Cosmic Winter Ch.6 Extended Summary

Summary by Lee Vaughn - Myth Of Ends

Enlightenment 

For most of early human history, people didn’t just believe in the gods—they saw them. The gods were real, visible, and powerful presences in the sky. They weren’t abstract ideas or metaphors. They were moving lights, fiery beings, and forces that roamed the heavens. These celestial figures—bright, strange, and awe-inspiring—were believed to control nature, weather, fate, and sometimes even human lives. People told stories about their travels, their disappearances, their family lines, and their often unpredictable temperaments. When disaster struck, it was seen as a punishment or a sign from the gods, not something explainable by nature or science.

So, when Solon, the famous Greek lawmaker, returned from Egypt with tales of a great flood and destruction—not caused by angry gods but by natural forces from space—such an idea would have seemed unbelievable to most people. Why? Because their sky was still full of active, divine beings. The notion that destruction could come from a mindless celestial object, like a comet or asteroid, didn’t fit the world they knew.

But something began to change in the seventh century BC. In Greece, thinkers started looking at the sky in a new way. They began asking, “What if the heavens didn’t work because of the gods, but because of natural laws?” These early philosophers weren’t just telling stories anymore—they were building theories. But this kind of thinking could only rise if the gods themselves had started to fade. If those bright, wandering lights were no longer behaving in mysterious ways, or had disappeared altogether, it became easier to imagine a universe driven by logic, not divine will.

Still, this shift didn’t happen easily or without resistance. Anaxagoras, for example, was exiled for daring to say that the Sun was just a hot rock, not a god. Socrates, one of the most famous thinkers in history, was executed in part for speaking of gods no one could see. But over time, a new idea took hold: that perhaps there was only one god, and this god wasn’t constantly interfering with nature. Instead, the universe ran on a fixed path, with occasional divine guidance from afar.

Even with this change, myth and logic continued to intertwine. The transition from storytelling to scientific theory wasn’t clean or complete. The early Greek thinkers—natural philosophers—still worked with ideas shaped by ancient myths. For instance, Plato, in the fourth century BC, told the story of Atlantis, a tale filled with mythic destruction, yet likely grounded in real celestial events. The sky that inspired these theories wasn’t necessarily the same one we see today. It might have once looked very different.

Let’s look at Thales, considered by many the first natural philosopher. He lived around 625 to 545 BC. According to a reconstruction of his beliefs, he imagined that everything started with a vast ocean. A swirling whirlpool formed, and the Earth slowly grew out of it. Air moved around in circular currents, and stars and lights were carried upward by the winds, then sometimes plunged back into the sea. This early cosmos was like a giant ship floating on water. Water, to Thales, was not just a basic element—it was eternal, powerful, and even divine. It steered the Earth and controlled its motion.

Anaximander, a student of Thales, had a different view. He imagined the universe starting with a formless, boundless substance. From this, a fiery egg emerged. Over time, rings of fire separated from the egg, like the bark of a tree. These rings wrapped around a cylindrical Earth. The Earth floated freely in space, balanced perfectly by being equally distant from everything else. These fiery hoops were like temporary gods, filled with compressed air and fire. The fire inside would shine through little vents, which we now think might represent stars.

To modern ears, these ideas might sound bizarre. Stars as wheels filled with fire? Earth as a floating cylinder? Yet these theories were based on what ancient people actually saw in the night sky. It’s possible they observed things we no longer see—maybe enormous comet trails or glowing bodies that have since disappeared. When Anaximander said the stars were closer than the Moon, it seemed odd. But perhaps he was seeing objects that truly behaved that way, passing in front of the Moon, blocking its light. These might have been remnants of ancient comets—burning, fading, and orbiting invisibly.

Around this time, the Pythagoreans offered another bold idea: that the Earth was a planet, a kind of star, orbiting a central fire. This fire wasn’t the Sun but something deeper and more sacred. They called it the “Mother of the Gods” or “Citadel of Zeus.” Earth’s motion around this center would sometimes bring it through hoops or windows in the sky—places where brilliant stars or lights would shoot out. These events weren’t random. They had meaning, structure, and rhythm.

