Sam Harris

In reading Ken Miller’s ‘Finding Darwin’s God’ currently some thoughts have occurred to me.

This is my 22nd book on evolution, origins and natural worldview and it continues to be inspirational and exciting each time I turn the first page. I became agnostic about 25 years ago because I am an avid outdoorsman and I found that I was interested in learning about nature more than supernature. I think mainly because it was real, and I could see it, touch it, hear it, and understand it.

To learn about the origins of life on this planet is the most fascinating journey I have ever been on. Everytime I read a passage by Dawkins, or Mayr, or Gould, or Shermer, or Shubin, or Diamond, or now Miller….I get chills. Just thinking about we homo being genetically related to bacteria… is a stunning revelation.

It just all falls into place and makes complete sense to me.
And I do not understand where any nihilism would ever come from. Purpose. That word that hangs up every creationist that cannot find the curiosity, interest and fascination with a purely natural world. I just do not get those people. How much more purpose can anyone neeed than to strive for a lifetime trying to comphrehend our natural world and what happened a few billion years ago, and continues to happen today?

I can think of little else that is so pleasurable to contemplate.

Spirits, angels, souls, miracles, prayers, ghosts, and heaven will just have to be for someone else, for it is far more dull to ponder the what if’s of the unimaginable than to ponder what actually did happen and how.

Thank you Dr. Miller for your contribution of ‘Finding Darwin’s God’ for it is outstanding.

And I cannot wait for the next exploration to begin when this one is done.

So much to learn, so little time.

Spirits, angels, souls, miracles, prayers, ghosts, and heaven will just have to be for someone else, for it is far more dull to ponder the what if’s of the unimaginable than to ponder what actually did happen and how.

...So much to learn, so little time.

This is well stated and meaningful.  I too have always been a lover of nature. I have a very distinct memory as a very young child (4 or 5?) of sitting in my front yard on a warm spring day watching ants in an ant hill scurrying around for food.  I was completely captivated and in awe of these tiny, industrious creatures.  At the same time I would look from time to time up into the sky and watch white, puffy clouds float overhead. I vacillated between ants and clouds for what must have been several hours, breathing in some kind of deeply fundamental knowledge of connection to all of it.  This innocent moment was a pivotal experience for me.  I never quite looked at nature again in the same way.  And I continue to find great solace and wonderment in every bit of it. From destructive tornados to earthworms crawling in my garden, nature is an aesthetic, intellectual, sensual and sometimes frightening part of my life.

Calls to mind a line in the film, American Beauty: “Every where every thing is beauty.”—even the seemingly ugly things.

Ever play God of the Ants?

*It takes app. six hours for ants to re-build their anthill to its original hill size.