More piffle about how life and nature are so wonderful and mysterious that we can't know whether God etc. etc. etc. When will Salon get tired of this crap?

“…I think Richard (Dawkins) is wrong….I think that there's something else. I think the creativity in nature is so stunning and so overwhelming that it's God enough for me…”

I can't believe how often I hear this. I can understand it coming from fundies who blast Dawkins but could never be troubled to read him, but I would hope that Kauffman would have actually read some Dawkins. Dawkins does say that he finds plenty of awe in nature, and that believing in a god or higher power isn't needed for this. As for existence having an intrinsic meaning, outside of the meaning we find in it, as much as we might like it to be so, there just isn't any EVIDENCE for it. Kauffman mentions Neanderthals, they are a useful illustration of this point. They may have buried their dead, maybe were a lot like us in other ways too. But they are still extinct, probably in large part to our species. So, where's the intrinsic meaning in THEIR existance, in the end?

But I can imagine there are fundamentalists saying we are all going to hell and atheists defending intelligence and reason by calling believers morons, and neither seeing how similar they are, mirror images. I loves the Internets!

Although it is better than an article talking about Michelle Obama's ass.

The egotism expressed in that quote is mind-boggling. "I can't explain something therefore it is unexplainable."

Kauffman's views are typical of an aging scientist who can't keep up with the field he once mastered. Hey Stuart, just because you can't comprehend the complexities of consciousness without invoking magic, doesn't mean other scientists can't, and won't. If not now, eventually. That's the way science works. And works. And works. And...

" Roger Penrose wrote a book called "The Emperor's New Mind." He looked at this argument for artificial intelligence, and he said it's just bunk. I think he's right."

Really? Penrose wrote that book way back in 1989. I'd like to think that neuroscience is a little further along than it was 20 years ago. Computer science is too, for that matter. I remember reading not too long ago that some are starting to think that consciousness is actually an illusion - our brains have already made a decision before we are "aware" we've made one. It's a scary thought to think that maybe we don't have as much free will as we think we do - certainly the advertisers spending billions of dollars are counting on this fact to sell us their products who's utility to us are dubious at best.

As always, the scientific explanations for things - which I like to call "reality", are always much more exciting to me than the mumbo jumbo ones.

QUOTE: "The "ceaseless creativity" of Kauffman's "God" is just that: ceaselessly creative. It never stops evolving and subsequently new things, unpredictable things, emerge. Sometimes the things are viruses, and sometimes the things are cuddly, stuffed animals, but "God" doesn't give a shit because "God" isn't some being with a will--as is the God you won't let go of--"God", in Kauffman's estimation (and mine), is ever-present, ever-emerging, ever-ultimately-unknowable nature; the totality of the source and substance of the universe!

My mind just reels! at the thought that someone fighting the materialist battle hasn't ever had an experience where they felt dissolved into the beauty and vastness and simple/complexity of the universe in a way that caused them to know that they were greater than themselves. I just don't believe it! Most people feel that in some way at some point in time. It reels! more! that someone having had that experience would be so violently afraid of a symbol that could point to that experience.

Like it or not, that experience, when experienced as a religious person OR as a non-religious person, is the same essential experience."

A thousand thank-you's Jazztao for articulating God the way you did. The main problem I see in the whole "existence of God/non-existence" debate is that most skeptics/atheists, etc., as well as followers of religion ALWAYS define God in the same old damn way ... as if He is some white-bearded old guy sitting up above, hell-bent on judgement and wrath. The so-called "mythical" God from the holy books, defined in utterly human terms (don't get me started on the Holy Trinity debacle).

Why was God defined in human terms to begin with? Way back when, soon after the start of civilization, humans were still evolving, including their capacity for intelligence, understanding, and knowledge. Messages in the holy books (Old Testament, Torah, Qur'an) were told in simple parables, symbolic form, so that people of that time could better understand the significance of what was being revealed (the core moral teachings). This includes descriptions of God, heaven/hell, etc.

We are now significantly more evolved that we can look at God at a more scientific and elevated level of discourse. If we look at God as an entity of sheer physical force of nature of a magnitude that we, as humans, can never fully comprehend (and perhaps are never meant to), then it becomes easier to allow for the possibility of the existence of an entity of overwhelming power and "intelligent design" beyond ourselves. A Creator, if you will.

Once we (and by we I mean both religious followers and aforementioned skeptics/atheists/agnostics) get past the hang-up of defining God strictly on a limited, primary level as a big ol' guy staring us down with his wrath, then minds are opened to the possibility of what Einstein, Kauffman, and others are saying.

P.S. Another argument I keep hearing defending the non-existence of God is, "well, if there was a God then why are there bad things on earth like violence, wars, famine, poverty, natural disasters, etc.? I mean, if He was so smart and all-knowing, all-loving, wouldn't He get rid of those things in the first place/not allow for them so there is no needless suffering/pain? Huh?"

My argument back is ... why are we defining God as someone who is supposed to create a Utopia for humans, free from all pain, suffering, negativity? How would a utopian world test our potential and possibilities as human beings? Often, potential, skills and abilities are strengthened/developed through adversities, obstacles, outright tragedies in life. Our world is not pretty, but it's not meant to be at each and every moment. Then again, there are moments of sheer sublime beauty and grace, such as what Kauffman describes seeing in nature, and in acts where man is helping his fellow man. A universe devoid of anything ugly, painful, tough would not allow for us to see and appreciate those moments of beauty and kindness when they appear. An intelligent Creator knew this all along.