The Mutual Influence of Religion and Science in the Human Understanding and Exploration of Outer Space

Dear Colleagues,

Ever since human beings first began to stand upright (and possibly even earlier), they have exhibited a strong curiosity about the sky, particularly the night sky with its spread of Milky Way stars, ever-changing moon, wandering planets, predictable constellations, and surprise appearances by comets and meteorites. Because the sky was unreachable, outer space was often synonymous with mysterious supernatural entities thought to influence human life, whether gods, spirits, or ancestors.

By the twentieth century, not only did humans understand more about the sky and space, they had reached the once-impossible goal of going beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and actually beginning to venture, slowly and hesitantly, into space itself. Space lost some of its mystery and became a sphere better explained by science. Religious belief did not disappear, however, and new human understandings of and experiences in outer space had an impact on religious practice. In the United States, the longing for a lost time of westward movement and trail-blazing may have stoked an interest in space as a “new frontier” or “new Jerusalem” (Newell 2019), with the “race for the moon” against the Soviet Union further encouraging Americans to think about space in religious terms while also, perhaps, appearing to contribute to the secularization of a nation (Oliver 2013). The experience of venturing into space may have led to epiphanies among astronauts (White 1987, Mitchell 1996) or have parallels with pilgrimage (Weibel 2015a, 2015b). Russian cosmonauts in recent years have placed icons of Russian Orthodox saints on the walls of the International Space Station (Gorman and Walsh 2018). Even the dedication of thousands of space workers and supporters of space exploration can be understood in religious terms (Launius 2013, Harrison 2014). Finally, a few have made an attempt to predict the characteristics of religious life in human settlements beyond the Earth (Waltemathe 2018, Oviedo 2019, Smith 2019).

At the same time, supernatural and religious understandings of space among lay people remain strong. Astrology influences many (Campion 2012), various societies interpret space through a religious lens (Govender 2009, Tomaquin 2013), certain religious groups are more likely than others to see a future in space (Ambrosius 2015), and science fiction movies and television frequently consider what religion in space settlements might look like some day (Neumann 2011). The exploration of the relationship between ideas about religion and ideas about space can focus, then, on humans currently living in space, but also on humans on Earth.

While good preliminary research has been carried out on the relationship between scientific and religious notions about outer space, this topic is fairly new, relatively under-studied, and important to investigate. Religious and scientific thought are two major arenas where humans speculate and seek answers, and both are often aimed at understanding the place of Earth, and human society, in the greater cosmos. We know little about how these two realms of conjecture interact to inform each other, but the point where they overlap in our ideas about the unearthly, the celestial, and the ethereal is a good place to concentrate our efforts.

The articles in this Special Issue of Religions will contribute to this project by examining how religious and scientific notions held about outer space work together in human societies and in the minds of individual human beings. Some of the questions considered in this endeavour include:

• What does the practice of religion in space look like, and how will it change if and when humans permanently reside in space?
• How do we use religion to help us understand space, and in what contexts do we do so?
• How might religious ideas help us conceptualize and plan for the human exploration and settlement of space?
• In what ways is the human effort to explore space religious in nature?
• Will the activity of space tourism ever transform into (or be accompanied by) space pilgrimage?
• To what extent do ideas about outer space, the stars, and space travel exist within contemporary and past religious communities?
• What is the relationship between symbolic and factual representations of outer space?
• How do religious and scientific notions about space inter-relate in non-Western societies?
• How would finding evidence of past or current life beyond our own planet affect religious views or teachings?
• How does the pro-space movement’s utopian vision of building a better society in space relate to religious or secular visions of utopia? Are they unique or do they borrow from others?

Our goal in this project is to assemble a collection of multidisciplinary papers (drawing from the social sciences, physical sciences, religious studies, humanities, etc.) that will serve as a strong foundation for future research into the relationship between religious and scientific ideas about outer space. By incorporating a wide variety of fields and approaches, this Special Issue will help us to reveal the diverse ways scientific ideas about outer space inform religion and the varied means by which religious ideas influence scientific conceptions of outer space.

Prof. Dr. Deana L. Weibel
Mr. Glen E. Swanson
Guest Editors

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• religion
• outer space
• space exploration
• cognition
• culture
• history
• science