Would have been a much better species? Bright lights are a very recent part of our species’ history. It’s not like humanity had a reputation for being particularly civilized before the invention of electric light.

Depends on what you mean by "civilized", but I take your point. I do wonder, however, if there isn't a correlation between the increase of light pollution and the trend away from reverence for gods. In other words, does the ability to see the grandeur of the heavens on a daily basis influence us to believe in greater beings?

On a side note: there is a great documentary on light pollution called “Saving the Dark” (it's on Youtube). This really has a big impact on us and the environment.

Why is a belief in "greater beings" good or helpful?

I made no value judgement in my post.

"Depends on what you mean by "civilized", but I take your point. I do wonder, however, if there isn't a correlation between the increase of light pollution and the trend away from reverence for gods. In other words, does the ability to see the grandeur of the heavens on a daily basis influence us to believe in greater beings?"

I wouldn't say it's exactly subtle to say "depends on what you mean by 'civilized'" and then immediately talk about the "trend away from reverence for gods". If you want to clarify, then clarify, but as it stands your comment is quite clear.

Oh, I see where you're coming from, but I was actually just being pedantic about what it means to be "civilized", since human civilization goes back thousands of years before electric light. "Civilized" in historical contexts means to be in an advanced stage of social and cultural development, that there is a lot of structure to people's lives, even if that structure employed violence in ways we find abhorrent.

The other meaning of "civilized", the one you seem to have intended, is more along the lines of being well-mannered and less violent, which is why I take your point.

Humility

I do some astrophotography from time to time and it has been a great way to get away from it all to get some perspective while stargazing.

On occasion I venture out into dark sky areas in the US with friends, and they are always surprised that it is possible to see the milky way with the naked eye(or just so many stars at all).

There was this one time where in some city in the US, cannot remember which, there was a city wide power outage, and some people were freaking out because they've never seen a non-polluted sky before.