31 JAN 2012 by ideonexus

 Chemistry VS Biology

I came to biochemistry through chemistry; I came to chemistry, partly by the labyrinthine routes that I have related, and partly through the youthful romantic notion that the natural sciences had something to do with nature. What I liked about chemistry was its clarity surrounded by darkness; what attracted me, slowly and hesitatingly, to biology was its darkness surrounded by the brightness of the givenness of nature, the holiness of life. And so I have always oscillated between the brightne...
Folksonomies: biology chemistry
Folksonomies: biology chemistry
  1  notes

Chargaff relates how he was drawn to Chemistry for its clarity surrounded by the unknown and later biology for its lack of clarity but surrounded by the known.

29 MAY 2011 by ideonexus

 The Personhood Associated with the Word "God"

In his Spiritual Exercises, the Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis writes: We have seen the highest circle of spiraling powers. We have named this circle God. We might have given it any other name we wished: Abyss, Mystery, Absolute Darkness, Absolute Light, Matter, Spirit, Ultimate Hope, Ultimate Despair, Silence. But we have named it God because only this name, for primordial reasons, can stir the heart profoundly. And this deeply felt emotion is indispensable if we are to touch, body with...
  1  notes

While deists and others use it to mean a spiritual force, the word is so infused with the idea of a consciousness similar to human beings that it seems irretrievably corrupted for use by spiritual naturalists.