When I reach to the edge of the universe, I do so knowing that along some paths of cosmic discovery, there are times when, at least for now, one must be content to love the questions themselves.

The idea that God resides in the unknown is what philosophers call the God of the gaps. And we have this thing called science, which marches on and makes discoveries in those gaps, ultimately closing gaps.

If all that you see, do, measure and discover is the will of a deity, then ideas can never be proven wrong, you have no predictive power, and you are at a loss to understand the principles behind most of the fundamental interconnections of nature.

There's no tradition of scientists knocking down the Sunday school door, telling the preacher, That might not necessarily be true. That's never happened. There're no scientists picketing outside of churches.

I want to encourage people to not think in terms of gifts, but think in terms of, wow. You work hard to succeed at that, because that's exactly what I do.

I'm just recommending you find other things to base your spirituality on, rather than where science is yet to tread.

In any case, the leading edge of our "on purpose" radio signals is 30 light-years away and, if intercepted, may mend the aliens' image of us based on the radio bubble of our television shows. But this will happen only if the aliens can somehow determine which type of signal comes closer to the truth of who we are, and what our cosmic identity deserves to be.