The cosmic perspective is humble. The cosmic perspective is spiritual—even redemptive—but not religious.

Every account of a higher power that I've seen described, of all religions that I've seen, include many statements with regard to the benevolence of that power. When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence.

Whenever people have used religious documents to make accurate predictions about our base knowledge of the physical world, they have been famously wrong.

We should not be ashamed of not having answers to all questions yet...I'm perfectly happy staring somebody in the face saying, I don't know yet, and we've got top people working on it. The moment you feel compelled to provide an answer, then you're doing the same thing that the religious community does: providing answers to every possible question.

So what is true for life itself is no less true for the universe: knowing where you came from is no less important than knowing where you are going.