ASTRONOMY AND RELIGION.

Southland Times, Issue 20011, 27 October 1926, Page 9

ASTRONOMY AND RELIGION.

To the Editor. Sir—-A correspondent “Hope,” in the course of an interesting letter, draws attention to the marvels of astronomy and asserts: “No estronomer could be an atheist.” If by this he means dogmatic atheism, that is, the positive denial of the existence of God, he is probably correct. If by sceptical atheism is implied he is just as probably wrong. Sceptical atheism distrusts the capacity of the human mind to discover the existence of God, and really amounts to agnosticism ; and agnosticism is without doubt the mental -attitude of the great majority of men of science to-day, just as it dominates the world of philosophy. Some people do not distinguish between dogmatic atheism and agnosticism. The former is just plebeian or “mob” agnosticism, and the latter fashionable or “snob” atheism; but there is an essential difference notwithstanding. If, however, as your correspondent states, the facts of astronomy turn one away from atheism, may not the question be asked: “Do those facts lead one to accept Christianity ?” A view of the heavens through a powerful telescope reveals the presence in the abyss of space of some five hundred million stars. These are visible. How many are invisible in the unexplored immensity whose background ever recedes as it is approached ? Many, if not most, of these stars are suns larger than our own and many are known to be surrounded by planets compared with which our earth is quite a trivial thing. We have not the slightest ground for supposing that this planet alone among stellar bodies supports life. The same laws pervade the whole universe and everything suggests that life nf some sort exists in other spheres where the conditions are suitable. Yet the churches still advance the old theological view of the supreme importance of this insignificant little planet in the eyes of the “Almighty Ruler” of the universe and assert that he sent his “only son” to die for us cosmic microbes, leaving the rest of the universe in the lurch. The presumption involved in this belief has been stated (Richard Harte: “Lay Religion”) “as amounting to insanity,” and the most moderate criticism that can be passed on it is That it is grossly irrational, and indicates unbounded egotism on the part of its holders. I cannot con- . ceive how any astronomer can hold to such I a belief identified as it is with a primitive cosmogony which supposed the earth to be the centre of the universe. The first one Ihave referred to—Camille Flammarion, the eminent Frenchman—flatly rejected it. And I cannot but feel that every mind that ponders the question and accepts the judgment of reason, must likewise reject it.—l am, etc.,