The weakness of theology

My training is in theology. One might imagine that I was well prepared to write about the meaning of life after attaining a Ph.D. in systematic theology. However, theologians are trained to write about what someone thousands of years ago thought was the meaning of life. The conventions of their discipline allow only a modest place to contemporary experience. They are too often like the physicians of the Middle Ages, who were experts on the long-dead Galen, but did not augment their knowledge through experience with patients. While Galen was right about many things, no one today would use his writings as a textbook for training doctors. Similarly, sacred texts and spiritual writers of old have interesting things to say. But we should approach them with the same grain of salt with which we approach all claims to truth. The search for meaning is guided by the scientific attitude, whose master is evidence and whose mistress is skepticism.

Don't follow your bliss!

We need to harness desire and make it take us where we want to go. Don’t follow your bliss; make your bliss follow you. By monitoring what really makes us happy and what involves us most fully in life, we can build the life the life we want. Be happy!