“Sit there. Count your fingers. What else. What else is there to do? I know how you feel. I know how you feel. And you’re through. Sit there, and count your little fingers, you’re unhappy little girl blue.” Janis Joplin streams out of the speakers of my Macbook pro. Next to me, my iPad2 is charging. I briefly reach into my purse to grab my iphone because I am hoping there is a text message on it. And there is. The New York Times sends me a news alert on my Ipad about Obama and the Middle East. On Twitter, every other tweet is about the Rapture. The supposed end of days that was to occur yesterday, which was just another day. Just another day. And you know, billions of years tells us that the world turns. Living forms evolve and die off but life as we know it, life as formed so many years ago we can’t possibly comprehend its entire point — it goes on.

We can be, and may be, wiped out by our own doing – or by the hand of nature. A virus. A nuclear war. Those can end us. But God? When are we going to get it that God is like the worst kind of unavailable man: no matter how much love you throw his way he is indifferent to you. Okay, she thought. Don’t get carried away with such horrid thoughts – at least never say them out loud. People will look at you funny. Our illusions, she knew, prop us up, keep us alive and procreating. After all, why would anyone bring a child into a godless, heartless, indifferent universe? So she kept her mouth shut, and she watched the Rapture jokes fly by.

The sun rose and set as it normally does. I had driven in from the airport at such an hour as I don’t remember even driving home. In a haze of jet lag, stuck on the immovable 405, I thought back through my daughter’s and my odyssey out of Cannes. There was a drive to the Nice airport. On the way, so early in the morning, we found ourselves in contact with a young man blazing on Ecstasy. I’d smiled at him as I almost cut him off on the roundabout. Being a Los Angeles driver, I am used to be rude. And in truth, in Cannes you have to get all up in there as a driver – you can’t hesitate. But most of the folks who live and work around Nice are not rude – they are anything but. So if you cut them off they will feel offended. My smile was a way to apologize for my rudeness. But he gestured for us to drive ahead of them – he too was smiling. Such a smile at 6am was probably suspect but who could know – French people are so nice everywhere but Paris. And this was Nice. We were on some service road, not the main highway, to the Nice airport but we had plenty of time so we were perfectly happy humming down this road.

When the streetlight turned red we rolled to a stop. I checked the rear-view. The youngish man hopped out of his car and trotted up to our window. Oh god, what now? Being a Los Angeles driver we don’t ever approach nor talk to one another. We’re too busy yelling profanities, glowering and otherwise tormenting each other to ever think about being nice. Rap rap rap. He knocked on my window — I rolled it down and looked at him. He was so sweet looking – blonde, messed up skin, wide, watery eyes high on something, clearly. Alcohol wafted out of his rose-colored lips. He was trying to tell me something — like “you’re sweet” or “you’re lovely.” I took it to mean he liked that I smiled at him during our road altercation. Trust me, at 46, unshowered, with unbrushed hair and no makeup, lovely was the last thing I was. But okay, I’ll take it, I thought. So I thanked him and rolled the window back up. He trotted back to his car just as the light turned green. We continued to drive to the next street light, which again turned red.

And again, the boy got out of his car but this time he approached the car behind them. A tallish brown-haired man got out of the car and the two began French kissing. Did the French really invent French kissing? If they did, shouldn’t they be hailed as religious figures? Because what is more wonderful than French kissing? I was glad that I wasn’t the dude French kissing the tweaker, though. The light once again turned green and we drove to the next street light, which was turning red. Honestly, this is why they take the highway, right?

The boy got out of his car once again and headed for our car. He tapped on the window – he was so sweet looking how could I resist? So I rolled down the window and he said, “un bisou?” Oh god, was I really going to open my mouth to this person? Of course not, not with my daughter riding shotgun. He pointed to his cheek and we did the French thing on each cheek. He then asked my daughter for one. She had already admitted she thought he was cute. Cute? Good lord, was my thinking. But hey, she was about to turn 13 so I’m sure he did. She surprised me by saying yes to him. So they did the French thing, on each cheek.

That was it. We rolled up the window and I vowed that the next red light I would run. No cops around – but boy, wasn’t that all I needed? To get stopped by a French traffic cop? So the light turned red and I drove through it, leaving the boy and his driver to fend for themselves. I hope they found a bed and slept it off. I don’t know if that counts as my daughter’s first kiss. Probably not as it wasn’t on the lips – and we don’t forget the first time someone kisses our lips. Do we.

