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August 29, 2013

The Spiritual Benefits of Cosmology

By understanding a modern picture of cosmology, even at just an intuitive non-detailed level, people can get a wonderful spiritual sense of how they fit into the universe.

There is a spiritual content to cosmology that I think is tremendously attractive. I find that my own happiness has really increased a lot since I’ve learned about modern cosmology. I think everyone needs a sense of belonging to something really big and important. And I didn’t have that when I was younger.

What is a spiritual orientation is a sense of relationship to the larger universe. I don’t use the word spiritual to mean something’s out there, some being out there. But I do use the word spiritual to mean my experience of how I fit into the universe. And I can experience that if I know how I fit into the universe. I can’t if I don’t.

So by understanding a modern picture of cosmology, even at just an intuitive non-detailed level, people can get a wonderful spiritual sense of how they fit into the universe, which I think is invaluable and really could be the motivation for making the big changes that we need to make.

In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think’s studio.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

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