Contrary to what many believe today, ancient Greek philosophers likely understood the Earth orbited something. Cicero, writing centuries later, said that Nicetus of Syracuse believed all the stars stood still while Earth moved. He also realized that Earth’s axis created the illusion of moving heavens. Aristarchus of Samos, even before Copernicus, described a heliocentric universe, where Earth orbited the Sun. And Pythagoras, long before them, suggested Earth rotated on its axis, creating day and night.

But what was this central fire? Was it real? If not the Sun, what were they describing? One possible answer is the zodiacal light. This light is created by dust from comets and can be seen near the Sun just after sunset or before sunrise. In places with dark, clear skies—like deserts or mountains—it appears as a glowing pillar of light, like a staircase into the stars. In ancient times, this zodiacal cloud may have been much brighter and more detailed. If it contained decaying comets, it could have looked like structured rings of fire, through which Earth passed during its orbit.

This brings us to a powerful idea from Democritus of Abdera, a thinker from around 450 BC. Seneca called him the most subtle of the ancients. Democritus believed many celestial bodies moved around the universe, unseen because their light was too dim or their paths too hidden. These were invisible stars—ghostly objects, leftovers from past cosmic events.

It’s likely that Pythagoras and others borrowed knowledge from the Babylonians. The Babylonians may have understood the solar system far better than we think. One later Babylonian-trained Greek, Seleucus, continued to argue—correctly—that Earth rotated daily and orbited the Sun. But for most ancient observers, what filled their thoughts and stories were not orbits and gravity, but meteors, fireballs, and their connections to dying comets.

These fiery signs from the sky weren’t just random events to them. They were warnings, symbols, and perhaps echoes of past disasters—cataclysms tied to the gods’ fading presence in the heavens. Through myth and observation, early humans tried to understand their place in a changing universe, one where the divine sky had begun to go silent, leaving behind only trails of light and mystery.

In the earliest days of philosophy, before science as we know it existed, people still looked up at the sky and tried to make sense of what they saw. One major belief held by early thinkers was that the Sun, Moon, and stars were not gods themselves, but fiery stones—real, solid bodies—being carried around the heavens by the spinning motion of a mysterious substance called the aether. They imagined this invisible force moving everything in the sky in great circular paths. Beneath the stars were the Sun and Moon, along with other unknown bodies that also orbited, but couldn’t be seen. These hidden objects might occasionally pass in front of the Moon, blocking its light, or contribute to its eclipse along with Earth’s shadow.

Many of the early Greek philosophers—often called the pre-Socratics—borrowed ideas from older civilizations like the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians. These ancient sources described a universe that had emerged from a kind of cosmic egg—an undivided, featureless mass. From that egg, four basic elements separated: fire, air, water, and earth. These four elements came together to form the temporary world we live in.

They also believed the world was flat, with the Earth floating at the center, surrounded by a vast ocean. This ocean wasn’t just physical—it was also spiritual, reaching up to touch the sky. The sky was thought to contain the “waters above,” and the ocean below was connected to it. According to their stories, this wasn’t the only world that ever existed. There had been others—temporary worlds that formed, were destroyed, and returned to the boundless void from which they came. Each one, they believed, was part of a cycle of creation and destruction.

Here’s where things get even more interesting: this entire description matches surprisingly well with what happens when a large comet begins to break apart and spreads its dust through the solar system. When a major comet disintegrates, it pours out huge amounts of debris into a region of space called the zodiacal cloud. This cloud, made of comet dust, reflects sunlight—and when it’s dense, it can shine brightly in the sky. We see this glow today as the zodiacal light—a faint, glowing column of light near the horizon just after sunset or before sunrise.

Now imagine if, thousands of years ago, a truly massive comet broke up and dumped so much dust into space that the zodiacal light became intense—so bright that it stretched across the sky like a glowing river. That’s what ancient people may have seen. It could have looked like a band of fire, even reaching below the Moon. In fact, early references to the Milky Way may actually describe this brighter version of the zodiacal light rather than the galactic feature we see today.

