"What are you sure of?"

Actually, as I think about it, quite a lot, actually. Which makes me somewhat different from most people.

Surety is something that has been robbed of many people. They either fall into the trap of existential despair, or like some I knew and used to respect, close my eyes to the implications. Some instead adopt a tone of black humor, that life is meaningless save for whatever meaning we give it, and realize that means that the majority view, no matter how absurd, would give meaning to the univese...

Which is patently absurd...

And think life is absurd and ridiculous.

I think life has its absurd moments, that we were created by Someone with a sense of humor, but I cannot in good conscience hold to the above.

I am sure there is only one reality---in the sense that not all theories or schemes are true, in one sense or another. That some are more right than others. (That seems obvious to those of us who grew up on Western science, but I remember a Wiccan friend arguing with me on that very fact...and without that surety, no scientific progress is able to be perceived.) That scientific endeavour brings us a little closer to that truth. That no matter how imperfectly perceived, there is an actual truth that science is very slowly whittling after....

I am also rather sure we are nowhere near the final "reality", the formula that describes everything. I know people from Hawking to Weinberg were hoping for it...some fifteen years ago...and I don't think they are any closer than they were. Or, maybe slightly closer---but still a looong way to go.

The final theory, of which everything else is an elaboration on?

It's a looong way down the road people.

I am sure there is a Creator, which puts me out of the existential despair of intellectuals of the last century. I am sure of that on logical grounds, starting with anthropic "coincidences" and a look at the possible five explanations for same, and applying Occam's Razor to them. I have justified such before, so I won't bore you with that. But certain things follow from that surety...

Intelligent life is, if not sacred, at least precious, if I think the Creator designed the universe to bring forth intelligent life. So it can not be callously wasted or destroyed.

If intelligence is one of the wanted end products of life, we can't be punished for using it. Instead, it should be encouraged...

We are meant to be here. We are not a fungus growing on a ball spinning endlessly in nothingness.

There are a few things I'm also reasonably sure of.

Anything that defies the law of conservation of matter and energy is a hoax or mistake....or a miracle, which I believe is allowed but not at all common, and not without the direct intervention of the Creator-who-set-the-rules. Hence, no perpetual motion machines.

Same with entropy. Anything that defies entropy is either travelling back in time---or a hoax.

On a personal level, I'm sure that Barb loves me, that we're reasonably happy together. We have arguments---rarely, it's true---but we've been married twenty-one years, and unless I do something really stupid---they keep on talking about a mid-life crisis I'm supposed to go through--- I'm not too worried about getting divorced or seperated.

I'm sure my kids love me, and no matter what trouble they get into, they hopefully won't forget that.

I'm sure I was deliberately created, as was all mankind. I'm sure we're meant to be here. I'm sure I'm loved.

What more need I be sure of? Nothing much more---I'm sure.