Religiously athiest cosmologists would do well to acquaint themselves with Stoic physics:

"The main objective of Stoics is to overcome the dualism between mind and matter taught by other philosophical schools. The Stoics achieve this goal by identifying mind and matter with each other and with God. They therefore propose a totally unitary reality, a monism in which God is mind, God is matter, God is the universe. One may speak of mind and matter, but this is merely a façon de parler. For the Stoics, everything that acts is a body. There is a continuum between mind and body. They are completely translatable into one another; they are simply two ways of viewing the content in the continuum. In Stoic physics, matter is not 'dead' matter in the Cartesian sense; it is dynamic, charged with vital force. Mind is not something external to matter, an abstract ideal quality, a principle of rest toward which an imperfect material world transpires; it is rather an active principle, the creative force permeating the universe and holding it together. God is called by several names in Stoic physics--the 'logos', the rational structure of the universe; 'pneuma', the fiery breath of life, the creative fire; or 'tonos', the vital tension holding each thing together within itself and making the whole universe cohere. The entire universe, or God, constitutes one living organism, at the same time sentient, rational, and material, existing in and of itself. The universe is its own creative force and its own source of growth, change, and activity. God, or the universe, is not only its own cause; it is the one cause and explanation of all things."

(Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, pp. 23-4)