People said the Milky Way was once the path of the Sun, or that it was caused by the Earth's shadow. Others thought it was a hot cloud made from the remains of many comets, slowly breaking apart. They described spinning wheels of fire in the sky, glowing jets shooting outward, and unknown bodies coming between the Moon and Earth. These early philosophers were likely trying to explain real observations—perhaps things passed down from their ancestors—of a night sky that was far more dramatic and active than the one we see today.

It’s quite possible that these stories weren’t just made up, but were based on firsthand experiences with celestial events. Comets, especially when they’re breaking apart, can leave glowing trails, generate fireballs, and create strange effects in the sky. The early thinkers may have been witnessing, or remembering, a time when the skies were filled with this activity. These weren’t just stories about gods—they were early attempts to describe the physical processes of the heavens.

This shift in perspective—from gods to nature—didn’t happen all at once. For a long time, people assumed that when early philosophers talked about the sky, they were mainly thinking about planets. But there’s growing evidence that they were focused on comets and meteor activity. These dramatic celestial events were often seen as messages from the gods, symbols of doom or change. And if a great comet had recently broken apart in the sky, it would explain why these topics were so important to them.

One Greek thinker, Heraclitus, spoke of gods and thunderbolts in ways that sound a lot like fireballs and meteors. These ideas weren’t just metaphorical. The ancient world may have really been dealing with an environment in which these fiery visitors from space were common and frightening.

If this is true, it changes the way we understand classical thinkers like Lucretius, who lived in the first century BC. In his work De Rerum Natura, he didn’t spend much time on the usual motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets. Instead, he focused on the terrifying and unpredictable: lightning, volcanoes, earthquakes, and comets. These were the phenomena that captured people's fears and attention. The Greeks even classified comets into types—some like beards, others like cypress trees or torches—clearly referring to fireballs and glowing trails in the sky.

This focus on fiery events wasn’t a mistake or misunderstanding. It might actually be proof that the skies during that time were more active—possibly because of a recent comet break-up that filled Earth’s orbital path with debris. Ancient observers were living under a sky that frequently delivered shooting stars, blazing comets, and thunderous impacts. Their fear of these things wasn’t superstition—it was based on lived experience.

Of course, over time, these ideas faded. By the end of the first millennium BC, people had started to think comets were caused by wind swirling in Earth’s atmosphere. But even then, thinkers like Lucretius and Seneca still held on to the older, more accurate view—that comets and meteors came from beyond the Earth.

Meanwhile, the Greeks slowly shifted toward a different kind of thinking. Around the 4th century BC, attention turned to the planets and their motions. With the rise of geometry and rational thought, the heavens became a place of orderly movement, not chaos. Plato and Eudoxus led this shift, imagining the cosmos as a system of perfect circles and mathematical harmony. Plato, especially, believed that the world was built on logic and could be understood through pure reason. In his Timaeus, he still mentioned Atlantis, but now even its destruction followed a kind of divine logic—not just the whim of angry gods.

Interestingly, this new focus on the planets only took hold after the more terrifying sky gods had vanished. And even then, the planets weren’t named after gods right away. The Pythagoreans may have started naming them in the sixth century BC, but the use of names like Jupiter, Mars, and Venus didn’t happen until later—first in Greece, then in Rome. Early on, these names weren’t even appropriate. Planets were described with comet-like features: Mars as a torch, Venus as a horseman, Mercury as a spear. Ancient astrologers and observers saw the planets through a cometary lens—still haunted by the sky’s violent past.

Even centuries later, in ninth-century Baghdad, Islamic scholars were using terms like “bearded” and “lamp” to describe the planets—terms that matched earlier comet descriptions in Pliny’s Natural History. The ancient memory of comet activity still lingered, embedded in the names, symbols, and traditions passed down through the ages.

After the age of early Greek philosophers who still remembered fiery gods in the sky, a new kind of cosmology took hold—one that would reshape the world for centuries to come. At the center of this change was Aristotle, the student of Plato. Living from 384 to 322 BC, Aristotle wasn’t just a philosopher; he was a careful observer of nature—a zoologist, a classifier, someone interested in facts that could be seen, touched, and studied.

