Something from Nothing

Here's Important Science, impacting the thinking person's Philosophy and/or Religion.

On Stitcher I listen to a science podcast called, "Quirks and Quarks", from Canada. The last episode is here: http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/episode/2012/01/21/january-21-2012/.

If you scroll down to the last segment at the bottom you will find a short description of a new book by renowned physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, "A Universe from Nothing:  Why there is Something Rather than Nothing".

There is a link to listen to the podcast interview at the bottom, http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=2188844685, or you can download an mp3, http://cbc.ca/quirks/media/2011-2012/qq-2012-01-21_05.mp3.

Amazon sells the book in either hardcover or eBook format: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145162445X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=mrstehigschma-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=145162445X.

I'm currently reading the eBook on my iPhone Kindle Reader.

There are videos on Dr. Krauss's Media page, http://krauss.faculty.asu.edu/video-presentations/, further explaining the physics / cosmology of the instability of nothing forcing the emergence of something.

Tangentially, in the last video Dr Krauss discusses Richard Feynman's Life in Science (CERN talk). As a counterpoint to the prevailing education mantra that English is more important than STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), Dr. Krauss reports that on the undergraduate entrance exams to Princeton, Feynman got the highest ever recorded score in Physics and the lowest ever recorded score in English. But, "In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World he was ranked as one of the ten greatest physicists of all time." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman) So at least in Feynman's case, English was not all that important. This supports my post on 2/15/2010, PAAC, not WAC.

I personally have struggled on the one hand with childhood instruction in a fundamental Baptist religion, and on the other hand my observations of various seeming paradoxes within those teachings, and clashes with rational scientific thoughts and theories.

I agree with http://atheistalliance.org that throughout history and even today many crimes against humanity have and are being committed in the names of various religions and superstitions.

OTOH, the ceremonies and didactic methods of formal religions are attractive; e.g., see http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0.html.

So while not yet ready to embrace outright atheism, pantheism has a lot of appeal. The Cosmos IS God; and we're part of the Cosmos!