The Astronomers--an inspiration to Pandeism

Astronomy has always had a role to play in theological discourse. From the time of the earliest records of the ancients, it was supposed that the lights in the night sky represented mystical forces. And, once it was understood that there were distinct forms of objects beyond our horizon, elaborate systems were imagined to explain their significance, and their supposed influence on human affairs.

Ptolemy of Alexandria devised a model of the sun and planets which placed the Earth at the center of our Universe, orbited by the Moon, then Mercury and Venus, then the sun and the rest of the known planets: Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. All of this, in the Ptolomeic model, was surrounded by a moving sphere of fixed stars. We now know that Ptolomy's model was wrong, but not for any lack of intellect on Ptolomy's part. Instead, it was a well-thought out model that largely accounted for what could be observed in that age, and with the prevailing theological supposition, of our Earth sitting at the center of our Universe.

Nicolaus Copernicus pioneered the next great leap in astronomical knowledge. Copernicus published his heliocentric theory, placing the Sun at the center of our Universe, shortly before his death. This was necessary due to the prevailing religious sentiments of the time. Although we now know the heliocentric model to be true, the monolithic Christianity of the era required the Earth to be at the center of the Universe, and so, truth was suppressed in the name of religion.

Following the work of Copernicus, Galileo Galilei determined, as well, that the Sun, and not the Earth, was the central point for the planets. His work was based on the most practical level of research, improving the design of telescopes and then observing the sun, moon, and planets through them, and reporting his observations. For his discoveries, he was condemned by the Church, which famously declared the theory that the Earth orbits the sun to be "false and contrary to Scripture." But, it is not so widely remembered that he was equally condemned for discovering spots on the sun, craters on the moon, other moons circling other planets, and that the planets themselves were not perfect orbs, as the church required. Under threat of of torture by religious officials, Galileo recanted -- but, naturally, recanting what is a true has never worked to make it untrue.

Johannes Kepler, lived in the same era as Galileo, but in a place less dominated by religious oppression. Working in the observatory of another great astronomer, Tycho Brahe, Kepler sought to solve the riddle of the apparent retrograde motion of Mars -- that is, the tendency of Mars to sometimes appear to move backwards in its orbit. In doing so, Kepler hit upon another great discovery, that the planets did not orbit the Sun at a uniform speed, or in perfect circles, or with the Sun at the exact center, as the religious leaders required. The planets instead orbited in a-centric ellipses, with orbital speed changing in conjunction with the distance from the Sun, which was simply a focal point, and not at the exact center of their orbit.

Sir Isaac Newton's theory of gravity was initially set forth in great measure to explain the means by which bodies in orbit were maintained in that way. It paved the way for the theological theory of deism by demonstrating that the constant hand of the Creator was not at all needed to explain the motions of the planets, but that celestial bodies could instead be maintained in their angular momentum entirely by the clockwork operation of celestial mechanics.

It was astronomers who, centuries later, insured the upending of Newtonian physics when they confirmed Einstein's theory of relativity by observing the predicted gravitational lensing of light passing distant stars. It was astronomers who gave us the key to the age of our Universe. Edwin Hubble discovered that ours was not the only galaxy, and by examining the redshift of other galaxies moving in relation to our own, that the Universe was expanding. It is somewhat remarkable in itself that up until 1925, it was not known that a single other galaxy existed, and after that date, that countless numbers of them did.

Hubble's discovery of universal expansion was disturbing to those who, for both scientific and theological reasons, believed the Universe to have existed forever, in much the same state. Astronomer Fred Hoyle was among those who developed the steady state theory, which proposed that the expansion of our Universe was fueled by a constant infusion of new material from some central point, so that it had always appeared, and would always appear, much as it does today. But this theory was disproved with the discovery of very old quasars and similar very old and very distant structures, which are not found in the neighborhood of younger galaxies which are farther along from the point of the initial expansion. It is somewhat ironic today that the Big Bang proponents were largely religious, championing the theory in part for its assignment of a point of origin to the Universe which accorded with Creation mythology, while the steady state proponents tended to be atheistic.

Once the Big Bang theory was confirmed, this knowledge, refined over time, allowed man to at last pinpoint the age of our Universe to approximately thirteen billion seven hundred and thirty million years. Later astronomers like Carl Sagan, Paul Davies, and Timothy Ferris would continue to do more and more to not only advance our understanding of our Universe, and the continuum of physics governing objects within it, but to profoundly effect the validity of theological models as well, making it impossible to rationally believe in a Creator for whom human beings were at the center of our Universe.

As astronomical discoveries have taken us farther and farther away from our initial imagined posture in the center of our Universe, theological systems have reacted in different ways. Some have simply shifted the vanity and self-centeredness that led us to believe ourselves to be the center of a perfectly ordered Universe away from the astronomical realm, insisting that even as we are seen to occupy an insignificant position in space, we remain the object of adoration for the Creator of that vast space, so richly occupied in places beyond our very imagination. Other theological models have strengthened in their grasp of a theology in line with astronomical reality. Pandeism is one such theory, demanding that any theological explanation must accord with the nature of our observed Universe. And so, the astronomers, in their generations of work advancing our understanding of our place within our Universe, have provided an inspiration to pandeism, and to all theological theories recognizing the grandness of a Universe in which we are so privileged to play even the most minute role.

Pandeism explains the stars and galaxies

Pandeism explains the size of the Universe, and the vast number of stars and galaxies....

Pandeism vs Theism: Our Destiny is in the Stars!!

This video explains why it must be so, that our destiny is in the stars!!



