Sooner or later, a pattern emerges. Sometimes we never see it emerging, and it ends in mystery – such as when people die before their illness can be diagnosed, or when a relationship ends before it can be understood, or when a species dies out before anyone even knew about it. Sooner or later, a pattern emerges.

So it is with man's search for meaning. Is it possible that man's search for meaning results in the search for meaning itself? Is it possible that simply by trying to understand why one is here one is answering the question? Patterns do not lie. Religions and philosophies orbit humanity, held together with the gravity of a search for meaning. Some claim to find meaning in religion and philosophy, be it in a deity or lack of a deity. Either way, there is faith involved – be it the casual faith of an atheist in a lack of a deity or the more rigorous faith of believing in a deity. The search for meaning is not found in religion or a lack of religion – it is only punctuated by it. In every philosophy and religion, we idolize those that we believe obtained meaning.

Meaning is not found in tradition. Tradition only gives a context, and religion inherits this. Any religious text only prescribes a methodology for finding meaning – or not finding meaning but accepting a certain level of meaning, perhaps to keep one from poking too many holes in one's own mind in the late night. { Read more }