on Earth. Humanity is meant to expand as far as it can go, colonizing the stars.

Both 3 and 4 have very interesting implications. It would be interesting to see religions funding large-scale space exploration, to say the least.

We moved from a geocentric model, to a heliocentric model, to a Milky Way- centric (?) model and beyond. Why are our religions' attitudes still seemingly stuck putting Earth at the center of the universe?

Calculation: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(volume+of+earth)%2F(volume+of+universe)

Are there any flaws in this argument? What do you think?

 

Edited June 8, 2017 by Acamar

[swampy]

I don't think it's entirely religion's fault. My PC decided just now to tell me I'm not logged in so it deleted my reply. Sorry about the quality.

Here's what I think happened.

• General relativity: you aren't moving, you aren't moving, you aren't moving, NOTHING is moving relative to its own perspective. To others' perspectives, the things ARE in fact moving, though, because they have added velocity.
• Brain: Yeah, I don't think constantly thinking things are coming at me is advantageous. Now I think I'm going at things! Except when I don't work, then when you faint you can think the floor is moving towards you.
• People: Why would I need this map I can't find myself in? I'm gonna live here and draw my maps with me at the centre so I always know where to go relative to my home.
• Religion: Well, I hope you live in Jerusalem then, because that's the centre of our maps.
• People: I can't see anything in the sky other than what seems to be light sources moving. I'm gonna assume they are because of no evidence to the contrary.
• Telescopes: Hi..
• People: WHAT!!! WHAT!!!! I AM NOT USED TO THIS!!!! NO!!!!! BURN!!!!!!
• People: ...Okay, it's kind of cool, but we don't know anything so we're just gonna assume we're at the centre because that's all we know. Besides, all our maps are like that, and the old map masters must've been right!
• People: Okay, this is too hard!!! Also we're all self-obsessed because if we're not we're gonna starve to death because we can't afford not to put everything into work.

EDIT: Though, yeah, Christianity was very much against heliocentrism. I don't know if that's because of our own arrogance before it or after it or maybe a core part of Christianity I don't know about that was also difficult to change. Or the clergy just had monetary interests in keeping the populace ignorant of literally everything because of that sweet sweet exploitation.

Edited June 9, 2017 by swampy