We dropped off the car at the car rental and waited in the terminal for our Air France flight to Paris. We were both dog-tired already. But we got the plane and at some point it was all a blur of security lines, customs agents, all around us voices in different languages. Whenever you hear an American something inside puckers, doesn’t it? We tend to be so obnoxious. At first they told me that I would have to sit in a different seat than my daughter, which was unacceptable to me. She wanted to sit away from her, though, feeling the jolt of independence that comes as you turn 13. But for my purposes, I figured, if the plane goes down, in the throws of death, I at least want to be with her. So I had to plead with the airline staff – who did not give a shit. Eventually, I figured out a way. I ended up sitting sandwiched between my daughter and tiny Arabic grandmother flying to California to see her grandkid. She did not speak a lick of English but insisted upon talking to me in Arabic the whole way. I think people would call me a good listener, even if it’s another language and I have no idea what the hell she was saying. I just responded to her tone and gestures. It seemed to sort of work.

A really long flight, picked up our car and arrived back home just in time to fall asleep and wait for the end of the world.

“Well they’re drinking and they’re dancing and there’s nothing really happening and the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night.” Leonard Cohen’s Closing Time was the song that I would want to play when the world ended.

I didn’t remember to completely close and lock my car when we at last returned, which left me with a dead battery. The tow truck man kept talking about the end of the world when he gave me a jump. “What does it matter,” he said. “We’ll all be dead in a few hours.” He was laughing, as were most, except those who were praying. And all the while I was pretty sure this was how religious figures were born. Didn’t they laugh at Joseph Smith and maybe even Jesus Christ in their days? There is nothing more or less ridiculous in what this preacher was saying about the Rapture than in what any prophet has ever said – herein is our sweetest and most absurd folly. It is nothing new, this end of the world stuff.

And so people waited and laughed about it. Meanwhile, the mission was accomplished and the preacher drew probably many more followers than he ever thought possible. They all prayed. They prayed really hard. And the Earth was spared. You see, he will say, praying works. The power of prayer by so many saved all. Except for the hundred or so unlucky bastards who met their fate by happenstance, which is what most likely drives our days.

But no, we must not speak these dark thoughts because people look at you funny. In the end, if my plane had spiraled downward and it was time to face the music – I’m pretty sure I would pray too. I would pray really hard because I thought the end was coming. The last thing I would do is laugh. So even though I too laughed at those who praying for our souls (or those who accept Jesus Christ as their savior, rather) I knew that there is ultimately nothing funny about fear. Consciousness is a weighty responsibility. What in the world do you do when you see and know too much?

I was happy to be home. I knew Emma was too.

Yesterday was one of those days when you really need to get out of the house. It was just one of those days anyway. You know, those days when you aren’t really sure where you stand with yourself or with anyone else? We have them every now and then. I’ve decided that there are two kinds of people, mainly, here in America. I can’t really speak for people anywhere else. I can’t even speak for people here actually. I can’t speak for anyone. What I do know is this: some people live life with their emotions exposed. They are not “normal” by society’s standards and life is uncomfortable most of the time, but especially so when they are trying to conform to some kind of “normal” role. Weird, I know. I am one of the non-normal people. I have never fit in with the “normal” people. I am much more comfortable with people who aren’t “normal,” that’s the truth. I think, in general, we live against our natural inclination as a species, this, I believe, is the cause of our all of our neuroses.

But that isn’t what I’m talking about today. Except to say that one of the reasons I like Marc Maron’s podcast so much is because he isn’t one of those “normal” people either. Moreover, he spends, it seems to me, every second of every day just trying to get through it without losing his mind. That is what makes his podcast so compelling: he struggles with it every second of every day. As do most of us non-normal people.

And so it was with my friend (fake podcast person friend) Marc Maron that I set out on one of the different long walks, or sometimes runs, I like to take – and that’s near a golf course in Encino. Depending on which route you take you can do a three mile or a five mile walk or run. It is mostly populated with other fitness-minded people, but also cranes, coyotes, squirrels, lizards, colorful birds, geese, ducks…lots of fauna. In the summer it is also a favorite picnic spot for families to get out of their hotbox apartments and onto the grass for a time. Little barbecues with sizzling chorizo sausages, tortillas…I’ve been reading too much of TC Boyle’s Tortilla Curtain I’m afraid.

