With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
The very book to read if you want to get into cosmology is "A brief history of time" by Stephen Hawking. It goes beyond the simple explanation of astrophysics. The quest of a man that devoted his life to the understanding of the mind of God ; the most admirable failure you can imagine.
Et qu'importe, si quelque ombre furtive, dans le but louable de vanger l'humanité, s'introduit dans ma chambre et enfonce un poignard dans les cotes du pilleur d'épaves célestes.