Randal Rauser's Blog, page 168

The Atheist My Neighbor on “The God Show”

On October 25th I appeared on “The God Show” with Pat McMahon on KTAR 92.3 FM in Glendale, AZ. It was my second appearance on “The God Show”, this time to talk about my book Is the Atheist My Neighbor? Pat McMahon is an institution in Arizona radio, and it’s no surprise as he is a first rate interviewer who builds a warm intimacy with his audience. The interview was over one hour, but I’ve edited out the commercials for a 40 minute continuous discussion.

Misoatheism: A New Label for Anti-Atheist Prejudice

Edward Feser has continued his critical exchange with Greg Koukl in “Repressed knowledge of God? Part II.” Feser and I agree on the key point that “not all atheism stems from intellectual dishonesty.”

Koukl, by contrast, insists that atheists are actively, willfully suppressing their innate disposition to believe in God in analogy with a person struggling to hold a beach ball under the water.

I’ve rejected Koukl’s claim as lacking both scriptural and empirical support. But does it follow, as I’ve suggested, that Koukl and those like him adopt a bigoted position toward atheists?

The term might seem strong. But again, let’s be clear on what a bigot is. Wikipedia provides a good definition:

“In English the word “bigot” refers to a person whose habitual state of mind includes an obstinate, irrational, or unfair intolerance of ideas, opinions, or beliefs that differ from their own, and intolerance of the people who hold them.”

Koukl’s claim that atheists are all akin to people struggling to hold beach balls under the water is simply not supported by evidence. Moreover, it involves a categorical imputation of immoral and deceptive practice to a vast and diverse population (including, for example, approximately 7% of the population of the United States). This certainly looks like bigotry.

Consider an analogy. Jones states his insistence that he will never vote for a woman for president. His reason? In 1 Timothy 2:12-14 Paul states:

“12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”

Jones then quips: “As Paul says, Eve led Adam astray. So do you really want to trust the nuclear codes to a woman?”

Jones might have been able to get away with those attitudes a few decades ago. But today he will readily be called out as misogynistic / sexist. In short, Jones is a bigot, i.e. one who retains an obstinate, irrational, or unfair intolerance toward those of the female gender and their potential roles in society.

If we readily impugn Jones on these grounds, why wouldn’t we impugn Koukl for claiming that every atheist is willfully suppressing innate belief in God out of sinful rebellion like a child struggling to hold a beach ball under the water?

The kinds of attitudes that Koukl promotes against atheists have real world consequences. For example, in a 2012 Gallup Poll only 54% of Americans would consider voting an atheist for president. In a 2015 Gallup Poll that number had risen to 58%. That still leaves millions who would never vote for an atheist. And it isn’t hard to see why with folks like Koukl insisting that these individuals are in sinful rebellion as they actively suppress an overwhelmingly powerful innate disposition to believe in God.

You might not vote a woman for president based on the assumption that women can’t be trusted with the nuclear codes in the same way that they couldn’t be trusted with the tree in the garden. But be prepared to have your opinion morally censured in wider society as misogynistic and sexist.

Terms like “misogyny” and “sexism” are helpful, for a succinct and emotive label of a form of bigotry can bring social censure which in turn speeds social change. With that in mind, it seems to me time to promote a succinct term which can be invoked to flag anti-atheist bigotry. To that end, I propose “misoatheism”. The word derives from “misos” (Greek for “hatred”) and atheism. And it parallels another little used term: misotheism (hatred of God).

Granted, as a neologism, misoatheism doesn’t yet have the emotional currency which can make it an effective means to bring social stigma to prejudice against atheism. But then, there was a time when the same was true of misogyny. That’s why we need to start using the term misoatheism and identifying instances of it in society which are worthy of social stigmatization.

Thoughts on The Martian

A couple weeks ago I saw The Martian and I’m telling you, it’s out of this world.

(Yes, it’s true. I began a serious review with a pun that Henny Youngman wouldn’t deign to use.)

But don’t let that awful opening line throw you. I loved this movie. It’s got all the right elements of a top shelf blockbuster: Great actors like Matt Damon, Jeff Daniels (from Dumb and Dumber to the head of NASA!) and Jessica Chastain; an outstanding director (I’m looking at you Ridley Scott); a bestselling book; a dramatic otherworldly scape; and best of all, it’s the kind of story that could be based on real events. More accurately, in twenty years it could be based on real events. And that fact alone is sufficient to hold my wonder.

