The Last Judgement by Michelangelo painted on the altar wall at the Sistine Chapel depicts God passing his final and eternal judgement of all humanity. The good souls are resurrected to Heaven while the damned descent into Hell. Source: Wikipedia

The steam engine is widely regarded as the discovery that kick-started the Industrial Revolution where Science promised humanity the chance of a better future through technology. Source: State Library of Queensland

With all this mind-numbing emptiness all around us, it is easy to think of human experience as a meaningless struggle that leads nowhere and ends with death. A constant cycle of change to no meaningful end. It is the very thing humanity has tried to shield itself from. If everybody in the world were to give in to this train of thought, the foundation upon which our society has been built would crumble and our entire world would come crashing down on it. So we run away from it. Religion tries to convince us that we answer to a greater being. It promises us Nirvana, Moksha, Heaven, Swarg in return for our good acts on Earth. It promises that the souls trapped in our bodies shall be released and a glorious afterlife awaits us at the doors of Heaven. Fail to act in accordance with His will and you shall be burned in the pits of Hell. Science promises us a better future in exchange of our contributions to the present. It promises us a better world through better technology and better understanding of the world around us. Why do we believe in Science or Religion? They offer us meaning. They quantify our set of human experiences. Without these things, modern human society would lose its grip on reality. We would be like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck. Scared and devoid of hope. It isn’t too difficult to imagine how society would crumble once we lose hope. Human will can withstand a lot. All it takes is hopelessness to topple that final frontier. And then, chaos.

“You cannot be an insignificant, arbitrary element of the Universe formed just because some star exploded some few billion years ago”

Human ingenuity is a by-product of our quest for meaning. We SEE all the things around us but if it ceased to mean anything, we would quickly lose all our ingenuity and dive into an endless pool of despair. So it HAS to mean something. Every step you take must lead somewhere, every second you stay alive has to have some significance on the world around you. You cannot be an insignificant, arbitrary element of the Universe formed just because some star exploded some few billion years ago. Our consciousness, our subjective reality cannot be an accident. And thus, life goes on; believing it must always amount to something. Believing it must always mean something for without meaning there would be no hope and without hope there would be nothing left to live for.