From: The Pen of Gary DeMar
For several months I have been working on an extended project that explores the relationship of pop-culture to societal norms and worldview shifts. In addition to comic books, film, and music, I’ve been looking at science fiction and the search for extraterrestrial life. Science and science-fiction have converged on the subject for quite some time. “Nicholas of Cusa (Kues, German, 1401–1464) was a theologian who in De docta ignorantia endorsed the idea of other inhabited worlds in the mid-fifteenth century. Remarkably, Nicholas even affirmed that the inhabitants of the planets were superior to Earth’s human residents.”[2] It’s surprising how much interest and writing there has been on the subject for more than 500 years! It was surprising.
Extraterrestrial superiority is the norm for modern-day space-travel theorists. Evolution is the driving force behind most of it. It’s the belief of these writers and theorists that space exploration is the hope of mankind. In Star Maker (1937), Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) “placed humanity on a cosmic evolutionary journey that ends in near divinity. . . . [He] believed we needed a new mythology for the dawning of the technological age.” The claim is made that the inherent principles of evolution will make space a utopia because science and scientists will lead the way.
C.S. Lewis was one of the first modern writers to spot the obvious flaw in space-utopia thinking. In a letter to Arthur C. Clarke dated December 7, 1943, Lewis wrote: “Technology is per se neutral: a race devoted to the increase of its own power by technology with complete indifference to ethics does seem to me a cancer in the universe. . . .
Given the evolutionary overtones of so many scientists and science fiction writers, how is it possible to make any moral assessments? Who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys? How do we know what’s good or bad? Evolution on earth is a history of “Nature, red in tooth and claw.” Why is it now wrong to be equally misanthropic in the pursuit of greater evolutionary development? Philosopher Richard Rorty (1931–2007) provided a thought-provoking moral experiment for naturalistic philosophy to grapple with. Rorty challenges atheists to offer a compelling satisfactory naturalistic answer to the following:
“Aliens from another planet, with vastly superior intelligence to humans, land on earth in order to consume humans as food. What argument could you make to convince the aliens not to eat us that would not also apply to our consumption of beef?”
Samuel at Gilgal 