Gimme That Old Time Space Religion

I have seen parts of it in the past. But I think when I say parts of it, like it was on some sort of secondary cable channel on this Saturday, and it might have been during a time in my life where I was a little bit tired in the morning and I just sat there in the couch, So I cannot say that with fidelity. I watched it, you know, from the beginning to end. Okay, well, well that's that's fair.

Um that classes muster. Yeah, well yeah, I mean I remember watching the film in bits and pieces on cable TV when I was younger, and then I read it, and then I read it again. But there's this thing that that shows up in it called the Orange Catholic Bible. Done for anyone who's not definitely or be you know space epic Um space opera, uh story that takes place on too far distant worlds long after Earth has has vanished, but there's still all these human civilizations out there on

different planets, and they still have religion. Um. And the book and the books kind of deal with the emergence of a new religion, but the one that they have taken with them is this thing they call the the Orange Catholic Bible, or that's that's their text anyway, which I always kind of picture in my mind being like a really orange looking but I was just thinking of fanta, you know, with a big cross on it on it. Yeah.

So it's supposedly a an accumulated book. And like this is the quote from from Doing Uh, the religious text produced by the Commission of Ecumenical trans Translators. It contains elements of the most ancient religions including and uh he names a couple here that I think are made up, but also Christianity, Catholicism, uh, Buddhism, Islam, and Supreme Commandment

is considered to be quote thou shalt not disfigure the soul. Um. So what I what I really like about this is the idea that you know, this decided that in some far distant future we still have taken religion with us. Though it is altered its form. It just as religion and belief. Human belief alters just you know, from generation

to generation. Yeah, it evolves over time. And uh, and it's such a fascinating area of thought, not only because I like to you know, we're kind of future so I like to imagine what what are humans gonna be doing in the future, What are they gonna be thinking? How are they going to be perceiving their world? But it's does stir a lot of debate because or maybe just angst because on one hand, there are people that are that are very adamant about the idea that that

we should just leave the religion at home. It should be sort of a church and state thing here. Yeah, or and also that like science is is gonna is the thing that's gonna get us, that gets us into orbit. It's not it's not faith, it's not belief, it's not myth or lore or any of these things. Uh, it's it's solid facts. It's it's it's science. And science should be the thing that we take with us. It's the

thing that propels us. And that that if we bring all these these outdated ideas of gods and goddesses into into the cosmos with us. Then we're just bringing trouble with us. Well that it maybe could hamstring our understanding, right right, Okay, so in that sense that that the two shall never sort of coexist in this example, right, But that's not necessarily the case. I mean, what if

I'm not wrong too? It is that Carl Segond who said that he felt like it at some point in in the future that there might even be a science based religion that could bridge Yeah, Sagan is um we all wear turtlenecks. Oh, that would be great, we have

that that cool haircutting. I would do it. Yeah. I think there's definitely an argument that we're no matter where we go as a species, um, at least as far as we you know, not not getting into ideas of like, you know, human consciousness changing based on O our what it currently is to be human. Um, we're gonna bring this world view we're some sort of worldview with us. Now what pieces we used to construct it? You know,

that's kind of uh up for grabs. Um. It kind of becomes like, you know, buffet religion, where I like to imagine people choosing only the healthiest uh bits from the buffet to take with them into the future and leaving the the fatty, uh, disgusting or intolerable um items on the buffet. Yeah, that's stuff that gives you poopy tubes later on. Yeah. Yeah, well that that is nice. But this is a lot of yeah, and this is what could happen. Yeah, and this is a lot of

me talking. But we're gonna discuss other people's ideas. And besides, let's talk about Okay, so we've had some space exploration. Let's talk about, um, you know, what people have observed in space religion. Why because that's not a big topic that comes up when you say, oh, okay, well you know there's a space mission and so on and so forth. Yeah, if we were going to keep outer space religion free, we kind of already screwed of that one up because

because we've we've actually seen some interesting examples of uh. Well, for start, let's start off with Christianity, since uh, it was largely um, you know, just by having stance of history, um, christian men who wound up in space before most other religions. So um, we have, for instance, buzz Aldrin in the nineteen sixty nine, who consume convenient communion bread and wine,

on the Moon. Yeah. Now he didn't get to transmit the ceremony back to Earth because NASA had it was already in kind of deep water because they let the Apollo eight crew read from the Book of Genesis for Christmas and they transmitted that and uh, and so there's a big lawsuit. Um. But but yeah, buzz Aldrin having communion on the moon. Okay, Well, you know what, you gotta get your wine in there. I get it. Although I understand that's it's a deeper, more symbolic thing going

on than just ingesting wine. I get it. Yeah. And then uh, and then people have continued to when they have faith, to bring it with them and uh. And sometimes they'll bring some rather interesting articles of faith with them.

