Religion is not the issue. Fundamentalism is not the issue. Rote acceptance of irreconcilable dogma is not the issue. The trouble comes when an adherent of whatever world view decides to impose it on another. There have been religious monsters throughout history, most definitely - but there have also been political and economic and technological monsters as well.

It is just as wrong to accept the tenets of science without examining them critically for oneself, as to proclaim membership in a church that one has not conscientiously vetted. One key difference is that a properly posed scientific assertion is falsifiable. Buy a cheap microscope or telescope or stop watch - many of the great observations of science lie within the easy reach of kitchen experiments. Most religious assertions, however, don't lend themselves to being posed properly in the first place. We are told Jesus is the Son of God. But what does it mean to be a "Son of God"? How could mere mortals possibly comprehend such a family dynamic?

The assertions of science are far grander than those of religion. We need only believe in one Son of God. Been there, done that. Science argues for laws of nature that span identically from one side of the universe to the other, from billions of years in the past to billions of years in the future, from perfect vacuum to colliding neutron stars to the colossal black holes now conjectured to inhabit the centers of all galaxies. These things are true (or not), whether or not we believe in them. Science requires no piety. One suspects God doesn't either.

However, the central question isn't whether the panoply of the world's religions are falsifiable. After all, adherents of each religion reject the tenets of all the others. Rather, the central question is a very human one. Whether we call it hubris or chutzpah or arrogance or sinful pride, the failure is all too human. We need not look to God for someone to blame.

Every year when the Nobel Prizes roll around we get the inevitable stories about how the committee finds American authors unworthy - "insular and ignorant" were the words used this time around. American literary critics express incredulity when, equally inevitably, some obscure and unread non-American author is honored - apparently expressly to annoy the American literary community.

If the Swedish Academy truly wants to annoy American litterateurs, however, they would award the prize to Stephen King :-) After all, it is likely true that King is more widely read - in their native languages - than any recent Prize winner.

It occurs to this reader that when King says "there is some kind of first cause" and that "something very well could be running things", that this highly competent wordsmith (if not Nobel winning author) is committing the tyro's mistake of confusing tense. There are two Gods - two kinds of God.

The God of the past, of Genesis. Where did the world come from? What was the first cause? The Big Bang is just another way to say "overwhelmingly furious activity" - whether it took 3 seconds or 6 days is an implementation detail.

And the God of the future, of destiny. God forbid, of Revelations.

One can believe in the former without believing that a Cosmic Meddler continues to pull strings today. And actually, the pantheon of gods of the ancients provide an example of believing in string pulling long after the First Cause has expired. The exuberant meddling of the Greek Gods succeeded the demise of the Titans, our original creators.