\u201cThe soft bonds of love are indifferent to life and death.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
Science and religion have a long<\/a> history<\/a> of friction as diametric opposites. But some of humanity\u2019s greatest minds have found in science itself a rich source of spirituality, from Albert Einstein\u2019s meditation on whether scientists pray<\/a> to Richard Feynman\u2019s ode to the universe<\/a> to Carl Sagan on the reverence of science<\/a> to Bucky Fuller\u2019s scientific rendition of The Lord\u2019s Prayer<\/a> to Richard Dawkins on the magic of reality<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here comes a wonderful addition from the mind of beloved science fiction author Isaac Asimov<\/a>, found in the altogether indispensable It\u2019s Been a Good Life<\/i><\/b><\/a> (public library<\/i><\/a>) \u2014 a revealing selection of Asimov\u2019s letters, diary entries, and his three prior autobiographies, In Memory Yet Green<\/i><\/a> (1979), In Joy Still Felt<\/i><\/a> (1980), and the posthumously published I. Asimov: A Memoir<\/i><\/a> (1994), edited by his spouse, Janet Jeppson Asimov<\/b>, a decade after his death.<\/p>\n Asimov succinctly recapitulates his philosophy:<\/p>\n I have never, not for one moment, been tempted toward religion of any kind. The fact is that I feel no spiritual void. I have my philosophy of life, which does not include any aspect of the supernatural and which I find totally satisfying. I am, in short, a rationalist and believe only that which reason tells me is so.<\/p>\n Indeed, rather than suspending his conviction in the ether of vacant self-righteousness, it is with amiable reason and clever logic that Asimov responds to his inquisitors: Shortly after writing Asimov\u2019s Guide to the Bible<\/i><\/a>, he appeared on the David Frost Show<\/i> and delivered his irreverent wit in full brilliance when badgered with the G-question. The author recounts:<\/p>\n [Frost] said, with neither warning nor preamble, \u201cDr. Asimov, do you believe in God?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat rather took my breath away. It was a dreadful way of putting a person on the spot. To answer honestly, \u201cNo,\u201d with millions of people watching, could arouse a great deal of controversy I didn\u2019t feel much need of. Yet I couldn\u2019t lie, either. I played for time, in order to find a way out.<\/p>\n He said, \u201cDr. Asimov, do you believe in God?\u201d<\/p>\n And I said, \u201cWhose?\u201d<\/p>\n He said, a little impatiently, \u201cCome, come, Dr. Asimov, you know very well whose. Do you believe in the Western God, the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition?\u201d<\/p>\n Still playing for time, I said, \u201cI haven\u2019t given it much thought.\u201d<\/p>\n Frost said, \u201cI can\u2019t believe that, Dr. Asimov.\u201d He then nailed me to the wall by saying, \u201cSurely a man of your diverse intellectual interests and wide-ranging curiosity must have tried to find God?\u201d<\/p>\n (Eureka! I had it! The very nails had given me my opening!) I said, smiling pleasantly, \u201cGod is much more intelligent than I am \u2014 let him try to find me.\u201d<\/p>\n Above all, however, Asimov was an unrelenting humanist:<\/p>\n I\u2019ve never been particularly careful about what label I placed on my beliefs. I believe in the scientific method and the rule of reason as a way of understanding the natural Universe. I don\u2019t believe in the existence of entities that cannot be reached by such a method and such a rule and that are therefore \u201csupernatural.\u201d I certainly don\u2019t believe in the mythologies of our society, in Heaven and Hell, in God and angels, in Satan and demons. I\u2019ve thought of myself as an \u201catheist,\u201d but that simply described what I didn\u2019t<\/i> believe in, not what I did.<\/p>\n Gradually, though, I became aware that there was a movement called \u201chumanism,\u201d which used that name because, to put it most simply, Humanists believe that human beings produced the progressive advance of human society and also the ills that plague it. They believe that if the ills are to be alleviated, it is humanity that will have to do the job. They disbelieve in the influence of the supernatural on either the good or the bad of society, on either its ills or the alleviation of those ills.<\/p>\n He revisits the subject of self-classification in a letter to a friend, articulating the same gripe with the label \u201catheist\u201d that Brian Cox would come to echo decades later<\/a>, and writes:<\/p>\n Have I told you that I prefer \u201crationalism\u201d to \u201catheism\u201d? The word \u201catheist,\u201d meaning \u201cno God,\u201d is negative and defeatist. It says what you don\u2019t believe and puts you in an eternal position of defense. \u201cRationalism\u201d on the other hand states what you DO believe; that, that which can be understood in the light of reason. The question of God and other mystical objects-of-faith are outside reason and therefore play no part in rationalism and you don\u2019t have to waste your time in either attacking or defending that which you rule out of your philosophy altogether.<\/p>\n Speaking to the core belief that the unknown is a source of wonder rather than fear<\/a>, a fundamental driver of science<\/a>, Asimov allows for the possibility that his own convictions about the nonexistence of \u201cgod\u201d might be wrong, with a playful wink at Bertrand Russell<\/a>:<\/p>\n There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven. And what if I\u2019m mistaken? The question was asked of Bertrand Russell, the famous mathematician, philosopher, and outspoken atheist. \u201cWhat if you died,\u201d he was asked, \u201cand found yourself face to face with God? What then?\u201d<\/p>\n And the doughty old champion said, \u201cI would say, \u2018Lord, you should have given us more evidence.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But Asimov\u2019s philosophy shines with its fullest heart in these beautiful words penned at the end of his life, at once validating and invalidating the mortality paradox<\/a>:<\/p>\n The soft bonds of love are indifferent to life and death. They hold through time so that yesterday\u2019s love is part of today\u2019s and the confidence in tomorrow\u2019s love is also part of today\u2019s. And when one dies, the memory lives in the other, and is warm and breathing. And when both die \u2014 I almost believe, rationalist though I am \u2014 that somewhere it remains, indestructible and eternal, enriching all of the universe by the mere fact that once it existed.<\/p>\n It\u2019s Been a Good Life<\/i><\/b><\/a> is excellent in its entirety. Complement it with Asimov on science and creativity in education<\/a> and the author\u2019s endearing fan mail to young Carl Sagan<\/a>.<\/p>\n ________________________<\/p>\n Brain Pickings<\/i><\/a><\/em> is the brain child of Maria Popova<\/a>, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large obsessed with combinatorial creativity who also writes for Wired<\/em> UK<\/a> and The Atlantic<\/em><\/a>, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. She has gotten occasional help from a handful of guest contributors<\/a>.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n