When I told my mom we had gone to see The Martian she asked, “Is that a cartoon?” I’m guessing she was thinking of Marvin the Martian from Warner Bros. fame. I answered: “Uh, no.”

But it got me thinking of how our understanding of the red planet has been transformed in the 60+ years since Marvin the Martian first made his appearance. The Mars of the mid-twentieth century was a mysterious world that potentially harbored an advanced civilization the signature of which could be seen in those distinctive canals. The final nail in the coffin of that fanciful idea only came in the 1960s with the Mariner 4 mission.

But the ensuing story, if not as fanciful as the vision of Warner Bros., is no less astounding. Ridley Scott’s vision of the surface of the red planet may have no Marvin the Martian with his Romanesque helmet, floppy feet, and ray gun, but it is a gorgeous, severe, otherworldly landscape. And The Martian reminds us that we could be there in less time than it takes a newborn to move from diapers to the university dorm.

You probably know the story. An unexpectedly severe storm forces a team of astronauts to evacuate, leaving behind a single member of the team, Mark Watney (Damon). The team assumes Watney is dead, but it turns out he is very much alive. Simultaneously a stud and a scientist, Watney checks all the boxes on an eHarmony application.

Watney’s chiseled good looks may be eye candy for a subsection of the audience, but it is his scientific prowess that will get him off the red rock and back home. As he puts it in the most quotable line of the whole film:

“In the face of overwhelming odds, I’m left with only one option, I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this.”

First up, Mark needs water. As he observes,

“If I want water, I’ll have to make it from scratch. Fortunately, I know the recipe: Take hydrogen. Add oxygen. Burn.”

Next, grow something he can eat. Mark starts with Martian dirt, potatoes, and his own poop as he boldly declares:

“Mars will come to fear my botany powers.”

That declaration would be sufficient to garner the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Marvel universe. “Botany powers? Tell us more!”

The truth is that Mark’s powers are simply the powers of a geek scientist who understands natural laws.

And that brings us to an important theme of the film: science breeds power. If you want to understand the world, you’ve got to “science the shit out of” it.

Over the last several weeks, I have seen several atheists refer to The Martian favorably. It isn’t hard to see why. To begin with, the film elevates science as a tool to understand the world. After all, it is science that will get Mark back to earth.

What is more, religion has a supporting role, at best. There are only two appearances that religion makes in The Martian. In the first, Mark plunders the Mars base in search of flammable material to make water. The only thing he can find are the wooden crucifixes of a fellow astronaut. (At least they are shown to have some use, right?) In the second, one NASA member asks a second if he believes in God. When he says yes, the answer comes: “Good, we’ll need all the help we can get.” (paraphrase)

That’s it. At best, God serves as an adjunct to help NASA get Mark Watney and his fearless team safely back to earth. Traditionally conceived as the sovereign creator and sustainer of all, God is now a backup plan: In case of emergency, break the divine glass … and hope for the best.

With that kind of picture, I can see why atheists have liked this movie. It feeds into a popular narrative that religion — and more specifically, God — is little more than the pepper sprinkled on the substantive entrée prepared and cooked by scientific prowess.

So what is wrong with this picture?

To answer that question, let’s return to Mark’s bold claim that Mars will come to fear his botany powers. What’s that supposed to mean, exactly?

To put it bluntly, it means that Mark will eventually be able to grow enough potatoes on the surface of Mars to keep from starving. Not that I’m dissing that accomplishment: If Mark grows a potato on Mars, that’s one more potato than I would grow.

But botany provides only one step toward getting home.

If Mark wants to make it back to earth, he will need different levels of explanation, including physics, chemistry, meteorology, and so on. Any return to earth will be a team effort.

If moving a 180 lb lump of Homo sapiens from one planet to another requires multiple levels of explanation, is it any surprise that allowing billions of Homo sapiens to flourish in community together will require additional levels of explanation, including those that we flag with such terms as “ethics” and “theology” and “philosophy”?

For all its brilliance, that’s the Achilles’ heel of The Martian. It plays to a reductive peanut gallery by focusing on the question of getting a hunk of meat from Mars back to earth. A far more interesting question is this: how do you get seven billion Homo sapiens to flourish in community?

To answer that question, we will require substantially more than botany — or indeed, science — can provide.

