But how? Part 29: Selfishness

It’s been over a year since the last example of this topic, which is intended to answer the questions raised by a non-religious worldview, and it was making me suspect that I’d exhausted just about all of the possibilities, but new ones still pop up here and there. Today’s is kind of a multi-level one, because several aspects run together, so bear with me. I’ve also tackled read more

You telling me or asking me?

Over at Why Evolution Is True far too many days back (time really has been getting away from me,) Jerry Coyne ran a post on how he, as an atheist, found ‘meaning’ in life. Surprising few who have engaged in such discussions before, religious commenter ajmgw saw fit to correct everyone’s impression, which Dr. Coyne featured in another post. For the edification of all, it reads:

The read more

Like we mean it

This is an extension of a much earlier post on meaning, or the universe’s apparent lack thereof, as well as Sean Carroll’s presentation from The Amaz!ng Meeting 2012. Both of those are virtual prerequisites for making the most out of this post, primarily because I don’t feel like reiterating a bunch of stuff.

So, given that there is no meaning to life, the universe, & everything read more

But how? Part five: Life!

Walkabout podcast – But how? Part 5

Having taken a break longer than I should’ve, we now return to the “But how?” series of posts that examine how things might work if we stop using religion as a default explanation. Our topic for this evening is “life.”

It is admittedly hard to believe that such a thing could come about on its own, dictated only by the simple read more

Denihilism

Humans are a really odd species – there’s just no getting around this. Maybe it’s a credit to us that we’re actually starting to recognize this, or maybe it’s a symptom of our condition that it’s taking us so long. It’s really easy to devolve into some kind of internal philosophical debate over that, but it’s pretty pointless.

What makes me say this, read more

What does it mean?!

Anyone who has ever spent time in a discussion about religion and lack thereof, or even about the value of the scientific approach, has come up against the argument of “meaning.” “But if we live in a random, uncaused universe,” comes the plaintive cry, “then life has no meaning.”

This is a curious statement. After all, the search for the meaning of life has been read more