Torah to the MOON: Sacred Jewish scroll could ride on Google spacecraft to "preserve Earth’s culture in event of apocalypse"
For all the claims that science seems to be ’killing’ religion, it looks like religion is fighting back with its own push to the stars.
An Israeli-based team seeks to get religion off planet and into the heavens by shipping religious texts to the lunar surface in what is dubbed "Torah on the Moon". This project is being planned in the name of ’preserving global culture’ in the event of an apocalypse.
NewScientist reports this as an important backup plan, "sending a sacred Jewish scroll to the moon could be just the beginning of an apocalypse-proof off-world backup of all culture and life on Earth", much like the Svalbard Seed Vault in Norway.
The team has plans to later send up "the Vedas (Hindu scriptures) and the I-Ching (an ancient Chinese philosophical work)" details MailOnline.
Religion and space have been intertwined since the inception of the space program, with the creation of the "Space Bible" - a microfilm of the Bible which was taken to the moon and back, and Buzz Aldrin’s secret communion ceremony that NASA kept quiet about until recently. In fact, Apollo 15 astronauts left a Bible on their lunar rover in 1971 and it remains there today, presumably waiting for E.T. to pick it up and find God.
Even Pope Benedict has said he would baptize extra-terrrestrials. This, after Vatican astronomers have claimed that aliens don’t need saving, as they don’t suffer from ’original sin’.
After being the unwitting host of rapper Will.i.am’s song "Reach For The Stars" when NASA’s Curiosity rover beamed it from the red planet back to earth, probably Mars and the rest of our solar system has had its fill of human ’culture’, and probably wants to be left in peace to make its own music.
MailOnline reports on the "Torah on the Moon" project:
This is an incredible, beautiful project,’ said group founder Paul Aouizerate.
‘These three texts are among Earth’s most ancient documents, created over 3,000 years ago.
‘They are significant to billions of people.’
To fund the mission Aouizerate and his team are hoping to raise up to £12.1m ($20.5m) by having scribes write each of the 304,805 characters contained in the Torah.
These writers would be funded by believers.
Ultimately, the goal is to ensure a significant part of Earth’s culture would remain on the moon far into the future.
Thus, if Earth were to suffer an apocalypse-type event, be it a nuclear war or an asteroid impact, part of humanity’s legacy would live on.
The endeavour has been considered before on varying scales, with other agencies and organisations saying humanity should create ‘time capsules’ that will preserve Earth’s cultures and societies.
"In 1971 the Apollo 15 astronauts left a Bible on their lunar rover (pictured in the red circle)
when they left the surface of the moon." MailOnline
