Harvard tenured (astro)physicist Prof Abraham Loeb has published an article in Scientific American called, “How to Avoid a Cosmic Catastrophe,” in which he proposes a treaty with our closest extraterrestrial neighbors in the Milkdromeda neighborhood to protect us from articially created domain walls.
That is a lot to unpack.
Let’s start with what a domain wall is supposed to be. It requires a civilization to be advanced enough to create a Planck collider. “Based on the accelerating expansion of the universe, we know that the vacuum is not empty but has some dark energy density. Collisions of particles at the Planck energy can trigger a local tunneling of the vacuum to a lower energy state.” This creates a “bubble” barrier “by burning the dark energy ‘fuel’ inside of it.” While protecting the civilization that causes the bubble, presumably, it also produces an ever-expanding burning front that would fry any other civilization instantly with no warning. “We would never know what hit us.”
To protect us from this, Avi Loeb has proposed a treaty with extraterrestrials, rather like the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty here between nations on Earth. He clarifies that die to the expansion of space, we’ll only need to make this treaty with extraterrestrials in Milkdromeda. Apparently, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are due for a merger but we will be sufficiently “socially distanced” from other galaxies as we continue to drift apart from one another.
It’s a delightfully pro-active proposal to a problem we do not yet have (but couldn’t afford to have if we want to continue with life on Earth. One wonders if other extraterrestrials are moral enough not to build Planck colliders. One wonders what practical the point of a Planck collider would even be when we considering that running this imaginary Planck collider would probably require us to harness a star with something similar to a scifi Dyson sphere, a construct built around a star at a diameter close to Neptune’s orbit from what I’ve read. How does a civilization decide that’s feasible, especially if accidents can be as devastating as Loeb suggests?
Or would it be the old “We stockpile nukes to keep them from launching their stockpile” scenario of the Cokd War? Mankind is such a distrustful species. I’m pretty sure we’d be the first ones building this monster; you know, just in case they do. If they exist. Of course, that makes one worry that it’ll simply degenerate into a race to see who sets it off intentionally to “cleanse” their space from potential threats.
Thank God that He holds our future in His hands!
That is not to say that I don’t think we shouldn’t consider such things if we finally get the chance to colonize space. I woudd definitely discourage folk from taking the advice of Creation Ministries International when they commented on this treaty proposal. After suggesting at least once that this treaty proposal might have conspiratorial implications, they concluded:
“It is good to be pro-active and prepared in life, but instead of worrying about alien enemies, people should be prepared for the inevitable arrival of the last enemy—death (1 Corinthians 15:26)—by accepting the gift of everlasting life through Jesus. Now that is a treaty: Christians know that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1)!”
I do suggest you get right with God, but God never suggested we shouldn’t be concerned with anything but spiritual things. CMI’s article creates a false dichotomy that needs to be recognized for what it is: unbiblical rhetoric fueled by the dark matter of their bias against the possibility of the existence of alien life.
Even in their article, they try to suggest that the belief in the possibility of alien life is necessarily tied to a belief in micribes-to-man evolution, ignoring the fact (as always) that theologians have been suggesting the possibility of extraterrestrial life created by God since at least the Middle Ages.
This brings me to the suggestion of conspiracy. In the CMI article, the author writes:
“…signing peace treaties with a civilization that we have not communicated with, much less are at war with, seems rather different. Why not first focus on establishing peace on earth? Or might this be a ploy to achieve just that; if we all have a common enemy, we might get along better ourselves…?” [Bold mine]
If you’re having trouble spotting the conspiracy theory being suggested, keep in mind that CMI is among those creationists who suggest that a false flag alien event might be the ploy used by the Antichrist or Satan to bring about the uniting of all nations under a New World Order. Since they believe fallen angels are behind the “alien agenda,” it’s only natural that they would view Loeb’s intentions with suspicion.
In all, Creation Ministries International is dismissive of the possibility of any interaction with actual extraterrestrials because of their biases. In short, they presume real aliens aren’t real because they falsely label them as an exclusively evolutionary idea (ignoring the wealth of Christian exotheology which examined the issue in light of created aliens and addressed the very theological issues they erroneously feel are so insurmountable. These “issues” have been addressed here and Creation Ministries International’s only response was that I was a “lone wolf” while they had consulted a great cloud of witnesses. The truth is that they are part of a Johnny-come-lately movement that emerged in the 1950s in reaction to cults attaching themselves to the flying saucer craze. Had they consulted the great cloud of witnesses of Christian theologians since the Middle Ages instead of the sensational preachers of the “discernment ministries” and the “miracle crusades” milieu, they might have come to a sounder conclusion than the idea that aliens are fallen angels in disguise set to bring about an end times deception with a false flag alien event designed to put the Anrichrist in power.
See how silly it sounds when you put it bluntly?
But what of an alien treaty with aliens we’ve never met over a technogical danger we do not have the power the achieve? Isn’t that just as silly? Perhaps only as silly as men flying or walking on the moon. Not something to over worry about now, but certainly something to keep in mind as mankind moves forward to take dominion over the works of God’s hands, both on earth and the heavens (cp. Psalm 8).
Exotheology.org 