I've just started a course on Coursera about "big history," the multi-discipline story of, basically, the universe. One of the lessons included an interesting work by one of the instructors, David Christian. An excerpt, offering a possible explanation of why religious beliefs can be held by the educated: "I taught in San Diego for many years, and I taught Big History. I had a lot of students who were Creationists. They had the courage to say to me that they struggled with all of this. One of the things I found was that many of them are struggling in a way that is admirable. They're looking for big story. They don't find it in science because we don't teach it that way. Eventually they go to their churches because they do find a big story there. Quite a few, I realized, are a bit uneasy about this, because they realize there's a mismatch between the big story which they get from their churches, and the science that created the iPhone that they carry in their pockets. They're a bit uncomfortable about this. The reason they will go to that story, despite the discomfort, is precisely because science does not present itself as containing an alternative story. That's why I'd like to think that Big History can lead many students to see science as not merely powerful knowledge, but as meaningful knowledge, as knowledge that tells you about who you are and what you are." [[coursera.org]]