Pope Francis and Richard Dawkins and the Dalai Lama all in one blog

Yesterday's Times yielded two interesting takes on atheism.  First, Richard Dawkins, at an event marking the pubication of his book with the marvellous title, An Appetite for Wonder, suggested that atheists were winning the war against religion and that his enthusiasm for science was one of the things which defined him.  He said too that he would like his legacy to consist of being a "lover of truth".  Turn to page 31 in the same paper, where there is a report on Pope Francis who says in an article responding to a journalist from the left wing newspaper La Republica who says he doesn't believe in God that "The question for people who do not believe in God is to listen to their consciences.  For those without faith, sin is going against your conscience.  Listening to it and obeying it means making up one's mind about what is good and evil and that there is no sin in the state of non-belief.

It seemed to me that these two men are both searching for ways of making us think about our human beingness, and that both religion and science point to a process of becoming, a constant wonderful explosion of extra-ordariness and that being full of wonder whether or not you call this God's world or a world of scientific process, brings you to your knees with the sheer scale and detail of it.
Reading from the Dalai Lama this morning, he suggests that after a formal meditation, a next step is to just consider the wonder of our lives and how we are fed, watered, washed, clothed, and how many people we should be thankful for.  He also suggests that we should be thankful for those who we don't agree with or those who upset our beliefs because they make us think.  So all round, there are so many people and things to wonder at.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HE2mc3eJqY