As the dawn of the 2010 decade approached, science quietly delivered a message that will build in realization until it reverberates with a boom forever into the future. Mankind's ability to identify planets around distant stars has evolved to a new height, to the point of being able to identify Earth-sized orbs in orbits that would make them amenable to carrying liquid water -- thus imbuing them with the potential to develop life, or at the least to be made habitable for humans. This scientific find gives us hope that we may literally reach for the stars, but it brings profound and awesome religious implications as well.

There are those out there in certain faiths who eagerly await not the day of our expansion into new worlds, but the end of this world. End-timers exist in several religions; in the Abrahamic faiths they tend to believe that the world is around 6,000 years old and, at the same time, that a thousand years is like a day to their God -- all straight from their books. So, doesn't it seem odd that after billions of infinities waiting around and doing nothing, such a God would suddenly up and create the Universe, have the whole thing exist for an eyeblink in the great span of things -- and then just as suddenly have an Armageddon and go back to the humdrum of no Universe for billions of infinities (even if thereafter surrounded by fawning souls bereft of any desire but to fawn)? And yet, these end-timers have been insisting that the end is coming right up on us (although to be fair, they've been insisting that daily and twice on Sundays for thousands of years now)....

With our technological developments and the recent discovery of other possibly habitable worlds with water on them and everything, we're really just starting to get interesting. I mean, if I was the sort of person who believed in piecemeal-purposed creation, I'd have a hard time thinking that any God created habitable planets which, at least according to theoretical physics, we could very much reach and populate, and yet this same God intended to end our days before we did what those worlds are designed to have us do. If we were expected to fail before being able to reach those worlds, such a Creator would know that in advance, and wouldn't bother to create those other habitable worlds -- which we might otherwise get to in a few hundred, at most a few thousand years (another eyeblink to such a being). The whole idea of it is like someone spending a fortune to buy a bunch of toys, to give to their children as a reward for not eating from the plate of candy which was placed in front of them and left unattended.

Now, even if for the sake of argument the scriptural accounts hoisted by the end-timers were true accounts of Creation, it makes no sense that such a Creator would end things now, at a time that would for that being be moments after Creation. That would be like lining up world class marathon runners to run a fifty-millimeter dash. Since physics itself keeps telling us of a Universe that is billions rather than thousands of years old, shouldn't we be looking towards a future that is also billions of years to come, instead of ending in thousands of years, or hundreds, or next Tuesday?

So it must be. We are meant to reach those other habitable worlds out there, just now coming onto our horizon; and because of this, the next few thousand years of human development will be particularly interesting to observe and even be a part of. Even the end-timers should now, finally, acknowledge that those lights in the sky are not angels or lesser gods or holes in a great dome, but are instead stars orbited by (detectable!!) planets, which if deity-made Creation is true, we must be intended to occupy!!

PanDeism explains why the Universe has so many galaxies and stars!!

A friend asked why God bothered to spend the extra effort required to make galaxies of stars and planets, which we may never visit -- indeed, which we may never even see!! Here PanDeism provides an answer where other faiths are stunted by their belief that we'll meet our collective end bound upon this mossy rock....

If you've read my blogs to this point, you will doubtless have seen how examination of the Universe through a series of logical steps suggests that God became the Universe in order to share in the experience of life therein.... remember, now, that God basically blew itself up (albeit temporarily) in the Big Bang that started it all, so God is thereafter not around to guide life into existence, and must count on that happening on its own according to the laws of physics written into the Universe at the Creation.... therefore, PanDeism finds, the Universe is designed by its natural laws to facilitate abiogenesis and evolution by natural selection leading to the development of self-reflective intelligent life (and probably life with an even higher form of awareness to which we have simply not yet evolved)....

Really, then, there are two distinct driving factors behind the scope of the Creation:
First, God sought to create a Universe that would maximize the instances of intelligent life developing without need of further intervention from God.... the bigger the Universe, the more places in which this might occur.... so it is bound to be the case that life exists in other solar systems, perhaps in this galaxy, perhaps in others, but life that is equally likely to travel to other stars.... and moreso, the Universe is made in the way that it had to be in order to maximize the possibility of intelligent life arising; therefore, the distances between the stars and the galaxies are just a side-effect of the laws of physics needed to achieve the first purpose.... sort of like making a pile of dirty pots and pans and dishes and utensils is not the goal when you set out to bake a cake for your friends to enjoy, but between the mixing and the baking and the eating, that's what you are going to end up with....

Second, in order for God to gain the maximum benefit of sharing in this experience, life must blossom and spread throughout a large portion of the Universe.... hence, a big Universe full of wonder and beauty gives its inhabitants many opportunities to discover and feel awed at the sight of things within the Universe, feelings which God shares with us.... and perhaps fewer things will inspire more wonder than the meeting of two civilizations, each an alien to the other, hopefully in a spirit of peace....

Though this may not happen in my lifetime, I have high hopes for the destiny of mankind to be shaped among the stars.... the distances indeed may only seem insurmountable.... if you were to explain to an ancient Greek exactly how far away the moon actually is, and what lays between earth and moon, they might well conclude that such a barrier could never be bridged (in fact when Galileo errantly proposed that there were civilizations on the Moon, the Church worried that this contradicted the Biblical account of the flood of Noah destroying all mankind)!! But this is a technical question, one that will be solved, I think, by a technical answer.... and though I think the distance is incidental, I also think that God intended us to be presented with a Universe full of challenges to be overcome, so that God's knowledge of the overcoming of challenge could be most fully completed!!

Just as humans have long interpreted an internal longing for God as a sign of God's existence, so I believe is the internal longing of many to believe in life on other worlds in fact a subconscious reception on our part of the beacons of sentience originating on those far-away orbs, dangling about their own flaming suns!!

In short, once again PanDeism explains it all!!