Cosmology

The Cosmos as System

Cosmology: theory or philosophy of the nature or principles of the Universe. Webster's New International Unabridged Dictionary.

We have a tendency to limit the word to a scientific definition of the origin and nature of the physical universe, as a method of thought and experimentation. We forget that the cosmos was an object of study long before we had something called science.

Humans pondered the cosmos from religious and philosophical points of view for millennia before the scientific revolution of the late 1700's. Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Newton gave us a more precise view of the visible heavens, but they were merely the latest for their time to speculate on the doings of the cosmos. Hubble and the newer cosmologists gave us a view of a relativistic universe. expanding from the big bang, but they have not rendered obsolete the version of the same events from Genesis.

No one will ever know for certain the events of creation and no one will ever recreate the conditions experimentally that started with a singularity and ended with our universe. The knowledge of the creation of the universe and our world which is found within it is not obtainable as a matter of simple direct observation. The scientific information came from astrophysics as well as nuclear physics—the physics of the largest and the smallest things. But within the cultural experience of the peoples of the Earth many accounts have been given for the existence of humans on Earth and the Earth in the cosmos.

With the rise of scientific thought has risen the claim that science makes religious thought, especially that on origins, obsolete. This claim would have us think that the fossil record makes Genesis obsolete and, since religious dicta cannot be verified scientifically, they must be false. This has resulted in the notion that science is not compatible with religion and the people who are religionists cannot comfortably be scientists. The controversies surrounding science and religion fail to account for the fact that they are both systems of thought that attempted to account for the origins of the universe, and that they differ from each other principally by being separated in the time of their conception. If one, therefore, looks at cosmology relativistically, one will see a different but related set of theories and principles to account for the origin of the universe and to explain the Earth and why we are here.

It is clear that religion is by far the oldest such cosmology. Not just the roots of modern religion but the roots of now extinct ancient religions as well.

The earliest religions were based upon assigning power and character to the forces of nature—such concepts as Mother Earth and Father Sky. We now generally recognize such religions as shamanism, the priests of such religions as shamans. The American Indians still have such religion, but it is not very widely understood that the religion of the ancient Greeks and Romans was also shamanistic. It was pretty high class shaminism, as it had a pantheon of gods assigned to the task of running nature rather than just assigning personality to the forces of nature. The name Jupiter means Father Sky.

In the course of history the early hierarchical systems were female. The Mother Goddess was the supreme deity. By some lights Pandora was the Mother Goddess of the early Greeks. Note her name Pan-dora: dora=gift/giver pan=all; Pandora the giver of all. She may be the celebrated but unknown inventor of language, which has given us all we have.

The Mother Goddess was overthrown. The Theseus story may be the story of the overthrow when Theseus, the Greek hero refuses to be just the annual king who must die and takes over the power from the Queen. After this, Pandora is relegated to the role of troublemaker wife of Epimetheus, the brother with "hindsight," while the role of inventor of language goes to Prometheus, the brother with "foresight," knowledge of the future.

So we seem to have gone from "female forces of nature," to "male forces of nature," to the pantheons of India and China, to the Creek and Roman pantheon, to monotheistic religion arising in the Arabian peninsula: first Judaism, then Christianity and Islam.

Philosophy as opposed to science rears it head in Ancient Greece with the ancient philosophers Thales, Plato, and Aristotle among the many. The notions of all these thinkers is still afoot in our own culture.

Hard science, the science we have come to love and hate because it gave us penicillin and the atom bomb, dates from the 18th century A.D. If we try to relate early concepts of science not as an organized body of knowledge with the scientific method, but the undergirding of technology, then we have to look for a much more ancient and diffuse origin of science. Sophisticated technology has existed from the earliest of days. Pottery and jewelry from Catal Huyuk are admired as modern in conception and execution, yet date from 13,000 years ago! The technology that built the pyramids of Egypt and Meso-America is no slouch. If we look at the progression of technology from the stone age through the bronze age to the iron age, we see that the tools have changed material, but the materials worked have not. The Middle Ages could be called the Late Stone Age if you look at the materials worked and not the tools with which the material was worked.

One of the first iron structures built in the history of the world was the Menai Straits bridge in North Wales which was built in 1850 and it was built of wrought iron as was the Eiffel Tower.

We say, "Science vs religion," but this is not a contest. Religion precedes science in providing a coherent, systematic cosmology. Science is a continuation of religion in attempting to provide a systematic, coherent approach to the ancient problem of the origin of the universe and the place of humans in it. Each system had to posit forces. Religion has the forces of nature (the gods) or God as the prime mover, while science has gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetism as the prime movers—other names for the forces of nature.

More important to the question of religious and scientific cosmologies is the role of morals and ethics, spirituality, and faith in these various systems.

Science is often called amoral, since science can be applied to good or evil purposes. Science, intrinsicly, is quite moral and ethical, for without honesty and truth, science is a shambles.

Religion has been used for good and evil in the same way science has, but differs in having a morality and ethics based on spirituality. As a subset of religion, fundamentalists have a morality and ethics, based not only on spirituality but faith in the Bible as the word of God. Islamic fundamentalism has the Koran as the word of God as spoken through Muhammad.

All cosmologies have an element of faith. Science is based on the faith of uniformitarianism, i.e., all forces are the same in all parts of the universe. The creation story of the Bible is based on faith in God as the prime mover, and with fundamentalism the faith is placed in the Bible as the exact word of God. All systems are dedicated to the same end: understanding the origin of the universe and the place of humans in it.

Not all systems have equal values for all persons, but all the systems have great value for some persons. In a world ruled by tolerance and compassion, the differences are of no consequence. In an intolerant, uncompassionate world the differences are deadly.

All cosmologies are decision systems. As such, they are susceptible to ecological analysis. The one common element of all these systems is morality and ethics. Ecologically this is the key to the humane ecosystem. A cosmological ecosystem, based upon the concepts of tolerant, compassionate morals and ethics is the basis of the humane ecosystem. Our equity in the cosmos is to be a part of it. Our polity in the cosmos is to know that. Compassion and tolerance, when leading to tranquility, felicity and serenity, can be integral parts of our moral ecosystem if we choose to make them so. The result: the humane ecosystem.

...Ted Sudia...

© Copyright 1992
Institute for domestic Tranquility