Finding meaning and wonder without god

[RichardParticipant]

This is a great interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Steven Colbert that goes for about an hour and one half.  Neil shares what gives him meaning without belief in detail.  He also shares how he came from the Bronx to being an astrophysicist.  There is a lot of good material here and it’s presented often in a humorous way.

• This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by  David Hayward.

[thejadedfoolParticipant]

This is a great video Richard!! i watched this a few months ago!! Love Neil DeGrasse Tyson! Brilliant and Humble Man!!

I had a revelation one night… this was a few years ago…

I was standing outside looking up at the stars… I was thinking about how so many christians I knew would say things like… Well I KNOW there is a god when I look into the beauty of the night sky… or see something breathtaking in the woods…

And I thought to myself… You know what is even more amazing than the possibility that a divine creator made all of this… and made mankind… and ordained me to be at this place and time?? This is what is more amazing… The fact that maybe… just maybe… there isn’t a god… maybe we are just on this tiny little planet in the middle of something so huge that we are but a little dust speck… and this thing has been here for eons and eons… and think of all the millions and millions of choices that have had to have been made… the millions of random events that had to happen… all these things went down leading to this one moment that I could stand where I was in the immensity of the universe at look up at the sky in that moment… all by sheer chance… you know what the chances of that coming to pass were… millions and billions and trillions upon trillions to 1… But there I stood… the improbability of improbabilities… and you know what that is… utterly and simply amazing and wonderful…

It was then that I was freed of my preconceived ideas of god… It was that moment of being an atheist that allowed me to take off the rose colored glasses and set aside my idea of what god is or should be… and to begin an honest search for the divine… with my eyes wide open…

So when people that I used to know from my pastor days ask me if I am an atheist… I say… I was for a moment… and it changed my life! lol

That usually throws them a bit… lol… =)

I do not know if there is a god or not… but since that night… I am open to the possibility =)

[RichardParticipant]

I had a similar experience.  When I finally realized that everyone was making this stuff up, I felt so light and free.  I thought to myself, “So this is what conversion feels like.”  I thought it odd that the very thing I was told would give me a sense of freedom and joy was actually blocking that experience.

[Anonymous]

I like the shariing! And I guess I would pretty much be with you guys in the way I think and perceive thigns has it not bee for a few expereinces I have had. I don’t have a church background. But 15 years ago I was walkign in the park, had everything I could have wanted fomr a human perspective but i was never satisfied, always wanting more. there was this voice inside my head that said “change” and some thughts went back to some previousl expereinces in my life. I thought what canthat mean? ioi wen tot a church and what was being preach was as if it was all meant for me – very powerful. So that for me was the freedom and joy – the rease from always feelign I am on a treadmill, wanting more. I have to say at the same time, there has been so much church pressure to not live in that freedom and joy. And when someone gets up at the front ans shares “I was blessed tohave Christian parents” I think well, then they possibliy have been conditioned by their paretns and their church culture to say stuff like that. Maybe it is true / maybe not that thier parents have been a blessing to the because there were Christians in a way they couldn’y have if there were not Christians. From what I see, form having parents that were not Christians growing up, my freedom to make choices for myself was encouraged more than a lot of people who were brough up in christian homes – and for that I am blessed.

[Chris MParticipant]

I totally identify with you guys.  That moment when you allow yourself to be honest and realize things aren’t how you’ve always believed and it’s made up – terrifying but so freeing at the same time.  The freedom part is what surprised me because we were always taught that those outside of church were bound up, hopeless, joyless and lost.  I’ve found the opposite to be true

[ShiftParticipant]

It annoys me whenever the church insinuates that those who are without faith have no meaning in their life, or don’t have the joy that Christianity provides. It is just such an ignorant view of the world, and of people in general. I do think its important to recognise that everyone has their own individual moment of clarity when it comes to interpreting their own understandings of the world, the universe and what it means. I believe the greatest the greatest tragedy that anyone can commit when it comes to such a deep topic, is to deal in absolutes; to be believe they have all the answers, because no one has the answers. I believe everyone should be at least a little bit agnostic when it comes to the meaning of life, whether you be a person of faith or not, because then I feel we can  appreciate each other’s beliefs on this vastly unknown area more, and gather a greater understanding as a result. I think anyone who claims to be completely void of doubt over what they believe, secular or not, is lying to themselves.

[RichardParticipant]

When I first read Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning” I had a hard time understanding what he meant about meaning being unconditional.  I remembered that John Powell had stated that the only love is unconditional love because as soon as there are conditions to love it no longer is love, but manipulation.  This provided a clue to unconditional meaning.  If meaning is conditional then as soon as I lose that condition, I lose my sense of meaning.  For example if my work is my sense of meaning, then as soon as my work is threatened, so is my sense of meaning.  I then become a slave to work because of fear.

I think this is why the loss of one’s religious beliefs is so threatening.  If my meaning is provided by my religion then it’s loss means my life is meaningless.  I am then a slave to those set of ideas and beliefs.  If my life has meaning no matter what, even if I don’t realize it, I can learn to let go of anything.  It frees me to search the world much more honestly and it helps to prevent me from being fooled as often, because it’s very hard to cheat an honest person.

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