Gift Shop Wisdom

Today one of my students stumbled upon this quote attributed to Walt Whitman:

This is a great example of “gift shop wisdom”, i.e. the kind of sloganeering which may not mean much, but despite, or rather, because of that fact, it looks great on calendars and coffee mugs.

In cases like this, you inevitably wonder, did Walt Whitman really say this? Or was it Deepak Chopra? Or the Dalai Lama? Or maybe Wayne Dyer? Or some nameless peon working for Hallmark?

Then again, does it really matter? The real question is: does it satisfy the soul?

Does the religious status of New Testament documents undermine their historical veracity?

In his classic 1943 book The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, F.F. Bruce makes the following observation:

“Somehow or other, there are people who regard a ‘sacred book’ as ipso facto under suspicion, and demand much more corroborative evidence for such a work than they would for an ordinary secular or pagan writing.”

This is a phenomenon I’ve seen borne out time and again among village skeptics who dismiss the historical value of the documents included in the New Testament whilst elevating the work of non-Christian historians like Tacitus and Suetonius. Bruce’s observation seems right to me. The objection to the historical value of writings by New Testament authors like Luke and Paul seems to be rooted in the fact that those writings were later included in a collection deemed inspired by early Christians.

But this later declaration by the Christian community that these texts are inspired is irrelevant to their value as historical documents.

Consider an analogy. In 1946 John Hersey published a book titled simply Hiroshima. The book chronicled the impact of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima by recounting the harrowing tales of six survivors. Hiroshima remains an important document witnessing to the impact of the bomb.

Now imagine that in the future a religious community forms which gradually compiles a canon of putatively inspired scriptures, and included in that collection we find Hersey’s Hiroshima. Does it follow that the value of the book as a historical document is now diminished because it is included within a collection of putatively inspired works?

Of course not. Any later recognition of the book as inspired is wholly irrelevant to its veracity as a historical document. Similarly, the fact that Christians included a collection of 27 writings into a putatively inspired New Testament is wholly irrelevant to the historical value of those documents.

Koukl responds to Feser and I respond to Koukl

Greg Koukl has offered a response to Edward Feser’s critique of his 2 minute video on the Rebellion Thesis. You can read “Koukl Responds” here.

In turn, I posted a comment in response to Koukl’s essay which I have reposted below.

* * *

It is difficult to know where to begin with Koukl’s comments. So let me begin with this: If you’re going to make sweeping moral indictments of an entire class of people, whether they be immigrants, women, Republicans, or atheists, you better be prepared to defend it. If you can’t defend it in a two minute video, perhaps you shouldn’t present it in a two minute video to begin with.

Second, Koukl’s reading of Romans 1:20 indicts countless Christians as well. In this verse Paul writes: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” If God’s invisible qualities are really always clear to all as Koukl apparently thinks, then why is it that so many Christians have deep struggles with doubting the goodness, and even the existence, of God. (In “Is the Atheist My Neighbor?” I provide the well known example of Mother Teresa, but of course there are countless others.)

The dilemma for Koukl is clear: if atheists are morally culpable for suppressing God’s revelation, the doubting Christian is as well. So if Koukl wants to retain this reading, then he can do so. But if he wants to be consistent, shouldn’t he start condemning Christians who doubt for willfully suppressing God’s revelation to them?

Third, if Koukl thinks empirical evidence can be disregarded in inferring truth claims from particular biblical verses, then why doesn’t he conclude that geocentrism is true based on Joshua 10:13? If, on the other hand, he thinks scientific evidence for heliocentrism is relevant to reading Joshua 10:13, why doesn’t he think the diversity of empirical evidence for belief and doubt is relevant when reading Romans 1?

Fourth, Koukl writes that doubting Christians like Emil (a hypothetical example I provide of a suffering, doubting Christian) and atheists “must account for the objective morality that was violated by the massacre, and no subjectivist account (biological or social) is going to be adequate.”

If I may be blunt, this comment seems pastorally tone deaf. Koukl thinks that people in the depth of agonizing pain and loss are obliged to think clearly about questions of moral ontology? Really?

Further, as regards moral ontology surely Koukl is aware that there are many atheists (e.g. Erik Wielenberg) who offer defenses of moral objectivism? If he wants to offer a rebuttal to Wielenberg’s work, he’s welcome to do so. But suggesting, as Koukl seems to be doing, that atheists only have moral subjectivism is uninformed at best.

