Well I hope that everyone had a Happy Holiday!!  Or a Merry X-mass!!  Or in the original, a Happy Saturnalia!!  How every you want to say it or celebrate it, I hope it was a good one!! 

THE snow has been great. Wow, let me just say it again.  This has been a great ski season so far.  I am at 14 for the number of snow days now.  And it continues to be good.  I haven’t been out skiing this much… well, I guess since my kids were younger and they were in ski and snowboard programs.  I am truly hoping that the snow continues in the mountains.  Funny, I say mountains because here on the Front Range of Colorado we are still in what is considered a drought.  Where I live in Fort Collins, we only average about 15 inches of moisture per year and as of this date we are still about 6 inches behind, a little more than 1/3 of our total moisture.  Crazy.  But and there is always a but, as an old farmer told me once, “Most things out here are irrigated, so as long as it snows in the mountains, we should be good.”  And so that is what I am hoping!!

Trying to get in a little bit of last-minute walking, biking and running for 2018.  Again, that is what is pretty cool about Fort Collins and the Front Range of Colorado is that you can ski in the mountains and then you can come down and do some fair-weather activities too.  It can still be cold but no ice or snow on the ground and as long as the sun is on you… not too bad.

???????????WHAT WILL RELIGION DO???????????

• “You don’t need religion to have morals.  If you can’t determine right from wrong, then you lack empathy, not religion.” Anonymous
• “This is my simple religion.  There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy.  Our own brain, our own heart is our temple.  The philosophy is kindness.” – Dali Lama
• “If your religion requires you to hate or hurt someone.  You need a new type of religion.” – Unknown
• “Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.” – Mark Twain
• “When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent.  Do you see why it is violent?  Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind.  When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.  So, a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understand of mankind.” J. Krishnamurti
• “We shouldn’t even need the word “atheism”.  If people didn’t invent ridiculous imaginary gods.  Rational people wouldn’t have to deny them.” – Ricky Gervais
• “Your ignorance of scientific knowledge is not evidence that god exists.” – Unknown

The last couple of weeks I have been doing a little bit of contemplating of how religion will change over the next 10 to 20 years.  And change it must.  As we continue down the path of better understanding of the laws of nature and our place in the universe, religion will have mounting pressure to adapt.  Or maybe I should say that those who use religion as power, a way to exert control on the masses, will have to adapt.  New discovers are being made every day in science, in all fields of science, around the world.  If you want to see how fast things are coming out, check out the website called: 
https://phys.org/   Most the articles are a synopsis of the topic, usually one or two pages long, and have a link to the original article at the bottom. On each article heading at the bottom there is a clock showing how long ago the article came out. If you follow the web page for a week or two, it become readily apparent that things are moving along at a good clip.  Ray Kurzweil the American inventor, author and futurist talks about the “Coming Singularity.  Where things change so fast that it seems like magic so to speak.  One day something is not possible then tomorrow it is.  The web site covers all aspect of science.  From hard Astrophysics to Biology and Medicine. 

Not really sure how religion will eventual deal with it all?  Take the example of exoplanet discovery.  When the first discoveries were made over 20 years ago, the science and scientist involved did not get much attention other than a little ridicule from their peers.  Now the number of exoplanet discoveries are staggering.  There are over 3000 known exoplanets as of June of 2018?!  Just think of that for a moment.

And then realize that we are only looking at a very, very small fraction of the known universe.  I read somewhere that it was like “Looking at a glass of seawater sitting beside the ocean.”  We are not even scratching the surface yet and there are already 1000s of discovered exoplanets.  Unreal.  We are not the center of the Universe.  How does religion cope with that?  And what happens when life is inevitable discovered on one of these exoplanets or moons of exoplanets? How does that fit into any “Earth Religion”?  Maybe it will be time to write a new “divinely inspired” section to the Bible, to the Koran, to the Buddhist text, etc.…. to help explain exoplanets!!  Do a quick web search and you will find that the “exoplanet discoveries” have already been analyzed by “creationist” and they have come to some interesting rationalizations.  My favorite is when they twist words from the bible to mean whatever they want or need for explanation.  I think that they are going to have to do better than this!  We are but a small speck in our galaxy.  What hubris to think that our planet is the only planet with life.