Aristotle’s approach to science was practical. He believed truth should come from direct observation—what you can see here and now—not from ancient myths or stories passed down through generations. If something didn’t match what your senses told you, he was likely to dismiss it. This mindset made earlier beliefs about comets—as gods, omens, or celestial beings—seem outdated and unreliable.

With Aristotle’s influence growing, especially in academic circles, the old view of comets as divine messengers began to fade. Slowly, they lost their status. In Aristotle’s system, comets were no longer powerful or supernatural. They were simply weather events—brief and meaningless, like a rainstorm. This shift had a lasting effect. While many people continued to be in awe of comets, academic thinking moved on. The old cometary gods became little more than fading folklore, and comets themselves were no longer seen as part of the heavens.

Aristotle’s model of the universe also made a huge assumption: he believed the Earth was at the center of everything and didn’t move. Why? Because if Earth moved around the Sun, then the positions of the stars would appear to shift—something called parallax. Since no such shift could be detected back then, Aristotle concluded the Earth must be still. From a scientific point of view, it was a reasonable guess—especially since the distances to the stars were unknown at the time. It’s worth remembering that even Copernicus, many centuries later, made his bold claims about a moving Earth without having evidence of parallax either.

To explain the heavens, Aristotle introduced the idea of a fifth element: aether. This substance, more divine than fire, water, earth, or air, filled the space beyond the Moon. He believed the stars and planets were made of this aether, and because it was perfect and eternal, these bodies moved in perfect circles. Unlike earthly elements, which sought their natural place (like fire rising or rocks falling), aether already existed in its ideal state. That meant heavenly bodies didn’t move up or down—they moved in eternal, flawless loops around the Earth.

In Aristotle’s system, the planets didn’t roam freely as we imagine today. Instead, they were locked into a series of interwoven spheres. Each planet, star, and celestial object was attached to a transparent, rotating shell. All these shells were connected and set in motion by a “Prime Mover”—a divine force beyond the outermost sphere. This model, with its many layers, would dominate astronomy for over a thousand years.

But there were problems. Planetary movement isn’t simple. Sometimes planets appear to reverse direction briefly in the sky—a motion called retrograde. Their paths also don’t line up perfectly with the Sun’s path across the sky. To make his model work, Aristotle had to introduce 55 separate spheres to account for only nine celestial objects (the five known planets, the Moon, the Sun, the fixed stars, and the Prime Mover). It became a complex, confusing system. Still, people admired its beauty and logic. It painted a picture of a perfect universe above the Moon and an imperfect one below.

And this vision left no place for comets. Their unpredictable behavior didn’t fit the idea of a perfect sky. So, they were officially downgraded—no longer heavenly beings, but low-level atmospheric phenomena. They were separated from the gods, pushed down to Earth’s realm, and treated as brief flashes in the weather cycle.

This change didn’t happen overnight. At first, Aristotle’s ideas were popular mainly in Alexandria, a major intellectual center. But one thing made his ideas more acceptable over time: the gods of the sky had vanished. The brilliant, chaotic comets that had once ruled myth were gone. With fewer sightings and no clear explanation for the old stories, later generations had trouble connecting myth to sky. As memory faded, only the planets were left. Yet they were too simple—too orderly—to hold all the rich meaning of myth. Still, they became the new celestial characters, taking the place of the old gods.

This shift had a lasting effect on how people imagined the gods themselves. The divine became distant, abstract, and impersonal. Aristotle himself didn’t reject belief in gods, but he wanted to remove fear and superstition from the conversation. He dismissed the Olympian gods of myth as human-like figures created by imagination. But he also cleverly allowed room for a divine principle in the heavens—something eternal and intelligent. He said our ancestors had sensed a divine substance in the sky, and this, he claimed, was what they really meant when they told their stories.

