I suspect that most people stay with religion, or stay away from the matter all together due to the fear of a meaningless life. The fear of nihilism is nothing new, but with the evidence for Darwin's work so clear the spectre of nihilism is all the closer.
What if evolution is correct? What if the evolutionary psychologists are correct? What if all human behavior is motivated by selfishness?
Even Darwin feared this.
Seriously.
Go read the 'Descent of Man' or Darwin's Autobiography again...
Hmm? What did you say? 'What do I mean by again?' *sigh*
All hope need not be abondoned, dear Beatrice, there was a Russian radical who shone a light to lead the way.
NO! Not that Russian radical! The woman! The woman!
While she was certainly not perfect, it would be good to read 'Atlas Shrugged' or the 'Fountainhead' or at least enough of either novel to understand the virtue of selfishness.
Rand makes a very good case for why someone who is consciously (rationally) self-interested (selfish) will act in a moral manner even when they 'could get away with it'.
If you could steal without being caught, a man of rational self-interest would turn down such an opportunity. Why? Because the man himself knows he stole, and the injury will be to his own 'soul'.
Such an act would make his character erode. As we are already aware there are so very few things actually within our power in this world, and our character is one of those things. This loss of character would push that man further from the achievement of serenity in his soul and happiness in his life. Thus, such an act would be against his own selfishness.