Genetics and Synthetic Biology is another huge game change in my opinion.  Recent advances in this field have given us the ability to change the human genome forever.  We now have the capability to manipulate genes at the sperm and egg level without “controlled” breeding.  The potential, good or bad for Eugenics is a real possibility.  To create plants, animals and humans that have never been seen before on planet earth.  What if you designed telomers that never shortened?  Lifespans could become a moot point.  Live as long as you want, no need for the Buddhist idea of rebirth, or Christian and Muslim heaven, or hell.  How would religion cope with that?? There have already been advances with Synthetic Biology that are just mind blowing when you think about the potential possibilities.  DNA is made up of four building blocks, Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine and Guanine – all life, as we know it, is made up this way.  But now researchers have living microbes that have 6 building blocks.  A totally, never before seen organism on this earth, semi-synthetic and most important making proteins….  Check out this clip on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H1tUMRJoeo  

The implications of rapid advances in genetics and how it will affect synthetic biology are incalculable, for a better understanding check out this Wiki page on Synthetic Biology:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology   Or do what I did and re-watch the short TED talk on YouTube that I posted above and then try to imagine all the possibilities!!

AI is another one that gives me pause when it come to religious thinking.  While we have not created a “sentient” AI yet (that I know of), I believe that the day will come when we do.  This will be another game changer.  I think that just creating very, very smart Algorithms or what I would call “Super Smart Calculators”, will get us closer, but not “sentient”, the true break through could be some kind of semi-synthetic modified organism or animal or human mated to hardware…  Wow the ethics involved in that?!  Crazy?!

When I think about some of the advances in the above topics, it is not too hard to imagine these scenarios or something similar happening.  How does religion handle that?  How much twisting of the “holy word” will that take to explain the above advances in science?  If we colonize Mars or the Moon, do we take the same old religions and their associated dogmas with us?!  Do we want to create the same old hatreds, bigotries, intolerance’s, prejudices, racism’s that exist on earth today because of religion? Do we recreate them on Mars or the Moon?  And if we don’t, what do we replace it with?

 I think there is a solution.  All religions, MINUS THE GODS, have some great pieces of psychology and sociology incorporated into them.  These thoughts and writings have been refined over time to help explain and guide human nature and morality.  They are as true today in some cases as they were 10 thousand years ago.   Why not create a true Universal Moral Code that incorporates the best from all religions.  But no belief in any “magical beings.”  Something similar to what Dr. Kent Keith came up with in 2003 when he was writing about morality and ethics.    

The advantages to be able to do this would be immeasurable to the human race.  Can you imagine, if we gave up the belief in the supernatural (i.e. Gods) and moved to some kind of “Universal Moral Code.”  No more wars, death and destruction based on religion or the excuse of religion.   Something that could be applied to all aspects of life, that we all agree upon, that treated ever one equally and fairly.  That could be applied to a person and a business.  That could curb the excesses and greed of capitalism and Corporations.  That did not see Science as the enemy?  Isn’t it about time the human race left the trappings of the belief in a Godhead and moved into a modern age of enlightenment? This could be the first step….  The question becomes will we do it willingly or will it be forced upon us by continuing advances in science??

That is about it for me on this blog post.  Hope I have given you dear reader something to think about.  Damn, where did the time go!?  It’s almost a new year.  What will 2019 bring?  Oh well I guess we will have to wait and see.  There is an old saying that “Reality is stranger than Fiction” and I truly believe that to be true.  I do not think that 2019 will be any different.  So, take care my friends.  Set those New Year’s resolutions and get healthier!!  I will see you next year!!