Dr Paul Allen

An "atheist church" in North London is proving a big hit with non-believers. Does it feel a bit like a new religion? Not many sermons include the message that we are all going to die and there is no afterlife. But the Sunday Assembly is no ordinary church service . Launched last month, as a gathering for non-believers, it is, in the words of master of ceremonies Sanderson Jones, "part foot-stomping show, part atheist church, all celebration of life". A congregation of more than 300 crowded into the shell of a deconsecrated church to join the celebration on Sunday morning. Instead of hymns, the non-faithful get to their feet to sing along to Stevie Wonder and Queen songs. Continue reading the main story Order of service Theme of "wonder" Congregation sang Queen's Don't Stop Me Now , Superstition by Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone 's Ain't Got No Screen on altar showed photo of TV scientist Dr Brian Cox Reading by Dr Har...

Image via Wikipedia Michael Gerson gives the most lucid explanation I have found for what the Higgs boson--a.k.a. the “God particle”--is. He also explores the implications of the strange fact that mathematics, which is a function of the human mind, can actually predict what things exist in the external world: Modern physics can explain just about everything, except why anything has mass. The Standard Model of physics, which emerged four decades ago, employs an elegant mathematical formula to account for most of the elemental forces in the universe. It correctly predicted the discovery of various leptons and quarks in the laboratory. But the equation doesn’t explain gravity. So the Standard Model requires the existence of some other force that seized the massless particles produced by the Big Bang and sucked them into physicality. The detection of Higgs bosons would confirm this theory — which is why scientists are smashing protons into one another in a 17-mile round particl...