THE word G-o-d is becoming a major obstacle to modern thinking.

It seems to conjure up the experience of a ‘Somebody’ out there somewhere, probably bearded and ancient.

So, when atheists say they don’t need gods, as H Saunders (Letters August 19) does, I am inclined to agree.

However, for ‘god’ substitute: “my consciousness of my consciousness, and of the profound mystery of life, confirmed by looking out onto the Earth and into the vast universe”.

That is the foundation for any human enquiry and scientists from Newton to Einstein have expressed it in their own ways as their ‘default position’.

It is not belief, it is the unique human experience of “I am”.

It is no proof of a spiritual world, of course, but it is the central mystery and certainly encourages the humility of heart and mind from which new scientific world views can be born.

Fundamentalist religious believers, such as atheists, hold that everything can be explained (away?), in their case by mechanical, material causes.

However, quantum physics demolishes materialism, by showing that there are no little bits of matter and whatever sub-atomic phenomena are, they can perform inmaterially – be in two places at once or communicate ‘telepathically’ across empty space.

Observe a tadpole growing into a frog, or a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly. Darwin himself (and current Darwin-belief biologists) avoid them completely because they expose the reductionist limitation of his brilliant theory – which seems to be an adequate model for biological adaptations – and reveal its utter inadequacy in casting any light whatsoever on these remarkable transformations or, indeed, any evolutionary process – Richard Dawkins notwithstanding.

If natural selection can create new evolutionary species, why do domestic breeders see their target animal ultimately hit the buffers of sterility, weakness, ill-health and death?

Invoking ‘millions of years’ was Darwin’s avoidance of this reality and it remains a post-Darwinian dazzle, radiating out in textbooks and screens, preventing the Emperor’s New Clothes being seen.

No, I am not a creationist.

I have no fixed -ist or -ism.

Every scientific idea is true when seen only through its supporting evidence.

And in case H Saunders pulls the Steiner card out, I offer Steiner’s injunction: ‘I beg of you to accept nothing I have ever said or ever shall say, on or in blind faith. You must take nothing on authority”.

Graham Kennish

Brookthorpe