> I don't think that is something science can teach you
Science can teach you that "it's all just atoms and the void"; the other part of the sentence is inference. And interestingly a similar inference as I made as a teenager, though I wasn't eloquent enough to really discuss it with anybody.
The basic premise is that if you reject the notion of a deity, there isn't even any standard by which any configuration of the Universe could be more meaningful than any other configuration.
Except if it's your own standard, which leads to meaning being a feeling more than an objective measure.
> Science can teach you that "it's all just atoms and the void"
Science can only teach you about things that can be measured. There are limits to what we can measure. For example, can we accept string theory to be true without being able to measure the activity from the additional dimensions it predicts? How do we get around the problems of quantum physics where the movement of particles cannot be measured without altering the state of those particles?
I'd suggest that whilst science is a noble endeavour, there will be limits to what we can discover scientifically. At this point, will we find that scientific leaders fall back on 'leaps of faith' to explain what we can only form an educated guess at? Time will tell.
Going back to the "all just atoms and the void" statement, we can't even say that without understanding what dark matter and dark energy are, as there's good evidence that they are something that exists beyond the "atoms and the void" we're currently familiar with.
Science can teach you that "it's all just atoms and the void"; the other part of the sentence is inference. And interestingly a similar inference as I made as a teenager, though I wasn't eloquent enough to really discuss it with anybody.
The basic premise is that if you reject the notion of a deity, there isn't even any standard by which any configuration of the Universe could be more meaningful than any other configuration.
Except if it's your own standard, which leads to meaning being a feeling more than an objective measure.