Books by Jacques Arnould

For a long time what we now know as space was inaccessible to humans, not because it was at a height which was unattainable without the least astronautical technology or principles, but because of the cosmic and dualistic representation of reality. Humans were relegated to the centre, to a sort of ecesspiti of imperfection, alteration, incompleteness and finally death. Around them were crystal spheres which held the planets and starsoimmutable, eternal and perfectoa domain which was completely off-limits to humans, unless they had discarded their carnal envelope, either through a mystical experience or after death. It took a revolution, the Copernican Revolution, to shatter the celestial spheres and make them no longer forbidden territory. Galileo was one of the first revolutionaries: through his astronomical observations, he showed the Earth and the Sky were in fact made of the same fabric, the same material, and therefore belonged to the same world. Then followed Kepler and others. Centuries passed, and human conquered the air, and then space. Their feet touched the surface of the Moon and their wheels the surface of Mars. The Earth and the entire universe somehow became flat again with no folds, no curves, at least in appearance, to hide any dark corners. The horizon once again retreated out of reach taking with it perhaps the last dreams of exploration. The human imagination does not like horizons which are too flat, too clear; humanity needs to meet resistance, brakes, constraints to stop them in their tracks, to cross them and lead them, to new unknown territories. An impossible Horizon, writes Jacques Arnould in this work, but a horizon without which our adventures, our explorations would lose their savor and especially their meaning. We will then understand that even if the goal is never fully achieved, it is the quest that enriches us.i Bertrand Piccard. (Balloonist, aviator and psychiatrist, Bertrand Piccard is the first to complete a non-stop balloon flight around the globe, in a balloon named Breitling Orbiter 3. With Andre Borschberg, he is the initiator, chairman, and pilot of Solar Impulse, the first successful round-the-world solar powered flight)

'A cloth spread under an apple tree can catch only apples', wrote Antoine de Saint Exupery in Terre des hommes (Land of Men), (English title: Wind, Sand and Stars), 'and a cloth spread under stars can catch only stardust ... What was most marvellous was that, there, standing on the planet's rounded back, between this magnetic cloth and those stars, was a man's consciousness in which that star-fall could be reflected as in a mirror.' And a few pages further on he writes: 'I was but a mere mortal lost between sand and stars, aware simply of the sweet pleasure of breathing.' From the author of those lines to the writer of the first well known verses of the Bible: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth ...', stretch centuries of time and an intellectual and cultural abyss as well. What could there be in common between the pilot of the first air route from Toulouse to Dakar and the direct descendants of Semitic nomads? Certainly not much, but for those star-pierced nights that deserts alone can offer for contemplation, combined with the tormenting question: what a thing is man, confronted by the cosmos, magnificent and terrible at the same time? This question has been haunting humanity from the beginning and gnaws at each of us: 'Who am I? Where did I come from? Where does my destiny lie?' To these questions, the desert dwellers, and the aviator lost like all their brothers in humanity, have given the same response. Certainly we are mortal beings, lost in the middle of the cosmos as in a desert, crushed by the weight of reality as by the immense celestial vault. And yet, we are unique, singular, irreplaceable; we are not less than the consciousness of the world, and, believers among them will say, we are even created in the image of God. Is that courage or lack of awareness, pretentiousness or faith?

Le jour d'apres. Personne ne peut pretendre, ni esperer echapper a un evenement, personnel ou collectif, qui ebranle son existence. Et Dieu, ou etait-il dans ce moment de rupture, qu'il ait ete tragique ou heureux? Il convient de relire avec un regard different ces recits bibliques, devenus incontournables, qui mettent en scene Noe, Abraham et Isaac, Job ou Jonas. Il faut rendre a Dieu et a l'homme ce qui revient a chacun d'entre eux. Le Dieu du jour d'apres n'est-il pas celui qui se tait comme s'il entrait en lui-meme pour laisser l'etre humain naitre, renaitre, ressusciter? Le jour d'apres peut etre le temps de la confiance en l'homme et de la foi en Dieu?

We live in an evolving and increasingly complex global community and with this complexity comes a broad range of ethical issues. The Ethics: Contemporary Perspectives brings together scholars from across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, including disciplines as diverse as philosophy, law, medicine and the study of world religions, to discuss these broad ethical issues in contemporary society. Its aim is explore our complex world, addressing both old and new ethical issues through scholarly discourse. This collection of essays looks Extraterrestrial life. It looks at as a discipline itself and also the religious questions that arise in the investigation of the topic. It also looks at the topic of astrobiology and space exploration. The contributors are Christian theologians, ethicists as well as those who study and work at the International Space University based in France but with links around the world.