Cooperation within Nature
Olivia Judson describes cooperative relationships between species in nature. It seems cosmic to me - in fact, I think that symbiotic friendship she describes represents how the divine works in nature. She writes:
"Close, beneficial associations between creatures of different species are nothing unusual. On the contrary, they are the very fabric of nature. The lichen you see on that old gravestone is a liaison between a fungus and an alga. The fungus provides shelter and a good growing environment — a kind of greenhouse — and the alga provides the fungus with food. The corals you’re snorkeling over are colonies of animal-algal partnerships; again, the animals provide the shelter, the algae provide the food, and also help the coral animal to secrete its hard outer skeleton. In some associations, the algae generate as much as 98 percent of the colony’s nutrients. And look in the mirror: your digestion is aided by the bacteria you are housing in your gut."
Popular Darwinian theory tends to justify the worst parts of human behavior. Plenty of biologists, for example, can relate the deceptive practices of mammals when mating. I wonder if the our popular morality has been done a disservice by "cultural Darwinism." If so, this article points to a different way of looking at how evolution works: cooperation plays a part as well.
Culturally, cooperation relies on "trust."
Judson also takes an interest in mutations. I suspect that for most of us - pre-darwin, mutations would seem crazy or a blight upon god's ordered creation. We'd consider mutations disordered. But if mutations are simply part of the created order, then our belief in "disorder" slips away.