Religious Implications

from
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey Episode 1

By: Umer Ahmed Khan

Although, the episode mainly focuses on “The Cosmos”, it’s origin and
how tiny we are in its scale; there are a few religious implications as
well.
Firstly, the narrator, Neil deGrasse Tyson when answering the question
about the origin of life states “We still don’t know how life got
started”. This triggers our mind into the unknown and as believers, we
believe God knows the unknown (to us) and hence only God knows about the
precise origin of life.
Moving on, the tale of Giordano Bruno, tells us that his believes
contradicted the scriptures, but his curiosity to know about God’s
creation lead him into reading books banned by the church. In one of
these books, Lucretius (the author) asked the reader to imagine standing
at the edge of the universe and shooting an arrow outward. If the arrow
keeps going, then clearly, the universe extends beyond what you thought
was the edge.
But if the arrow doesn't keep going say it hits a wall then that wall
must lie beyond what you thought was the edge of the universe.
Now if you stand on that wall and shoot another arrow, there are only
the same two possible outcomes it either flies forever out into space,
or it hits some boundary where you can stand and shoot yet another
arrow.
Either way, the universe is unbounded.
The cosmos must be infinite.
This proved to Bruno that the God he worshipped was infinite, and fired
another thought of curiosity in his mind, if his God was infinite, then
there was no way the Creation of THAT God could be any less.
He tried proving his vision of infinite stars, and planets to the
people. But he was excommunicated by the Catholic Church, expelled by
the Calvinists and Lutherans. When he finally got the chance to preach
his thoughts, he told the people “Our infinite God created a boundless
universe with an infinite number of worlds.” But he was taunted with
replies like “Do they not read Aristotle where you come from? Or even
the Bible? I beg you, reject antiquity, tradition, faith, and
authority.”
They told him his God was too small for all of this.
All of this proves that the scriptures Aristotle, Bible and others
limited the vision of the world and the people who had faith in them,
followed their traditions and refused to accept the possibility of a
world beyond their tiny solar system.