Faith with him. This was just in two in the in two thousand nine, but cosmonaut Maxim Serav reported that the Russian Federal Space Agency has a small cash he of religious items on the International Space Station, including a reliquary cross, which allegedly contains a piece of the original cross.

Uh that Jesus was crucified on it. Yeah. Now, for those of you aren't familiar, this has been a common thing throughout history since the Crucifixion, uh, you know, took place that they would have these holy relics, little pieces of the Cross. And I've also heard it argued that if you were to take every alleged piece of the True Cross and we're to reassemble the true Cross, the true Cross would be enormous. It would be like the

size of a supermarket or something. Okay, so they would have to go in and really like it changed the engineering on them. Well, there's there's a lot of fraudulent pieces, So I'm not saying that they definitely have a piece of this true men know, historic goal, um, you know thing, but but they they they think they or they have a piece that claims to you know, and have a bit of the True Cross. So it's just kind of fascinating that they're religious relics in space right now. Even um,

of course we've had the Jewish faith. Judaism has gone into a space before in the form of kosher food. It's already appeared on orbital menus and uh, which you know, it makes sense to me in a way because if you're a vegetarian, you probably would want vegetarian food and space, right not necessarily that that's associated with any sort of religion.

But um, yeah, you know, I mean there are certain things that you're trying to adhere to write if you have certain diet hairy restrictions, be they health related or faith related. You know. The one of the big things about space food is you want people to eat the food. That's why we've had this. There's been a lot of work that's gone into making space food edible and not only edible but tasty and and like Taylor fitting the

menu two individuals on these different space missions. So you know, you want this dude to eat, you want him to be healthy or heat or she in orbit. So yeah, if they have a certain dietary restriction, even if it's purely religion based, then they're gonna they're gonna do what

they can to make it work. Okay, So so far, I don't really see any of these things sort of interfering with the mission itself, right right, you know, because because other things that like um, astronaut Jeff Hoffman uh took like a drado into space to just you know, to spin it around because that's kind of gimmick and cool, right um and uh, and and there was this there was an experiment where they lit the candles on a on a menorah and they were like looking at how

the flame is spherical, uh, which is just cool, okay um and uh yeah, so this is not really getting in the way of anything. Um. Now there's another whole fascinating area, and that's the idea of taking Islam into space. Yeah. And and in fact it didn't wasn't there is it in my Myanmar where they had a big discussion about the best ways to go into space and they produced actual guide on un observing um Muslim religion in space. Yeah. Well,

the Malaysian National Space Agents, um they yeah. They back in two thousand six, the Department of the Yeah, the same same letter U. The County's the country's Department of Islamic Development, assembled a team of a hundred and fifty Islamic scientists and scholars, and they ended up putting together a twelve page booklet on recommendations for how to conduct oneself in accordance with Islamic law on space. Because obviously, when when laws like this are originally laid out, no

one's taking into account space missions. And we're talking about and specifically here we're talking about of course, their dietary restrictions, just as there are in uh in judaism Um. Slightly different, but but they have them. Uh. And then there's the whole tradition of praying to in the direction of Mecca, which can be a fairly complicated thing on Earth. As we discussed in the the episode of Technology be Ancients.

The astrolabe is a rather cosmic instrument that allow that has allowed for thousands of years individuals to determine Mecca, exactly the location of Mecca so that they're praying in the right direction. Yeah, I mean, I have to say like a lot of this again, doesn't it feels like, Okay, you're in a you're on a mission, and you're an individual, and so as you said, you bring up, you're going to bring your belief system with you and your particular It's almost like if I went into space, I probably

would have my my my unicorn versus norwhale figurings. I might bring those with me, but they're both pointy, and you're gonna bring them in on them just float around versus Okay, well, as long as they're pointed at each other. But I can just imagine them flying into someone's eyes when the shuttle. You know, of course I would tether them down, but I'm just saying that, you know, we all bring some sort of cage of ourselves wherever we go,

