Star Map: A Journey of Faith, Doubt, and Meaning

(from reasonandmeaning.com)I just finished Lewis Vaughn's autobiographical, Star Map: A Journey of Faith, Doubt, and Meaning. Vaughn is a widely respected and very prolific author of college philosophy textbooks.The first half of Vaughn's book describes his difficult childhood, particularly his severe Southern Baptist upbringing. He recalls the darkness of his early religious indoctrination---he was a religious fanatic until late adolescence---then he tells us how doubt set in, and, in the books final chapters, he remembers how a single philosophy class from an agnostic priest helped him find meaning in life without gods.I must say that it was hard for me to relate to his terrible home life and religious fundamentalism. I had a wonderful childhood and I was raised in the Catholic tradition which, although I now believe its main tenets are absurd, at least has an intellectual tradition. I also found reading the description of his religious upbringing painful; it was basically a story about child abuse.But the final third of the book truly captivated me. I easily relate to how thinking leads to doubt, as I recalled my own teenage doubts about my religious indoctrination. (As Camus so aptly put it, "Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined.") My escape from religious dogma wasn't as painful as Vaughn's, perhaps because my Catholic indoctrination wasn't as rigid as Vaughn's. His escape was extraordinarily painful whereas for me severing the chord of religious indoctrination was mostly natural and liberating.I found these last chapters to be especially moving. An introductory philosophy class finally opened his mind and his account reminded me of students who have thanked me for helping to open theirs. His dialogue with his professor about arguments for the Christian God and the problem of evil was reminiscent of many discussions I had with students years ago. And it was the philosophical arguments of an agnostic priest---evidently a believer in Spinoza's pantheism---that finally broke the dam of resistance that had been so carefully constructed since Vaughn's childhood.The final chapter of his book deals with the main topic of my blog---the meaning of life. The priest begins by arguing that religion isn't the source of morality or the meaning of life. He then distinguished, as do I, between the meaning of life and meaning in life. He emphasized the latter while noting that this doesn't imply that meaning is only subjective. In other words, torturing children can't be the source of a meaningful life. Our lives are meaningful when we commit ourselves to objective intrinsic goods like truth, beauty, goodness, justice, and love. As a result of his encounter with the priest's arguments, Vaughn underwent a metamorphosis, and would soon embark on his own intellectual journey.In conclusion, let me say that Vaughn's account is deeply personal and a wonderful guide for all those who fear that leaving behind childish indoctrination will necessarily lead to despair. Quite the contrary Vaughn says. Childish beliefs may comfort us, but only by growing up do we have a chance to find true meaning.

This is the story of a man who became, in his own words, a born again Christian and attended a mega Church pastored by Rev. Ironsides. He tells of when, around 14 being homosexually molested by a man in his 60s, his problems with his family and finally his conversion. After this things went very well for some time. As a fundamentalist, he was taught the Bible is literally true, as also is creation, and evolution is false (p. 75). His pastor in 1969 also taught man would never set foot on the moon because “God has fixed all the bounds of the earth.” (p. 124). That soon was proven false what Neil Armstrong actually landed on the moon and, while there, walked around. He studied, actually only read, the Bible in church in one year, and when there did not have much background in apologetics, thus he was very disturbed by some of what he read (p. 136). The research on this question notes that those who knew Bible stories without the historical background and evidence were more likely to leave Christianity later as happened to Lewis. Then he attended a Catholic College and studied science and learned a lot of Anti-Christian myths, such as the Church pouncing with holy ferocity on “Galileo, Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, Newton, Halley, and countless others” (p. 176). He soon became a heretic because he now believed that science was more reliable, but faith was a shot in the dark” (p. 177). He once thought the design argument was the strongest argument for God but the anti-creation and anti-intelligent arguments he picked up in the Catholic college soon destroyed that argument (p. 189-190). In the Catholic college he also learned, and was convinced, that the theory of evolution explains how we got here (p. 178). He soon concluded that no need for God exists, as evolution did the job of creating. It was science that kocked God off of his throne and science brought us down to the apes because we are nothing more than a little higher than the apes (p. 187-198). It is no surprise that he became an agnostic and a leader in the atheist movement.

Excellent read. Hated for the story to end !

As an ardent humanistic secularist myself, I very much enjoy reading how other individuals come to their--let's call it "awakening." Lewis Vaughn's STAR MAP is an engrossing true account of how he outgrew his childhood faith and chose, instead, to pursue a life of questioning. STAR MAP reads like a novel, pulling the reader in with concrete detail, conversations, honesty, and, almost surprisingly these days, respect for those who feel differently. I had always assumed it wasn't that hard to let go of the religious attitudes with which one was raised. Vaughn showed me otherwise and thus gets extra credit for his struggles, as well as for writing such a personal account so very engagingly.

Not only is this a touching memoir, it's also a fascinating exploration of the nature of morality and the meaning of life. A very well-written book.