"No one thinks that God is physical."

Huh? Surely if someone believes in intelligent design then God has to be physical, or am I missing the point? How would the process of creation work if God were not physical?

Good link Suibhe. The subject of transcendence is one that interests me (both in the bacchic and delphic sense) and is a state of mind which obviously is felt and desired by all people. Yet it's workings are mysterious . . . the very first time I stood in front of Rothko's Seagram murals I experienced a state of transcendence that I certainly wasn't expecting, a moment of epiphany followed and in some way my world outlook was changed at that instant in time. The same happened when I picked up my first ceratopsian fossil in the North Dakota badlands in the summer, when I stood in Arbor Low one sunny day years ago etc etc. What do these moment mean? We all experience these states in a fleeting sense and we wonder if these states could be experienced for longer, and here the more thoughtful mystical branches of religion have some fascinating philosophys (I believe Christian Gnostics call the feeling 'At Play in the Fields of the Lord', a buddhist would call it 'Nirvana').

But . . . scientists also experience these moments (the badlands - yes!) too and the Sagan quotes which are couched in quasi-mystical terms demonstrate this brilliantly. Obviously these moments of transcendence touch individuals differently, we draw different conclusions from the experience. However, it is a common experience (a musicians we all understand that) so what is going on?

It might be simply a firing of synapses in a particularly unusual order; a pleasurable spark of electricity in the biological machine we call 'the brain'. It might be a flash of insight into the divine nature of the universe, or it might be the physical universe contemplating and marvelling at itself through one of it's conscious manifestations . . . us.

I'll go with the last one.*






* But I might be wrong ;-)