MMM Classics Year 10: MMM #s 91-100 - Moon Society

[Article Series Conclusion]
SPIRITUALITY
Effects of the Lunar Environment
on Spirituality and on the Reinforcement
of Personal Religious Sensitivities
by Peter Kokh
WARNING: this article reflects the writer’s personal
spirituality and may be offensive or troubling to some
personal sensitivities. Please do feel free to skip it.
The Human Condition.
Beyond the Mother Biosphere (i.e. beyond Earth) the
vulnerability of the human condition will perhaps be even more
starkly revealed. Yet, as we learn to cope with “alien and
hostile conditions” we may be even more prone to temptations
of hubris; “We can go it alone! Look see! We are!” In the end,
the raw forces of nature, as heedless of our presence as we are
of anthills underfoot, will as always put a damper on that.
For the most part, the reactions of future Lunans will
not differ. Those who believe that God plays both sides of the
chessboard, determining the physical and material things that
come our way on the one hand, and then helping us to cope
with all these events on the other, thus making us pawns, will
continue to have enormous difficulty handling deep personal
tragedies (sickness, death, failure of relationships, financial
catastrophe, etc.). This is the standard posture of most “give us
this day our daily bread” type religions. You hear it repeatedly
in the news when someone who has just won the lottery says,
“You see, there is a God!” (What about for the the rest of us,
who did not win ?) Posture one.
Those who believe, on the other hand, that God lets
the world happen without interference ... ever, that the material
and physical events which effect us are not an indication of his
personal care and favor, or disfavor - these persons have never
that same intense and critical need to know “why, why?”. They
live confident that, should we seek it, we will always find the
strength and grace to handle anything that comes our way, and
grow to become better persons because of it, and will go on
through thick or thin to do just that. Posture two.
Nothing connected with living on the Moon or anywhere
else in space, as opposed to living on Earth, will change
any of this. Life is not easy. This is, Earth and anywhere else,
is “a vale of tears”. No amount of continued technological and
medical progress will ever change that. The hardships of life
make all of us susceptible to one version or another of the
world’s oldest confidence game, games which in the end can
not deliver consistently. Those who swear by a gimme-gimme
faith, are able to do so, because, perhaps without realizing it,
they have found their own way into the second posture above.
Absence of a given encradling global biosphere.
On Earth, “Nature” has a strong duality, the geophysical
forces of the planet itself, and the biological forces of plant
and animal life, and their ecosystems. Repeatedly, we see that
the forces of the former operate with total inattention to those
of the latter. Nature as geophysical force is responsible for all
those manifestations that induce in us profound “awe”. Nature
as life is more responsible for evoking the sense of “beauty”.
The two together, a striking geological landscape setting
clothed in life, instill a sense of awe and beauty together. This
is how it has been for us from time immemorial living on this
geologically active planet whose every niche, seemingly
friendly or not, life has sooner or later found one way or
another to colonize.
On the barren Moon, Mars, or elsewhere, it will be
quite a different story. For future space frontier pioneers
“Nature” will present herself as geology alone, not tempered by
biology. Awe without beauty. Flora and fauna will exist only
within manmade environments wherein its cycles will be
controlled. The biota of mini-biospheres will come across as
post-human “nature”, not pre-human “Nature”.
Apropos of our topic, in mini-biospheres, even in high
domed or vaulted megastructures with an impressive achievement
of varied biological diversity, one will not be as moved,
on looking out the window of one’s residence, to be filled with
awe and beauty and remark to himself “God has made a beautiful
world”. Many may overlook the fact that these artificial
biomes rely on genetic resources that we have found given to
us in the Mother Biosphere, and feel less humble gratitude,
more unwarranted human pride. We can hope that any such
initial widespread reaction will in time be corrected and that
respect, humility and gratitude will return.
Yet, precisely because of this artificialness factor, a
conscious attempt at deliberate harmony may be deeper and
stronger among space frontier settlers than it is among most of
us. In mini-biospheres everywhere, people will live rather
immediately “downwind and downstream of themselves”, with
any environmental sins coming back to haunt them not generations
later, but in very very short order. On the space frontier,
environmental consciousness is likely to be extraordinarily
strong, both in depth and width.
Mother Earth and Father Sky
On Earth, the presence of Mother Nature has always
been strong. In comparison, relatively few feel to the same
degree the presence of Father Sky. It is an important and
critical duality, and religious and spiritual traditions which do
not speak to it, inevitably provide us with distorting filters
through which to interpret the universe about us.
On the Moon, the tables will be turned somewhat, as
this time, the surface of our adopted world with its barren and
sterile expanses totally naked to the elements of cosmic
weather, will clearly belong to the province of Father Sky,
rather than Mother Nature who now will greet us only from
within our minibiosphere oases. This major-minor shift in the
melody of stimuli that impinge on our spiritual sensitivities
will express itself inevitably and subtly in our literature, song,
legend, myth, and other cultural expressions.
Man and Nature
The overall effect of the world’s various scriptures,
whatever the sacred writers may have intended in each case,
is to serve as an amplifier. Scriptures have always been used,
and always will be used to justify whatever one has done or is
about to do anyway. This is said not in harsh judgment, but in
honest observation.
Moon Miners’ Manifesto Classics - Year 10 - Republished January 2006 - Page 69