Cosmology Cavalcade

I had the privilege to be involved in the making of a brand new book by John Kotre titled The Story of Everything.* In this little book, John uses an extended parable to find a way by which the “competing” cosmologies of religion and science might better coexist. The The Story of Everything is a unique, compelling, and welcome addition to the literature that deals with this aspect of the “culture wars” that plague our society.

Stories of ultimate beginnings have always fascinated me. That there are so many of them is no surprise, given the diversity found on the planet in terms of geography, climate, and general living conditions. One could hardly expect peoples, preliterate or otherwise, to come up with common expressions of their origins when day-to-day experience ranges from Arctic ice to Saharan desert to Amazon rainforest to Rocky Mountains. Life experience at the 65th parallel will undoubtedly lead to a different cosmology than that at the equator. The cosmology of people who are enslaved will be different from that of those who enslave them. And then science brings its own vast set of empirical observation to bear on our exploration.

John Kotre revels in the diversity of stories and the way we pass them from generation to generation. In The Story of Everything he explores religious and scientific cosmologies, and, by way of parable, creates a new cosmology that is traditional, contemporary, mythological, and scientific.

To support this effort, John has created a website called The Story-of-Everything Place (www.thestoryofeverything.com). Here, he invites discussion of his parable; but more importantly, he invites readers to share their own stories of everything. The Story-of-Everything Place is bound to become a sort of cosmological bazaar where people can bring the stories they’ve been told since they were children, as well as create new stories.It’s a big universe, worthy of many stories. John Kotre is giving us all a chance to join in the play of it all.

*If you click on the Amazon link, don’t be put off by the slightly different title; a late alteration by the publisher has apparently not been updated in the various bookselling databases.