Anyone with a deep interest in science, as I imagine all of us here have, must have recognized how similar are scientific curiosity and religious devotion. They both must serve the same basic psychological need, to try and understand what the fuck is actually going on "out there". This, of course, is of immense practical interest for our survival, even the most primitive organisms have the means to collect information on their surroundings and using that information to direct their activities. I believe this need to understand reality is wired into us through evolution, and although it may have a very straightforward biological reason behind it, the emotional response to it is intensely pleasurable. Its one of those things, like the delight one recieves from love, or eating, or even successfully eliminating bodily waste, that has a direct practical benefit. But that doesn't mean it doesn't feel good, too.

There is one major difference, though. The satisfaction one recieves from satisfying scientific curiosity does not include the reassurance of knowing that we are being cared for by a divine force, or that we are going to have a life after death.

It is my personal opinion, my faith, that the universe is utterly indifferent to us. It doesn't care what happens to us, it doesn't know we're here, it doesn't really know anything. But I also must concede that people who don't agree with me often have as successful and fulfilling lives as I do. At least one of us HAS to be mistaken, but that doesn't seem to matter, as far as we are concerned. If there is no absolute truth, (other than a few physical laws and equations that we need to maintain to run the machinery)then you can get to make your own.

Complete and accurate knowledge of external reality is totally unnecessary in order for us to live meaningful and exciting lives. We wouldn't even recognize it if we had it. We get to decide how the universe works for us, not the distant galaxies, or the quantum foam, or the Big Bang, or Zeus.