Anyone familiar with the work of Viktor Frankl will instantly realize that the title of this piece was inspired by his magnificent and important contribution to human psychology entitled ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’.

          That book is the springboard I used to develop the ideas you will be encountering here. I hope to demonstrate that meaning and a sense of certainty are inextricably connected and that it is man’s search for some certainty in this life which defines to no small effect the meaning he derives from it.

          Let me begin with a personal story to illustrate what I mean. I have maintained for nearly as long as I have been an atheist (37 years) that most people come to faith either because of their parents or for purely emotional reasons. Reasons such as near death experiences or significant tragedies which have caused great loss.

          I was a very devout Christian for 16 years. There was nothing emotional about my conversion experience; nothing whatsoever.

          I had been searching for answers since my teen years and sought those answers in a variety of ways. I tried hallucinogenic drugs, communal living, mysticism,  Eastern religions and a few other avenues, but all to no avail. I didn’t find the answers I was looking for in any of those places.  

          Then one day I was on the front porch of the house where a number of my friends still lived (I had rented a place with my girlfriend a few blocks away by that time) and young man and woman who were attending the Baptist seminary up the street were going door to door talking about their faith.

          Two of my friends didn’t wish to hear anything that they had to say. My friend Ed Smith and I decided we would give them the run around. However, it wasn’t long before it became clear to me that these young Christians had a better explanation for existence and life in general than anything I had yet come across. I invited them to come to my place the following week and promptly forgot all about them.

          On the appointed day I was sitting on the windowsill of our second-story apartment when I saw them coming down the street. A sense of dread immediately came over me and I instantly regretted my invitation.

          They spoke with me for perhaps 30 minutes and then invited me to pray the sinner’s prayer with them. I did and then they urged me to obtain a bible and begin studying it. I did so and studied assiduously for the next 16 years. I was attracted to Christianity because it offered a complete systematic explanation for things and thus provide some sense of certainty.

          At some point the explanation began to seem less convincing and I saw that there were many holes and errors, along with some very gruesome history in this religion.

          That is how I ended up an atheist and a humanist.

          It was purely rational, and no emotion was involved. I bring this up to illustrate that what I was searching for all of that time was some explanation which offered or appeared to offer a certainty I had discovered nowhere else. I now understand that a certain amount of uncertainty is both inevitable and not to be avoided.