An odd confluence of things recently - 7 planets discovered orbiting red dwarf Trappist 1, ‘only’ 40 light years away - in galactic terms, that’s close. Three of the planets apparently are parked squarely in the star’s sweet spot as far as possibilities of life go. This discovery confirms what we already knew - that planets in solar systems are common phenomena, which means planets that fall into the ‘goldilocks zone’ of these suns are probably common too, which means there could be millions of planets in our galaxy alone that are potentially capable of supporting life - which means, statistically speaking, the idea that life on Earth is unique is looking like a bad bet. With gear like the powerful James Webb space telescope coming online soon our ability to look for signs of organic life in the atmospheres of distant planets is going to increase dramatically - which means that in as little as ten years proof could emerge that declares, yep, we got company.
And then, set up against that news, Denmark, a modern, left wing, secular country, decided it’d be a good idea to charge one of its citizens with blasphemy. Guy videotaped himself burning a Koran. Apparently that’s ‘offensive’ - not sure if he’d decided to burn a bible too that would have been equally offensive - can I burn the vulgate bible, is that allowed? Anyway, someone should tell the Danes, the very notion of the holy trinity is offensive to the claims of Islam, so, hey, how arbitrary is the line we’re drawing here? I mean, the Koran is hardly sparing in its contempt for ‘the people of the book’, a phrase which oozes scorn - so when’s a thing offensive and when ain’t it?
Regardless - these two bits of news don’t seem to fit well together, do they? Makes a person uneasy. On one hand we see the real possibility that shortly proof will emerge that renders all religious texts ‘inaccurate’, mythological tales in keeping with the creation stories and totemistic mutterings primitive peoples have plying their hopes and fears with since about, what, 15,000 years ago - and on the other hand Denmark wants to throw a guy in jail for blasphemy. Wow. The thing about this is, though - if proof does emerge that amounts to a kick in the head to the claims of established religions, I see Christianity and Judaism, long exposed to the enervating, mitigating effects of secularism, rolling with the punches without too much rending of garments - but Islam? Does anyone see Muslims taking this news well? They threaten to burn cities to the ground over cartoons - what happens when science demonstrates that their holy book, which ostensibly contains the precise words of an all powerful, infallible deity, is full of things that can't possibly be true? Nope, really don't see that going over well.
