Thought for the day.

Morning Edition on NPR this morning included a brief interview with Donald E. Knuth (super famous in geekdom... author of the many volumes of The Art of Computer Programming... Professor at Stanford University... all around brilliant human being).

During the interview, he was asked if he believed in God. His response was yes. More interesting to me though was what followed that response. He said that he hoped that the existence of God was never proved because if there was proof, then he would simply memorize the proof and stop thinking about it. The implication was (to me) that the whole point of "God" (I'm not talking "religion" now... just "God") is to continue to think, ponder, and reflect. So - along those same lines (for those of us who may not spend a great deal of time pondering the existence of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, creator being) the answer to "what is the meaning of life" or "why does the universe exist" or "what is my place in the universe" or any of those other transcendent questions are not meant to be found. These questions are not asked so that we may find the one true solution to the riddle... these questions (like Zen Koans) are asked so that we may continue to think, ponder, and reflect.