The age-old problem of deciphering the meaning of life never gets old as a philosophical project. The word “decipher” here is the wrong word to use from a humanist’s point of view, of course. It is not the meaning is hidden in the fabric of the universe, laid there carefully by some deity for us […]
Meaning & Purpose
Posted inArts, Climate Crisis, History, Meaning & Purpose, Poetry
On ‘tomorrow sorrow’: How we grieve the future today
I was six years old when Star Trek: The Next Generation first aired one of its most beloved episodes, “The Inner Light.” In it, Captain Jean-Luc Picard wakes to a life not his own. He lives in a small village, where he works as an iron weaver, and everyone explains that he is recovering from […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
‘So there’s no point to life, then?’
I don’t turn doorknockers away. I give them snacks.
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
The end of the world is not what you think
Every year of the calendar, for ages and ages, up to and including this year, religious people have believed the end of the world is coming soon. But the end never comes. I would evince a high degree of vanity to think the end of the world will occur in my life span. The whole […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
21 reasons why God is unconvincing to atheists
1. God as an old white man in the sky is unconvincing. Depictions of God as a human-like (called ‘anthropo-morphism’ = in human form), both in physical shape and in emotional dispositions, have been considered incredible since ancient times. Rendering God as a male humanoid replete with human emotions, even the bad emotions like anger and envy and […]
Posted inDeep Dive, Meaning & Purpose, Spirituality & Ritual
Building a ‘House of Light’: Lessons from Mary Oliver on meaning and spirituality
As I feathered through the pages of Mary Oliver’s House of Light, I noted that I was not the first to do so. My library copy nears the age of 43; an old-fashioned due date table indicates that the first reader visited the poetry collection on August 16, 1990. And people say time machines don’t […]
Posted inCulture, Deep Dive, History, Meaning & Purpose, Science, Space
How do we make astronomy more humanist?
While I wait for my early morning exercise class, I listen to the chatter of yellow-breasted bichofué, and watch a city worker use a long husk of palm branch to sweep the night’s detritus from the square. On my warmup run, I tuned into a local news podcast, for analysis of the new president’s first […]
Posted inBooks, Death & Dying, Meaning & Purpose, Philosophy
‘On Consolation’: Comfort for nonbelievers from great thinkers
As an omnivorous reader, I unconsciously categorize my books: the ones I quit partway through, those I finish but donate to a library, books I keep for repeat reads, and, top of the heap, the treasured titles I underline and dog ear, the better to savor and re-savor certain passages. Michael Ignatieff’s On Consolation belongs […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose, True Story, Your World, Your Life
When dissent meets disproportionate consequences
It was June 10th, 2022. My plane had just touched down in Los Angeles. The long travel day from Glasgow was finally over. I wasn’t thinking about dissent; I was thinking about a bed to sleep in. Scotland had given me a rough time. I had broken my leg in two places and was now struggling […]
Posted inCulture, Meaning & Purpose, Psychology
It’s times like these when hope is hardest to find—and when it’s needed most
To be progressive and politically engaged this summer is to absorb one blow after another, with more in the offing. The demise of Roe v. Wade. Severe limits slapped onto the EPA’s ability to combat climate change through regulation of power-plant carbon emissions. The specter of Republican-dominated state legislatures being turned loose to administer federal […]