Question:
Will your faith be affected if NASA’s Curiosity rover finds
there is or was life on Mars?
Answer: The question contains a
doubtful premise. It assumes a very narrow definition of life. In fact,
there is already life on Mars and always has been life on Mars,
although its form may have changed over geologic time. Everything that
exists, even at the most basic of mineral or sub-mineral level, is
living. Within the atom, physicists witness a flurry of nuclear
activity. The minerals that exist on Mars, whatever their composition
ultimately turns out be, show cohesive atomic affinity; outwardly
inert, yet demonstrating existence (life) at its most basic or
rudimentary form.
My own reflections, after having looked at the
amazingly clear pictures of the stark and inhospitable surface of Mars,
include my gratitude to be living on our beautiful blue and white
planet, even though it is experiencing, on all fronts, a very intense
and world-shaking crisis of civilization. The marvellous life form that
we should most cherish, we already have here on earth. It’s the human
being. Homo sapiens possesses a rational and immortal soul, with its
several distinctive and unique properties of memory, imagination,
intuition, language, understanding, the capacity for faith, etc.
Any
admiration we may have for our own species, I should add, is merited
especially when we behave as noble, ethical, spiritual beings. Humans
are still plagued by our dual nature. We create marvellous works of
invention and discovery when we exercise the qualities of the higher
self, but we wreak evil and destruction, when we follow the promptings
of our base nature.
Religion and spirituality incessantly call the
individual to fulfil her great spiritual potential, the unfinished work
of a lifetime: “O Son of Spirit! I created thee rich, why dost thou
bring thyself down to poverty? Noble I made thee, wherewith dost thou abase thyself? Out of the essence of
knowledge I gave thee being, why seekest thou enlightenment from anyone
beside Me? Out of the clay of love I moulded thee, how dost thou busy
thyself with another? Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest
find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.”
(Bahá’u’lláh, The Hidden Words) -
Jack
McLean