Finally, Koukl closes by citing Psalm 14:1/53:1 in the apparent belief that these verses are directed at atheists. This is a lamentable instance of the old maxim: A text taken out of context is a pretext for a proof-text. For a rebuttal of this common abuse of this verse, please see my book “Is the Atheist My Neighbor?”

Does Wintery Knight believe the sun orbits the earth?

Yesterday I challenged an anonymous blogger who calls him/herself “Wintery Knight” (henceforth “WK”) on his/her anonymous defense of the Rebellion Thesis (the claim that all atheists are actively and sinfully suppressing their natural knowledge of God).

Wintery Knight’s Ad hominem Rebuttal

Sadly, WK responded less like a bold knight fighting for truth than an insecure lord defending his petty fiefdom. Instead of responding to my criticism, WK immediately warned readers that I am probably more progressive politically and theologically than WK:

“I should just let everyone know that Randall [sic] is coming from a more liberal point of view than I do. His Twitter blurb mentions “social justice”. From what I have read he is considerably to the left of me on theology.”

Two comments here. First, it is a strange Christianity indeed which sees a commitment to social justice as a problem! WK even goes on to mock me publicly by referring to me as “Mr. Social Justice.” (Frankly, I wish I was. But the reality, as I state in my Twitter account, is that I’m an inactive activist for social justice. On the upside, at least I know enough about Christianity to realize I should care about social justice.)

Second, WK’s comment is one big ad hominem / non sequitur. As I put it in his/her blog:

“WK states that I hold a “more liberal point of view” than he does. That may be true. But it’s irrelevant to the current discussion. […] “But this is not about my views. This is about defending the claim that every atheist is actively suppressing knowledge of God as a result of moral rebellion. That claim is supported neither by scriptural nor empirical evidence.”

WK also claims I deny inerrancy. Again, irrelevant … and in this case also false. WK cites as support the opinion of a reviewer of God or Godless which I explicitly rebut here. It seems like WK’s approach to intellectual exchange is a quick Google search to try to justify tossing some labels that can marginalize his/her interlocutor.

Wintery Knight’s unique approach to integrating faith and knowledge

But not all WK’s readers were so threatened by thoughtful civil exchange. Yesterday, one reader of WK’s blog called “WorldGoneCrazy” tried to interact with me by posting a long comment. Alas, by that time WK had already effectively banned me from commenting. (As it went down, he/she emailed me with the terse request: “You’ve made your points, please move on.” Since I’m the consummate people pleaser, I obliged!)

As a result, WK responded to WorldGoneCrazy’s interest in continued rational dialogue with the exasperation and insecurity of the lord of the petty fiefdom:

“Please, can we give Randall’s point a rest. I have asked him not to comment any more, since to me he just doesn’t believe the Bible, and this is a Bible study post.”

WK promotes his/her blog as “Integrating faith and knowledge in the public square.” Apparently WK thinks the first step to integration is excluding from the conversation everybody who doesn’t agree with WK’s interpretation of the Bible.

Is Wintery Knight committed to geocentrism?

And that brings me to the main point of this post, the charge that I just don’t “believe the Bible”. In my original critique of WK I sought to pre-empt such ignorant and facile charges as follows:

“The formation of Christian doctrine doesn’t come simply by citing a chosen list of biblical verses. It also includes careful reflection on Wissenschaft, i.e. the cumulative learning of the age, as one crafts an emerging theological understanding in dialogue with the collected wisdom of the age.

“And so, for example, today the man who cites Joshua 10:13 as evidence for geocentrism whilst dismissing as irrelevant the scientific evidence for heliocentrism shows himself more enamored of his current doctrinal constructions than complex reality.

“And so it is with this citation of Romans 1:18-23. Those who triumphantly cite it as evidence that every single person who rejects the proposition “God exists” is in rebellion against God effectively dismiss as irrelevant the staggering complexity of real people in real life situations.”

WK completely ignored this point, choosing instead to warn his/her readers that I purport to care about social justice. That’s unfortunate, because the point I was raising here is very important.

Note again WK’s tendentious basis for excluding me from commenting at his/her blog: “he just doesn’t believe the Bible, and this is a Bible study post.” In this case, “doesn’t believe the Bible” is equivalent to “denying what WK believes the text is saying.”

But the fact is that Joshua 10:13 provides at least as good support for geocentrism as Romans 1:18-20 provides for the Rebellion Thesis. After all, Joshua 10:13 explicitly states that “the sun stood still, and the moon stopped” in response to Joshua’s prayer that these celestial bodies stop moving. Thus, if WK “believes the Bible” then presumably WK believes the sun rotates around the earth as surely as does the moon.

