It is surely strange to begin a history of ancient naturalism with modern<\/em> cosmology.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, starting with the present can help elucidate preconceptions before proceeding to the past.\u00a0 In so doing, a clear picture of current understandings can be developed, the better to distinguish our own assumptions and avoid projecting them onto ancient peoples.\u00a0 At the same time, a foundation in the underlying concepts under investigation can be established.<\/p>\n This post is part of <\/em>Roots of Spiritual Naturalism, a series exploring the gradual emergence of Spiritual Naturalism in ancient times in order to gain an expanded sense of its meaning and historicity. See Part 1<\/a> for an overview.<\/em><\/p>\n Modern cosmology, in a nutshell, is current science\u2019s best answer to \u201cWhat is the universe like?\u201d and \u201cHow did we get here?\u201d<\/p>\n More technically, modern physical cosmology<\/em><\/a> describes the contemporary scientific study of the structure and dynamics of the physical universe, concerned with fundamental questions of its formation and evolution.<\/p>\n With that brief introduction, let\u2019s dive right in.\u00a0 An analysis of key methods and assumptions, useful for comparing and contrasting with past eras, follows afterward.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Most creation stories start with how it all began.\u00a0 Modern cosmology does so as well, but with one crucial caveat: however impersonal the unfolding of the cosmos may be, our understanding<\/em> of it arrives via human observation, reasoning, and experiment.\u00a0 Thus, the particular flavor of the modern creation story is best conveyed by starting with the human perspective.\u00a0 Many different people contributed to it, but one name will suffice as an example: Hubble.<\/p>\n The year was 1922.\u00a0\u00a0Edwin Hubble<\/a>, sitting before the largest telescope at the time, turned its lens on\u00a0some of the \u201cnebulae\u201d in deep space.\u00a0 What he saw\u2026 couldn\u2019t be right.\u00a0\u00a0They were not nebulae at all, but galaxies like our own!<\/p>\n Until that point, it was thought that the universe consisted entirely of the Milky Way, which was static and eternal.\u00a0 But Hubble discovered we had barely fathomed the cosmos.\u00a0 There were billions more galaxies like ours, and what\u2019s more \u2013 here\u2019s where it really got crazy \u2013 they were all hurtling away from each other at increasing speeds.<\/p>\n If objects in the universe were moving away from each other, that implied they had once been together.\u00a0 The universe was not static and eternal, it had an origin: what we now call the Big Bang.<\/p>\n Hubble had the seed of a new creation story.\u00a0 However, it didn\u2019t match with empirical observation.\u00a0 His calculations showed that the universe was younger than the earth, which was clearly impossible.\u00a0 Thus, however intriguing the story, it was not adopted.\u00a0 A beautiful theory was ruined by a brute fact.\u00a0 As in all good science, fact prevails over fancy.<\/p>\n This theory makes an interesting prediction.\u00a0 If the universe really began with a super-hot explosion, there should be a feint but measurable trace of it, a residual afterglow if you will.\u00a0 Modern instruments have since detected exactly that: the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation<\/a>.\u00a0 Thermal radiation, unassociated with stars, galaxies, or other objects, uniformly fills the entire observable universe.\u00a0 This is considered a key confirmation of the Big Bang model.<\/p>\n Recent discoveries may have even provided for why the Big Bang happened in the first place.\u00a0 Physicist Lawrence Krauss<\/a> has examined the nature of nothing<\/em> \u2013 meaning empty space with no particles, no energy, and no radiation \u2013 and found it to be a \u201ca boiling, bubbling, brew of virtual particles that are popping in and out of existence on a time scale so short you can\u2019t see them.\u201d\u00a0 As ephemeral as such virtual particles may seem, they are responsible for \u201cthe best comparisons between theory and experiment in all of science, to ten decimal places in quantum electrodynamics.\u201d\u00a0 While most of us would intuit this bubbling brew to be \u201csomething\u201d, our human difficulties conceiving of \u201cnothing\u201d in this way is no measure of the actual nature of it.\u00a0 The cause of the Big Bang then, according to Krauss, is that it had to happen: \u201cIf you have nothing in quantum mechanics, you\u2019ll always get something.\u201d<\/p>\n This narrative does no justice to the innumerable other contributors to modern cosmology, not the least of which is George Lema\u00eetre<\/a>, who actually discovered the expansion of the universe first but published in a lesser-known journal.\u00a0 Nor does it do justice to the many more considerations and lines of evidence necessary to establish firm confidence in the Big Bang theory.\u00a0 Nevertheless, it provides a taste.\u00a0 Moreover, the story has been told not to make a hero of Hubble, though a hero he may be, but to illustrate some of modern cosmology\u2019s methods and assumptions, which may lurk in the backs of our minds as we gaze upon the past.