"Creation stories come out of our species' childhood. They may be wrong, may tell us nothing about how the world really began, but they do tell us that people have always believed that it began for a reason, so our lives are not purposeless. " Madiel realized after half a dozen heartbeats that the scientists were waiting for him to continue. He was not sure, however, which way they expected him to go. He said, "A relative handful of creation myths admit to total ignorance of how the world came into existence. "

"Decent of them. "

“They’re concerned only with the origins of people. Otherwise, there’s broad agreement -- between Eskimos and the Rig-Veda and from the Congo to Siberia -- that in the beginning there was chaos. From the Greek for chasm. The disorder of formless matter and infinite space before the ordering of the universe. Pre-Big Bang, in your patois. Chaos is sometimes described as mere nothing, empty darkness. But the human mind can grasp nothing only if it surrounds or is surrounded by something.   Try as we might, we’re stuck with spatiality and temporality. So, often, chaos is described as darkness and empty ocean. You’d almost think the story-tellers were precursors of eighteenth-century European Neptunists, who theorized that all rocks had been precipitated from seawater. Unsurprisingly, Pacific islanders said there was only open ocean in the beginning. Very surprisingly, to me, anyway, Crow story-tellers living on the Great Plains said the same thing. Among the watery creation myths you occasionally find a neat embellishment. The Maya-Quiché of Central America said that at first there was no motion and no sound. Stasis and silence. The Jicarilla Apaches insisted on darkness, water, and cyclones. Somewhat more evocative of roiling chaos. Green slime floated on the Mixtecs’ version of the primeval waters. "

"Sounds almost like they had the Silurian Period in mind. "

"A single rock jutted above the primeval Haida sea, providing a resting place for Raven, who, having rested, set about making the world. The Yokuts' great sea had a stump sticking up out of it, and more than one creator was involved in making everything--Eagle, Coyote, Duck, Lizard. "

"Art by committee!"

"At length, of course, something or somebody disturbs the status quo. As the Egyptians told it, the primeval hillock rose from the waters of chaos. As others told it, Raven found a clamshell, and inside it were the first people. Without much prompting, Bumba vomited up the sun, moon, stars, and everything else. The Winnebago Earthmaker gradually became conscious and found himself sitting in nothingness. "

"What was he sitting on?"

"The story doesn't say, but he nevertheless takes a piece of it and fashions the world from it. In some stories, the first deity grows out of primeval chaos, or ocean, and duly sets about bringing forth or imposing order, creating the familiar world by utterance, from part of the deity's own body, or from some other deity's body. Or that of a slain giant, like the Norse Ymir. Ymir was spawned in Ginnungagap, the cold, fathomless void that yawns at the center of the earth and into which the rivers of the universe empty. The brothers Odin, Vili, and Ve, kill Ymir, whose bones become rocks and mountains, and his blood, the seas. Plants sprout from his hair. His skull forms the dome of the sky, his brains become fog and clouds. "

"Waste not," Gabbert said, with arid humor, "want not. "

"Gab," Helen growled, "be nice. "

"Why, Helen, whatever do you mean?"

"I can't actually see the expression on your face in this light, but I know you're sneering. "

"Au contraire. I'm fascinated. Tell me, Chaplain, do you ever wonder about life on other worlds?"

"Of course. "

"Though your Bible doesn't mention it? Though it claims God created the moon and the stars to glorify his name, and incidentally to aid us in navigation?"

"The Bible doesn't mention the Americas," Madiel said, "or butterflies, or spacetime anomalies. Yet they exist. "

"Patently. "

"Take another look at this sky, Gab. Then tell me it doesn't say something about the glory of God. "

"I'm surprised at you, Helen. Don't argue from design. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. "

"You should be ashamed. The sight of this sky doesn't move you? And the fact that it's a Paleozoic sky, and you, almost alone of all the astronomers who've ever lived--by a miracle, you've--"

"By the grace of physics, Helen. "

"By a miracle of physics, you've been allowed to cross hundreds of millions of years and stand here and look at this. "

"I can be profoundly moved without believing in the supernatural. Allow me to issue the following official statement. " He struck a pose. "Yes, I do feel awe and wonder whenever I contemplate the vastness and splendor of the universe. We astronomers are humble people. "

Helen erupted into laughter. "Astronomers are the snidest, snottiest, most stuck-up people here. You call us earth-science types grubs. "

"And worse, dear Helen, when you're not around. But when our attention is directed upward to the heavens rather than downward to our inferiors, when we ponder the mysteries of energy and matter and distance, why, we wax positively poetical. "

"And," asked the chaplain, "that's all it is, in your view, nothing more personal than energy, matter, and distance?"

"I don't believe the universe is personal. We take it personally and tell ourselves that we're the consciousness of the cosmos, but the fact of the matter is, we're isolated local phenomena. Temporary aberrations--in gross violation of the second law of thermodynamics. We're infinitesimal specks of matter and sparks of energy, arranged in such a way that we're aware of ourselves and our surroundings. Some of us look around and say, 'Oh, my God,' as if that explained everything. But some of us aren't satisfied with that. We want to find out as much as we can in the little time we have, and not take anything on faith. Better insignificant but informed sparky specks than ignorant and arrogant ones. If you buy the physicists' theory of multiple universes, we shrink even further in significance, down to the sub-micro-infinitesimal. Can even the one true God Almighty pick us out amid the infinite details of an infinite series of universes? Or do you suppose each universe has its own one true God Almighty?"