The scientific study of beliefs, including religious beliefs, is thriving. The focus of this research is broad, but notably includes attempts at classifying different kinds of beliefs and their contrasting traits. Religious beliefs appear as more or less specific depending on chosen approaches and criteria. This paper intends to bring the discussion to a different level applying two strategies that yield a similar result. The first tries to reframe the debate about the nature of religious beliefs by connecting it with the current wave of “belief studies,” to test their potential utility. The second critically reviews the epistemological and cognitive dimensions that are involved. Our research points in some distinctive directions: religious beliefs belong to a broad category or class whose structure and function are more related to meaning and purpose provision; at that level, there is no clear way to distinguish religious and non-religious beliefs except possibly by their content.
This article examines some selected ethical issues in human space missions including human missions to Mars, particularly the idea of a space refuge, the scientific value of space exploration, and the possibility of human gene editing for deep-space travel. Each of these issues may be used either to support or to criticize human space missions. We conclude that while these issues are complex and context-dependent, there appear to be no overwhelming obstacles such as cost effectiveness, threats to human life or protection of pristine space objects, to sending humans to space and to colonize space. The article argues for the rationality of the idea of a space refuge and the defensibility of the idea of human enhancement applied to future deep-space astronauts.
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