Cosmic Religiondecide which of their interpretations is the most plausible. If
you put an atheist in, you get an atheist out. And likewise for a
Platonist, Buddhist, New Age follower, or Christian. The science
can be made to fi t with a number of bigger pictures. The posi-
tions I’ve outlined are all pretty respectable, given the current
level of understanding. And it’s possible to have a debate about
where each runs into diffi culties. But they all do at some point,
and so you have to bring other considerations to bear on the
issue when deciding which makes most sense to you.
It has always been so. Newton’s discoveries – the new physics
of his day – generated a not dissimilar plurality of speculations
and levels of excitement. The theory of gravitation was popu-
larly perceived as being about the infl uence of all bodies on one
another, no matter how distant. This seemed to be not only a
boon to astronomy but to astrology too. Newton’s work appar-
ently validated the notion that the distant stars and planets
might act upon human bodies so as to determine their course
through life, much as it does the course of heavenly bodies
through the skies. And it did not stop there. Newtonianism
lay behind developments such as mesmerism, spiritualism,
phrenology and vegetarianism. None are completely arbitrary
but exploit real ambiguities and apparent implications of the
physics. But they are only apparent. Science must be in dialogue
with religion. The physical needs to be related to the spiritual.
But the question is always: how?
Sacred biology
It’s worth noting that similar speculations are now emerging
from within biology too. Some are venturing the physicist’s
old question: is this a new source for the sacred? It begins with
the same experience, the wonder life on earth can inspire quite
as fully as cosmology. The TV naturalist, David Attenborough,
made a series, Life in the Undergrowth, in which he turned his
camera on the world of invertebrates. It was both beautiful
and fascinating to watch. However, it was not just the giant