What does it all mean?
One person’s journey of exploration through life
We are all born into a world we do not know. Our instinct is to make some kind of sense of our environment.
At first we just take what is around us as given and start to explore from where we are to see what we can find. Sooner or later, as we grow up, most people start to wonder about bigger questions which cannot be answered by exploration alone.
Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
Do I have a purpose?
What happens when I die?
Is life on Earth all there is to my existence?
These sorts of questions have fascinated many people, including me and, in these pages, I will outline my philosophical and spiritual quest to get closer to some answers.
As we seek and probe, we find that:
Reality is always stranger than we think (or can think)
Simplistic explanations are nearly always wrong
We have to follow the evidence where it leads
These are some of the waymarks on my journey:
- Awe and wonder! .
- Curiosity. As children and as adults. How we start to look for answers.
- The scientific method. A systematic, highly effective and sometimes overrated way of gaining knowledge.
- Are there any limits to what we can find out?
- The amazing mystery of being conscious, thinking beings!
- Is free will just an illusion?
- What is the essence of my “self”?
- Are we just our brains? Or is there more to us than this?
- Do we have a purpose? Were we created or did we just emerge? Which is more likely?
- Does science support a belief in God or has science rendered it irrelevant or even untenable?
- What evidence is there for the existence of God in general and for the truth of Christianity in particular?