{"id":75,"date":"2019-09-08T23:48:25","date_gmt":"2019-09-08T23:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesecularcommunity.org\/blog\/?p=75"},"modified":"2019-09-08T23:48:25","modified_gmt":"2019-09-08T23:48:25","slug":"the-search-for-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesecularcommunity.org\/blog\/2019\/09\/08\/the-search-for-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"The Search for Meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By James Haught<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jim Haught is editor of West Virginia\u2019s largest\nnewspaper, The Charleston Gazette, and a senior editor of Free\nInquiry. This article first appeared in Free Inquiry, Fall 2000. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Young\nseekers of truth go through a phase of wondering whether life has any discernible\nmeaning. Why are we here? Why does the universe exist? Is there a purpose to it\nall? This is the ultimate question, overarching all others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nseekers usually plunge into philosophy, and spend years sweating over \u201cbeing\u201d\nand \u201cessence\u201d \u2013 and quibbling over how the mind obtains knowledge \u2013 and how we\ndetermine reality \u2013 and how language shapes our comprehension. In the end, most\nof them emerge (as I did) with no better answer than when they began \u2013 and a\nfeeling that they wasted a lot of time and effort. Omar Khayyam felt the same\nway 900 years ago:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Myself\nwhen young did eagerly frequent
\nDoctor and saint, and heard great argument
\nAbout it and about, but evermore
\nCame out by the same door as in I went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\ndespite this futility, I think intelligent people can address the\nmeaning-of-life question sensibly, without bogging down in philosophical\nstewing and hair-splitting. That\u2019s what I\u2019d like to do now: just spell out\nwhat\u2019s knowable, as I see it. The following is my personal, amateur view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First,\n90 percent of humanity \u2013 the religious believers \u2013 needn\u2019t ask the meaning of\nlife. Churches, mosques and temples tell them the answer. Priests and\nscriptures say a magical, invisible god created the universe, and put people\nhere to be tested \u2013 and set behavior rules for us to follow \u2013 and created a\nheaven to reward the rule-followers after they die \u2013 and a hell to torture the\nrule-breakers \u2013 etc. This supernatural explanation, or some other mystical\nversion, is accepted by the vast preponderance of the species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nsome of us can\u2019t swallow it, because there\u2019s no evidence. Nobody can prove that\npeople live after death. Nobody can prove that we are tortured or rewarded in\nan afterlife \u2013 or that there are invisible spirits to do the torturing and\nrewarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore,\nwe unsure people are doomed to be seekers, always searching for a meaning to\nlife, but never quite finding one. I\u2019ve been going through it for half a\ncentury. Now, I think I can declare that there are two clear answers: (1) Life\nhas no meaning. (2) Life has a thousand meanings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First,\nthe lack of meaning: As for an ultimate purpose or transcending moral order,\nall the great thinkers since ancient Greece have failed to find one. The best\nphilosophical minds have dug into this for 25 centuries, without success. There\nhave been endless theories, but no clear answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin\nHeidegger concluded that we are doomed to live our whole lives and die without\nknowing why we\u2019re here. That\u2019s existentialism: All we can really know is that\nwe and the material world exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Actually,\nI can know only one<\/em> thing with absolute certainty: that my\nmind exists, and is receiving impressions. Hypothetically, the images, sounds,\nfeelings, etc., in my consciousness could be illusions \u2013 perhaps like\nartificial inputs to a brain in a laboratory tank \u2013 and the entire objective\nworld could be fictitious. But there\u2019s no question whatsoever that my mind is\nreceiving them. Rene Descartes stated this truth as \u201ccogito, ergo sum\u201d \u2013 I\nthink, therefore I am. However, although we can\u2019t be totally sure of the\nvalidity of the sense impressions reaching our minds, we all presume that\nexternal people, places and things actually exist. Their existence seems\nverified by thousands \u2013 millions \u2013 of encounters in our activities. We base our\nwhole lives, and our search for knowledge, on this presumption that they are\nreal.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nwe learn scientific facts, we realize that the universe is horribly violent,\nwith stars exploding or disappearing into black holes. Here on Earth, nature\ncan be equally monstrous. Both the cosmos and our biosphere seem utterly\nindifferent to humanity, caring not a whit whether we live or die. Earthquakes\nand hurricanes and volcanos, etc., don\u2019t give a damn whether they hit us or\nmiss us. Tigers, tapeworms and bacteria consider us food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nfor morality, I don\u2019t think any exists, independent of people. It\u2019s merely\nrules that cultures evolve for themselves, in their attempt to make life\nworkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservatives\ntalk of \u201cnatural law\u201d \u2013 but there really is none. If Ku Klux Klansmen lynch a\nblack person from a limb, the tree doesn\u2019t care. Nor do the squirrels and birds\nin the branches. Nor the sun or moon above. Nature doesn\u2019t care. Only people\ncare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take\nhuman rights. Thomas Jefferson said all people \u201care endowed by their Creator\nwith certain unalienable rights.