The Other Side of the Gateway: Space Rocks as a Pantheist Limit-Case with Professor MJ Rubenstein
If the contemplation of plants can be a “gateway drug” to pantheism, then what lies on the other side of the gateway? If we consider ferns, maples, and maitakes to be not only animate, but (inter)personal, where will we stop? Rivers? Mountains? Pebbles and stones?
This presentation turns to the space industry’s current priorities as tests of these limits. Considering the alleged emptiness and inanimacy of outer space, are the industry’s lunar mining, asteroid harvesting, and Martian terraforming ethically admissible—even commendable—goals? Or are there reasons to restrain or reconfigure this “human progression” beyond Earth? Might we have to start listening to rocks?
Mary-Jane Rubenstein is Dean of the Social Sciences and Professor of Religion and Science and Technology Studies at Wesleyan University addresses these questions and others during this conversation.
Learn more about the Center for the Study of World Religions: https://cswr.hds.harvard.edu/
