Summary

Updated 7/8/2011

Discovery that 500 million planets in our galaxy may nurture life has spurred the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). If an epoch-shattering message were picked up by SETI, it likely will bring clues about religion in an advanced civilization. This would be of enormous value to us by suggesting how religion can take a civilization beyond poverty, disease, strife, wars and pollution into a stable era of cosmic communication. Even greater than this is the exciting possibility of insight into a religion shared by millions of advanced civilizations.

To benefit from the clues we get means viewing them in a context free from conflicting terrestrial doctrines. Their religion will be shaped by recognition that the universe originated at a point in time, when physical laws emerged to carry out the Creator’s intention. SETR (the Search for Extraterrestrial Religion) is an ongoing  project to examine the various types of knowledge an advanced civilization will call on in reaching a transcendent vision of the universe. It will take in cosmology, astronomy, quantum mechanics, genetics, theology, evolution, psychology, sociology, neuroscience, environmental science, ethics, and aesthetics. An initial chapter, Eternity, is included here.

Thus far, it appears that transcendental monotheistic religion will emerge, capable of spreading throughout the stars. It will be an ecumenical, nonsectarian spirituality that promotes charity, empathy and loving kindness, sets out obligations of individuals in an interplanetary ethical code, resolves the struggle between sanctifying grace and original sin, and has reverence for the divine energy of creation, its origin in eternity, and its evolving manifestation in space and time. [Introduction]