Per our previous reporting, there are primates that came before humans who used fire, tools, boats, and/or who manifested what we would call religion, faith, funeral/burial rituals, and/or concepts of the afterlife in a continuous temporal and geographical continuum from Homo naledi, through to the Neandertals/Neanderthals, through to the Fertile Crescent's Gobekli Tepe, but not limited to the same, through to the Egyptian imperial cult, which became the Greek imperial cult with the invasion of Alexander the Great, which became the Roman imperial cult under Gaius Octavius (Caesar Augustus), from which modern Christianity (hybridization or merging of Judaism and the Roman imperial cult) is derived.
At the core of these ancient funerary, funeral, burial, death, and/or afterlife rituals passed down from Homo naledi and the Neanderthals is the concept of an afterlife. In fact, most religions are in particular built around access to the afterlife based on conduct, and the rest may just be attempts to explain different ways to access and/or explain the same.
As we have also previously reported, there really isn't much difference between people of faith and scientific understanding of where we come from, what we are part of, and where we return to, each worldview simply being a matter of faith in information trees on which other information trees have been built.
In the simplest form of collective spirituality, most worldviews, scientific or faith-based employ a common shared belief in an infinitely changing power from which we come from, are part of, and/or return to, which as specified above we have referred to as trees in a forest of worldviews, with some trees so close to one another, as to fail to tell them apart from a single tree, others with touching branches and roots, and others so far from any other tree or worldview as to exist on their own, but within the forest of worldviews.
On the Christian Protestant front, humanity and the world hurl towards "the end of times", per the allusion and allegory of the Book of Revelation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation
As we have argued, there is little difference between the fundamental beliefs of faith-based and scientific worldviews, and the Book of Revelation is an excellent examples of the same.
From the scientific perspective, scientists have proposed that we were created out of a pluralism or Big Bang in the abyss of time and space, in the context that Abrahamic religions also believe we were created from an abyss, from which first on that day first came "light", per Genesis 1:3.
Scientific parallels have since found that most of the observable universe is a dark abyss, and where we live in the minority of light-emitting objects within that much darker abyss, on superclusters of galactic and universal filaments, the largest visible structures in space, left over from the mega-supernova-like Big Bang event.
Since then, scientists have discovered that we are riding around on a bullet or buckshot of the "Big Bang" or "light" event, specifically our Milky Way Galaxy, which is close to the center of the Big Bang relative to what we can see with our best telescopes, and which is flying through space towards the South Pole at roughly half a million miles per hour, and is expected to eventually collide with another bullet or buckshot from the Big Bang known as the Andromeda Galaxy.
A good way to explain the same is that the strength of the Big Bang explosion, coupled to the gravity of the unobservable universe, has pushed and pulled away from the center of the Big Bang, but that force is not strong enough to keep our galaxy and Andromeda galaxy flying straight, nor to stop us from colliding like two cars moving forward trying to merge into the same lane, crashing into one another forming a single pile of metal and flying parts moving forward as one.
Another way to look at it would be an explosion, where two high energy fragments from the same explosion -- one of which we are riding on, the Milky Way Galaxy -- slam into one another and move forward as one high energy fragments.
Another way to look at it would be like we are riding on partially-ignited gun powder (the Earth) caught in the wake of a speeding bullet (the Milky Way Galaxy) or buckshot (the Sun, one of a trillion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy flying through space at half a million miles per hour).
An even simpler way to look at the same is we are riding a bullet through outer space at half a million miles per hour, and we have been riding this bullet for at least 13-26 billions years.
https://phys.org/news/2023-07-age-universe-billion-years-previously.html
Now each star (including our Sun) was initially-formed by giant clouds of fundamental particles that were created when the light or energy from the Big Bang cooled, and they formed the most basic atoms, hydrogen and helium, and gravity drew more and more of these molecules together until the gravity between the particles, atoms, and molecules began to increase the temperature or interaction between the particles, atoms, and molecules, whose temperature eventually became so hot that they ignited the massive clouds of dense hydrogen and helium gas flying away from the center of the Big Bang, forming stars.
Some of those stars, like our Sun, were so large that they had mini-Big Bang events known as supernovas, and cast off some of the star into space, which cooled, formed planets and moons, which were small in comparison to the stars, and thus were attracted by gravity to the stars, resulting in the likes of our solar system.
From this perspective, we were created out of an abyss or darkness, and on the day the clouds of hydrogen and helium particles, atoms, and molecules ignited, there was light.
What scientists have since revealed is that stars also have a life cycle, and that our Sun, which cast us off, will eventually reabsorb us as our Sun ages and become larger and hotter, extending its size to well outside of the current solar system.
"The biological and geological future of Earth can be extrapolated based on the estimated effects of several long-term influences. These include the chemistry at Earth's surface, the cooling rate of the planet's interior, the gravitational interactions with other objects in the Solar System, and a steady increase in the Sun's luminosity. An uncertain factor is the pervasive influence of technology introduced by humans, such as climate engineering,[2] which could cause significant changes to the planet.[3][4] For example, the current Holocene extinction[5] is being caused by technology,[6] and the effects may last for up to five million years.[7] In turn, technology may result in the extinction of humanity, leaving the planet to gradually return to a slower evolutionary pace resulting solely from long-term natural processes.[8][9]
Over time intervals of hundreds of millions of years, random celestial events pose a global risk to the biosphere, which can result in mass extinctions. These include impacts by comets or asteroids and the possibility of a near-Earth supernova—a massive stellar explosion within a 100-light-year (31-parsec) radius of the Sun. Other large-scale geological events are more predictable. Milankovitch's theory predicts that the planet will continue to undergo glacial periods at least until the Quaternary glaciation comes to an end. These periods are caused by the variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of Earth's orbit.[10] As part of the ongoing supercontinent cycle, plate tectonics will probably result in a supercontinent in 250–350 million years. Sometime in the next 1.5–4.5 billion years, Earth's axial tilt may begin to undergo chaotic variations, with changes in the axial tilt of up to 90°.[11]
The luminosity of the Sun will steadily increase, causing a rise in the solar radiation reaching Earth and resulting in a higher rate of weathering of silicate minerals. This will affect the carbonate–silicate cycle, which will cause a decrease in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In about 600 million years from now, the level of carbon dioxide will fall below the level needed to sustain C3 carbon fixation photosynthesis used by trees. Some plants use the C4 carbon fixation method to persist at carbon dioxide concentrations as low as ten parts per million. However, the long-term trend is for plant life to die off altogether. The extinction of plants will be the demise of almost all animal life since plants are the base of much of the animal food chain on Earth.[12][13]
In about one billion years the solar luminosity will be 10% higher, causing the atmosphere to become a "moist greenhouse", resulting in a runaway evaporation of the oceans. As a likely consequence, plate tectonics and the entire carbon cycle will end.[14] Following this event, in about 2–3 billion years, the planet's magnetic dynamo may cease, causing the magnetosphere to decay and leading to an accelerated loss of volatiles from the outer atmosphere. Four billion years from now, the increase in Earth's surface temperature will cause a runaway greenhouse effect, creating conditions more extreme than present-day Venus and heating Earth's surface enough to melt it. By that point, all life on Earth will be extinct.[15][16] Finally, the most probable fate of the planet is absorption by the Sun in about 7.5 billion years, after the star has entered the red giant phase and expanded beyond the planet's current orbit.[17]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth
From this perspective, we'll return to our most recent maker (the Sun, the "light", God, Jesus, the universe, and/or everything) in about 7.5 billion years, with the end of times guaranteed in about 600 million to one billion years, when all plants (and thus all/most food chains) on Earth will die and when organic chemistry will break down due to the increasing temperature our expanding Sun.
Facing the end of times, and per our previous reporting, our hypothalami (our ventromedial nuclei) crave the satisfaction of many different things -- including hopes for an afterlife -- based on the funeral, funerary, burial, and/or afterlife culture and/or cults, first attributed to Homo naledi, then passed onto the Neanderthals, then passed onto the Fertile Crescent, then Egypt's imperial cults, eventually resulting in the modern Abrahamic religions, riding a bullet through space and time for over 13-26 billion years, with about a half billion years left to go.
Embraced by both faith and science, we come from rings and strings of energy or light, which cannot be created nor destroyed, but rather are perpetually changed, which means we have always existed, and we'll always exist, but rarely if ever will be the same physically, mentally, and/or spiritually, all of this journey being a single route on an infinite railroad, and where the next stop in a billion years will be infinity.
We're blessed to have been that part of creation able to sense creation, understand creation, change creation, and to be able to create things and others to share this gift and miracle with. Blessed to be that part of infinity that can see infinity, smell infinity, taste infinity, hear infinity, touch infinity, and breath infinity.
The end of this part of the infinite journey is nigh -- and this is not good, nor bad -- but the way things were always going to be, regardless of the brand name any of us attached to the bullet we're riding. It doesn't matter who wins any election, nor who mates with who, nor who likes who, nor who learns what, nor who gets to hoard the most acorns -- like the fleeting and changing importance of a fresh brave pea in an old boiling soup.
