How sad if our freedom to think about the immensity of time and space could be defined by what someone informs us that we believe.īut certainly, some readers have informed me, it is a tragic and dreary business to go into death without faith. To explain myself, I turn to Walt Whitman: I am still working on understanding myself. It is too easy for others to pin one on me, and believe they understand me. What is the utility of arguing our 'beliefs' about it? What about the awesome possibility that there was no Cause? What if everything.just happened?

But that entity, or force, must by definition be outside space and time beyond all categories of thought, or non-thought transcending existence, or non-existence. I grant you that if the universe was Caused, there might have been a Causer. Not, at least, in the God that most people mean when they say God. I wrote an entry about the way I believe in God, which is to say that I do not. I discovered fractals and Strange Attractors. You would have the mathematical theory of infinity explained so that, while you will still be unable to conceive of infinity, you will understand the thinking involved.

You would discover a defender of Intelligent Design so articulate that when he was away for a couple of days, the Darwinians began to fret and miss him. No one will read all the comments except me, but if you did, you could learn all a layman should be expected to understand about the quantum level. How did I find a group of readers with so many metaphysicians? 3, has drawn nearly 1,900 comments, some of them longer than the entry, and it is still active. The thread beneath the evolution entry, posted Dec. Life, science, belief, gods, evolution, intelligent design, the afterlife, reincarnation, the nature of reality, what came before the Big Bang, what waits after final entropy, the nature of intelligence, the reality of the self, death, death, death. But you, my readers, have wanted to write about it. When I began this blog I thought if there was one thing I'd never write about, it would be religion. Then I began writing on the subject of evolution, that most consoling of all the sciences, and was engulfed in an unforeseen discussion about God, the afterlife, and religion. Everyone's life story is awaiting only the final page. In the beginning I found myself drawn toward writing about my life. Still, this blog has led me resolutely toward the contemplation of death. What you're really asking them to admit is, Oh my God, I don't really exist and I might be gone at any given second.' Ask them, In the next 30 seconds? No, no, no, that's not gonna happen. 'Ask someone how they feel about death,' he said, 'and they'll tell you everyone's gonna die. I was talking the other day with Jim Toback, a friend of 35 years, and the conversation turned to our deaths, as it always does. But it could happen this moment, while I am writing.

Go quietly into the night