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Very cool and enjoyable essay. It has always interested me that science, for all it's amazing feats, can not and does not even begin to explain the most fundamental questions underlying our existence. Questions like:

"Why are we here?"

"Where are we going?"

"How long have we got?"

Weinberg stated when he recieved his 1978 Nobel prize in physics that "The more we discover about the universe, the more it becomes pointless and meaningless". Sounds like he's trying hard to convince himself.

Regarding the "Goldilocks Universe", Steven Hawking joked about "the anthropomorphic principle of physics", to wit: "Why is the universe exactly the way it is? Because if it was not, we wouldn't be here to ask the question".

The mathematics of western science is powerful and vast, but, as Heins Pagels noted in "The Cosmic Code", all math gives us is descriptions of phenomena, not the phenomena itself. For example, the planets revolve around the sun according to paths described by Newton's differential equations. But the planets are no more solving math equations than they are hanging from strings held by some celestial hand. They are simply moving.

One irony to all of this is that, when and if mankind does finally find God, it will be science, not religion, that will find him.

Just my view from the saddle...

One irony to all of this is that, when and if mankind does finally find God, it will be science, not religion, that will find him.

The real God is the intelligence of the universe, which is what Jesus was saying when he referred to His father. There is only one God and it is the Tao, the nameless source of all.

One irony to all of this is that, when and if mankind does finally find God, it will be science, not religion, that will find him.

You can say that again. It's too bad that many of either the religous or scientific persuation are so dogmatic that they are blind to the similarities of the philosophies.

I get a kick out of the "Creationists" vs. the "Evolutionists". What a phony issue -- there is nothing precluding a God from setting up an evolutionary mechanism to accomplish his creations (except perhaps a belief in the infallibility of men in writing, translating, editing, and interpreting a bible). In fact it would to be testiment to a greater (and comprehensible) God to fashion this mechanism. And it is clear induction that evolution is a real process that shapes phylogeny.

Ultimately, it may be that God is nothing at all -- the singularity that brought forth the whole universe! The all.

For all we know, the Deity's concern may have lain with the pleasurable intricacies of nucleosynthesis, the emergence of life proving, like so many other things, an inadvertent consequence of his tinkering

Bwahahaha! Did you guys ever read any Douglas Adams? Well, at the end his forth book in the "hitchhiker" series, he spells out God's last message to his creation:

Sorry for all the inconveinence . . .