so it's unavoidable to to bring this. But so so far it seems like, you know, those are things that are not necessarily problem on right, and those out of those recommendations made by the Department of Islamic Development, they pointed out that like if you you should always attempt to pray in the direction of Mecca, and that if you're when possible, but that ultimately it's like if you know, if you can't figure it out, it's the prayer is

more important than where you're you're pointed. Uh. Likewise, if you are on a space mission away from Earth, say you're on your win of Mars, it's perfectly acceptable just

to pray in the direction of Earth. Or the detail I liked the most, that is, if you can't tell which direction the Earth is in, you can just your prayer can be directed quote wherever, because if you because I'm thinking like, that's the time when you definitely want to get down to some serious praying when you're on that spaceship and you have no idea where Earth is

in relation to the ship. Um. And then other stuff was just like, for instance, they have a daily five prayer cycle, and if you're not on Earth, then the twenty four hour cycle is those a little different because yeah, you'd just been because you end up every time you you revolve around the Earth, you're gonna fit in five

different prayers. You would just be praying NonStop basically. UM. So they just said we'll just keep it in line with the passing of the hours on the planet Earth, which makes sense all right, so you know, gotta gotta get some grand rules here. Um. So okay, it's still though a pretty big topic, right, Um, you know, religion

and space science really. And what I noticed is that when I was at the World Science Festival, and I had gone to a panel called the Future of Big Science, which featured Nobel laureate and physicist Stephen Weinberg, Uh, that people brought up religion after his talk about you know, these big future of big science and what might happen um. And I was actually kind of surprised about that because he talked more about um, you know, funding and you know,

politics and so on and so forth. Um. But he took a question from an audience member concerning religion, and then this person said, do you think that in the US, because we are so focused on religion every aspect of society, including science, and this comes up, you know, again and again about whether the two can co exist, do you think that that is actually hamstringing the US's ability to

compete in the field of science. And um Winberg was, uh, you know, he didn't really directly answer that question, but what he did say is that in the West. Uh. He says, I don't find an anti science mentality. What I find is a confusion about what science is. And he went on to say that this just isn't a problem in most countries, particularly countries like China and um and they don't necessarily have any debates about pursuing scientific

endeavors in the face of religion. In other words, their funding is not attached to any political groups who may question the the potential of space exploration or scientific endeavors, even the large Hadron Collider for instance. UM. So that's I think what Wimberg goes sort of pointing to is that this is when there can be a problem with

religion and science, because if you have different groups. And again you talk about religion, you're talking about like incredibly complex mosaic of religions and beliefs and thoughts and opinions and trying to fit all of that, you know, under one heading. That then is directing possibly what what a government might be doing in terms of scientific endeavors. Really is sort of like trapping you know, gas in a suitcase. Right. Um, it's it's a difficult thing to intertwine the two. Yeah.

Now in another country where it's apparently not that big of an issue, is uh, you know, the whole science religion. There is India. Um, there's a guy by the name of their daughter, Ja the Rahman and actually um and he is a professor of physics Enities at Rochester Institute of Technology and uh. I actually interviewed him maybe a year ago, and he's a he's a period of talking about this particular issue I think on speaking speaking of faith,

which I think is now called being the MPR show. Yeah, Christ yeah, Christai and uh and he pointed out he actually wrote an essay called why in science and whine religion and uh in in in the difference, part of the problem could be linguistic because in Uh. In the English language, we have the word why, and that word has to has has two different senses. There's the there's the there's the cause why, like why am I unhappy? Or to put it more simply, what is the cause

of my unhappiness? All right? And the effect that you know, the effect is dependent upon prior events, so which the students related to the cost. And then there's the why in the teleological sense, right, Uh. Teleology is the is the philosophical study of design and purpose. So if you're saying why am i? Why am I happy? And you interpret that in the telological sense, you know, it's this deep question about the meaning of the universe, geological meaning God,

like you're outside of yourself, so why God me? Do you why that? But as opposed to why did this? You know, what were the events that led to this happening? Right? And uh? You know, like I said, why why are there humans? Why? Why are we going into space? That kind of thing? Um? But in the in Tamil, there are two different words for the each different why. So I just find that that fascinating that you can say, um,

why are there humans you know on the planet? Why did why are we the most you know, the involved species on Earth, and you can say that with it with just the right word to make it a completely