It was already an emotional day for me – the kind I knew getting out in the fresh air and sunshine would really help. In the post-Oscar haze of the months in between the Oscar race and the start of the new season is usually a time to decompress. For reasons I won’t get into I was feeling really down. I kind of felt like I just wanted to feel “normal.” Routine is the way to feel normal, I figure. So a walk was definitely in order.

Marc Maron always opens his podcast with his funny intro (WHAT THE FUCK!), usually a product endorsement — hopefully the one about vibrators — and then he’ll talk about something for a little while. I podcast every week with Jeff Wells of Hollywood-Elsewhere so I know how hard it is to be entertaining on your own. You really need someone to talk to usually. But Maron is one of those guys who can really do it alone. I think it gets back to that undeniable thing about him that he is working hard every second of every day not to lose his mind. And that makes him a great speaker, comedian and interviewer. After he talks a while he has a guest on. Men, women, mostly comedians.

So I put on his latest podcast and I started walking. But you know, I noticed that the ground was kind of muddy, a little muddy from the recent rains here. They had closed Burbank Blvd. because the train blockers had broken and were dangling in the road. They also put up a sign that said “Road closed.” This, to hopefully keep walkers and joggers off of the main trail. But did I listen to it? Did I stop and say, oh, maybe they put that there for a reason. No. I did not. I simply looked to see if anyone else was doing it. Okay, he was doing it, that guy was jogging right on in.

And that, I guess, was good enough for me. So off I went. It wasn’t so bad at first. A few fallen trees here, a downed fence line there. But it wasn’t long before I got to the mud part. Slosh slosh slosh. It was bad but not so bad that I felt like I had to turn around. There were plenty of footprints already in the mud – how did these people manage to get through it? So I kept slogging. A guy jogger in front of me was already calf-deep in it and he said to turn back. But did I listen?

I saw one of the closer exits that would take me to the sidewalk outside of the dirt path. And to the left the trail continued. Looking back on it, that would have been the way to go — get to the dirt path. Apparently, where I was walking was part of a wetland. They had built a golf course over a whole wetland — had there been protests to this way back when? Was this nature’s brutal payback? But I didn’t know if it would continue to be so muddy on down the trail and decided to take my chances to get to the exit. But half-way through my two shoes got stuck in the mud. I literally couldn’t take another step. So I unplugged my two feet and simply left my boots there. They are still there as we speak. Not soon after that, I pulled off my muddy socks. Once my feet were free of the socks and shoes, walking through the mud was a piece of cake. The easiest thing imaginable. The natural thing.

I flap flapped my feet through the mud to the entrance and made it on the sidewalk. The sidewalk, though, was covered with mud too and I almost slipped and fell several times. The workers there with bulldozers had closed the road. One of them waved me off, “this is closed!” he pantomimed. I held up my socks and pointed to my feet – please just let me through, I silently pleaded to the face behind the Plexiglass. Nope, that was the answer. Nope.

So I flap flapped my muddy feet back inside, where the mud continued to be deeper than I could ever imagine. And there wasn’t a soul crazy enough to take this trek, although enough people had that the footprints were like the Laetoli footprints – those ancient fossils that proved how mankind walked upright. It was a family walking there whose footprints had been trapped in volcanic ash, discovered many years later by Mary Leakey, and it was really the first real evidence of primates walking upright.

Mark Maron was saying something profound about the Coca Cola company, touching on moments of insight and brilliance as usual, struggling to stay sane. It wasn’t until I saw a mud-caked lizard lying dead that I stopped feeling sorry for myself. He had it way worse than I did. And I wondered how many little creatures had been killed by this storm. I also saw a dead bird. It couldn’t have been pretty; the storm had downed the entire fence around the golf course which had to mean something overflowed and flash-flooded the area.

I was walking on terrain that I had walked so many times before but this time doing it barefoot, making me look like a crack addict homeless hooker. My only redeeming detail was my iPhone 4 and my expensive down jacket. I had to look like a freak otherwise. Believe me, no one ever walks barefoot on jogger trails unless they’re a partying meth head who somehow disappeared out of a house somewhere without their shoes. Or else some weird European or Eastern European who thinks this is how they do things in California. But did I care? No, I didn’t. I was Laetoli-ing it, my friends, primate style, animal style, real human being style. Our feet are little miracles, I’m telling you, by far one of the best things ever to evolve. They can take us very far over varying terrain. No problem in mud or dirt or grass or gravel.