And if WK doesn’t accept geocentrism, then apparently WK “just doesn’t believe the Bible”.

Slandering atheists

The other day blogger Wintery Knight wrote an article in support of R.C. Sproul’s book If there’s a God, why are there atheists? According to Sproul, atheism is (always) the product of sinful rebellion. In short, atheists refuse to submit to the revelation that God has provided to them.

Sproul is among the foremost defenders of the “Rebellion Thesis” that attributes all instances of atheism to rebellion against God. In Is the Atheist My Neighbor? I cite an example where Sproul describes being invited to speak to a university group of atheists. After laying out his arguments for God’s existence, Sproul then concludes:

“I’m giving you arguments for the existence of God, but I feel like I’m carrying coals to Newcastle because I have to tell you that I do not have to prove to you that God exists, because I think you already know it. Your problem is not that you do not know that God exists; your problem is that you despise the God whom you know exists. Your problem is not intellectual; it is moral—you hate God.”

I don’t know if Wintery Knight would be on board with this practice of haranguing one’s host (i.e. the atheist university group), but he does accept the Rebellion Thesis. In support, Wintery Knight cites Romans 1:18-23, he lists several arguments he’s defended for God’s existence, and he cites a survey he conducted which purports to provide evidence for systemic rebellion among atheists.

As usual, this is abominably weak “evidence” for a thesis as ambitious as the claim that every single instance of atheism is the result of sinful rebellion. To start with, Wintery Knight’s “survey” consisted of interviewing some friends who are atheists over lunch and then collating the data. That’s akin to somebody concluding that “All immigrants are lazy” after he takes a few immigrant friends out for lunch.

As for Wintery Knight’s list of theistic arguments, they may well provide a basis to believe rationally that God exists. But do they provide a basis to conclude that every instance of atheism is borne of immoral rebellion? The very suggestion is absurd.

So once again, we find ourselves left with the Rebellion Thesis resting on a single citation from Romans 1. And with that, I’ll defer to the comment I posted at Wintery Knight’s blog which I have reproduced below:

I have no doubt that there are many atheists who don’t want there to be a God. But is it the case that all atheists don’t want there to be a God? Your survey data is far too weak to support such a bold claim.

As for Romans 1, the text is part of a sweeping argument (Romans 1-3) which aims to establish the general culpability of all human beings. I would suggest that anytime a text which is focused on establishing the universal sinfulness of human beings is used to target an outgroup (in this case, atheists) that something has gone awry with the exegesis.

The formation of Christian doctrine doesn’t come simply by citing a chosen list of biblical verses. It also includes careful reflection on Wissenschaft, i.e. the cumulative learning of the age, as one crafts an emerging theological understanding in dialogue with the collected wisdom of the age.

And so, for example, today the man who cites Joshua 10:13 as evidence for geocentrism whilst dismissing as irrelevant the scientific evidence for heliocentrism shows himself more enamored of his current doctrinal constructions than complex reality.

And so it is with this citation of Romans 1:18-23. Those who triumphantly cite it as evidence that every single person who rejects the proposition “God exists” is in rebellion against God effectively dismiss as irrelevant the staggering complexity of real people in real life situations.

Consider just one of those people. Bob Jyono was a pious Catholic who discovered that his daughter was repeatedly raped by a Catholic priest in his home over six years. Torn apart by the agonizing thought that God silently stood by while his daughter was victimized as well as his own mind-numbing pain and guilt, Jyono eventually came to call himself an atheist.

Is Jyono just angry with God? Or is he really an atheist? And if he is an atheist, is it simply the result of sinful rebellion? Do you really think a couple surveys and a citation of Romans 1 is sufficient to answer all those questions for this single individual, let alone every instance of disbelief everywhere?

In the last couple weeks I have seen two vigorous defenses of the Rebellion Thesis. First we have Greg Koukl, and now Wintery Knight (with an affable nod to R.C. Sproul).

I continue to be amazed at the extraordinarily weak evidence proffered for this striking thesis. And while I don’t relish using the label “bigotry”, I find that it fits in these cases. “Bigotry” is characterized by an irrational and intransigent intolerance of a creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own. When Christians categorically deride all atheists without exception as evincing sinful rebellion in virtue of failing to affirm the proposition “God exists”, and they persist in doing so based on such grossly inadequate evidence as Greg Koukl and Wintery Knight provide, then it seems to me they are culpable of bigotry.

