The Atheist View Is Correspondingly Life-affirming And

People Who Believe In God Conclude There Must Have Been A Divine Knob Twiddler Who Twiddled The Knobs Of These Half-dozen Constants To Get Them Exactly Right. The Problem Is That This Says, Because Something Is Vastly Improbable, We Need A God To Explain It. But That God Himself Would Be Even More Improbable.

In Other Words Luke's Story Is Historically Impossible And Internally Inconsistent. He Lied To Fudge The Fulfillment Of Micah's Prophesy And To Provide A Villain To Play Off Jesus In His Fictitious Drama. Matter Flows From Place To Place And Momentarily Comes Together To Be You. Some People Find That Thought Disturbing. I Find The Reality Thrilling.

Time And Again, My Sociobiological Colleagues Have Upbraided Me As A Turncoat, Because I Will Not Agree With Them That The Ultimate Criterion For The Success Of A Meme Must Be Its Contribution To Darwinian "fitness". At Bottom, They Insist, A "good Meme" Spreads Because Brains Are Receptive To It, And The Receptiveness Of Brains Is Ultimately Shaped By (genetic) Natural Selection.

... You Need More Than Luck To Navigate Successfully Through A Thousand Sieves In Succession.

There Are All Sorts Of Things That Would Be Comforting. I Expect An Injection Of Morphine Would Be Comforting... But To Say That Something Is Comforting Is Not To Say That It's True.