Star watching

Karen folded her legs over the end of the bench and watched John as he puttered at the scope, jotting a few last notes to his coveted hour’s worth of observation.
“You know, philosophy majors have it a lot easier than you guys,” she grinned. “We don’t need ten million dollars’ worth of equipment to come up with something publishable.”
“Good thing, too, since you’ll never have ten million,” he lobbed back. This was a long-standing topic of amusement, good for at least one poke in the ribs every time she dropped by the physics department. She stretched and leaned back, surveying him under her eyelashes.
“Seriously though, it probably wouldn’t hurt you science geeks to have a few required courses in critical thinking…you get too hung up on your toys and forget to ground yourself. Think about what Democritus came up with without even a microscope, postulating atoms. Wonder if your grad students are up to that kind of thinking?”
“Heh…no. I figure I’m doing pretty well to teach them not to spill soda into the equipment. And I agree with what you’re saying, to an extent…but on the other hand, too much time thinking without referring to reality leads to Descartes nonsense. ‘I think not…’ poof!”
“We’re agreeing to disagree about Descartes this week, remember?”
“Sorry. Pet peeve.”
“S’fine. I feel the same way about Heisenberg.”
“How’s the paper coming?”
“Eh, okay I suppose…but I could use someone to bounce thoughts off of who can give me some unpredictable ricochets. Talking to people in my department ends up being mental masturbation. At least with you it’s somebody else’s hand.”
He looked up long enough to give her a risqué eyebrow; she smirked in return. Finishing up, he shoved papers into his bag and took a long step down from the platform, then sprawled next to her on the bench. Overhead, the open observatory roof let in starlight obscured only by a few wisps of high cloud; a good night for watching, with or without a telescope.
She leaned back and gazed upward. “It comes down to drawing an analogy about the development of faith in modern times with technological development. If we say that faith is encouraged by witnessing a supernatural event, something that can’t be explained by natural phenomena, then you have to concede that it gets a lot harder to invoke faith in the twenty-first century.”
“Yeah, your biblical characters only needed a burning bush or a tame lion to go into rhapsodies…”
“…And now it would take an asteroid appearing in Earth orbit inscribed with the word ‘Messiah’ or something, right. And even then it would be attributed to some private satellite company with a twisted sense of humor. We’re raising the bars for miracles…or you are, anyway…” She waved at the telescope. “And the societal repercussions are being felt. You have your technophiles, your civilized elite, looking down on the people who are still culturally encouraged to be excited over a weeping statue, and they’re discounting the entire experience of religious awe as a result. And I think it’s a loss.”
He was leaning back too, one knee up, wiry knuckles intertwined around it. She liked how he seemed to enjoy sky watching even after spending hours staring through the scope.
“Awe is where you find it, you know. Linking it to religion is a common mistake. That’s part of the problem with you bible-thumper types…you think spiritual growth only comes in your brand.”
“But I don’t! I recognize that you feel something when you do your job that’s spiritual. But I’m saying it’s not the same as finding something that truly is outside all bounds of experience, something truly other, that grabs you by the throat and shouts, “Listen! The world is not as it seems! That incredibly humbling realization that there’s something greater than we could ever comprehend out there, looking back at us from the other end of the telescope. That’s what our ancestors had sometimes, and what we’ve lost. Really, John: tell me you’ve ever been paralyzed with that realization of the numinous when you’re here, or anywhere else for that matter.”
“Have you ever stopped to wonder if this experience you’re talking about is a good thing?”
“What do you mean?”
“What you’ve been describing. Being overwhelmed with awe. Do you really think that’s something we need, as humans? Maybe the reason we don’t feel it as much is because we’re evolving beyond it. Think about it: the closest emotion to what you’ve described is paralyzing terror, the kind that makes you give up and just close your eyes when you’re having a nightmare and the nasty creature is about to eat you. It’s giving up because you have no alternative. Entertain this notion for a minute: that we don’t feel it because we do have alternatives now. We can shine a flashlight on the beast and see it for what it is, or shoot it with a gun and dissect it, or whatever. Maybe religion was a coping tool, and now we’re making better ones.”
“Huh. Well, this beats the hell out of quoting Descartes with my coworkers.”
“Always glad to oblige.” He released his grip on his knee and stretched a long arm around her; in the dark, they both watched the star-spattered sky.