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Pertinent in this story are human observation, reasoning, and empirical evidence.\u00a0 Though Hubble\u2019s original expanding-universe hypothesis had been correct, it was rejected on empirical criteria.\u00a0 Furthermore, error and correction played a crucial part, involving a community of peer criticism.\u00a0 Scientific knowledge is assumed from the start to be fallible and progressive: fallible in that it is always liable to error, and progressive in that discoveries of error lead to new and better theories closer to the truth.<\/p>\n These features mark modern science off from many other historical traditions.\u00a0 They developed only over long centuries in particular contexts, and we would do well neither to project them onto the past nor to scorn past thinkers for lacking what had not yet developed.<\/p>\n More can be said of the assumptions implicit in modern cosmology.\u00a0 Everything in the universe is depicted as unfolding according to impersonal<\/em> physical<\/em> laws<\/em>.\u00a0 Those last three terms will prove crucial to our investigation, so it will be worthwhile to develop them.<\/p>\n These assumptions \u2013 it is misleading even to refer to them as assumptions, since they have been arrived at through extensive testing, refinement, and more testing \u2013 are characteristic of modern science in general, as well as the philosophy of naturalism<\/em> which underpins it.<\/p>\n They are not, however, unique to modern science.\u00a0 Multiple ancient traditions have incorporated them in whole or in part.\u00a0 Thus, they offer an important means of comparison and contrast with past eras.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n We are now in a better position to understand naturalism.\u00a0 As mentioned last time<\/a>, naturalism<\/em> can be defined as \u201cthe system of those who find all primary causes in nature\u201d (Furst and Skrine, 1971<\/a>).\u00a0 It should now be clear that nature<\/em>, in this context, refers to the universe of impersonal physical laws.\u00a0 Each people and age has its own concept of nature, and it will be important to keep the modern concept in its era and ancient ones in theirs.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Every creation story implies something about how we ought to live.\u00a0 Is modern cosmology an exception?<\/p>\n The reason for hesitation lies in what philosophers since Hume have more or less acknowledged as the is-ought problem<\/a> or naturalistic fallacy<\/a>: you can\u2019t get an ought<\/em> from an is<\/em>.\u00a0 This separation of facts and values is a distinction ancient peoples did not make and which remains questionable today.\u00a0 The next installment of this series will dwell further upon this issue, as we use evolution to explore modern views on human life and purpose.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, scientists are not completely reticent on the implications for human values.\u00a0 To conclude, here are a few such nuggets from Lawrence Krauss<\/a>:<\/p>\n For an inspiring presentation of Big History from the Big Bang to the present, see David Christian\u2019s TED Talk<\/a>.\u00a0 See also the International Big History Association<\/a> and TheGreatStory.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n CONTINUE TO PART 3 >><\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Subscribe to The Spiritual Naturalist Society<\/a><\/strong> __________ __________ __________ References<\/strong><\/p>\n Christian, D. and McNeill, W. H.\u00a0 (2011).\u00a0 Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History<\/em>.\u00a0 Los Angeles: University of California Press<\/p>\n Furst, L. and Skrine, P.\u00a0 (1971).\u00a0 Naturalism.\u00a0<\/em> London: Methuen.<\/p>\n Krauss, L.\u00a0 (2012).\u00a0 A Universe from Nothing<\/em>.\u00a0 New York: Free Press.<\/p>\n Previous Posts in this Series<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Orion](\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Orion_Nebula_-_Hubble_2006_mosaic_18000.jpg\" "\\"Orion")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat is modern cosmology?<\/h2>\n
A new creation story<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a>Later, it was discovered that Hubble\u2019s measurements had been off by a factor of ten.\u00a0 With more accurate measurements, theory fit fact.\u00a0 The new creation story worked.\u00a0 More researchers pursued many other independent lines of evidence all converging confidently on the same picture: the universe is expanding, and it began with a bang.<\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\nMethods and assumptions<\/h2>\n
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Understanding naturalism<\/h2>\n
The way to live?<\/h2>\n
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\nLearn about Membership in the Spiritual Naturalist Society<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nThe Spiritual Naturalist Society works to spread awareness of spiritual naturalism as a way of life, develop its thought and practice, and help bring together like-minded practitioners in fellowship.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nWritten by B.T. Newberg.<\/p>\n
\nThis article was first published in slightly altered form at Patheos.com.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n