To boldly go

 

Mars as seen by Nasa's Perseverance rover

Imagine you have acquired a spaceship capable of taking you across the universe at a speed far greater than the speed of light. Anything is possible in this imaginary spaceship. You can go anywhere in the universe and your spaceship has the capability to sustain and entertain you for the rest of your natural life.

The spaceship would have all kinds of instruments and data systems to tell you what was out there and resolve most cosmological mysteries. Apart from the philosophical mysteries perhaps – such as what am I doing here staring at Alpha Centauri?

Putting the doubts to one side you could first zip off to explore the Moon, then perhaps the hellish atmosphere of Venus, the derelict geology of Mars followed by the icy majesty of Jupiter. On past Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and maybe a brief landing on Pluto to admire the landscape of frozen nitrogen. Then hit warp drive and off into interstellar space, the stars then the galaxies.

The only drawback is that you cannot come back for reasons not mentioned in the sales brochure. However, knowing this would you still go?

I wouldn’t. Not only for the obvious reasons, but the entire universe is too narrow an interest. Almost all of what interests me, sustains the old grey matter, the enthusiasms and the needful social interactions is back here on Earth. I’d need to be an obsessive to climb into that spaceship. I don’t think I’m that.

There is another reason though. Out there in that unimaginable vastness which is indeed unimaginable, even as an atheist I think I may well encounter the terrible face of God. Such an imaginary encounter is possibly where belief and unbelief could meet but hardly ever do. Perhaps I’d find out why. I don’t fancy that either.