TAM 4: Science's Soul: Michael Shermer
January 27, 2006

The Amazing Meeting: Day 2.

9:30 AM

My fellow Godless Skeptics and Reasonable Non-Deists, we've been assailed by Jack Chick tracts long enough. It's time we fight back, and I know just the book to do it with.

If you are familiar with the mega phenom of The Purpose Driven Life then you know that unless you've sublimated yourself to the purpose the Christian god has for you, you are doomed to hopelessness, depression, drug abuse and meaningless sex in this life, and Eternal Damnation in the next. You're screwed in this life and in the next -- and not in the fun way.

In response to all those Chick tracts and Purposeful books, Shermer has published a personal response: The Soul of Science

How can we find spiritual meaning and purpose in a scientific worldview? Spirituality is a way of being in the world, a sense of one’s place in the cosmos, a relationship to that which extends beyond our selves. There are many sources of spirituality; religion may be the most common, but it is by no means the only. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades.

His presentation was reading the essay contained in the book. It's pretty good. It articulates a simple philosophy of life, meaning, and purpose, rooted in the provisional truths gathered through scientific investigation, and presented rather eloquently between the pages of the pocket sized book. They're cheap too at $5 dollars a pop and make, as what brought up, wonderful gifts.

Of course I haven't bought one yet.

Posted by Jody at January 27, 2006 11:01 PM

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