Astrophysicist Excommunicated

This is an ARTICLE exploring the philosophical and theological implications of a modern scientific theory.

Cape Canaveral, FL: Astrophysicist Norman Blackwell has been excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church, for his most recent publication in which he presents proof that the Big Bang occurred at least twice in the long history of the cosmos. He has gone so far as to suggest that the Big Bang has occurred and will occur ad infinitum. The conflict with the Church lay in the theological implications of such a description of the cosmos.

Left wide open is the possibility that humans have existed during each new Big Bang period.

According to Blackwell's argument, which assumes that the laws of physics are the same during each Big Bang that occurs, all material would expand in the same way each time. Consequently, galaxies of Big Bang One would look the same as galaxies of Big Bang Two. Even cosmic details such as stars would be composed of the same elements in the periods following each Big Bang.

Simply put, all the forms that we see in our cosmos would have existed in any previous or succeeding cosmos. This means that solar systems like the ones we have now have existed and will exist again, assuming Blackwell's hypothesis is correct.

If there have existed, or will exist, solar systems similar to ours in other Big Bang periods, couldn't they also be suitable for lifeforms?

It seems that if Blackwell is right, the human form could have existed in Big Bang One, and that it will exist in Big Bang two, three, four, five and so on.

If human beings did in fact live in a previous Big Bang, how similar were they to us? Furthermore, if scientific laws were exactly the same for each Big Bang, it could be possible that the exact same people inhabited the exact same planet, only at a different age of the universe's infinite pattern of explosion, expansion, and collapse.

This means that you yourself could have existed several times before and may exists over and over again on a time scale too great to fully comprehend.

Scientist, philosophers, and theologians are baffled by the paradox which has been dubbed by some as periodic eternity. Is this reincarnation? Determinism? Philosophers of metaphysics have speculated that perhaps each Big Bang has exactly the same ingredients. Some have gone so far as to say that Freedom itself may be a fundamental consequence of astrophysical laws.

In the words of Doris Euclid, a tenured professor of metaphysics at the University of Santa Monica, in Santa Monica, California, "Perhaps freedom is the consequence of the passage of Time, and like the formation of a diamond it can only come into existence under the magnificent pressure of a universe expanded to limits; limits that bring into being consciousness; limits that man has come to measure in the intervals of evolution, wisdom, love, humanity, spiritual communion...To know the primary cause has always meant to approach the Divine."

Dana Arlinghaus, theologian, takes a similar stance, "Maybe it is true, in a scientific sense, the doctrine promised by Christ. This theory seems to reinforce the idea that life is literally eternal."

In fact, minds from many disciplines have been moved by Blackwell's findings. Poet laureate, Sophia Grangier submitted the following proposition to an audience in Paris, "Man is formed from the stardust as the sole admirer of the beauty and order his crude constitution has finally achieved."

In his own defense, Blackwell has said to his accusers, "if we are but a moment, fine; but if that moment is repeated again and again, science says we are a Truth. Insofar as that is true, history tells us we must also be divine."

Norman Blackwell is currently living on a Russian space station where advanced studies on black holes are being conducted. His research, although not accessible in most languages, may soon be published by Doksee, an independent research firm committed to the dissemination of cutting-edge astronomical data in accordance with the first amendment rights of free speech and press.