Is it really a desire to seek the truth or a desire to seek hope. We are all humans, most of us think about the same things deep down, death, life, meaning, I admit I have faith and beliefs that are irrational sometimes when I think about death or if life has any meaning because otherwise my life would be, well, meaningless. I'm sure you also do that and you are not really looking for the truth if the truth is actually something along the lines of: the universe doesn't care, no one cares, everything is meaningless universally and we are all going to die and that's it. No one wants that, let's be honest, I don't however I also cannot force myself to believe in a God, the small hope I have is that perhaps life is not meaningless, maybe there is something, maybe we cannot even comprehend it right now, who knows.
Probably a mix of both to be honest. I agree we are all human and most of us think about the same things deep down, death, life, meaning.
Personally I have always been very interested in the last of these meaning. When I was a teenager I rejected Christianity. I was surrounded at the time by Christians who were not very logical and unable to defend their beliefs on logical grounds. I was a smart guy and I decided I would find a true worldview grounded in science not emotion and unrealistic hope and myths.
I knew immediately, however, that in rejecting Christianity I had ripped up the foundation under my feet and it had to be replaced. I scoured the classics Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Hume all in a search for meaning looking to build a new and more rational world view for myself. Eventually I found Bentham and celebrated my discovery of a truly rational philosophy one based on calculations and determination of the greatest good for the greatest number. Satisfied that I had solved the question to my satisfaction I went on my merry way certain I had found the answer.
For the next 15 years I kept Christians at arms length. I knew from experience that their beliefs by and large made them happy and my own views demanded I not purposely disrupt that happiness so I simply avoided the topic preferring to let them live in what I perceived at the time to be a happy but mistaken delusion.
I had rejected religion on the bases of tradition and rejected God via logical inference. The only path forward for me was to embrace and live out some philosophy of life not grounded in God and observe how it played out. In my case that was utilitarianism and the process of living it out took 15 years.
Eventually I realized that utilitarianism failed me as a practical philosophy. Even more ironically I eventually came to the conclusion that I should reject utilitarianism on utilitarian grounds which is about as profound of an invalidation as one can get. That required me to again rebuild my philosophical foundation. This time I was older and wiser and really dug into the question to the best of my ability. The result is what I shared with you earlier in
An Argument for God.
I don’t claim that to be some all important insight or even particularly useful for anyone except me but it was my answer to the question. The honest output of my wholehearted and genuine attempt to address the question comprehensively and logically. I came to the conclusion that I was mistaken all those years ago and the happy simpletons who I had held in such contempt were right all along. My arrogant younger self would have been shocked.
I agree with you that we live in a universe that allows us to choose our truth. One can choose to believe that the universe doesn't care, that no one cares, that everything is meaningless universally and we are all going to die and that's it. I like you find that prospect unappealing.
If the universe was like that then our duty would be clear. We would need to fix it. How does one fix an uncaring universe? Simple we start by fixing ourselves. We find meaning and caring within ourselves and then spread that healing and meaning to our neighbors our offspring and eventually throughout the universe. With time effort and sacrifice all things are possible.
P.S. I watched Heaven Sent an episode of Dr. Who on television yesterday. It’s available for free on amazon prime. It was one of the most inspirational things I have ever seen on television. Totally religion free but it really drives home the message that no goal is impossible. I highly recommend it if you have not seen it. It can stand on its own you don’t have to have watched the other episodes in the series.