Steven Weinberg

Dr. Steven Weinberg is one of the true, authentic, Renaissance men of our time. He has been called the “Einstein” of our day. He won the Nobel Prize for uniting the electro-magnetic and the weak nuclear forces into a single force. He is a founding director of the Jerusalem Winter School of Theoretical Physics; is on the Council of Scholars, the Library of Congress ; he holds honorary doctoral degrees from major universities all over the world. He taught at MIT and Harvard. Nobody since Loren Eiseley and Lewis Thomas has written so beautifully turning science into poetry.

He recently was awarded the Lewis Thomas prize, given to the scholar who “best embodies the scientist as poet.”

He prefaced his acceptance speech by saying…”what a joy to be at a meeting that doesn’t start with an invocation.” He went on to say that the great passion of his life, with science, is to free human beings from the superstition of religion” and he continued:

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. Science should be taught ignoring religion. One of the social functions of science is to free humans from superstition.”
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Respecting ignorance

When I read, or hear, the wimpish cliches that we should always respect others religious beliefs, I want to gag. I gag, thinking of the millions (as Thomas Jefferson put it) of human beings who have been mutilated, tortured and butchered in the name of religion, even as is happening today around the world.

H.L. Mencken, one of the most respected scholars and journalists in America spoke to this issue. It should be on the fridge door of every person.
“The most unbelievable social convention of the age in which we live is the one to the effect that all religious opinions should be respected, no matter how ignorant.”

The insidious and seductive cliche that seems to saturate the wimpish mind is that you should not be critical of another’s persons religious beliefs. They all deserve respect, no matter how ignorant…how bigoted…how ugly…how false…how cruel…how superstitious…they all deserve “respect”.
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The vision of a city

I am writing this column from my home in Palm Springs, CA. The question I am asking is equally important for you who read this column weekly in Santa Barbara, CA., Pueblo, CO. and other communities. The question for citizens and elected officials is: “What do you want your community to be and to become?” We here in Palm Springs have gone through all of the usual friction about putting in a fountain downtown. Every city, village and hamlet in the universe has a fountain so, of course, we in an outburst of creative originality said “lets do a fountain.” The elected officials here are now in the throes of whether or not to approve a motorcycle rental business in the heart of Palm Springs and directly adjacent to one of the loveliest and most historic areas of the city, the Historic Tennis Club district. The noise pollution of such a venture would be anathema to the majority of the citizens and would, in no way, contribute to the image of a great, visionary, city.

The question is: What image does a city want? How do we create a quality of life that enriches the citizens.

The earliest cities began as shrine centers. A perfect example is the city of Catal Huyuk, going back to 6000 BC in south central Turkey. The city, the shrines and the art were inseparable and perceived as one. Murals were painted freehand on walls by artists. The colors were strong and vivid. Cities were “holy” in the truest sense of the word and magnificent art contributed to that “holiness” or the “whole-ness” of both the city and the people. Cities were, and are, places where human beings confront the implications of their “humanity” and what it means to be truly “human”.
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