Hushed murmurs echoed throughout the room.
“As I expected, all three men reacted with profound surprise, concern, and, yes, even anger, at what I revealed to them. And while their reactions were negative, I want to thank them for graciously meeting with me. I will do them the courtesy of not revealing their names, but I do want to address them directly tonight and thank them for not attempting to interfere with this presentation.”
He paused. “God knows, they could have.”
Langdon listened, amazed at how deftly Edmond was walking a thin line and covering his bases. Edmond’s decision to meet with religious leaders suggested an open-mindedness, trust, and impartiality for which the futurist was not generally known. The meeting at Montserrat, Langdon now suspected, had been part research mission and part public relations maneuver.
A clever get-out-of-jail-free card, he thought.
“Historically,” Edmond continued, “religious fervor has always suppressed scientific progress, and so tonight I implore religious leaders around the world to react with restraint and understanding to what I am about to say. Please, let us not repeat the bloody violence of history. Let us not make the mistakes of our past.”
The images on the ceiling dissolved into a drawing of an ancient walled city—a perfectly circular metropolis located on the banks of a river that flowed through a desert.
Langdon recognized it at once as ancient Baghdad, its unusual circular construction fortified by three concentric walls topped by merlons and embrasures.
“In the eighth century,” Edmond said, “the city of Baghdad rose to prominence as the greatest center of learning on earth, welcoming all religions, philosophies, and sciences to its universities and libraries. For five hundred years, the outpouring of scientific innovation that flowed from the city was like nothing the world had ever seen, and its influence is still felt today in modern culture.”
Overhead, the sky of stars reappeared, this time many of the stars bearing names beside them: Vega, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Algebar, Deneb, Acrab, Kitalpha.
“Their names are all derived from Arabic,” Edmond said. “To this day, more than two-thirds of the stars in the sky have names from that language because they were discovered by astronomers in the Arab world.”
The sky rapidly filled with so many stars with Arabic names that the heavens were nearly blotted out. The names dissolved again, leaving only the expanse of the heavens.
“And, of course, if we want to count the stars …”
Roman numerals began appearing one by one beside the brightest stars.
I, II, III, IV, V …
The numbers stopped abruptly and disappeared.
“We don’t use Roman numerals,” Edmond said. “We use Arabic numerals.”
The numbering now began again using the Arabic numbering system. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 …
“You may also recognize these Islamic inventions,” Edmond said. “And we all still use their Arabic names.”
The word ALGEBRA floated across the sky, surrounded by a series of multivariable equations. Next came the word ALGORITHM with a diverse array of formulas. Then AZIMUTH with a diagram depicting angles on the earth’s horizon. The flow accelerated … NADIR, ZENITH, ALCHEMY, CHEMISTRY, CIPHER, ELIXIR, ALCOHOL, ALKALINE, ZERO …
As the familiar Arabic words streamed by, Langdon thought how tragic it was that so many Americans pictured Baghdad simply as one of those many dusty, war-torn Middle Eastern cities in the news, never knowing it was once the very heart of human scientific progress.
“By the end of the eleventh century,” Edmond said, “the greatest intellectual exploration and discovery on earth was taking place in and around Baghdad. Then, almost overnight, that changed. A brilliant scholar named Hamid al-Ghazali—now considered one of the most influential Muslims in history—wrote a series of persuasive texts questioning the logic of Plato and Aristotle and declaring mathematics to be ‘the philosophy of the devil.’ This began a confluence of events that undermined scientific thinking. The study of theology was made compulsory, and eventually the entire Islamic scientific movement collapsed.”
The scientific words overhead evaporated, and were replaced by images of Islamic religious texts.
“Revelation replaced investigation. And to this day, the Islamic scientific world is still trying to recover.” Edmond paused. “Of course, the Christian scientific world did not fare any better.”
Paintings of the astronomers Copernicus, Galileo, and Bruno appeared on the ceiling.
“The Church’s systematic murder, imprisonment, and denunciation of some of history’s most brilliant scientific minds delayed human progress by at least a century. Fortunately, today, with our better understanding of the benefits of science, the Church has tempered its attacks …” Edmond sighed. “Or has it?”
A globe logo with a crucifix and serpent appeared with the text:
Madrid Declaration on Science & Life
“Right here in Spain, the World Federation of the Catholic Medical Associations recently declared war on genetic engineering, proclaiming that ‘science lacks soul’ and therefore should be restrained by the Church.”
The globe logo now transformed into a different circle—a schematic blueprint for a massive particle accelerator.
“And this was Texas’s Superconducting Super Collider—slated to be the largest particle collider in the world—with the potential for exploring the very moment of Creation. This machine was, ironically, positioned in the heart of America’s Bible Belt.”
The image dissolved into a massive ring-shaped cement structure stretching out across the Texas desert. The facility was only half built, covered with dust and dirt, apparently abandoned midway through its construction.
“America’s super collider could have enormously advanced humankind’s understanding of the universe, but the project was canceled due to cost overruns and political pressure from some startling sources.”
A news clip showed a young televangelist waving the bestselling book The God Particle and angrily shouting, “We should be looking for God inside our hearts! Not inside of atoms! Spending billions on this absurd experiment is an embarrassment to the state of Texas and an affront to God!”
Edmond’s voice returned. “These conflicts I’ve described—those in which religious superstition has trumped reason—are merely skirmishes in an ongoing war.”
The ceiling blazed suddenly with a collage of violent images from modern society—picket lines outside genetic research labs, a priest setting himself on fire outside a Transhumanism conference, evangelicals shaking their fists and holding up the book of Genesis, a Jesus fish eating a Darwin fish, angry religious billboards condemning stem-cell research, gay rights, and abortion, along with equally angry billboards in response.
As Langdon lay in the darkness, he could feel his heart pounding. For a moment, he thought the grass beneath him was trembling, as if a subway were approaching. Then, as the vibrations grew stronger, he realized the earth was indeed shaking. Deep, rolling vibrations shuddered up through the grass beneath his back, and the entire dome trembled with a roar.