I kept walking, all three miles out. At some point it stopped being muddy and became harder earth. And that’s when it all felt semi-sane again, and when I looked the crazier. What happened to my shoes? Should I have dug them out and carried them dripping in mud to a trash can at least? Was I a filthy litterer on top of just being filthy? Yes, probably.

The Laetoli family that walked through the mud so long ago, in the Olduvai Gorge in what is now Nigeria, they were just getting on with it, you know, getting on with life. They didn’t have the same kind of problems we have now. They didn’t have to worry about leading a “normal” life, being or appearing happily married and all of that. Or maybe they did. Maybe it was more about having to appear as a strong and brave hunter. Or an attractive pre-teen mate? Hard to say. What I do know is this: it felt good walking through that mud in my bare feet. And it was funny. It was ridiculous and crazy and absurd. But it helped me get through that day, that hard hard day.

Marc Maron helped too.

I came across this story from New Scientist about what makes life worth living if you take away religion. From a brain perspective, there ought to be a good reason why a person feels like bothering with this life. It ain’t easy. It ain’t pretty. And it feels like it goes on forever. Beyond that, there is much suffering in life. I thought briefly about what it would feel like to have a son travel to Iraq and die in some useless, futile IED explosion. How would I go on living? Moreover, a recent memorial of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing showed mothers who lost babies in that pseudo-patriotic, mind-numbingly senseless terrorist act.

As a sidenote, isn’t it ironic that we reacted to the terrorist bombings of 9/11 in quite a different way from Oklahoma City? Why didn’t our National Guard descend upon the psychos in America with their radical views of our government? Because we are a so-called free country. Free to bomb a Federal building for the very same reason our towers were bombed: to make a political statement. To take lives while doing so. And to either run and hide to continue fighting, or get caught and die by the state, as Timothy McVeigh pretended to foresee. In his taped confession he actually says to the victims’ families, “get over it.” He wouldn’t show fear when he was put to death by the state. He pretended he not only saw it coming but welcomed it: that was too easy of an out for that puny tyrant.

And then, last night, Frontline brings the report of the boys are used for sexual favors in Afghanistan. They are made to start when they are very young.

What about the Holocaust? What about Jim Jones? What about Charles Manson?

Without the explanation of God how could anyone make sense of any of it? But for me I always ask the question, WITH the explanation of God how could anyone make sense of it. I’m sure God is a perfectly nice Man who maybe gets jealous, perhaps bored on occasion – perhaps he’s texting while driving or sleeping through fire alarms. But it seems to me that God apologists have no trouble explaining away God’s lowly job performance of late. He works in mysterious ways. Oh, think of how much corporate criminals, corrupt politicians, and all around sleezoids could get away with if people let them follow God’s work study habits?

It isn’t God’s job to fix our lives – that is what religious people will tell you. He’s just there to pray to. And if you happen to win $1,000,000 you will say that God was looking out for you and when you survive a plane crash you thank God. If you win an award, He gets all of the credit. So I guess I’m wondering how it is that people can give God so much credit for the good stuff but then never hold Him accountable for the bad stuff? Like you know, the continued suffering of young boys in Afghanistan and children all over the world.

But I didn’t really want to talk about God. What makes life worth living, as Woody Allen ponders in the clip above. When he finally concludes that one of the things is Tracy’s face, one tends to wince at the idea of an old man loving a 17 year-old’s face and her loving his back — yes, it makes my skin crawl too but it is still a great movie. Still, if you take out the sex part, there are few things that make life worth living than the face of a child, especially your child.

One can bob around life with no purpose but I’ve always believed that our purpose is to help other people and animals and be parents. It’s really as simple as that. Everything else is ego-driven nonsense. Can you help people by writing great movies? Yes. Novels? Absolutely. Porn? For sure. Being an artist does contribute immeasurably to society. For me, though, it boils down to one thing — the people I love (not to get all Laura Dern in Jurassic Park on you).

These little creatures, my daughter and my niece’s eye sit on my computer and do Photo Booth whenever they get the chance. And the photos are always girl-silly. I love finding new ones on my computer that were taken when I was out of the room and they always remind me that youth is fleeting, that my love couldn’t be any stronger for these kids.