\u201d But I think Jefferson was wrong. There\u2019s no\nevidence that any Creator endowed anyone with any God-given rights. What\nunalienable rights were enjoyed by African blacks who were sold into slavery \u2013\nincluding those on Jefferson\u2019s Monticello plantation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nGod-given rights were assured the 3,000 victims of the historic terrorist\nattack on Sept. 11, 2001? \u2013 or the 6 million Jews sent to Nazi death camps? \u2013\nor the 1 million middle-class Cambodians murdered by Pol Pot\u2019s peasant army? \u2013\nor the 1 million tall Tutsis killed by short Hutus? \u2013 or Ulster children killed\nby Catholic and Protestant bombs? \u2013 or Hiroshima residents in 1945 \u2013 or around\n1 million women burned as witches by the Inquisition? What\u2019s the meaning of\nlife to the millions dying of AIDS? \u2013 and the millions who died in the 1918 flu\nepidemic, and in the Black Plague? \u2013 and the 900 who gave cyanide to their\nchildren at Jonestown? \u2013 or the 90 who burned with their children in the David\nKoresh compound? What meaning existed for thousands of Hondurans drowned in\nhurricane floods a couple of years ago? Or those 16 Scottish kindergarten tots\nwho were massacred by a psycho with pistols? Or the 2,000 American women killed\nby their husbands or lovers every year? Or the 20,000 victims the Aztecs\nsacrificed annually to the invisible flying serpent? \u2013 or the 20,000 the Thugs\nstrangled for the goddess Kali?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meaningless,\nsenseless, pointless \u2013 all these horrors have a grotesque absurdity about them.\nWords like purpose, rights and morals simply don\u2019t apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nthink these evils make it obvious, by simple logic, that there is no\nall-loving, all-merciful, all-compassionate, father god. How could a kindly\nfather watch idly while thousands of children die of leukemia, ignoring the\ndesperate prayers of their families? Why would a kindly creator design nature\nso that lions slaughter antelopes, and pythons crush pigs, and sharks rip seals\napart \u2013 and women die of breast cancer? Only a monster would arrange such\nmonstrosities, and do nothing to save the victims. Therefore, common sense\nproves that the beneficent modern god is a fantasy who doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nhis book Consilience<\/em>, the great Harvard socio-biologist E.O. Wilson\npointed out that there are two fundamental ways of looking at reality:\nEmpiricism, believing only what evidence tells you \u2013 and Transcendentalism,\nbelieving that a divine or cosmic moral order exists, independent of humanity.\nIf any proof ever upholds the latter, he said, \u201cthe discovery would be quite\nsimply the most consequential in human history.\u201d But it never occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\nmuch for meaninglessness. Now for the many meanings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously,\nthe reality of physics, chemistry, biology, atoms, cells, matter, radiation and\nall the rest of nature imposes a physical order upon us. We can\u2019t escape the\nlaws of nature that govern animals on an orbiting planet. And the inevitability\nof death is a force stronger than we are. We can\u2019t prevent it. Therefore,\nwhatever meanings exist must apply to the temporary period while we live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly,\nthere\u2019s a physical and psychological purpose to life. Our bodies need food, and\nclothing, and shelter, and health, and affectionate comfort, and security from\nviolence and theft, and so forth. We also need gregarious social reaction with\npeople around us. And we need democratic freedoms, so we can speak honestly\nwithout fear of punishment \u2013 and justice, so we won\u2019t be treated cruelly. These\nare the humanist purposes of life: to provide better nutrition, medicine,\nhousing, transportation, education, safety, human rights, and all the other\nneeds of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nattain this humanist \u201cgood life,\u201d the species has a strong need to raise\nintelligent, healthy, affectionate, responsible children. Sometimes I think the\nsingle biggest purpose in life is raising good kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nthink we all endorse this biological \/ psychological meaning of life. We\nbelieve in preventing war, curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy,\nreducing crime, averting famines, and taking other steps that make life\npleasant \u2013 until death takes us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\naside from this \u201chousekeeping\u201d type of purpose, is there any greater meaning\nthat transcends our human needs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\ndon\u2019t think so. At least, I\u2019ve never been able to find any proof of it. We\nsimply must try to make life as good as possible, and avoid horrors, and care\nabout people, and have fun, even though we know that oblivion is coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make\nhay while the sun shines \u2013 because darkness is on its way. Carpe diem \u2013 seize\nthe day for now; live fully while you can. Omar Khayyam saw the folly of\naggrandizing oneself, because ill fortune or sickness and death soon wipe it\nout. And praying for heaven after death is even greater folly: \u201cFools, your\nreward is neither here nor there.\u201d So Omar\u2019s solution was to take comfort in\nverses, wine and his lover \u201cbeside me singing in the wilderness \u2013 and\nwilderness is paradise enough.\u201d About 1,400 years before him, the great Greek\nskeptic Epicurus felt the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\nthere you have it: We who are not orthodox religious believers can\u2019t find any\nunderlying reason for existence. And we know that death looms ahead. So we must\nmake the interval as enjoyable as possible, while we\u2019re here. This view of\nlife\u2019s purpose was summed up a few years ago by the title of a Unitarian\nseminar: \u201cDancing over the dark abyss.\u201d And Zorba the Greek taught us: What is life,\nif not to dance?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By James Haught Jim Haught is editor of West Virginia\u2019s largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette, and a senior editor of Free Inquiry. This article first appeared in Free Inquiry, Fall 2000. Young seekers of truth go through a phase of wondering whether life has any discernible meaning. Why are we here? Why does the universe exist? Is there a … <\/p>\n

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