Consciousness Is Cerebral Celebrity--nothing More And Nothing

The Idea That God Is A Worthy Recipient Of Our Gratitude For The Blessings Of Life But Should Not Be Held Accountable For The Disasters Is A Transparently Disingenuous Innovation Of The Theologians.

The Traditional View Of Purpose Says It Comes From On High, From God, From The Creator. Darwin's Idea Of Natural Selection Makes People Uncomfortable Because It Reverses The Direction Of Tradition. Whereas People Used To Think Of Meaning Coming From On High And Being Ordained From The Top Down, Now We Have Darwin Saying, "no, All Of This Design Can Happen, All Of This Purpose Can Emerge From The Bottom Up Without Any Direction At All."

I Don't Think There Is Any Religious Revival. I Think What We Are Hearing, The Furor, Is Merely The Hysterical Response Of The Churches The Handwriting On The Wall That They Are Seeing.

If I Were To Give A Prize For The Single Best Idea Anybody Ever Had, I'd Give It To Darwin For The Idea Of Natural Selection - Ahead Of Newton, Ahead Of Einstein - Because His Idea Unites The Two Most Disparate Features Of Our Universe: The World Of Purposeless, Meaningless Matter And Motion, Particles Jostling On The One Side, And The World Of Meaning And Purpose, Design On The Other.

It's This Expandable Capacity To Represent Reasons That We Have That Gives Us A Soul. But What's It Made Of? It's Made Of Neurons. It's Made Of Lots Of Tiny Robots. And We Can Actually Explain The Structure And Operation Of That Kind Of Soul, Whereas An Eternal, Immortal, Immaterial Soul Is Just A Metaphysical Rug Under Which You Sweep Your Embarrassment For Not Having Any Explanation.