Sean Carroll is a scientist and self-proclaimed truth vigilante who is leading some very important new discussions on the subject of naturalism and the meaning of life. Here’s a quote of his to whet your appetite: “The world keeps happening in accordance with its rules; it’s up to us to make sense of it and give it value.” His website is http://preposterousuniverse.com.
Below I am sharing more of the transcript from the phenomenal video I’m embedding above. To me it’s a fascinating lesson, and one that would have thrilled Mr. Kiefert, the creator of this website.
Excerpted from Sean Carroll’s “The Meaning of Life” (all rights reserved by the original copyright holder).
The world is one thing, the natural world, and it can be understood. This is very counter-intuitive; it is not at all obvious, this naturalism claim. You are made of atoms; you are made of cells which are made of molecules which are made of atoms, and as physicists, we know how atoms behave. The laws of physics covering the behavior of atoms are completely understood: You put an atom in a certain set of circumstances, you tell me what the circumstances are, as a physicist I will tell you what the atoms will do.
If you believe that the atoms that are inside your brain and your body act differently because they are in a living person than if they are in a rock or a crystal, then what you are saying is that the laws or physics are wrong. That they need to be altered because of the influence of a spirit or a soul or something like that. That may be true. Science can’t disprove that… but there is no evidence for it. And you get a much stronger explanatory framework by assuming that it’s just atoms obeying the laws of physics.
That kind of reasoning is a big step toward naturalism. Naturalism has won. If you go to any university physics department and listen to the talks they give or the papers they write, go to any biology department, go to any neuroscience department any philosophy department, and people whose professional job it is to explain the world – to come up with explanatory frameworks that match what we see – no one mentions God.
There is never an appeal to a supernatural realm by people whose job it is to explain what happens in the world, and everyone knows that the naturalist explanations are the ones that work. And yet, here we are… we are having a debate. Why are we having a debate? Because clearly, religion speaks to people for reasons other than explaining what happens in the world. Most people who turn to religious beliefs do not do so because they think it provides the best theory of cosmology or biology. They turn to religious beliefs because it provides them with purpose and meaning in their lives, with a sense of right and wrong, with a community, with hope.
So if we want to say that science has refuted religion, we need to say that science has something to say about those issues. And on that I have good news and bad news for you. The bad news is that the universe does not care about you. The universe is made of elementary particles that don’t have intelligence, don’t pass judgement, do not have a sense of right and wrong. And the fear is, the existential anxiety is, that if that purpose and meaningfulness is not given to me by the universe, then it cannot exist. The good news is that that fear is a mistake. That there is another option… that we create purpose and meaning in the world.
If you love somebody, it is not because that love is put into you by something outside, it’s because you created that from inside yourself. If you act good to somebody, it’s not because you’re given instructions to do so, it’s because that’s the choice that you made. This is a very scary world. You should be affected at a very deep level because of the thought that the universe doesn’t care, it does not pass judgement on you. But it’s also challenging and liberating, that we can create lives that are worth living. If we approach reality with an open mind and an open heart, then we can create lives very much worth living.
Featured Video: SEAN CARROLL – The Meaning of Life