Session 5, 4 p.m.:

Abstract: Human societies throughout the world have often thought of high places, including the impossible reaches of space, to be the abodes of supernatural figures and the origin of supernatural objects. The Greek gods and goddesses lived atop Mount Olympus, for example, and some geologists believe the “black stone” at the Ka’ba in Mecca is a meteorite. Many astronauts have also thought of outer space as religiously significant and their own journeys into space as having important religious aspects. This presentation will discuss astronauts’ varied religious interpretations of, and activities during, voyages into the “heavens,” focusing on the five major world religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.