I don't believe it will ever be possible to terraform Mars or travel to distance stars where there are habital planets. But this is a Christian thought experiment. We now concede that both of these things are possible and given a suffucient amout of time we can do it 100% for sure, let's say in the next 100 years (Remember thought experiment).
Now given this with the reading of the Bible front to back does it forbid that this could ever happen such as where is Christ going to return ect. I heard a preacher on TV saying that one day man would reach for the stars because God didn't put them there for us not to be able to explore (paraphrasing). Personally my reading of the Bible no matter the technological advances that men will never leave Earth in any permanent way to establish an alternate self sustaining civilization on another planet or moon.
I believe that Man will explore the stars as part of the New Jerusalem period, definitely. With Christ-like resurrected bodies, our current physical limits clearly are gone.
ReplyDeleteLooking at pre-tribulation, I think the question is also simpler. Without Faster Than Light transportation or artificial gravity, there's no practical way Mankind can leave the solar system. Without some real changes in physics or some unprovable other dimensions (subspace, etc.), FTL isn't happening, and artificial gravity (without spinning) looks even less likely than that. Without FTL, the trip is just too long.
Given enough time, I suspect that we could possibly manage some self-sustaining colonies on (or more accurately, under) Mars, and possibly temporary habitations on the Moon. The lack of gravity on the Moon will be the big impediment to colonization there; the human body clearly hates the low-gravity conditions. The rest of the solar system won't be energy-efficient for colonization.
The Bible clearly forbids a complete abandonment of Earth and of planet-wide destruction (but NOT localized destruction), but IMHO it's basically silent about minor trips out.
I would go for the reverse of this test: the existence of sentient, non-demonic alien species are a strong negative indicator against the Bible. I am hedging a bit, because I can work out the logic for a possible scenario (it'd be similar to the Elves being saved in the Summa Elvetica world), but that would be low-probabiliy.
In theory we are not prohibited from doing it.
ReplyDeleteIn reality we are only given dominion over the earth.
KPR
ReplyDeleteI'm going to look into what you said this weekend when I have time. It peaked my interest and my initial look it says to me this is quite possible.
Came here to say what Kentucky Packrat said, but he got there fusstest with the mostest.
ReplyDeleteThere's a quasi-Christian SF novel addressing the alien life forms problem, Blish's A Case of Conscience.
Things will be different, come the new heaven and new earth. Our race was formed to be the stewards of this world. If there are other lovely worlds out there, perhaps we'll get to steward them, too.
Regarding distance, I find mainstream cosmology to be retardedly trusting. Most astronomical distances are "measured" based on redshift and blind faith in there being only one cause, and Doppler is his prophet. Parallax is the only reasonable standard for measurement, and that doesn't get you too many light years away from the center of the universe.
Postscript: I do have to disagree with KP about tribulation and FTL. The first, from an orthodox preterist perspective. The second, from a relativity is bullshit perspective. Relevant reading on the latter would be Tom van Flandern and Petr Beck.
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