Cosmism: the Religion of the Future?

My friends, I am inspired!  I have had a vision in recent days, of a religion for the next

billion years and beyond, which I am tentatively calling “Cosmism”.  Cosmism will be a cosmic religion in the ancient tradition of the builders of Stonehenge, Giza and Tikal; a return to the sense of awe and wonder that once inspired men to erect great monuments when they looked up at the sky.  Yet Cosmism will not be based on any kind of supernatural mythology, but on a strictly scientific understanding of our incredibly vast and awe-inspiring universe, and of our future place within it.

My idea comes from a realization that human beings will probably always need some kind of religion to inspire them to great things and to prevent them from succumbing to nihilism. If the religions they have aren’t satisfactory, they will invent new ones. The problem with our ancestral religions is they are myopic, archaic and obviously absurd. Our understanding of the universe has expanded so far beyond the worldviews of Iron Age tribes that it’s incredible to me that their myths still persist. A basic familiarity with modern astronomy, with its world-destroying asteroids, comets, black holes, supernovae and gamma ray bursts will quickly disabuse you of the idea that there is a God who takes a personal interest in our fate. The universe is clearly an incredibly vast and indifferent void. But what of our need for religion?

After meditating on this problem I may have come up with a solution: a new cosmic religion which even (or perhaps especially) a scientific atheist can subscribe to. My inspirations are the great cosmic visionaries like Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein. The basic idea of Cosmism is that the universe itself is a kind of god, its study is an act of worship, and man is destined to become the ancestor of god-like beings who will spread out to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, harnessing the energy of entire galaxies and bringing life and intelligence to billions of dead worlds.

There are many prophets of Cosmism; here are some quotes from a few of them which capture its spirit:

“The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.”  –Albert Einstein

"How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?' Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge." –Carl Sagan

"Teetering here on the fulcrum of destiny stands our own bemused species. The future of the universe hinges on what we do next. If we take up the sacred fire, and stride forth into space as the torchbearers of Life, this universe will be aborning. If we carry the green fire-brand from star to star, and ignite around each a conflagration of vitality, we can trigger a Universal metamorphosis. Because of us, the barren dusts of a million billion worlds will coil up into the pulsing magic forms of animate matter. Because of us, landscapes of radiation blasted waste, will be miraculously transmuted: Slag will become soil, grass will sprout, flowers will bloom, and forests will spring up in once sterile places. Ice, hard as iron, will melt and trickle into pools where starfish, anemones, and seashells dwell — a whole frozen universe will thaw and transmogrify, from howling desolation to blossoming paradise. Dust into Life; the very alchemy of God." –Marshall T. Savage

"One thing seems certain. Our galaxy is now in the brief springtime of its life—a springtime made glorious by such brilliant blue-white stars as Vega and Sirius, and, on a more humble scale, our own Sun. Not until all these have flamed through their incandescent youth, in a few fleeting billions of years, will the real history of the universe begin.

It will be a history illuminated only by the reds and infrareds of dully glowing stars that would be almost invisible to our eyes; yet the sombre hues of that all-but-eternal universe may be full of colour and beauty to whatever strange beings have adapted to it. They will know that before them lie, not the millions of years in which we measure eras of geology, nor the billions of years which span the past lives of the stars, but years to be counted literally in the trillions.

They will have time enough, in those endless aeons, to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge. They will be like gods, because no gods imagined by our minds have ever possessed the powers they will command. But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of creation; for we knew the universe when it was young." –Arthur C. Clarke

“The rash assertion that 'God made man in His own image' is ticking like a time bomb at the foundation of many faiths, and as the hierarchy of the universe is disclosed to us, we may have to recognize this chilling truth: if there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they cannot be very important gods.” –Arthur C. Clarke

“The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our species is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos, in which we float, like a mote of dust, in the morning sky.” –Carl Sagan

“The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls.” –Carl Sagan

"We are the product of 4.5 billion years of fortuitous, slow biological evolution. There is no reason to think that the evolutionary process has stopped. Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation." –Carl Sagan

"Boiled down to one sentence, my message is the unbounded prodigality of life and the consequent unboundedness of human destiny. As a working hypothesis to explain the riddle of our existence, I propose that our universe is the most interesting of all possible universes, and our fate as human beings is to make it so." –Freeman Dyson

"It has often been said that, if the human species fails to make a go of it here on the Earth, some other species will take over the running. In the sense of developing intelligence this is not correct. We have or soon will have, exhausted the necessary physical prerequisites so far as this planet is concerned. With coal gone, oil gone, high-grade metallic ores gone, no species however competent can make the long climb from primitive conditions to high-level technology. This is a one-shot affair. If we fail, this planetary system fails so far as intelligence is concerned." –Fred Hoyle

To paint a clearer picture of this religion in practice, imagine a Cosmist “priest” (Cosmologist?  Astronomer?) dressed in a black robe adorned with stars and galaxies, holding a service in a temple called an "Observatory".  Ideally, the service would take place outdoors on a clear night, against a backdrop of the Milky Way.  Astronomical images are shown on a huge screen, and a sermon is read which features interesting scientific developments, facts about the Cosmos and inspirational words from prophets like Clarke and Sagan. Perhaps a clip from "Cosmos" is shown, or videos such as those embedded below.  The "Glorious Dawn" video would be a nice way to begin or end the festivities, with a celebratory sing-along.  Members of the congregation might come up to the front to take part in some kind of ritual, such as entering a mock spaceship that symbolically takes them to the stars.  Maybe the best way to describe a Cosmist service would be to imagine a mass, a rave and an astronomy lecture combined into one awesome cosmic-religious experience!

Maybe a religion like Cosmism already exists, I don’t know.  The Singularitarianism of Ray Kurzweil has some similarities to what I am proposing, but seems mostly concerned with an approaching singularity driven by transhumanist technology and superhuman artificial intelligence.  Cosmism is more interested in what happens after such a singularity.  If we really are fast approaching a point of human obsolescence and technological transcendence, I would hope that the superior beings who come after us will adopt a belief system similar to Cosmism, which inspires them to some unimaginable, god-like future among the ten billion trillion suns of our universe.

In a world ravaged by archaic holy wars and ideological battles for the hearts and minds of men, isn’t it time the scientifically informed became more poetic and prophetic?  Rather than simply saying “no” to all gods and religions like the New Atheists do, wouldn’t their cause be better served by putting forth a positive vision which can inspire humanity to far greater heights than those imagined by the adherents of the absurdly provincial ancestral religions?  Isn't it time we embraced Einstein's "cosmic religion"?

(Note: I am just some crazy blogger with a lot of wacky ideas; I have few resources other than my imagination.  But I am quite serious about launching the religion of Cosmism.  If anyone reading this shares my passion and has resources or skills that could be helpful in this cause, please contact me and let's see what we can create!)