This strategy gave Aristotle’s system credibility. It didn’t directly challenge ancient beliefs, but it replaced their meaning. Now the planets—these calm, mathematically predictable objects—were seen as divine, not because of myth, but because of their perfection. These new planetary gods weren’t wild or fiery. They were rational, obedient to geometry, and more symbolic than supernatural.

But there was more to this than science. There was also politics. The Greek world was full of city-states, often in conflict, and leaders were looking for ways to stabilize society. A new kind of god—calm, ordered, and less terrifying—helped serve that goal. These tame gods no longer interfered with human life in unpredictable ways. As Karl Marx would later note, religion could act like a kind of calming drug. The powerful, especially the wealthy elite, may have seen benefits in promoting a version of religion that helped keep people in line without sparking chaos.

Critias, a politician and philosopher of the time, gave a cynical view of how belief in gods might have started. He suggested that a clever person invented the idea of divine watchers—gods who could hear and see everything, even people’s thoughts. This idea, he claimed, was meant to scare people into behaving, even when no one else was watching. According to him, the creator of religion pointed to the sky and said, “There is your proof—the lightning, the thunder, the stars. The gods are watching from above.” Whether this was true or not, it reveals how deeply the idea of celestial power was tied to fear, order, and control.

Plato and Aristotle weren’t worshipped in their own time. But their ideas eventually won out. Their rational systems replaced the old cosmic myths. Over time, what had once been a vivid, terrifying, and sacred sky full of flaming gods became a quiet, organized, predictable place. There wasn’t necessarily a grand conspiracy behind this change, but it matched the needs of society. In monarchies, people preferred a universe ruled by divine design. In democracies, the idea of a mechanical universe with no divine interference became more acceptable.

What’s clear is that by the time of Aristotle, the heavens had changed—both in the sky and in the minds of those who watched it.

It’s never easy to say exactly what causes big shifts in history. The connection between ideas and consequences is often subtle. But looking back now, it’s clear that Aristotle played a major role in one of the most important transformations in the way humans viewed the universe.

By breaking away from his teacher Plato, Aristotle reimagined the cosmos. He removed comets from the realm of the gods and insisted that planets followed neat, circular paths, far above Earth and out of reach. In his model, the Earth was safe. The old fear—that misbehaving humans might be punished by gods hurling fire from the sky—was erased. In this new system, no comet would ever collide with Earth. Divine punishment no longer came through catastrophe.

Public opinion still held on to the awe of the sky gods, but Aristotle’s logic had another effect: it gave rise to a new kind of thinking. The Prime Mover—his idea of a first cause beyond the stars—became identified with a supreme deity. The planets became messengers of influence, not gods themselves, and their motions were said to affect events on Earth from afar. This idea laid the groundwork for horoscopic astrology: the belief that a person’s fate could be read in the stars.

This entire transformation wasn’t just an academic exercise—it was deeply tied to politics and society. Rulers, needing to maintain order, encouraged the creation of gods that were safe, predictable, and orderly. The more they could align religion with public peace, the easier it became to manage people. Over several generations, Greek philosophers and scholars created a new cosmology, one that eventually became the official foundation of horoscopic astrology. What began as an elegant idea took almost 2,000 years to untangle.

Unfortunately, many of these arguments weren’t based on hard facts. Instead, they were shaped by academic needs, social expectations, and a desire for stability. In an age where comets were no longer active or visible as they had been in the past, this misinterpretation of the universe—especially the behavior of planets—took root and spread.

Back in the fourth century BC, Athens was still a major power, though its actions became increasingly questionable. When it captured the island of Samos in 365 BC, Athens didn’t free its ally but instead sent poor citizens to colonize it. Other Greek cities disapproved, as did the Macedonians—a tribal people to the north who still lived in ways similar to the Greeks during their Dark Age. Yet the Macedonian nobles spoke Greek, adopted Greek names, and honored Greek gods. One of their kings, Alexander I, even invited Socrates to his court.

It was Alexander’s great-grandson, Philip II, who changed everything. Ruthless, clever, and ambitious, Philip admired Greek culture but had no problem using bribery and warfare to advance Macedonia’s power. He eventually conquered much of Greece and even brought Aristotle to tutor his young son—Alexander the Great.

