I was really hoping this would make for a good response to David Brooks’s The Road To Character, but it is a bit underwhelming. Mostly, I think, because it is too rational. This is obviously a philosophical problem, but it is even more a problem of sociology and cultural anthropology.

Religion turns out to be a clever way to make humans feel that their lives have meaning. I would argue that God is one of man’s greatest inventions. But if you are going to take it away you have to come up with something to put in its place. Victor Frankl’s pass at this problem wasn’t that compelling either. It’s a tough one.