Although I’m an atheist I am interested in religious beliefs, metaphysics and philosophy. I am however a lazy atheist, so I like to explore these concepts, NOT in academic text books, but in science fiction novels.

CONTACT is a novel by the late scientist Carl Sagan about first contact with alien lifeforms. Sagan’s enthusiasm and belief in Alien Intelligences led to the establishment of SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestial Intelligence).

Contact was an excellent science fiction novel exploring themes of religious belief, science, rationality, faith and god. Contact is also a hollywood film staring Jodie Foster. The film version however, left out my favourite part of the book.

In the novel, the Jodie Foster character travels to the far end of the universe and talks to an Alien lifeform. The alien seems so powerful and all-knowing that at one stage she asks “Are you God?”. The alien replies that he is not god, but if you want to find him, look into pye (the mathematical formula).

Returning to Earth, scientists consider the aliens enigmatic reply, and decide to set up a super-computer to print out pye, in binary form, to trillions of decimal points. After 6 months of binary print-out, there is suddenly an excited cry, from a scientist monitoring the computer.

There amongst all the ones and zeros, was a large perfectly formed circle. Within the mathematical formula for a circle, was another circle. It couldn’t have happened randomly. It could only have been placed there, by the diety who constructed the universe.

It was God’s signature, which he left for any race who gained enough intelligence to calculate pye to trillions of decimal points. It was a lovely idea.  It’s a pity that we haven’t found any such signature, and can only sustain god through faith.

John McNally