"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love" -- Ann Druyan
43 resources
Matt Dean Films
Feature Length Documentary From Director John Wright and Executive Producer Matt Dean: International best selling author and pastor Tony Campolo is devastated when his 50 year old son Bart announces that he no longer believes in God. Having worked together for decades in Christian ministry, the two must now find a way reconcile their personal understandings of Christianity and Humanism before a rift separates them indefinitely.
Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago
video
Ian McConnell
Behold, the meaning of life! I'm not important and neither are you. So let's do whatever we wanna do.
Holy Koolaid
What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of life? The problem with these questions is the word "the." As if there's only one. Pastors often ask how you can have meaning without God. But to quote Dan Barker, this is like asking, "without a master, whose slave will I be?" The beauty of life is that as an atheist you're free to find your own meaning - finding beauty, purpose, and happiness in the things that mean something to you.
StarTalk
An excerpt from Neil's upcoming book 'Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization.' Should we live forever? What happens to us after we die? What is the statistical probability of being alive? Tyson exercises mathematical prowess and scientific eloquence to grapple with questions
The Living Philosophy
What is the difference between Nihilism vs. Existentialism vs. Absurdism? The common ground they share is that they are all responses to philosophy's timeless clichéd question "what is the meaning of life?" Nihilism came into full bloom in the 19th century as the full implications of modernism came to fruition. Existentialism and Absurdism are two ways of responding to the crisis of Nihilism.
TED Talks
What do you do when everything you believe about the world crumbles to pieces around you? How do you rebuild a sense of hope, meaning, and truth? Philosophy professor Danielle LaSusa suggests that demolishing your old worldview--and rebuilding it anew--are essential for critical thinking and deep learning. She knows from experience.
Psychology Today
Searching for meaning might backfire.
Justin Bariso
Understanding the three types of empathy can help you build stronger, healthier relationships.
David Niose
Can life have meaning without belief in God?
Chris Johnson
book, film, and podcast of atheists speaking out about joy and meaning in a world without God
Ronald Aronson
Ronald Aronson has a mission: to demonstrate that a life without religion can be coherent, moral, and committed. Optimistic and stirring, Living Without God is less interested in attacking religion than in developing a positive philosophy for atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, skeptics, and freethinkers. Aronson proposes contemporary answers to Immanuel Kant's three great questions: What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope? Grounded in the sense that we are deeply dependent and interconnected beings who are rooted in the universe, nature, history, society, and the global economy, Living Without God explores the experience and issues of 21st–century secularists, especially in America. Reflecting on such perplexing questions as why we are grateful for life's gifts, who or what is responsible for inequalities, and how to live in the face of aging and dying, Living Without God is also refreshingly topical, touching on such subjects as contemporary terrorism, the war in Iraq, affirmative action, and the remarkable rise of Barack Obama.
Barrett Evans
book
Anil Seth
Anil Seth's radical new theory of consciousness challenges our understanding of perception and reality, doing for brain science what Dawkins did for evolutionary biology.
Edward O. Wilson
In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other species. Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey, in the process bridging science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence--from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends.
Sean Carroll
In short chapters filled with intriguing historical anecdotes, personal asides, and rigorous exposition, readers learn the difference between how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the human level--and then how each connects to the other. Carroll's presentation of the principles that have guided the scientific revolution from Darwin and Einstein to the origins of life, consciousness, and the universe is dazzlingly unique.
Annaka Harris
"I Wonder offers crucial lessons in emotional intelligence, starting with being secure in the face of uncertainty. Annaka Harris has woven a beautiful tapestry of art, storytelling, and profound wisdom. Any young child - and parent - will benefit from sharing this wondrous book together."--Daniel Goleman, author of the #1 bestseller Emotional Intelligence "I Wonder captures the beauty of life and the mystery of our world, sweeping child and adult into a powerful journey of discovery. Magnificent "--Daniel Siegel, author of Mindsight and The Whole-Brain Child Eva takes a walk with her mother and encounters a range of mysteries: from gravity, to life cycles, to the vastness of the universe. She learns that it's okay to say "I don't know," and she discovers that there are some things even adults don't know--mysteries for everyone to wonder about together I Wonder is a book that celebrates the feelings of awe and curiosity in children, as the foundation for all learning.
Sasha Sagan
Sasha Sagan was raised by secular parents, the astronomer Carl Sagan and the writer and producer Ann Druyan. They taught her that the natural world and vast cosmos are full of profound beauty, that science reveals truths more wondrous than any myth or fable. When Sagan herself became a mother, she began her own hunt for the natural phenomena behind our most treasured occasions--from births to deaths, holidays to weddings, anniversaries, and more--growing these roots into a new set of rituals for her young daughter that honor the joy and significance of each experience without relying on religious framework. As Sagan shares these rituals, For Small Creatures Such as We becomes a moving tribute to a father, a newborn daughter, a marriage, and the natural world--a celebration of life itself, and the power of our families and beliefs to bring us together.
Ralph Lewis M.D.
A psychiatrist presents a compelling argument for how human purpose and caring emerged in a spontaneous and unguided universe.Can there be purpose without God? This book is about how human purpose and caring, like consciousness and absolutely everything else in existence, could plausibly have emerged and evolved unguided, bottom-up, in a spontaneous universe.A random world--which according to all the scientific evidence and despite our intuitions is the actual world we live in--is too often misconstrued as nihilistic, demotivating, or devoid of morality and meaning. Drawing on years of wide-ranging, intensive clinical experience as a psychiatrist, and his own family experience with cancer, Dr. Lewis helps readers understand how people cope with random adversity without relying on supernatural belief. In fact, as he explains, although coming to terms with randomness is often frightening, it can be liberating and empowering too.Written for those who desire a scientifically sound yet humanistic view of the world, Lewis's book examines science's inroads into the big questions that occupy religion and philosophy. He shows how our sense of purpose and meaning is entangled with mistaken intuitions that events in our lives happen for some intended cosmic reason and that the universe itself has inherent purpose. Dispelling this illusion, and integrating the findings of numerous scientific fields, he shows how not only the universe, life, and consciousness but also purpose, morality, and meaning could, in fact, have emerged and evolved spontaneously and unguided. There is persuasive evidence that these qualities evolved naturally and without mystery, biologically and culturally, in humans as conscious, goal-directed social animals.While acknowledging the social and psychological value of progressive forms of religion, the author respectfully critiques even the most sophisticated theistic arguments for a purposeful universe. Instead, he offers an evidence-based, realistic yet optimistic and empathetic perspective. This book will help people to see the scientific worldview of an unguided, spontaneous universe as awe-inspiring and foundational to building a more compassionate society.
Valerie Tarico
channel
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Animation videos explaining things with optimistic nihilism since 12,013. We're a team of illustrators, animators, number crunchers and one dog who aim to spark curiosity about science and the world we live in. To us nothing is boring if you tell a good story.
