We know before playing any game or sport, or assembling any puzzle, exactly what we will be doing and what the goals are. But not here. Life and reality as a whole are mysteries to us. We have no idea who and what we are, or what life is.
It seems normal enough at face value, but have you ever looked closely at life? What IS life, after all?
Religion, atheism, spirituality, or indifference. Why do most people seem to fall into one of these standard categories? What would it take to find the real answers?
I clarify several potential questions from the introduction, recap my assertions, and begin to talk about the difference between our beliefs and what is actually real.
What did I mean by "let's allow life to tell us what's going on"? Some news about future episodes. And taking perspectives without believing them.
We wake up each day to a normal life. We have skills. We know what we are doing. But investigating the fundamental nature of reality is something completely different and unconventional.
We normally live our lives seeing what's closely around us, but we miss both the size and the close intimacy of reality itself and of the questions we will be asking. Link to YouTube video mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk
This episode was inspired by a comment on a YouTube video about the origin of life.
I've been listening to Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson a lot lately and it caused me to ponder the future of the podcast and how I'm doing things. I also explain a little about why I've done things the way I have so far.
Everyone starts somewhere. Something wakes them up. Something gets them to start asking questions. This is my story.
I promised you an answer for this one in episode two. Do we need to know these things? Is there any reason we have to learn this stuff? What if we don't care or don't have the time? Does it really matter, and if so, how?
Some believe in God. Some disbelieve. But how many of us actually question the question itself? Is it even the right question to ask? Is there a clearer way to see what we are asking? And does asking a better question give us a clearer path to the answers?
What belief would you hold onto even if the evidence pointed in the opposite direction? I discuss the answer Steven Pinker gave to Sam Harris.