Fourteen billion years ago there was No Universe; then YHVH-Allah…

All the energy and the matter that has ever been and that will ever be were created during the Big Bang. No new material or energy has been created since then. The term “evolution” usually refers to the biological evolution of living things but the processes by which planets, stars, galaxies, and the universe form and change over time are also types of “evolution.” so all we really know is that at first there was nothing: no energy or matter, no change or time, no life, no love, no evolution, no light or darkness, no growth and decay, no music, no relationships; no feelings, no thoughts nothing at all: except YHVH-Allah, the One of all potentials.

And then in a split microsecond the potentials for a whole ongoing universe existed. At the beginning of the creation of our universe there were zero atoms of matter; only subatomic particles of quark/gluons that turned into protons and neutrons in the first micro-fraction of a second, long before becoming atoms.

Then, when the Universe was about 380,000 years old, the first atoms of matter were formed. These were hydrogen atoms, the simplest element in the periodic table. These atoms of hydrogen collected into gas clouds and began to cool gradually and settle within the small clumps or “halos” of dark matter that emerged from the Big Bang. Dark matter neither reflects nor emits visible light, yet it makes up 85% of all matter in the Universe.

Both the Hebrew Bible and the Qur’an teach that the One Living God YHVH-Allah created the whole universe to be conducive to the universal evolution of life. Recent astrophysical studies discover ever more evidence of the truth of this Biblical and Qur’anic view.

A new analysis shows that there are probably many more Earth-like exoplanets with liquid water than had been thought, significantly increasing the chance of finding life. The work finds that even where the conditions are not ideal for liquid water to exist at the surface of a planet, many stars will harbor geological conditions suitable for liquid water under the planet’s surface. There are more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets so far in our Milky Way galaxy.

Space may be vast, but it isn’t lonely. New research indicates the Milky Way is teeming with billions of planets like ours, circling stars just like our sun. Astronomers calculate that in our galaxy alone there are at least 8-9 billion stars (22%) like our sun with Earth-sized planets that are ‘not too hot or not too cold’ for life to develop.

The Zabur of David says, “Your kingdom is a kingdom of all worlds; and Your dominion is for all generations.” (Zabur-Psalms 145:13); and the Qur’an says, “We have not sent you but as a blessing for all the worlds.” (Al-Anbiya 107). Muslim commentators say this refers to the 18.000 habitable worlds created by Allah. Our world is but one of them. (Mir’at-e-Kainat, vol.1, p.77) And the Zohar, the central book of Jewish mysticism, says there more than 12.000 habitable worlds. (Zohar 2:196a)

It’s been only two and a half decades since the discovery of the first extrasolar planet around a star. Since then, scientists have learned that most stars have planets orbiting them, and that Earth-size planets are relatively common in close-in orbits that are too hot for life. But even if only one in a thousand earth size planets are in the habitable zone just right for life to develop; there must be millions of them.

In a new Caltech-led study, researchers learned that our galaxy has a strong preference for two types of planets: rocky planets up to 1.75 times the size of Earth, and gas-enshrouded mini-Neptune worlds, which are from 2 to 3.5 times the size of Earth (or somewhat smaller than Neptune). Our galaxy rarely makes planets with sizes in between these two groups.

All of the potentially habitable planets found in the team’s survey are around K stars, which are cooler and slightly smaller than the sun. But the researchers’ analysis shows that the result for K stars can be extrapolated to G stars like our sun. “If the stars in the Kepler field are representative of stars in the solar neighborhood, … then the nearest (Earth-size) planet is expected to orbit a star that is less than 12 light-years from Earth” the researchers wrote in their paper.

Each new discovery in astronomy yields new evidence of YHVH-Allah’s wisdom and power. As the Qur’an says, “Verily in the heavens and on the earth are signs for those who believe.” (45:3) And prophet David says, “The heavens declare the glory of God. The universe proclaims God’s handiwork.” (Zabur-Psalms 19:2)

Perhaps this why Jews and Muslims are so open to learning about new scientific discoveries. During Medieval times Christian theologians accepted the Ptolemaic earth centered Greek view of the universe as an absolute universal truth. The Catholic Inquisition even punished those who dared to voice other ideas. Some Christians still think that human beings must be at the literal center of God’s creation.

Thus, even in America today, many Christians avoid learning about new scientific discoveries. According to a February 2015 study “Religious Understandings of Science”, among members of non-Christian religions; 42 percent of Jews, and 52 percent of Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus (taken as a group) are twice as interested in new scientific discoveries compared to only 22 percent of Protestant evangelicals.

For 200,000+ years humanity has survived super-volcanoes, asteroid impacts, and naturally occurring pandemics. But now our track record of survival is limited to just a few decades in the presence of nuclear weapons and global warming.. And we have no track record at all of surviving many of the radically novel technologies that are likely to arrive in the 21st century.

Esteemed scientists such as Astronomer Royal Martin Rees at the Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk point to advances in biotechnology as being potentially catastrophic. Others such as Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark and Stuart Russell, also with the Cambridge Centre, have expressed serious concern about the exotic but understudied possibility of AI machine super-intelligence.

When the Fermi Paradox was initially proposed, it was thought that planets themselves were rare. Since then, however, astronomy have revealed the existence of over 5,000 exoplanets. That just seems to be the tip of the iceberg.

But each new discovery of an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone, such as Kepler-186f, makes it less plausible that there are simply no planets aside from Earth that might support life. The Great Filter is thus more likely to be lurking in the path between habitable planets and flourishing peaceful Messianic Age civilizations.

If Kepler-186f is teeming with intelligent life, then that would be really bad news for humanity. For that fact would push back the Great Filter’s position further into the technological stages of a civilization’s development. We might then expect that catastrophe awaits both our extraterrestrial companions and ourselves.

But as Albert Einstein put it: “What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in asking it? I answer, people who regard their own life, and that of their fellow creatures, as meaningless, are not merely unfortunate, but almost disqualified for life.” (The World as I See It, Sacramento, Ca. Citadel Press, 1993 p.5)