Celestial Signposts: Astronomical Orientation and the Ordering of Human Life
The heavens were once looked to for guidance, not in a superstitious sense (rejected as far back as Genesis, which in part functions as a polemic against astrological determinism) but as ordering realities. The patterns of the cosmos were seen to be grounded in beauty, intelligibility, and regularity that could be apprehended and put to use in daily life as a source of orientation – practical, moral, and spiritual alike. That vision of, and dependence upon, the cosmological framework has been abandoned.
