Reinventing the Sacred (False alarm)

I was alerted today to the existance of a relatively new book by Stuart Kauffman (a renowned researcher of complexity theory), called 'Reinventing the Sacred'. From the rumors about the book, it sounded as if the following claims are suggested there:

1. Complexity does not allow reduction of all phenomena to elementary particle physics.
   
2. Therefore we need a God to explain the highly complex systems all around us (including us).

I got all worked up and made a list of counter arguments, but before I published these thoughts, I went to www.amazon.com where a few pages of the book can be viewed for free. As it turns out, Kauffman does not believe in a creator God, and merely wants to use the word God to describe the 'creativity' of the world, that we should appreciate religiously. Bottom line, this is a publicity stunt that will probably be misunderstood by many as proof that important scientists believe in God. Too bad...

Yom Kippur 2008

So, what did you do on Yom Kippur? We went to a nice secluded beach with our friends, had a good meal, slept there in tents and drove back after Yom Kippur ended. All in all a good time. What did other people do? You can read about the riots in Acre on the news. Apparently an Arab drove his car into a non Arab region of Acre. That was enough for a bunch of trigger happy Jews to start rioting. The Muslim response was quick to follow. This demonstrates that the same dangerous seeds of violence exist in all religions. I strongly suggest checking out Richard Dawkins's book 'The God Delusion'. Some of his lectures can also be found on www.ted.com and www.youtube.com . Well, on that happy note I'll sign out. Have a good Sukot vacation and beware not to be cought without Lulav Hadas Etrog and Arava (I hope I got that right) in your Suka

;-)