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The belief or disbelief in such a Being is therefore a matter of faith.

Alan Lightman

The future is pattern, organization, union, intensification; the past, randomness, confusion, disintegration, dissipation.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Future Order Organisation Past Pattern Point
In a world of fixed future, life is an infinite corridor of rooms, one room lit at each moment, the next room dark but prepared.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Corridor Dark Each Fixed Infinite Life Moment Next Prepare Room World
We live in a highly polarized society. We need to try to understand each other in respectful ways.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Highly Live Need Polarized Respectful Society Try Understand Way
In a world without future, each laugh is the last laugh. In a world without future, beyond the present lies nothingness, and people cling to the present as if hanging from a cliff.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Beyond Cliff Future Hang Laugh Nothingness Present
Or perhaps it is not because the cosmos is irrational but because they are rational. Who can say which, in an acausal world?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Actual Cosmo Irrational Perhaps Rational World
We often do not see what we do not expect to see.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Expect Not Often See
With a background in science I am extremely interested in the meeting ground of science, theology, and philosophy, especially the ethical questions at the border of science and theology.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Background Border Especially Ground Meet Philosophy Question Science Theology
The tragedy of this world is that no one is happy, whether stuck in a time of pain or joy.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Happy Joy One Pain Stuck Time Tragedy World
Most people have learned to live in the moment.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Earn Live Moment Most People
I think that the scienti?c way of looking at the world, and the humanistic way of looking at the world are complementary.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Complementary Humanistic Look Scientific Think Way World
A life is a moment in season. A life is one snowfall. A life is one autumn day. A life is the delicate, rapid edge of a closing door’s shadow. A life is a brief movement of arms and of legs.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Autumn Day Life Moment One Season Snowfall
That has been the great achievement of our age: to so thoroughly flood the planet with megabits that every image and fact has become a digitized disembodied nothingness. With magnificent determination,
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Achievement Age Fact Flood Great Image Megabit Planet So Throughout
I certainly believe there are forces bigger than ourselves, and that we should be searching, individually, for meaning in our lives. But I don’t believe there’s a supreme being, an intelligence that created everything.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Believe Create Everything Individual Meaning Ourselves Search Supreme
We have a house on a very tiny island in Maine. Which is really my spiritual center. We’ve been going there for ten years, and it has no ferry service, no bridges, no telephone service. It’s really isolated.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Bridge Ferry Island Really Service Spiritual Telephone
Making that book into a film is going to be quite a challenge.
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Book Challenge Film Go Make Quiet
But what is the past? Could it be, the firmness of the past is just illusion? Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought? And if the shift is everywhere, how would we know?
ALAN LIGHTMAN

Breeze Disturbance Firmness Illusion Image Kaleidoscope Past Pattern Sudden

The belief or disbelief in such a Being is therefore a matter of faith.

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The belief or disbelief in such a Being is therefore a matter of faith.

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