The Cosmos and Religion

On my way to church this morning, I happened to catch part of the NPR show "To the Best of Our Knowledge". I was interested to hear that the topic of the show was the relationship of science and religion, in particular science and cosmology--a subject that has been of great interest to me since childhood. I only caught part of the show, and I had to park the car and make into the church before services start, so I missed most of it during the broadcast this morning, but thanks to the miracle of the World Wide Web, I was able to listen to a recording of the broadcast on the program's web site. The entire show, which is a little less than an hour long, consists of three general segments, and featured discussions with several authors.

Among the topics covered, the first segment included an interview with Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams, co-authors of the book The View from the Center of the Universe. It appeared from listening to what they said that they were suggesting that, after a few post-Copernican centuries in which humans have been dethroned from their primary position at the center of the universe, the laws of physics argue for the importance of human life in a way that puts us up front and center once again, even if not literally in the sense of a physical "center". This seems at first glance like an expression of the Anthropic Principle, but without reading the book I am not sure. But it does sound interesting.

The third segment included a conversation with Daniel Matt, author of the book God and the Big Bang. The implications of the universe having its origin in an initial creation event, and the religious implications of this in particular, made for an interesting discussion.