Understanding Life
A Commonsense Guide to Reality
Practical philosophy is largely the following:
How to think — what is real — how to live.
Why make it more complex?
Gain clarity per purpose and reality through well-categorized foundations that encourage discussions vs. the typical scatter gun approach.
But let’s be clear. . .
Simple answers are mostly for selling books.
Understanding Life knows that there is no one simple answer to life — but rather, there are many simple answers to life. A robust structure for these answers is a crucial goal to accomplish.
Readable. Concise. Useful. The core elements of reasoning, evolution, secularism/(non)theism, behaviour, motivation and purpose. Invaluable for generating presentations.
An honest no-silver-bullet approach to life.
Chapter Summaries:
TOOLS - EVOLUTION - GOD - LIFE
and of course . . . Preface and Introduction
or "Look Inside" at Amazon.com or Amazon.ca
4. Evolution Basics
5. Fossil Arguments
6. Island Arguments
7. Similarity Arguments
8. Evolution Evaluation
9. Supernatural Beliefs
10. Gap Arguments
11. Behavioural Arguments
12. Philosophical Arguments
13. Believing Well
14. Behaviour & Philosophy
15. Motivation
16. Emotions
17. Ethics
18. Purpose
19. Individuals
20. Groups
21. Eight Principles for Life
22. Living Well
References
Bibliography
Index
BONUS - Presentation Topics !!
Included on this website are over 50 brief outlines for secular / humanist presentations — categorized via Parts A, B and C within Understanding Life. Hopefully they will assist in generating some useful ideas — but clearly with the book, a preparation of these ideas could be a bit easier.
So use these Topics (continually under construction) and you will have an appropriate idea for every week of the year (or maybe one for every month for the next 4 years). But yeah — you still have to find the right person to actually prepare and give the talk. Life does require some honest effort.