Sun. Nov. 16

I grew up Catholic and pretty much drifted away from it and any organized religion during college. It was only after college that I dug a little deeper. One insight came (inadvertantly? ironically?) from a comic, Denis Leary, who also grew up Catholic. I remember him from the stage during a show in Boston. "Yeah, I was Catholic," he said, "right up until I reached the age of ... reason." (I think he said for him that was about 7.) A good laugh, but a real sentiment. Did that wine really turn into blood? Right there on the altar? Did Mary really have a virgin birth? Resurrection? Really? Etc. Another source: The late scientist Carl Sagan who wrote "The Demon-Haunted World," perhaps the best book ever about why we create legends and myths and have done so forever ... without, really, a shred of truth for what we think we believe. (On his deathbed, Sagan resisted a last-minute conversion/last rites offer, holding true to his non-belief 'til the end. I'm not sure I'd be that courageous or determined. I'd probably say, "Oh, well, you never know .. ") And then came comic-lefty agitator Bill Maher and his public platform for his adamant agnosticism, and the Christopher Hitchens' book, "God Is Not Great." Which is to say, being agnostic is still not popular or particularly mainstream - and those without faith have a certain envy of those who do - but it feels less fringe, less heretical (if I can use that word), sort of the way socialism didn't sound quite so much like the Bogey Man of political philosophy after the recent Market Crash and the culture of greed's implosion. That's a long way of introducing what may be a rather intriguing talk given by Wayne State University professor Ronald Aronson (in photo) Sunday Nov. 16 at 2 p.m.: "Living Without God: New Directions for Humanists, Atheists and Secularists. Aronson's lecture, free and open to the public, is presented The Center for Naturalism, Humanist Association of Massachusetts, and Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard.

Aronson is author or editor of nine books, including "Jean-Paul Sartre: Philosophy in the World" and "Camus and Sartre: Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended It." What he'll be talking about here are the themes of his book "Living Without God," and picking up where Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins (whom he called "The New Atheists" in "Bookforum" ), leave off. That is: Facing the need to have a coherent and contemporary secular philosophy that will answer life's vital questions. Aronson believes that living without God means turning toward something. Grounded in the sense that we are dependent and interconnected beings, rooted in nature, history and society, "Living without God" explores contemporary answers to Immanuel Kant's three great questions: "What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?"

Aronson stresses how much knowledge humans have accumulated, verified, confirmed, and implemented: dozens, hundreds, thousands of things that are vital for human understanding and well-being. Today so much that was once cloaked in darkness is known, and so much that is really essential to our lives is knowable. We have developed methods of analysis, synthesis, and reasoning that can be taught and learned. All of this is now part of what John Dewey called the "social consciousness of the race" and it belongs to all of us, waiting to be claimed and used. We sell ourselves short to pretend otherwise.

Sounds heavy? Well, it's not a night at The Estate. But man and woman cannot live by dance music and drinks alone. An intellectual tussle sounds like a darn fine way to spend a Sunday afternoon. It takes place at Harvard Science Center, Auditorium A.

Harvard Yard, 1 Oxford St., Cambridge, 617-480-8846 www.naturalism.org/aronson.htm