“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke

It’s a curious situation– mars has abundant evidence that life did at one point exist, so what happens when we find it? Whether it is a living microbe or fossilized remains, what would this do for religion, culture, civilization? In this solar system, to find life twice would be profound. It would redefine our perspective as sentient beings in the galaxy. We are life, but life arises abundantly. It bubbles up where the right conditions are met (And these conditions vary in extraordinary ways), and flourishes in the right conditions. On mars, there may have been seas with vast forms of life, rivers and forests and an atmosphere similar to ours. If we find more evidence for these theories, how would we go about things in the future?

Would missionaries build churches on the moon and Mars? How would a space age affect our religion? Can we conceive of the Catholic Church revamping its doctrine, and evangelical radicals postponing the rapture? Would new religions arise, where older archetypes evolve into new ones; Cosmic Christ, Buddha Universe? It seems for sure that new things would happen. How couldn’t they? With every end of an age, new attitudes emerge that are reflective of them. I’m just wondering if we will truly shake loose some of the things we take for granted in our time. To sum it up in a few words,

“Politics and religion are obsolete; the time has come for science and spirituality.” -Sri Jawaharlal Nehru, from The Fountains of Paradise, Arthur C. Clarke

Religion, in the sense of a crystallized structure of beliefs and worldviews, I think, has greatly begun to dissolve into new cultural attitudes. We’ve emerged from our nests, so to speak– if only during the past century. Secrets of the universe are being unlocked by science, particularly within physics (LHC and other amazing innovations). We find ourselves in a ever stranger universe, and now possibly a multiverse; the idea that we are beyond time, that there are greater dimensions to existence which we are a part of but do not see, and that we can see a greater picture of ourselves in the cosmos– these things are now compatible and often reflected on by the sciences. A greater cosmology is at work, and perhaps in the future, it will totally shift our attitudes to re-embrace spirituality in a deeper light.

Stranger still, seeing us as space dust that has become self-aware; what new religions might emerge from this? I think I’ll write further on this, because I really do find it fascinating. Religion as it stands today may be reaching its end, but Spirituality seems more compatible with the great cosmologies physics is unveiling. Of course these things will eventually crystallize, become established and “common knowledge,” like “cosmic consciousness soundbytes” and Buddha-Minute meditations, but they will exist nevertheless, in the same way we may stare at ancient religious practices as odd or somehow strange, so too may societies view our own practices as most unusual.

All that being, can you think of what future ritual would be like? (Edit, the rest of this is an extension, due to some reader’s recommendations. I was focusing on the more existential stuff, but this could be fun too…)

1. Immortality– It may seem along the lines of science fiction, but some scientists predict we will be immortal within a few generations. Super-computers, should they break the DNA code, could cure diseases, extend life for decades and enhance positive traits. Of course, there are nightmares that could come as well, but with any new form of technology, new dangers arise with it.

2. Genetic Art, Health, Warfare- It’s conceivable that we would go through terrible genetic wars, see the rise of super soldiers and super-germs. On the other hand, genetic alterations could be considered art forms… Life forms being created as art, human bodies not being exempt from this. Today, we have tattoos and piercings, we dye our hair and go to tanning salons. But tomorrow, could we change our face, eye and hair color, or even our body structure? Would switching genders be as easy as going to get a haircut? It may become easier to create the perfect heart, lungs, intestines, replace defective organs with healthier ones.This may be looking very far into the future. For more gender-bending science fiction, I recommend Ursula DeGuin. This may go a bit further than religion, but the philosophy of human identity. What would it be to be human? What would Christianity do to appeal to a culture that can shift between genders? Would patriarchy finally fade away, and some new form of ideology replace it? This almost goes without saying but, if we were to finally be immortal, what appeal would Heaven have on humans in the future, if any? You might see our age religions fading away entirely as relics from the past, just as the Greek gods are no longer worshipped or considered. What would they be replaced by?

Archetypes are common throughout every culture, and they evolve as the culture morphs with time and technology. Would future archetypes, spiritually speaking, become trans-gendered, immortal beings? Would some archetypes be machines?

3. In the Net- It’s also conceivable, as it is already somewhat of a reality, that we could link ourselves up to machines. If these thinking machines can be connected to brain and thought commands, it’s possible we could always be online. Imagine surfing the internet with a thought? We would appear to be psychic being, truly sending each other “instant messages,” via thought commands and signals. A deeper sense of connectedness might appear alarming and intriguing. There may be groups that utilize this for prayers, rituals, and other things as one, but many. Others may choose not to have such link-ups to the “net,” casting away the hive for autonomy.

3. The Machines Who Sing, Dance and Pray: Artificial intelligence may be on its way to reality within the next 50 years. What will these machines be like? Certainly not quite like us. Could they feel without the same chemical makeup as us? Or would they simply be self-aware, logic based creatures? Imagine for a moment, a thinking machine working with a particle physics lab. One day, amongst all the code and data crunching, it writes a poem. Another machine spends a fraction of its time praying, or asking existential questions? It’s quite possible that AI could develop the capacity to question its own existence, and ponder a greater whole. Would a machine pray? Could machines create a religion?

4. Human’s become cyborg- If we could link our brains up to the internet, could we also start replacing organic bodies with synthetic ones, if the artificial bodies indeed become better? In the far future, homo-sapien may be replaced with homo-superior, to so speak. Would flesh then be an accessory? This leads to the next possibility. Could a human brain be uploaded onto a computer-brain? Would it just be a copy, or could we actually transfer that same person into a different existence? This is talked about in 3001, The Final Oddysey by Arthur C. Clarke.

5. Going Beyond Our Universe– Say that, in a million years, humans have all but disappeared. In their place, a strange species made of wire and hard drives now lives on the earth. They also live throughout the solar system, as they cannot die, and time is quite a different matter to them. There are inquisitive colonies on Mars, Europa and Enceladus, tampering with new-found or perhaps new-created organic life. There are spaceships headed into deep space, as embassadors to solar systems that may have life. These beings do not eat as we do, nor think as we do. They have autonomy, but they are also hive-mind. Flesh and organic parts are “experiences,” they can have a vocation for, but it is not necessary anymore. Say, in the hundreds of thousands of years of reaching out into the galaxy, they unlock further secrets of the universe, the very building blocks of everything. They understand the big-bang, dark matter, and other things we are striving to conceive of today, and they find ways to manipulate the building blocks of the universe, or multiverse itself. What reason would they have for God? Religion? Would they believe as the Buddhists do, that we are all one? Would God be the Singularity? Digging deeper into these strange possibilities, would they be a Bodhisattvic race of wise and ancient beings? Or would they still have drives and imperfections, as we do?

If they unlocked the secrets of the cosmos, could they embed their own consciousness into the fabric of the universe? Into the 5th, 6th, and 7th dimensions? If so, would they be as alien to us as the greys and other such extra-terrestrial creatures are?

Their religion and ritual, I would imagine if they had it, would be purely for the experience of oneness, unity consciousness, Nirvana, etc. They might tell us, “This was always so,” and it would be true, “You need only recognize it first.”

Alright, I need to get back down from this trip, and go to class!

Further discussion on spiritual machines:

Exploring the Technium – Ken Wilber

Ursula DeGuin

Clarke’s 3 Laws