Listen live Fridays 8 to 10 Eastern on Revolution.Radio later archived at https://kevinbarrett.substack.com
First hour: Anti-aging scientist Josh Mittledorf discusses his article “The Origin of Life…Unsolved or Unsolvable?” He writes:
“I believe that a bird’s eye view of innovative research over the last 70 years supports the assertion that life could not have arisen from inorganic matter by any known chemical process.” He backs up that statement by summarizing findings on auto-catalyzing hypercycles, chirality, amino acids’ information storage, self-replicating RNA, nanobes, jeewanu, and more. Bottom line: James Tour is right, life couldn’t have arisen randomly.
Well, then, how did it arise?
“I propose that Heisenberg’s ‘uncertainty’ is actually the action of universal mind.”
Second hour: Eric Walberg‘s new article “The Qur’an as Epic Enchanter” opens with the observation:
“Northrop Frye used literary criticism to show how the Bible articulates spiritual vision as a unity. The Quran does this in spades.”
He adds:
“More than just good theology, it’s a dramatic epic, right up there with Shahnameh, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Homer’s Odyssey. But it’s not just a linear plotline. It is episodic, like musical variations, improvisations.”
I emailed Eric:
“I hope to write a commentary on the Qur’an’s dialogism. It’s a symphony in which the voices of heroes (prophets and their followers), villains (Shaytan, Pharaoh etc.), and the people in-between are wittingly or unwittingly magnifying the voice of God; and the different and often overlapping levels of who is speaking to whom — God thorugh Jibreel through the prophet(s) through the Muslim community including the reciter(s) — give it richness and complexity.”