Sir Fred Hoyle - Black cloud

Space cloud caught in a strong gravity field
Hubble telescope image

The innovative and inspiring science fiction novel Black cloud (1957) by the famed British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle (1915 - 2001) is also of great theological interest.

The subject he is talking about in this book concerns humans encountering superior intelligence.

In this case the superior intelligence is non-organic. A huge cloud is on the regular round in deep space and comes near our sun to get some additional gasoline to energy engines. This cloud imagined by Fred Hoyle happens to be intelligent.

And it is huge. So huge that its shadow is causing major distress to the inhabitants of planet Earth.

Desperate means are needed and a station is set up to communicate with the Cloud and to make it realize that all life upon Earth is about to be extinguished because of its presence. Why not to go to some other star that is not nourishing higher life-forms?

Sir Fred Hoyle (1915 - 2001)

The great theological point of interest in this fabulous imagination of Hoyle is the discussion between the man sitting on the station communicating with the highly intelligent Cloud. The intensity and speed of the communication causes our man to get brain fewer that nearly costs his life. His mind is not built to talk with the speed and power of a huge interstellar Cloud with its system of thinking.

The book ends happily, the Cloud gets the message and moves away not to destroy life on that 3rd rock from the sun it hardly notices.

Fred Hoyle was an atheist. But this book is a very challenging view and trip of imagination how it might be to meat a supreme being.

For the astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle saviour of humanity is an intelligent man who can talk sense to the threatening force.



Personally I think Hoyle's Black Cloud is an excellent introduction to Biblical hermeneutics and to the concepts of revelation.

God of Israel is way bigger than that black cloud imagined by Hoyle. We cannot see Him without dying on the spot.

But He has found a way to speak to the humanity softly and in a way that is not destructive in intellectual content and requirements of brain power. Rather in a soft and simple way that even a mentally ill or handicapped person can understand and loves to hear.

The Word of God lifts and does not destroy with the glory of Eternal God.

And yet - unlike that intelligent Cloud of imagination, the real God intervenes with life on Earth in very powerful way and expresses His will towards the tiny inhabitants of this planet who can all be destroyed just by a single little asteroid falling on its surface.

For He has made them.

Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.

A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.

Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:

I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
Isa 42:1-6 KJVA

Prolegomena - natural religion and revelation

In order to have our own Delta II with boosters to lift our theology from this earth also to cover the vastness of space and galaxies and bang bangs we need to break free from the gravity forces of unbelief.

Here, in a nutshell, is a description of this kind of gravity that actually destroys the true foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

As Science of Religion students we examine the human experience from prehistoric times to modern days. We observe that all cultures everywhere practice some sort of religion - was it the millions of Hindu gods or the worship of a single God by the great monotheistic religions. The officially atheistic Soviet Union had rituals every Mayday in front of the Kremlin that really seemed more religious than religion itself. So we conclude that religiosity is a feature that characterizes the human race we are Homo religiosis as much as we are Homo habilis, toolmakers.

No amount of education and brain washing can remove this characteristic religiosity from the humans. We are built that way.

Dogon dancing

There is a general religiosity in the human race that takes many colourful and fabulous expressions that belong to the highest achievements of that nation. Babylon would be so flat without the ziqqurrat. Who would travel to the jungles of Mexico if the temples were not there with the awesome stories? What is so exciting about the Lapps of the past if not shamanism, their drums and off-body travels? What would world music be without Johann Sebastian Bach?


However, in addition to these amazing achievements the rich world of religion is also filled with horror stories, strange myths and plain fairytale, curious explanations how things were born and work and exist, stories that human brain conceived in the society before methodical science had its chance to explain natural phenomena.

Thunder is an awesome sound and made deep impression on the Vikings with their Thor or the Canaanites with their Baal. Most people think science today in thunderstorm, electricity and heat and winds... very few people think divine beings as the cause of thunder.

Paul Dirac lecturing

There are people who do not believe in any god above their own intelligence:

"Werner Heisenberg recollects a friendly conversation among young participants at the 1927 Solvay Conference about Einstein's and Planck's views on religion. Wolfgang Pauli, Heisenberg and Dirac took part in it.

Among other things, Dirac said: "I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest — and as scientists honesty is our precise duty — we cannot help but admit that any religion is a pack of false statements, deprived of any real foundation. The very idea of God is a product of human imagination.[...] I do not recognize any religious myth, at least because they contradict one another.[...]"

Pauli jokingly said: "Well, I'd say that also our friend Dirac has got a religion and the first commandment of this religion is: God does not exist and Paul Dirac is his prophet." Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations. New York: Harper & Row.

The sentence has since been applied to many famous atheists "there is no god and XX is his prophet"

It is difficult to show major achievements that have their source in atheism or skepticism and unbelief. There are many atheists who have achieved great results in their fields but not necessarily because of their lack of faith.


So where is the centre of the gravity of unbelief?

In our understanding of the nature of Scriptures.

The Jewish Bible, what the Christians call the Old Testament and which the Moslems often refer in the Koran, is an amazing book.

An atheist totally refuses the concept of divine revelation in the Bible. Therefore the three great monotheistic book religions that are fundamentally based on the concept of self revealing God cease to have any foundations of truth what-so-ever.

Without Biblical revelation there is no point to look anywhere behind the galaxies. It is all just ancient Near Eastern people's imagination and storytelling and old religious beliefs that have no place in modern world. There is no God and no Creator, only human wishes and weaknesses in the face of the harshness of natural life and inevitable death.


So. How do we get ourselves free from this gravity of unbelief and soar higher up from this earth towards the exciting world of God's creation.

Simply.

We accept the words of Second Peter 1:14-21 that, according to some scholars, may be an actual fragment from Peter himself embedded into the later combination that makes this New Testament letter.

Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.

Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.

We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

2 Peter 1:14-25 KJVA