Where can we find meaning?
The search for meaning may be one of the most significant defining characteristics of being human. But when meaning is taken from our lives in exchange for a belief in a completely random, accidental and purposeless universe, can we still find it?
An ancient proverb says “without a vision the people perish.” Meaning could be substituted for vision. We need meaning in our lives. That simple fact seems confirmed by the existence of a myriad of spiritual and religious beliefs that, while extremely diverse, seem to have in common the search for meaning.
The emergence of science and secularism in our part of the world, if not most of it, has fundamentally changed how we find meaning. I’m currently reading Charles Taylor’s massive The Secular Age which is why I have kept science and secularism separate. The two are deeply related but far from the same according to Taylor, evidenced by the fact that some of the most profound discoveries of science were made in a time dominated by religion.
Science and secularism have not fully succeeded in driving the traditional sources of meaning out of our culture and personal lives. I’ve documented in several of my posts in Top-Down or Bottom-Up the conflict many of us live with by living in a physicalist-secular culture while holding to beliefs in God, spirituality, or “something more.” Even a slim majority of…
