“WHY?” is probably the most profound, but difficult to answer, question that can be asked about human existence. Are we here at the whim of a God, or an accident of nature, or for some ordered purpose? Author William Search explores the question through a variety of religious, philosophical, and scientific perspectives, and comes to the conclusion that we are here to develop and refine, through a combination of natural selection, religious thought, and human reason, a moral compass with which to guide ourselves. As he himself warns in the introduction, the book jumps from topic to topic in sometimes almost random fashion, though there is some organization. The selection of religions he chooses to explore is quite wide-ranging, with the beliefs of not only major modern religions, but others like Aboriginal Australian religion, Druidism, and ancient Greek religion explored as well.

There is not space enough in the book to go into any of those religions in depth or do them full justice, and he doesn’t attempt to – he simply points out those aspects of the belief systems that point towards development of morality and moral sense. While scientific concepts, especially the role of natural selection and social behavior in the development of morality, are also explored, philosophical approaches are given much shorter shrift. There is all of a page and a half devoted to the entire realm of Greek philosophy, for example, and none at all to Roman, with little or no mention of Epicureans, Stoics, Cynics, or any of a number of other philosophical schools that spent a great deal of time and attention focusing precisely on the question Search is trying to answer here, of how to live a good life, of why a moral compass is necessary for a good life, and what kind of morality is best suited to promote the best sort of human existence. Search’s conclusion, however, seems well-founded both on reason and on the nature of a social animal, with a heavy emphasis on compassion, justice, and courage, and it is an answer that can make sense both in a religious and secular context, to those who believe in a Deity and those who do not. It is not, of course, and cannot be proven as a mathematical fact can, but Search offers some solid evidence and rational backing for it, and it’s as good an answer as any to the title question. Whether it appeals to the reader or not is, of course, up to the reader.

William Search, in his quest for meaning, explores a wide but oddly scattershot range of religious, philosophical, and scientific beliefs, and produces an answer which has sense and moral soundness to it, even if it may not be completely convincing for all readers.

~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader