Cosmic Commons: Spirit, Science, and Space

by John Hart

Cosmic Commons explores terrestrial-extraterrestrial intelligent life Contact. It uses a thought experiment to consider the ecological-economic-ethical-ecclesial impacts of Contact, analyzing incidents around the world described by credible witnesses (two of whom are interviewed for the book), including Roswell and the Hudson River Valley. It discusses government and academic efforts to use ridicule and coercion to suppress Contact investigations, supports a scientific method to research ETI reports in a field that should excite scientists, and calls on academics to publicly disclose their Contact experiences. It traces Earth ecological and economic injustices to the European Enlightenment and the Discovery Doctrine by which European nations rationalized invasion of distant continents, genocide, and seizure of the territories and natural goods of native peoples. It advocates a change in humans' Earth conduct to avoid replicating in space the policies and practices that wrought economic injustice and ecological devastation on Earth, provides an innovative cosmosociological praxis ethics theory and practice toward that end, and develops a Cosmic Charter, based on UN documents, to guide humankind in space and in ETI encounters. Permeated by a profound sense of the sacred, Cosmic Commons explores a positive relationship between religion and science as humankind ventures into space.

428 pages, Paperback

First published November 12, 2013

About the author

John Hart, Boston University professor, links the far out with the down to Earth when teaching and writing. His innovative ideas make him a wanted man: he travels often around Earth (five continents, eight countries so far-not via spacecraft) speaking on science-religion-ecology-social justice. His most recent book was Cosmic Commons: Spirit, Science, and Space (Cascade, 2013).

Reviews

[Joe Gawlik · Rating 1 out of 5]

Academic gobbledygook peppered with made up combinations of words like "cosmosocioeconoecology" and more. Advocates a totally unreasonable change to human society in order to better accommodate space exploration or contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. No mention of ancient alien theories and the available literature. I don't recommend you waste your time to read. Worthless.

[Hyungkyu Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Critical of the discovery doctrine by which Europeans rationalized their colonization of third world countries, author calls for a change of consciousness in new era of space and ETI encounters.