I would suggest a change of focus. The important question is not what unknown information might be out there in the universe that will be novel or force me to modify my worldview. Clearly there are probably quite a number of such discoveries. They are also entirely unknown and unpredictable.
We have no control over future discoveries. All we control is ourselves. Among the choices we face perhaps the most critical is the choice of what to worship. Everybody worships something though it’s often subconscious. David Foster Wallace highlighted this well in one of his well known speeches.
“You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship. Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.
And the so-called real world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the so-called real world of men and money and power hums merrily along in a pool of fear and anger and frustration and craving and worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving and display.
The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”
As for the concern that my chosen worship will not allow me to accept future discoveries because they run contrary to my faith I honestly think that cannot happen. One of the advantages of choosing to worship God is that it moves the object of worship outside of the closed system. See:
An Argument for God. In doing so a full understanding of the system becomes the natural goal.
If you MUST worship something, I suggest you worship life (plants, animals, including humans), develop deep, meaningful relationships with people, animals around you.
As for the closed or open systems, it is your assumption, just like your assumption that God
must exist.
We are here on this Earth for a very short time; make the best of it.
Impact lives of people around you in a positive way, create good memories. That is all you can do.
You did not exist for billions of years, you exist only for about 80-120 years if you are lucky, then you go back to non-existing forever (or about 20 billion years as some estimate, then the Big Rip or Big Crunch will destroy all atoms in your body and the rest of the universe).
We are indeed only on this earth for a very short period of time and your suggestions on ways to make the most of that time are not bad ones.
1) Impact the lives of people around you in a positive way.
2) Create good memories.
3) Develop deep, meaningful relationships with people.
4) Love and respect life (humans, plants, animals).
These are all good suggestions but do they qualify as the objects of worship that Mr. Wallace described above? To answer that we must ask another question. Are we valuing those things as means to an end or an end in itself?
Perhaps what we are really after is personal pleasure and satisfaction and feel those rules the best way to achieve it. In that event personal pleasure is our true object of worship not the suggestions. We despite our fine words are much more akin to the hedonist placing our pleasure above all else. One man might value deep meaningful relationships another endless one night stands personal preferences vary.
Or perhaps we are really value successful reproduction and ensuring our genetic line extends propagates. Maybe those suggestions are our opinion on how best to achieve that. In that case we are again worshiping reproduction not the fine suggestions. One man may opt for the strategy of being the reliable family man, another might seek to be a scoundrel to seduce and then repeatedly abscond at the first opportunity. Strategies like personal preferences also vary.
Or maybe just maybe we actually value those things as an end in an of themselves. That is far less likely. BADecker was correct when he noted that most of the time what we humans do is self-worship. If we value something as an end in and of itself we become more concerned more with the essence of those things and less about their impact on us personally. If we truly treasure deep, meaningful relationships or the love and respect of life as an ends then our primary concern will not be maximization of those things in our personal lives though that will most certainly happen. Instead our primary goal will be ensuring those treasured ends grow stronger in the world and do everything we can to ensure that after our deaths we leave a world with more of those meaningful relationships and a greater love and respect of life then was there when we entered it.
If we value something as an ends we must ask ourselves how do I make sure I work towards those ends even if I don't want to or I am tired. What will keep me on track when those ends no longer give me the pleasure they once did or they become costly. How do I grow those many good things in a world that is not necessary fertile soil for the principles and does not prioritize them. A system is obviously necessary. A system that strengthens us and helps keep our focus on necessary goals.
I would propose two alternative rules from which your four goals can be naturally derived from.
1) Love God: This unifies all creation under a father. It makes all of us and all of life siblings to one another.
2) Love your neighbor as yourself: This dictates how we are to treat our siblings.
I would suggest that your list of good things follows naturally from genuine application of the two premises above. Furthermore I would highlight that the the above two rules are viable as ends in and of themselves and not just as means. Finally I would point out that their exists a well structured system built around those principles that already exists to help support and propagate them.
What we worship ultimately defines what we are.