Under Aristotle’s guidance, Alexander became one of the most brilliant minds of his generation: curious, sharp, and restless. When Philip was assassinated, Greece assumed Macedonia would crumble. But instead, Alexander swept down with an army of 30,000 and forced the Greek city-states to name him supreme commander. He then turned east, driven by a dream of leading a grand crusade against Persia.

In just a few years, Alexander’s army conquered Asia Minor, the Levant, Palestine, and Egypt. The Egyptians, tired of Persian rule, welcomed him as a liberator. He founded the city of Alexandria—named after himself—at the mouth of the Nile, creating a cultural and intellectual center that would shape the world for centuries.

While in Egypt, Alexander visited the famous oracle of Zeus Ammon in the Libyan desert. After crossing miles of sand, he reached the oasis and was told by the priests that he was the son of Zeus and destined to conquer the world. This message went straight to his head. From that point forward, Alexander embraced divine honors, expected people to bow to him as more than a man, and adopted the dress and mannerisms of a Persian king.

By 331 BC, Alexander had taken all of Persia. He was now the most powerful man in the world—but also increasingly vain and ruthless. He saw himself as semi-divine and surrounded himself with mystics and astrologers. But despite these flaws, Alexander changed the Greek world forever. His conquests ended the old system of local autonomy and endless city-state wars. He proved that the Greek spirit of colonization was still alive by founding new cities across Asia, many of them just as grand as those back home.

After his death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter, took over Egypt. He ruled from 305 to 283 BC and turned Alexandria into the new heart of Greek culture. Under his leadership, the famous Library and Museum of Alexandria were built, becoming the greatest centers of learning in the ancient world. Science, philosophy, and religion all shifted from mainland Greece to this new city on the edge of Africa.

But with this shift came a change in the role of the gods. The head of state began to take on a divine role—like the pharaohs of Egypt—but now without the terrifying threat of punishment from the skies. Gone were the comet gods and their fiery wrath. Instead, planets took their place. These new planetary gods were said to influence human affairs from afar—but this influence was completely invented.

Religion, politics, and science all became tangled. To keep the system running, public belief had to be managed. Truth took a back seat. The goal became to “save appearances”—to keep the system looking good, even if it wasn’t accurate. The philosopher Strato even created fake miracles, using early science to make idols move or water change color, tricking worshipers into belief.

In astronomy, this meant building elaborate geometric models to explain planetary movement—whether or not they were true. Because these models didn’t work very well, astrology began to take over astronomy itself. The heavens became objects of worship once again—but now it was the planets, not comets, that ruled the skies.

This was a huge change. Ancient omen astrology had once tried to understand real, dangerous events—like meteors or comet strikes. Horoscopic astrology, by contrast, made up a system where distant planets controlled your fate based on your birth date. This system was perfected by the Alexandrian scholar Claudius Ptolemy in works like the Almagest and the Tetrabiblos. For the next 1,500 years, these writings would dominate Western thought.

Modern science often sees astrology as an embarrassing detour, but back then, it was taken seriously. And because people believed in these imaginary planetary influences, real scientific progress slowed down for centuries. Rationalism failed. The Greeks, by turning comets into gods and then replacing them with planets, had distracted humanity from the real threats in the heavens.

Finally, by the 1600s, astronomers began to realize something had to change. The idea of glass spheres carrying the planets no longer made sense. The Sun was put at the center. Descartes imagined a universe of invisible whirlpools, and Newton turned that into a mathematical model. Real science was born. Comets were allowed back into the sky—and people once again recognized the danger they posed.

Two bright comets, one in 1680 and another in 1682, nearly shattered the old Aristotelian system. For a moment, a new understanding of history and the cosmos seemed possible. But Isaac Newton, though brilliant, still clung to a refined version of Aristotle’s dream—a safe Earth, untouched by the chaos of space.

That dream, in many ways, continues to this day. But to understand how we got here, we must now turn to how the Christian Church embraced and preserved the Aristotelian worldview.

Continue to Chapter 7 Short Summary or Ch. 7 Extended Summary?