7. Human Destiny

The Foundation of a Realistic Hope The theme of our study throughout this book is one that extends through this entire series: the quest for reality and significance. We thought about the intrinsic dignity and value of human beings and the ability of the human mind to transcend itself, to transcend material things, to engage in abstract thought, to traverse the universe, and to conceive of the beginning of time and of the end of the world; and we concluded that it was difficult to account for this transcendent ability, if humans were nothing more than an advanced form of mindless matter. We considered also humanity’s inbuilt sense of a right to freedom, and a feeling of superiority over the non-rational forces of nature, however powerful those forces might be. We examined what attitudes and beliefs it is necessary for humans to maintain if we are to retain our freedom and not come to think of ourselves as prisoners in a materialistic universe. Next, humanity’s inbuilt sense of fairness, of right and wrong, made us enquire about its source, and ask where humankind got the idea from that this world ought to be a just place, when so often it isn’t; and we then observed how crippled an...