Letter from Dr. Philip Birnbaum about "Religious Implications of Extraterrestrial Life" (1966)

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The Religious Implications of Extraterrestrial Life (1965)

The existence of rational, sentient beings on a planet other than earth is no longer a fantastic, remote possibility conjectured by imaginative and unrealistic minds. It is declared not a possibility but a probability by an ever-growing chorus of distinguished astronomers and eminent scientists in all fields. Already there has been established a new science — “exobiology.” the study of forms of extraterrestrial life — although neither specimens of such living matter nor definite proof of their existence is yet available. The speculation of these men of science is that in many corners of the universe life has developed to a degree far higher than here on earth, so that — in the words of Walter Sullivan at the beginning of his splendid volume on the subject, We Are Not Alone1 — “not only are we not central in the scheme of things, but we may be inferior, physically, mentally and spiritually, to more highly evolved beings elsewhere.” Almost all descriptions of the current attempts to discover such extraterrestrial life are accompanied by exhortations about the profound implications for humanity’s view of the universe and the need for theologians and philosophers to re-examine their doctrines. When the existence of life elsewhere is established, and especially if some contact is made with intelligent beings elsewhere, we will be confronted by as much of a challenge to our established way of thought as when the Copernican revolution displaced the earth from the center of the universe and set in motion a religious and philosophical upheaval that has but recently run its course. One of the most persistent advocates of a radically new philosophy is the famous Harvard astronomer, Harlow Shapley. who in 1918 located the center of our galaxy (the Milky Way) insome 50,000 light years away. Shapley finds in the probability of intelligent extraterrestrial life “the intimations of man’s inconsequentiality.” Vannevar Bush, one of the worldV most distinguished men of science, has a…

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Letter from Steven Stulman about "Religious Implications of Extraterrestrial Life" (1966)

Dear Rabbi, I have just read your very timely and superbly reasoned analysis of existentialist life implications in Tradition. In at least one sense, the existence of life itself on planet earth–with the diminishing proportion of man’s greater respiratory desire from his being, instead returning such destruction of forest and the acidity so recognized with the extinction of the universe in accordance with natural lawfulness (inevitability?)–must be recognized as being primarily the result of man’s being–misuse of the resources of the earth, not only as stewards (of the thoughts of murder being excluded). If man’s function, indeed, of significant cosmic meaning would not be highly questioned by his life-willingly turned into destroying and thereby all options of total self-destruction?

Torah & Science

Letter to Dr. Isaac Asimov about His Book and "The Religious Implications of Extraterrestrial Life" (1967)

Dear Dr. Asimov: I understand you have a book to be published in the near future by Doubleday concerning extraterrestrial intelligent life. I therefore have the honor to send to you the enclosed reprint of an article I wrote on the subject, in the hope of receiving some reaction from you when you have an opportunity to glance through the reprint. I enjoyed your article in the current Harper’s magazine, demonstrating as you did, the usual Asimov lucidity.Sincerely yours,Rabbi Norman LammRNL/fzenc.

Torah & Science