Songs Jesus Would Sing: 2. The Alarm, “How the Mighty Fall”

In my humble opinion, The Alarm never received the critical or commercial respect they were due. That’s too bad because they recorded some great albums like Declaration, Eye of the Hurricane, and my personal favorite, Change.

If Change is my favorite album by The Alarm, one of the lesser known tunes from the album, “How the Mighty Fall,” is my favorite track.

And why, you ask?

Simple. The song is a chilling and eloquent promissory note to all the tyrants and oppressors of history: some day you will be brought to justice. Some day the world will be set to rights. Or as Mike Peters sang:

Once you held your finger on the trigger

Now the gun is pointing at your head

Once you reigned supreme

Over all that you could see

Now you walk on the other side of the street

Why would Jesus sing this? Because turning the tables on the princes and potentates, the emperors and oppressors, the bullies and bosses, was at the heart of his message. In the Beatitudes (Matthew 5: 3-12) he blessed the weak, marginalized, and oppressed. In Luke 14 Jesus warns against those who seek the best place for themselves: “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” He then tells the Parable of the Great Banquet in which the invitation is redirected from the rich and powerful to those on the roads and country lanes (Luke 14:15-24).

In the Parable of Lazarus and the rich man, the poor and forgotten Lazarus is comforted, but the rich man is consigned to alienation and torment (Luke 16:19-31). If you didn’t quite get the message, Jesus hammers home the point: it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God (Matthew 19:24).

It should be no surprise then, that the coming Day of the Lord (1 Col 1:8 ; cf. 2 Col 1:14) will be the day when Jesus brings low those who have oppressed the poor, the weak, the marginalized and the forgotten (Matthew 25:31-46).

Because God never forgets. The weak will be raised up. And the mighty will fall.

How the mighty fall

I’ve seen it all before

From the highest heights

To the lowest of lows

How the mighty fall

Once your words were the first and last on the subject

Now they hang like a noose around your neck

Once you held the light

That could be seen from near and far

Now you fall and stumble in the dark

How the mighty fall

I’ve seen it all before

From the highest heights

To the lowest of lows

How the mighty fall

Once you held the secrets of the world within your hands

Now you’re just another grain of sand

Once you were the first

Revered to the last

Now they talk about your fall from grace

How the mighty fall

I’ve seen it all before

From the highest heights

To the lowest of lows

How the mighty fall

If you’re interested, I’ve included the track below for listening. If you like it, please support the artists and purchase the song.

http://randalrauser.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/How-the-Mighty-Fall.mp3

Aliens in our backyard?

Could there be an advanced alien civilization in our cosmic backyard? Phil Plait raises that fascinating possibility in his essay “Did Astronomers Find Evidence of an Alien Civilization? (Probably Not. But Still Cool.)”

He’s right. Probably not.

He’s also right. It is still cool.

As Plait explains, the star KIC 8462852 dims at irregular intervals and in an erratic pattern. The sequence and nature of its dimming appears to preclude the possibility that a planet or any other known astronomical body is causing the dimming. However, there is another possibility which arises from intelligence. Plait observes,

“Decades ago, physicist Freeman Dyson popularized an interesting idea: What if we built thousands of gigantic solar panels, kilometers across, and put them in orbit around the Sun? They’d capture sunlight, convert it to energy, and that could be beamed to Earth for our use. Need more power? Build more panels! An advanced civilization could eventually build millions, billions of them.”

Build enough panels around a star and one would effectively create a “Dyson Sphere”, a massive lattice of solar panels surrounding a star and absorbing massive amounts of energy for use by the advanced civilization.

As you might have guessed, the idea is that the irregular and erratic dimming of KIC 8462852 could be due to a Dyson Sphere being constructed by an alien civilization.

On the upside, KIC 8462852 is in our cosmic backyard. On the downside, it is still one thousand light years away. Thus, if a Dyson Sphere is being constructed, we’re now seeing it’s “shadow” as it looked one thousand years ago. And KIC 8462852 would likewise be receiving light which left the sun during the Middle Ages.

I’m not ready to place any bets, but it would be unimaginably cool if intelligent life existed elsewhere in the universe. In the interim, if you’re interested you can read more of my musings on the possibility of alien civilizations beginning with “Keeping an open mind about aliens.”