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That debate illustrated the silliness that results when religion is regarded as primarily a collection of factual claims about the cosmos, rather than a practice of worship. When religion and science are set up as competing theories of cosmology, in a fight that follows the rules of science, there is little doubt that religion will lose.

Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival

But this outcome is somehow unsatisfying. It is a pantomime battle. It overstates the achievements and explanatory power of science, which remains ignorant about the deepest questions of, for example, cosmic origins, how life began, and how consciousness arises from matter.

It also fails to take into account the reasons people are drawn to and stay with religion, and instead assumes it is simply to hear a robed man tell them pseudo-facts about the origin of the world, as if he were a professor. But the Bible, the Qu’ran and the Torah are not text books, and treating them as such leads to two distinct kinds of nonsense: the pseudo-scientific claims of biblical literalists, and the “well, actually” responses of science popularizers, which are typically presented as the over-confident last word.

It blurs the seemingly hard line that exists between what science is and what religion does

There is a flip side to discussing religion on scientific grounds, and that is discussing science on religious grounds. This is what Nairn has identified as a modern intellectual trend, in which Cosmos and its remake are the shining examples.

“Cosmos is more than a science education show, it is more than a historical artefact, it is more than a legacy of a man: it is prophecy, it is revelation, it is a worldview. A perspective on science, the human story, and life,” Nairn writes. “It blurs the seemingly hard line that exists between what science is and what religion does.”

• Email: jbrean@nationalpost.com | Twitter: josephbrean