Just returning from the next to last lecture for the tour of 2006 and must admit that I am happy that this year is over, along with reaching 64 years of age one begins to mellow out and see the world in a different view.
I was asked if I thought there was a God? I was honest and answered that I was agnostic, even though I was raised as a German Lutheran. I further stated that I did indeed believe in some higher or controlling power, although I did have trouble in handling the traditional view of someone Up There pulling the puppets strings. I went on to explain that I was 100% a logical scientist up to the time I viewed my first image of a bacterium under a microscope. I started as an Electronics Engineer and logic and formulae worked well in making everything make perfect sense. But then I had this itch to do something in Biology, mistake indeed as it crumbled my world. When one looks at what is going on at the bio level and has a summary knowledge of the molecular level, if you are sane, you will not remain for long. I will state categorically that the universe did not begin by some haphazard copulation of some random atoms. What all scientists want to ignore is where did those initial atoms come from that started it all. We for some reason need to put all things into neat little boxes, nice concise equations with Assumptions and derived Constants to make it work together. The micro and the macro are meaningless we have no clue! I remember so clear the day I was expelled from Catechism when I asked where all the other people came from to aid in the creation of mankind as it took more (morally) than what we assume happened in the "Garden of Eden. So I now had to answer that I did not believe in God until he cast me into eternal Hell, yet I did indeed believe in something far beyond what any mortal being can comprehend. I still with a double doc., know fully that we are but Infinitesimal Parts in a play that our science and logic in unable to comprehend only pretend. If we stopped this rush towards monetary gain, power over others and took our young or old or very old bodies out to an open space and lay upon the ground and looked up into the sky and slowed up enough to see the wonders above, or pulled a microscope to our eyes and looked at a Prokaryote moving in its world and doing what it does in its small way aid or destroy our life, we if we are indeed intelligent will see that our wanting to put everything in a box or attach a formula to it, is such a pitiful thing indeed. Have a Happy Holiday! Dont let Nature get you down, just follow her, as you are.