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This is Earth from about 4 billion miles away, taken by Voyager 2 in 1990. The Pale Blue Dot, as Carl Sagan called it. For many, this image inspired a deep sense of humility about our place in the cosmos. For some, that sense of humility led to feelings of insignificance. 
How could a thin film of life on an infinitesimal speck of dust, floating in a vast and endless universe, have any meaning? It was almost like discovering that life was a cosmic joke and the inevitable extinguishing of it all was the punchline.
When I taught general astronomy in university, I handed out questionnaires on the first day, asking among other things what my students' greatest philosophical concerns were in terms of astronomy, because I wanted to tune the course to their particular needs.
I expected to hear about science conflicting with religion, but that was not a top concern. Instead, I was stunned to find out that for most of my students, it was feelings of insignificance and meaninglessness given their size compared with the vastness of the universe.
There was a palpable sense of despair in some of their answers. It was then I realized that many who don't believe in God still feel humility, but without an objective giver of meaning, this gets turned inward into feelings of personal worthlessness and hopelessness.
This feeling isn't unique to the young. In his book, Dreams of a Final Theory, the Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg laments, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless." The philosophies of the Old Atheists is stepped in this despair.
I'm fortunate to know that the universe is the scale it needs to be to give rise to complex life. Just about every scientist knows this, but for the unfortunate materialists, the vastness of the universe is also a constant reminder of the cold and deadly indifference of nature.
There is no need for this dim view of the universe. As a believer, I know that we're small in physical size, but huge in significance. My sense of awe and humility about the universe expands my being through the knowledge that it's guided by God’s love for all of us.
God's love changes awe-inspiring nature from something cold and frightening to something we can joyfully explore with our God-given intellects. This attitude is what inspired many of the great pioneers of science, like Kepler and Newton, for whom science was a form of worship.
An updated Pale Blue Dot, taken by the Cassini spacecraft in 2013 from under the eaves of Saturn's rings. When the original was taken by Voyager in 1990, I was an unbeliever. By 2013, I had become a believer and, like Cassini, was seeing our beautiful cosmos with new eyes.