non religious or even or even philosophical question. So it's kind of interesting at the end of the day that humanity really shares more similarities than dissimilarities, right, Like, we all are pretty blown away by the mysteries of the world, whether or not we're looking at them through a religious or a scientific lens, and we all pretty much want the best for each other in ourselves, right, So it is kind of fascinating that even though that's that's primarily

the case, we still get down to semantics and we're splitting hairs and this causes a lot of heartache and mayhem. Um. But I do think it's interesting, um, But that that Winberg was saying that, you know, the crux of this is that it comes down to funding sometimes because you do have lobbyists that are talking to senators saying, you know, don't support this or do support this, And so that's really where where the the I guess you could say that rubber hits the pavement right in terms of seeing

these ideals play out in concrete ways, And for Winberg, he is very concerned about the future of science in America because he sees cuts and funding because people and it's a heart economy, people don't necessarily want to you know, support things that are especially space exploration related, And he's not necessarily saying let's put a bunch of people in the space. In fact, I think from what I could tell that he's he's thinking the unmanned missions are the

way to because you can still gather data. Um. But for him, it's still like, you know, what, what what Let's figure out what this world is all about. This is fascinating stuff. We live in it, and this is the way to do it through science because we're collecting data every day that that really changes our perspective or adds to it or you know, makes the sort of again, this mosaic of our existence a little bit even more um,

amazing and powerful. Right. So, I guess one of the one of the things is when when when science is trying to answer those questions, at what point did they end up asking questions that interfere with the questions that religion, Uh, some religions claim to answer, right right, yeah, Well, but this is the cool thing is that we've seen like

for for instance, with Brother g. Consulmanio. He works the Vatican essentially, Um, he's entered into the arena of planetary exploration ethics, right, the possible existence of extraterrestrial life and whether or not aliens would be with or without original sin. And it turns out that Brother Consomania is also very cool with terror forming other planets and attempt to foster life there. So what I'm seeing there and what I say it's cool is because the conversation is happening. Yeah,

it's not hamstring necessarily. What's going on right now from his you know, at least from this limited perspective of Consomania, he's actually taking some of these issues and talking about them through religious lens and exploring them and not shutting them down. Um, you know, is it funny that you know, is it kind of funny to think that he might be seeking out an alien and then just you know, trying to uh, that does the alien. Yes, but that's

not necessarily what he's doing. That's just that's really especially if if water will end up melting the alien and then he ends up actually kicking off an interstellar war, that would that would be horrible. Wow. And then yet flying monkeys will be very angry. Yeah, exactly. Um, just it just occurs to me the gremlins could never be baptized, could they if gremlins existed? Or well, what are the things that turned into grim wins? The magua? Yeah, that's

a whole there. I have a number of scientific um questions about the magua. Uh. But but we'll get past podcast, of course. Yeah, but let's talk about like when religion and science actually worked together in space exploration. You have a couple of examples. Yeah. One of them that I really loved, um that I ran across a few months back is the story of Dr James C. Fletcher. And this guy served as NASSA administrator from seventy seven eight

eight nine. And this this guy was extremely influential. Like basically, we can we can almost lay the Space Shuttle program at his feet. You know, he was he was very gung ho, like let's get let's get out there, let's let's explore the cosmos, let's find extra restaurants, let's find seti um which is and then not something everyone's into

these days. But but but the really interesting thing is this this guy grew up and was a about member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, the Mormon Church, and and you know he was he was, he was a believer. And and where it gets interesting is that and we're not going to go into into depth about Mormon theology or Mormon cosmology, but it does involve a universe full of quote worlds without number. And then then these worlds are, according to to their their religion,

inhabited by intelligent beings. So in other words, that the religion already includes xtra terrestrial life, like it's already factored into the design. So it's it's not something where um and some of the like older you know, Christian religions, um, more traditional Christian religions, you have this. You know, it's like there's no room for aliens because there's the the whole ideas like, well, God made humans, there's Earth. There's

no mention of anything else. And if and if you do, you're gonna have to, you know, to to directcon it into the the the overall design. But with the with the Mormon faith, it's already there. And so that was one of the driving forces. He was part of the

agenda of that faith. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he wasn't to have this sort of exploration, right, I mean, he wasn't like, you know, getting up there, you know, at NASA making big religious speeches of but it was one of the things that personally drove him, as did the whole Like the Mormon faith is also steeped in the frontiersm you know, because because you know, there the Utah, the early founders and the early members of the church where there was a very you know, a frontier mentality,