The New Scientist story talks about having and fulfilling goals as being a primary source of not killing oneself. Therefore, feeling purposeless would probably be a REASON TO kill oneself. Feeling purposeless, I think, leads down two paths. The first would be narcissism. As in, “I don’t really have a purpose so I will focus on myself only.” And the other path would be despair. As in, “I’m no good to anybody.”

For me, when I hit 25 thoughts of mortality kicked down the door and cornered me with terror. I am surprised that I emerged from that paralysis with ambition and goals intact. But it hit me: this is all temporary. I have a shelf life. I could not only die any minute.

One tries not to think about the worst ways to die but unfortunately, I do have a list and I’ve concluded that I could tolerate pain more than I could tolerate fear – thus, a plane crash or death-by-serial killer would come first (although I’m sort of out of the zone of serial killers now that I’m getting on in years). A long, slow illness where my kid would have suffer along with me and then be left without me is probably the worst of all. You see, at some point in life one stops worrying about one’s own death and starts worrying about the death of one’s child, and also how one’s own death WOULD impact that child.

So that rules out suicide. That just wipes it off the slate for me, which means that in itself, caring about the pain of one’s child, is a reason to endure.

So, the kid and kids in my life – from my sisters’ kids to my best friend’s kid to the kids I used to work with at an elementary school – they make life worth living and they are number one. But what about the other stuff? Let’s run it down for twenty, shall we?

2. Coffee. How shallow of me but it is really true. Some days coffee is the only thing I have to look forward to. It makes every minute of the morning pleasurable.
2. California. I know I could never live anywhere else. The blue sky, the wide sky, the general warmth – the sea, the mountains, the city — even the white trash zones, of which there are many, this is my home and I will live here for the rest of my (hopefully very long) life.
3. My effing iphone and my effing Macbook. Let’s just say all Apple products.
4. Cooking – the combination of flavors one can create – spending time in the kitchen, even though I really am a pretty terrible cook (getting better) is one of the joys I get out of life. I overcook things a lot. I overspice, I oversalt, I burn. But I love it.
5. Sex. I don’t do it anymore but I think it is one of the things that makes life worth living and certainly our human life. Humans have the best sex in the animal kingdom, you gotta admit. With a big brain comes a lot of responsibility.
6. Movies. The best ones I will watch over and over again. Even crappy ones I’ll watch over and over. I am just someone whose lived a life through movies. I grew up disappearing in them and I continue to disappear in them. My daughter began going to the movies with me when she was six months old (don’t worry – I timed it to her naps so that she wouldn’t disturb the other VERY LOUD ANYWAY moviegoers). So she loves movies too now and we often quote them back to each other. I can’t tell you the pride that goes along with THAT.
7. Stuff to know. There is still so much to know, so much to learn. And the more I find out, the more I want to know about science and history and art. To that end, podcasts of late have been invaluable. I’ve gotten into “Stuff You Missed in History Class” and “Stuff You Should Know.” I also listen to Fresh Air on NPR religiously. If I could I would go back to college and take all history classes. I wish I could. Go back to college.
8. Excitement for the future. I don’t know about you but one of my laments is that I can’t be alive 200 years from now, or 500 years from now to see where we humans end up. What will happen with stem cell research, and our obsession with the online world for communication. Where will we go from here? My daughter and I watched Sleeper the other day and in some ways I wish I could do that – wake up in the future just as I am now. Because I can’t it makes me want to live as long as I possibly can. I think of my grandmother who was born in 1907 and died in 1994. She saw so much progress in her lifetime. As one gets older one tends to appreciate the aged.
9. My best friend Clara. She is always there to talk to all of the time. And she always listens to my dumb problems. She, with her hands full of a hard life chats with me on a daily basis, gives me advice and makes life not only worth living but much more tolerable than it would otherwise be.
10. My kooky family. My two sisters, who are my best friends, my mother – who is determined and focused, which has made her successful. My moody and talented father. My handsome and rock solid brother, his son, my nephew. And all of our extended family whom are now readily available on Facebook. So that means Facebook gets in there.
11. The internets. Without the internets I wouldn’t have my daughter, nor would have as many great pals as I do. Nor would I have an income. Ahem.
12. Paris. PARIS. Paris.
13. Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. Of course. And you can add Bill Maher to that list.
14. Museums. Isn’t it cool that we make art and then put it in places to appreciate and admire it?
15. Tastys: French wine, cherry tomato marinara sauce, roasted garlic, creme brulee, Sharkey’s fish tacos, red licorice, summer peaches, organic blueberries, tomatoes on the vine, a well-cooked, organic steak, strawberry milkshake, crispy eel, fried calamari, plantains, Lorna Doones, Bolognesese ragu, the two best meals I’ve ever had in Florence ten years apart. Strawberry cream cake from Chinatown. Belgian white beer.
16. Blooming Jasmine, Gardenia, orange blossoms in the air. Sigh and swoon.
17. The icy cold water in Matilija Creek after a long summer hike uphill.
18. Music: Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, The Who, PJ Harvey, the Counting Crows, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, Chrissie Hynde, Liz Phair, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos.
19. Feeling the ocean on one’s feet. Stepping into the ocean and tasting salt water. Staring at the waves and maybe catching site of a dolphin.
20. Being a mommy. Raising another person. Watching her grow.

