The History of Imperial Christianity

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The God language has always been when it comes to this kind of imperialism a means of making people feel better about the conquest that they are about to undertake. So I recognize fully that our listeners here might be like come on God has nothing to do with this. This is a totally secular space industry. But all of these attempts to conquer space and to take its resources and use them are relying on what seem to be very secular ideas which have particularly religious inheritance. The church's role has become more diffuse as we move from the Roman Catholic endorsement of the doctrine of discovery of the Americas to a more sort of Protestantized idea of like just God having a hand in manifest destiny.

Paris Marx is joined by Mary-Jane Rubenstein to discuss how ideas that underpinned colonization and Manifest Destiny are now setting the foundation for the billionaire space race and the plan to colonize the cosmos.

Mary-Jane Rubenstein is the author of Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race. She’s also a Professor of Religion and Science in Society at Wesleyan University.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

An excerpt of Mary-Jane’s book was published in Metapolis.
Paris wrote about the business behind the billionaire space race and the problem with Starlink.
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin recently got a contract to build a moon lander for NASA.
One of Barack Obama’s legacies is pushing for the privatization of space flight.
The US Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 and Artemis Accords are attempts to unilaterally rewrite space law for US commercial interest.
Catherine L. Newell wrote Destined for the Stars: Faith, the Future, and America's Final Frontier.

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