and there's all in space exploration. You know, that's the final frontier, right, or at least the next frontier. Well and then we mean manifest destiny too is always been part of that, right, which is for another time. But but yeah, and he also he also it's interesting is that at the time, like before the nineteen fifties, UM, people like in the Mormon Church, some of the higher ups, they were very much against the idea of space exploration. They were like, like, God's not gonna let you go

too far. He's gonna put limits on that, he's gonna shut that down. You don't even don't even mess with it. And he was like he was one of the of several you know or numerous you know, intellectuals within the church. We were like, no, that's that's complete hogwash. You know, don't don't let don't let this stand in the way of our science, and in fact it should be the other way around. So so I found that to be

an inspirational story of religion actually drying. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool to us all your blog post on it, and I had no idea about that. So, um, it's a really good example of that. And then again to bring up the astrolabe, this is again, this is um primarily a an invention of UM of the Muslim community from I can't remember now, but it had has been in existence for her since the fifth century BCO. Yes, yes,

and um. And what was so cool about this instrument is that it was improved upon and improved upon for hundreds and hundreds of years by Muslim cosmologists who wanted to know again, um, you know where Mecca is and try to celebrate the important holidays and try to line up this guy with with their worldview and their beliefs. And what this did is it helped to usher in an age of discovery. Later on for us and I say,

age of discovery. We're talking about sailing ships and you know, discovering other countries, which of course there are parallels with that in space. Right. Um, of course you don't see in in some countries now you don't see a lot of UM funding into space exploration or a lot of the sciences today, but um, you know, back in the day mathematics and sciences, this is very much the field of UM of the Muslim religion, which you know, again further our understanding today of what we know about the

physical world, which is really cool. So the question is can the to exist coexist? Will it happen? Will the discovery of say, extraterrestrial microbes change the face of religion or will you know, people hold steady in their beliefs. Actually, I've got a thought on that which I'm gonna get to right after this quick break. This presentation is brought

to you by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow. Okay, so here's the thought that I have on on how extracestrial life could shake religious belief I tend to find that there's you know, it's like you reach a point and you and you adopt some sort of worldview, be it like super religious or just sort of quasi religious. Or you know, or just sort of feel, yeah, our medium or none, you still end up taking this on this world view, and inevitably, like part of the human experience is that

something's gonna come along to shake that. So I feel like, if say, if you believe in a god, like like a god that's like say personally involved in your life, and then like somebody close to you dies or something, or you turn on the TV and you see something horrible happening, like, if that doesn't destroy your faith, then I don't know that how aliens really could. I mean, that's that's just my sort of take on it. I feel like, yeah, yeah, that but but that's your one.

And that's just the thing about religion, tune. It's like, even though they're certain doctrines that people follow, you still have um people still interpreted you know, on an individual basis. Yeah, it's I mean, it's called it's a worldview. It's a personal worldview. It's this it's this bubble that each of us, even if you you you know, buy it off the shelf at the super mart along with everybody else, you're still crap. It's still individual to you. It's it's like

to go back to doing. It's like that shield that they the energy shield they have around themselves, and you know it deflects laser blast. Yeah yeah, and you're still funnel You're funneling it through your experience. So that's that's whatever is going to come out on the other end is what it's going to come out. What I thought was interesting is um that This is from a Time magazine article from nineteen sixty one, and it is titled Religion,

Space and Scripture. It says Christianity has existed through the centuries on the assumption that man is the pinnacle of God's creation. What happens, as Presbyterian theology Professor W. Burnett East engineer, if it turns out that man is the pinnacle of only one of God's many worlds. So yes, I understand what you're saying. But but then there's this, this this sticky part of it, Like what if NaSTA called a press conference. They're like, guys, we've got we've

got some good news and bad news. The good news is we've discovered extraterrestrial life. The bad news is they're way hotter than us. It's just it's just like they're just so much more handsome and and and their their females are just so much more beautiful. It's like we just feel like crab now yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, who knows how how if if this discovery comes upon us and Hell'll react to it. But I

thought this was interesting. This was from space dot com uh in an article could extra terrestrial intelligence sway religious beliefs? And they said, to see what affects the discovery of extra um, let's just call it et intelligence might have on religion. Theologian Ted Peters and his colleagues surveyed more than individuals worldwide from multiple religious traditions, including Catholicism, uh uh, evangel Evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Mormons, Jews, but

