I Would Love To Believe That When

My Deeply Held Belief Is That If A God Of Anything Like The Traditional Sort Exists, Our Curiosity And Intelligence Is Provided By Such A God. We Would Be Unappreciative Of That Gift If We Suppressed Our Passion To Explore The Universe And Ourselves.

Humans — Who Enslave, Castrate, Experiment On, And Fillet Other Animals — Have Had An Understandable Penchant For Pretending Animals Do Not Feel Pain. A Sharp Distinction Between Humans And 'animals' Is Essential If We Are To Bend Them To Our Will, Make Them Work For Us, Wear Them, Eat Them — Without Any Disquieting Tinges Of Guilt Or Regret. It Is Unseemly Of Us, Who Often Behave So Unfeelingly Toward Other Animals, To Contend That Only Humans Can Suffer. The Behavior Of Other Animals Renders Such Pretensions Specious. They Are Just Too Much Like Us.

Many Religions Have Attempted To Make Statues Of Their Gods Very Large, And The Idea, I Suppose, Is To Make Us Feel Small. But If That's Their Purpose, They Can Keep Their Paltry Icons. We Need Only Look Up If We Wish To Feel Small.

Ours Is The First Generation That Has Grown Up With Science-fiction Ideas.

Teller Contended, Not Implausibly, That Hydrogen Bombs Keep The Peace, Or At Least Prevent Thermonuclear War, Because The Consequences Of Warfare Between Nuclear Powers Are Now Too Dangerous. We Haven't Had A Nuclear War Yet, Have We? But All Such Arguments Assume That The Nuclear-armed Nations Are And Always Will Be, Without Exception, Rational Actors, And That Bouts Of Anger And Revenge And Madness Will Never Overtake Their Leaders (or Military And Secret Police Officers In Charge Of Nuclear Weapons). In The Century Of Hitler And Stalin, This Seems Ingenuous.