The evolution scientists, or scientists in general, that I read are downplaying this breathtaking new discovery.

Even though I don’t know nothing from nothing I was quite taken with the idea that they had found the “missing link,” even though I’d been told, or I learned, or someone once told me that the whole idea of the “missing link” was wrong to begin with. Anyway, so then Pharyngula’s PZ Myers cleaned things up a bit for me. You can see from this quote why there is good reason to adore and pledge undying love to Myers (along with other hero, Richard Dawkins):

She’s beautiful and interesting and important, but I do have to take exception to the surprisingly frantic news coverage I’m seeing. She’s being called the “missing link in human evolution”, which is annoying. The whole “missing link” category is a bit of journalistic trumpery: almost every fossil could be called a link, and it feeds the simplistic notion that there could be a single definitive bridge between ancient and modern species. There isn’t: there is the slow shift of whole populations which can branch and diverge. It’s also inappropriate to tag this discovery to human evolution. She’s 47 million years old; she’s also a missing link in chimp evolution, or rhesus monkey evolution. She’s got wider significance than just her relationship to our narrow line.

People have been using remarkable hyperbole when discussing Darwinius. She’s going to affect paleontology “like an asteroid falling down to earth”; she’s the “Mona Lisa” of fossils; she answers all of Darwin’s questions about transitional fossils; she’s “something that the world has never seen before”; “a revolutionary scientific find that will change everything”. Well, OK. I was impressed enough that I immediately made Ida my desktop wallpaper, so I’m not trying to diminish the importance of the find. But let’s not forget that there are lots of transitional forms found all the time. She’s unique as a representative of a new species, but she isn’t at all unique as a representative of the complex history of life on earth.

So PZ says it’s okay to be excited about it, just not to buy the hype. I can dig it. The weird thing about the story is how the fossil hung around on some dude’s wall for a long time before being re-discovered. It’s kind of an Antiques Roadshow for paleantologists.

Oh, and I also like the first comment in the Myers piece:

Meh, I think the overhype is fine. If every single time an interesting transitional fossil is found, the papers blare “MISSING LINK PROVES DARWIN WAS RIGHT!”, maybe a few burgeoning Creationists will get a clue…

Probably not, since many believe the evidence is faked to disprove religion.¬† I do still know a few holdouts who do bring up the missing link to me in arguments. Seriously, they do, or they have. Years ago now maybe. I can’t keep track of everything. My brain is getting old and doesn’t quite work the way it used to.

For the upcoming Darwin anniversary, Richard Dawkins has posted some great Darwin quotes and here they are:

1. “The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.” (Autobiography)

2. “It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

3. “I hardly see how religion & science can be kept as distinct as [Edward Pusey] desires‚Ķ But I most wholly agree‚Ķ that there is no reason why the disciples of either school should attack each other with bitterness.” (Letter to J. Brodie Innes, November 27 1878)

4. “In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

5. “I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.” (Letter to John Fordyce, May 7 1879)

6. “I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible as a divine revelation, & therefore not in Jesus Christ as the son of God.” (Letter to Frederick McDermott, November 24 1880)

7. [In conversation with the atheist Edward Aveling, 1881] “Why should you be so aggressive? Is anything gained by trying to force these new ideas upon the mass of mankind?” (Edward Aveling, The religious views of Charles Darwin, 1883)

8. “Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?” (Letter to Graham William, July 3 1881)

9. “My theology is a simple muddle: I cannot look at the Universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can see no evidence of beneficent Design.” (Letter to Joseph Hooker, July 12 1870)

10. “I can never make up my mind how far an inward conviction that there must be some Creator or First Cause is really trustworthy evidence.” (Letter to Francis Abbot, September 6 1871)

You know what? That’s just bullshit. The opposite in true, in fact. Just bringing you some more bad news from the front lines of life. Most things happen arbitrarily and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Go with it.

Dawkins on evolution, what is “natural”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU884Q2iUmE&watch_response[/youtube]

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, referred by Richard Dawkins, the Creationists:

…Have spent years working school boards, with only minimal success. Now critics of evolution are turning to a higher authority: state legislators.

In a bid to shape biology lessons, they are promoting what they call “academic freedom” bills that would encourage or require public-school teachers to cast doubt on a cornerstone of modern science.

A handful of states have considered such bills in recent years, but backers are now organizing a national movement, with high-profile help from actor Ben Stein. His new documentary, “Expelled,” argues that educators suffer reprisals if they dare question evolution; in an attempt to spur action, he has held private screenings for legislators, including a recent showing in the Missouri statehouse.

The academic-freedom bills now in circulation vary in detail. Some require teachers to critique evolution. Others let educators choose their approach — but guarantee they won’t be disciplined should they decide to build a case against Darwin.

This is not a matter of questioning authority; this is a time-waster. We have been there, done that. If they want to spend time debunking Darwin they ought not to put the kids in school back a century or two while they figure it out. It seems to me it’s the students who suffer from this needless and unfounded war.

The great Richard Dawkins on Creationists attempt to disguise “intelligent” design using the space alien theory:

Intelligent design “theorists” (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists: “For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space.” This attempt to fend off accusations of unconstitutionally importing religion into science classes is lame and disingenuous. All the leading intelligent design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist creationists they truly are.

Nevertheless, despite their notorious dishonesty, I sometimes hand an olive branch to these people by pretending to take their “space aliens” political ploy seriously. Unrealistic as the space alien theory is, it constitutes intelligent design’s best shot.

The distinguished molecular biologists Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel advanced a version of the notion, probably tongue in cheek, called “Directed Panspermia.” Life, they argued, could have been “seeded” on the early Earth by a spacecraft packed with bacteria. Maybe little cellular machines like the bacterial flagellar motor were designed by ingenious nano-technologists from Betelgeuse. But you still have to explain the prior existence of the Betelgeusians and how they became so advanced and god-like. Even if Betelgeusian life was, in turn, seeded by another rocket from Aldebaran 4 billion years earlier, eventually we have to terminate the regress.

We need a better explanation, such as evolution by natural selection or an equally workable account of the painstaking R&D that must underlie complex, statistically improbable things. Gods, if they are complex enough to be capable of designing anything, are, by virtue of their very complexity, not in a position to design themselves.

The full article is a must-read.

In case you’ve been wondering about the whole evolution thing or whether you never learned much about it in the first place, New Scientist has posted an article that should clear things up a bit. In it, there is a guide to the most common misconceptions about evolution and the dumbass creationists’ myths:

Shared misconceptions:

Everything is an adaptation produced by natural selection

Natural selection is the only means of evolution

Natural selection leads to ever-greater complexity

Evolution produces creatures perfectly adapted to their environment

Evolution always promotes the survival of species

It doesn’t matter if people do not understand evolution

“Survival of the fittest” justifies “everyone for themselves”

Evolution is limitlessly creative

Evolution cannot explain traits such as homosexuality

Creationism provides a coherent alternative to evolution

Creationist myths:

Evolution must be wrong because the Bible is inerrant

Accepting evolution undermines morality

Evolutionary theory leads to racism and genocide

Religion and evolution are incompatible

Half a wing is no use to anyone

Evolutionary science is not predictive

Evolution cannot be disproved so is not science

Evolution is just so unlikely to produce complex life forms

Evolution is an entirely random process

Mutations can only destroy information, not create it

Darwin is the ultimate authority on evolution

The bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex

Yet more creationist misconceptions

Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics