Carter's knowledge in his ultimate destiny is a measure of his deep faith in the immortality of his soul. It is plausible to conclude that the potential of an alien witnessing the Golden Record and becoming aware of Carter's identity billions of years in the future would offer only marginal additional consolation for him. … My Christian faith includes complete confidence in life after death. Following his diagnosis, Carter concluded in a sermon: "It didn't matter to me whether I died or lived. Now battling brain cancer and approaching centenarian status, he has thought about dying. Jimmy Carter, whose message and autograph are immortalized in the Golden Records, is a progressive Southern Baptist and a living example of religious hope for immortality. Many Christians anticipate a future general resurrection of all who have died and the coming of the kingdom of God for the faithful. For many Jews, the final destiny of the nation of Israel or its people is of paramount importance. ![]() Immortality is not limited to the individual. ![]() Some rabbinical authorities give credence to the resurrection of the righteous and even to the eternal status of souls. In the Hebrew Bible, the dead are mere "shades" in a darkened place called Sheol. Judaism's teachings about what happens after death are less clear. The ideal eternal life for many Christians and Muslims is to abide forever in God's presence in heaven or paradise. Carl Sagan and other scientists assumed that any civilization advanced enough to detect and capture the record in space could figure out how to play it. Most religions foresee a postmortem career for a personal soul or spirit, and these range from everlasting residence among the stars to reincarnation.Įach Voyager spacecraft carries a Golden Record containing two hours of sounds, music and greetings from around the world. Religious beliefs about immortality are numerous and diverse. With its Golden Record, each Voyager provides such a legacy, but only if it is discovered and appreciated by an alien civilization in the distant future. It can also mean the continuation of one's legacy in memory and records. The incredible longevity of the Voyager spacecraft presents a uniquely tangible entry point into exploring ideas of immortality.įor many people, immortality is the everlasting existence of a soul or spirit that follows death. Having spent my career in the field of religion and science, I've thought a lot about how spiritual ideas intersect with technological achievements. The Golden Records were built to last a billion years in the environment of space, but in a recent analysis of the paths and perils these explorers may face, astronomers calculated that they could exist for trillions of years without coming remotely close to any stars. ![]() president when the spacecraft left Earth in 1977. These messages in a bottle include spoken greetings in 55 languages, sounds and images from nature, an album of recordings and images from numerous cultures, and a written message of welcome from Jimmy Carter, who was U.S. ![]() Both Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, carry little pieces of humanity in the form of their Golden Records. After sweeping by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, it is now almost 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from Earth in interstellar space. Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object from Earth. Scientists expect the Voyager spacecraft to outlive Earth by at least a trillion years.
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