Judgment

Thousands upon thousands of people die in car accidents, and yet no one suggests eliminating automobiles. Hundreds after hundreds perish in plane crashes, but few seriously urge abandoning flight. But let fewer than ten persons, twice, find their demise in space shuttle accidents, and the outcry is inevitable, to do away with spaceflight.

The masses have been warned again and again, not only by scientists, but also by a plethora of popular movies, that to remain here solely on Earth is to guarantee the doom of our entire species. To continue to “put all of our eggs in one basket” is to condemn humanity to inevitable extinction, and thus to render all of our millennia of struggles and anguish and triumphs for naught. Yet the masses appear to embrace such futility, such diminishing of all of our grand achievements and all that we have endured, as if it were trash unworthy of saving. This of course begs the question: why?

I submit that, once again, their various, primordial-human-invented religions are to blame.

They’re so enamored with their preening, prancing, primitive religions’ visions of “Judgment Day,” that they don’t want science to find a way to circumvent it. They’re so afraid that so-called “science fiction” will fulfill the inevitability of its transformation into science fact, and prove that the grandeur of the universe, as well as our participation in it, is every bit as compelling and magnificent as the scientists and the best science fiction writers have always told us that it is, rendering “creationism” as poor and pathetic a substitute as many of us already see that it is, that they will do anything to prevent that eventuality.

Some say let’s solve the problems here on Earth first, let’s create a “paradise” here for everyone. Even if such a thing were possible (it isn’t), then gee, we might get it all perfected just in time for the whole thing to be smashed to bits.

Perhaps I should be like my late mother and pretend not to care whether human existence continues beyond our own, and that of our loved ones. Maybe I should just say, “Once we’re dead, I don’t give a damn what happens.” But I can’t. I’m more like my late father. For some utterly inexplicable reason, I want us, the human species, to be one of the ones that make it, that continue to exist beyond the teeny little island of rock of our birth. If one must look at it from an entirely selfish point of view, then look at it this way: if by some wild happenstance there does turn out to be some sort of existence for each of us after this life, then do you really want to spend eternity watching almost every other sentient species in the universe survive but our own???

I wish that I could recall the title and author of a poem that I read and cherished during my early education; I would love to be able to give proper credit. It began, “Out of the mists of time, out of the ooze and slime, I came: AND I WILL NOT GO BACK!” I found that work so inspiring that I’ve carried those precious words in my heart all of these decades since.

Very well. I submit that we can and should have it both ways. Those who wish to sit here and join the dinosaurs in oblivion, quite probably by exactly the same means, may do so. But those of us who believe that our species is worthy of ultimate survival, and that what we’ve accomplished so far is only the beginning of the human adventure, should begin our migration, the commencement of our great diaspora to other solar systems. Another more recently-encountered quote that I greatly admire seems doubly fitting: “The meek shall inherit the Earth, and the rest of us are going to the stars.”