in other non religious groups. They found the vast majority of religious believers, regardless of religion, were overwhelmingly confident that they wouldn't suffer a collapse in faith in the face of evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. In addition, roughly one third of religious people thought that the faith of other religions would be threatened, while two thirds of non religious people thought that aliens would sway the faith of the religious

as a whole. So completely. Actually, what you're kind of saying there, like your belief is your belief. Yeah, it's kind of like this little fortress that we build up

against the realities of the world. Um. And I'm not just religion but all, like we're all any kind of belief system we take on ourselves, any kind of world view, even if it's totally non religious, Like, this is our vision or reality, and it stands as a fortress against actual reality, and we have to choose when to reinforce it and when to just let the army come in. I guess yeah, And I still have this question, like, Okay,

you've got the large Hadron collider. Let's say that you have of a completely like behemoth version of it fifty two d years and uh, where they're able to you know, with with this new like souped up large Hadron cludeer, they're they're basically able to bear out the string theory and in even the existence of multiple universes. And even to the point in saying, okay, every action or in

action um is actually creating new actions and other universes. Okay, So even that I think may not that discovery may not change people's belief systems. Because and the reason I think that's interesting is because, uh, you know what would that mean to religion, which is, you know, sort of a codified system of more predicated on an afterlife that's determined by the deeds done in one single universe. You know what is that that definitely excuse your perception of

of what we're doing here on Earth. Now. Yeah, well, like to take one of the more I find, like, I think this would be one of the things that I would not pick up from the buffet if I were building, you know, my own plate of of theology, like to say, take the doctrine of Hell, right, the idea that in the early version of it, you can say, oh, well, there's a fiery place in the center of the Earth where they're devil's poking people's sticks, and then you can sort of you can sort of explain it away a

little more and say, oh, well, it's more like another planet, or maybe it's more like another dimension. You know. So even in the advent of scientific um new scientific data about the reality of the universe, we can sort of tweak different police systems to make sense in the new universe. You know. Well, and you know I'm always uh, even when that when the thing you're tweaking is kind of,

you know, in my opinion, kind of horrible. I'm always bringing up cognitive dissonance, right, and this is one of those instances where that could certainly incite that. Right, Like, if you've got this one piece of information that you believe in this other piece of information that's a odds it it's somehow you're probably gonna make it square even

if it's not square. Yeah, So, uh, this is an interesting bit just talking about like our our need to bring religion with us and need to bring world views with us. There was a there's a great um philosopher, historian, professor I think it is the University of Chicago by the name of Merceda aliati Um, author of the myth of the Eternal Return and all this is very big into like how crafting of world views and how they

affect everything. Um. Well, he he wrote about this one particular Australian Aboriginal myth and it concerned um, this tribe that would that had this pole a right, this sacred pole, and they would they would they would wander around all over the place they had they were they were nomadic. So but so they were never in one place for long, but they would always have this pole with them. And uh, these are the words of of of Mercedes Iliati Um.

He says that this pole represented a cosmic axis. For it is around the sacred Pole that territory becomes habitable, Hince becomes transformed into a world. The sacred pole, uh plays an important role ritually during their wanderings. They always carried with them and choose the direction they are to take by the direction towards which it ends. And he goes on from there, but then he adds, for the

poll to be broken denotes catastrophe. It is like the quote end of the world unquote, a reversion to chaos. So I find that basically they just if the if the poll breaks, they lay down on the ground and wait for death. Well, which is interesting because it all goes back to the whole thought that we we as

humans need a center. Yeah, and for some people that's God, but you know a system that holds it all together because you know, you think of the word decentering, right, you're off kilter, and a lot of people don't want to live that way, you know. Um. So for for for for many it says you know, whatever belief system provides solace and balance and comfort. Um, that makes sense. But I like, I love this pole example. Yeah. Yeah, the idea because it's both encouraging but also kind of

dark because it's the idea. Yeah, we're gonna bring our our poll with us and where it's gonna it's gonna keep us sane wherever we go in the cosmos. But then on the other hand, if the poll brakes were bumming, Yeah, but the thing, here's the thing. The poll always breaks at some point because there's entropy. The pool breaks in our personal lives all the time, right, the poles fine, yeah, or when the pole breaks, you just got two poles now,

you know nice? I like that. Um. I did want to mention that just as a sort of recap about the World Science Festival and this talk that Stephen Weinberg gave. It was just kind of funny. There's a YouTube YouTube

clip of this. And after Weinberg talk, someone cornered Neil deGrasse Tyson, who was in the audience, and he asked Tyson if maybe Tyson would be open from as far as I can tell, to suggesting to a senator that we should fund science exploration and the large hydrant collider and someone and so forth, and the attempt to get more funding and say that Jesus could exist on an alternate universe that perhaps you'll deGrasse Tyson should further this this agenda and again and you know, of course this

was this was a question that was posed in just and um and Tyson was sort of horrified, but he was a perfect gentleman um and just sort of said no and walked away. But um, but again there's just that's you know, that person was suggesting that because he was saying, you know, if we can fit the sort of worldview in here, then perhaps we could get the funding and we could do more exploration. Um. So funny clip if you look it up. I will have to look that one on. Yeah. Well, hey, you know I

have one little bit of listener mail here. Let me get too real quick a little bit and uh in this actually these two are our listener mail from our Facebook page, which is blow the Mind, the same as our Twitter page Blow the Mind. And U they right. First, Analeki rights no discussion on neo evolution because we just had a podcast about are you ready for the neo evolution?

He is complete without mention of Gattica. For a movie from seven, it is extremely prophetic a society in which everyone, um that is important has the history of genetic tailoring. The love child or accidental pregnancy is viewed as as a liability to employers. Um uh, there's and goes on. There's a lot of stuff in I can't believe we didn't bring up Gatica. Yeah, because yeah, I remember seeing it.

I remember it being a fun film. Yeah, I remember being like, this is very interesting proposition because that you know that the main character is blowed right and yet is chosen for exploration, uh, even even though he's not perfect. Right, So which sort of challenges is our ideas of trying to tinker with our DNA to the extent that we reached some sort of perfection. Yeah, and it's a great, yeah you can do it kind of movie, you know. Yeah, it is like you're perfect, you go for it. Yeah,

and there's some famous writer in that. There is a famous writer in there. Yeah, like not Chomsky's not somebody I don't recall. Somebody is in it, but I recall Uma in her cheekbones. But yeah, you know, But anyway, then Alakai adds, I love sci fi because it prepares us for what may happen, and the idea is expressed in this fifte year old movie may very well be a reality sin So yeah, and then um Rick rights then and says, responding to our our podcast on the

future of toilets. Right. So, for some sociologists, the best measure of a culture civilization is the distance that can maintain from its own excrement. For some ecologies, the best measure of a culture civilization is the degree to which it can recycle its own excrement. And for some individuals, the best measure of a culture civilization is the excrements availability to be put to further use. So, uh, and I believe he's, uh, he's quoting something here. Um yeah,

I think he's quoting a book here. But anyway, Yeah, that's that's actually a fascinating way of looking at it. It's true we have, um for a long time, been trying to put a disistrating ourselves in an exprement and as actually even thinking about this book I have about the history of shoes, and you can see these great

shoes that were in existence. I think some of them were even like maybe ten eleventh century that are essentially like huge platforms, which would make sense, like you want to if you're going through the streets and the streets are literally paved with excrement, if you could elevate yourself from that, uh you know, perhaps not get your your clothing in the muck. Even better, So like high heels are basically saying my neighborhood is nasty because I have

to just wade through it. Yeah. Um, well, hey, you know it's like, like I said, Facebook, Twitter blow the mind of both of those. I'd love to hear anybody's thoughts about the future of religion, where it's going, where it should go. Another area that we didn't even get into is if you had to design a religion to work in space, what would it be? Because on one hand, I like to think of the whole like David Eagleman, possibility and kind of thing where it's like keeping your

mind open to also these new ideas. And then I love the idea of a theological buffet when you pick and choose the things that are beneficial uh to to yourself, which I think we all do to eliminated extent anyway. But then I was talking to um this guy know who, Yeah, he actually yeah, he works on the Eve games, Eve

Online games. But his argument was, well, if you were designing a religion for space, there's not a lot of room for error in space travel, so you would want to have a really strict, dogmatic religion to make sure everybody's doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing on these different space flights. Well, that would become the religion. Right at noon, we we gather some data and we do it internal. Next with saganism once again, what if we can kind of promote that threat of office and

see if it just takes like hand out pamphlet. Yeah, we should do like chick like a chick pamphlet about it? All right? Well, yeah, let us let us know if you're willing to wear germ nuts in the name of science. Uh, and just go ahead and drop us a line at blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.