What I Believe; One Skeptic's Credo

I believe that the universe is understandable and explainable through science, reason and logic...and that that is awesome!

It is awesome to see a new photograph from outer space, knowing that I'm looking not just at something achingly beautiful in its own right, but that I’ve also been granted a momentary glimpse into an unfathomable past. And it’s awesome to know that people who are much smarter than I am will use that photo to decipher the mysteries of our universe, answering questions that I would not even know how to ask and, yes, raising new and perplexing questions as they do so.

I am awestruck when I read about evolution, as made comprehensible by Richard Dawkins.  Or when Laurence Krauss explains, in terms I can almost understand, how we came to have a universe from nothing. And when Penn and Teller use humor and magic to show just how important a scientific worldview is.

The universe we live in is so compelling and complex and it is science that is making it comprehensible, and that’s pretty awesome!

I believe that our existence is understandable and explainable through science, reason and logic...and that that is liberating!

It is liberating to forgo the mental gymnastics required to make what we know and see and understand of our world correspond with dogma or superstition. It is liberating to shun magical thinking and to reject manufactured or bastardized evidence in support of the unsupportable.

It is liberating when one is not required to make leaps of faith.

This is liberating, not in the sense that one is freed from moral responsibility, but because one can focus on being moral for the right reasons - reasons that are hard-wired in us as a community of human beings who need each other to thrive.

I believe that life is understandable and explainable through science, reason and logic...and that that is fulfilling!

I don't need anything else to give my life meaning. No magical beings, no higher powers, no ancient astronauts, and no promises of future glory, salvation, reincarnation or eternal sessions of cloud-based harp playing!

It means I can focus on this one infinitesimally short life here on this unremarkable planet. And when it's finished? Then the molecules and quarks and atoms of my body will rejoin that great expanse of stardust from which we all are made. 

And just how awesome is that!?