Cosmic Elation

God, happy with creation, moved into creation and now lives among us.

If you're thinking of a comfortable place to ponder the origins of the universe, the South Pole would probably be pretty far down on your list. The highest temperature ever recorded there was just 9.9 degrees Fahrenheit, while the lowest was -117 degrees -- not exactly the kind of place to put one in a garden-of-Eden frame of mind.

Yet, the South Pole is the perfect place for cosmic contemplation because it's the one place on Earth that you can get closest to space and still be on the ground. It's also one of the driest and clearest locations for observing things like faint microwaves in space -- which science geeks think are linked to the "Big Bang" theory of creation.

So science people love the South Pole. People of faith, like us, might yawn, because -- since the Enlightenment -- science and religion have often been at odds over the origins of life and the universe and there's a lot at stake in the debate. Many people wonder if they have to check their brains at the door when they...