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“For the human brain,” Edmond explained, “any answer is better than no answer. We feel enormous discomfort when faced with ‘insufficient data,’ and so our brains invent the data—offering us, at the very least, the illusion of order—creating myriad philosophies, mythologies, and religions to reassure us that there is indeed an order and structure to the unseen world.”
What had once been life’s quiet moments of solitary reflection—a few minutes alone on a bus, or walking to work, or waiting for an appointment—now felt unbearable, and people impulsively reached for their phones, their earbuds, and their games, unable to fight the addictive pull of technology. The miracles of the past were fading away, whitewashed by a ceaseless hunger for all-that-was-new.
MY GOD—ROBERT, ARE YOU OKAY??!! Langdon had never seen his scholarly editor employ all caps or double punctuation.
We comfort our physical bodies in hopes our souls will follow.
‘The price of greatness … is responsibility.’”
“May our philosophies keep pace with our technologies. May our compassion keep pace with our powers. And may love, not fear, be the engine of change.”
“Worshipping God is like mining for fossil fuels,” someone argued. “Plenty of smart people know it is shortsighted, and yet they have too much invested to stop!”
Dialogue is always more important than consensus.
