Sorry for the late reply. Fucking power cuts.
I couldn't make sense of what you were trying to say.
Had a feeling you wouldn't.
Cows in fact do not know a lot of things. They don't know that water is H20 nor that all stars are like the Sun nor what an atomic bomb is.
Would knowing the chemical composition of bovine faeces make it any more palatable? (Remember that bovine faeces are not 'stupid, abstract things'. They are as real as you or me.) Knowing something is no guarantee of appreciation. A child maybe fascinated by meteor showers. A meteor shower researcher who knows a fucking lot about meteor showers maybe bored to death and decide to quit the PhD.
It is science. I hope you aren't one of those who takes offense at the mention of the term "it is science".
I do take offence because 'it' (the Universe which you are referring to) isn't science. Science isn't Saturn or a star or a farm animal, it's a process. A process by which a (tiny) section of people who are interested, find more stuff about things they are interested in roughly following the so-called scientific method.
Religion/god(at least in the local planetary context) is a very human-centric view.
As is everything else. Even science is a process where humans learn about themselves and things around them either because they are curious or it has some material advantage.
In reality, Earth is like a mere speck of dust in the vastness of the Universe, chances are that no other race would ever be aware that humans/earth even existed in a couple of billion years. May sound a bit heady, but doesn't make it any less real. Doesn't need any faith to exist, it is true whether humans are living or extinct.
The very reason you know this and are trying to ascribe some meaning to it is because you are a human. Removing the sole observer leaves nothing to talk about.
Now don't tell me all this "Universe is out there" talk is equal to "religion". One is very real and in front of you, the other is an abstract non-existent concept and a very human concept.
Nonsense. Both these concepts are meaningful only in the human context where there is no reason why one has to be more significant than the other. I can picture both the Himalayan ascetic and the resolute astrophysicist living out their lives without ever acknowledging each others perspective. If one of them believes in an imaginary being will it make his life any less meaningful?