GOD PLAYS DICE™
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Seven short paths through the biggest questions, a few reads each, in order. Stop anywhere.
Every step says what kind of piece it is, and every Library answer says how sure the evidence is. The short answer on every Library page is free, and answers about death, grief and crisis are free in full. You don’t have to agree with anyone, including us.
Where did everything come from?
How old is the universe, and how do we know?
About 13.8 billion years, read from the oldest light in the sky and checked against the oldest stars, with one real puzzle still open about how fast space is stretching today.
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The oldest light in the universe, as mapped by ESA’s Planck satellite from its first 15.5 months of data. The warm and cool spots differ by tiny amounts, and their pattern is what lets cosmologists work out the universe’s age.
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio (Marit Jentoft-Nilsen, Mark Malanoski), from ESA and Planck Collaboration data, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
What Does the Big Bang Actually Explain?
The hot early universe has strong observational support; the ultimate beginning remains an open question.
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WMAP’s all-sky map shows small temperature variations in the cosmic microwave background, ancient light from the early universe.
All-sky data map · NASA / WMAP Science Team · Image source ↗
If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?
Cosmic expansion means distances between faraway galaxies grow; it does not require a wall, an edge, or a room beyond space.
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A timeline of cosmic history. The widening shape shows distances growing over time; it is not a picture of an edge or of anything outside the universe.
NASA / WMAP Science Team; modified by Cherkash, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (NASA work) · Image source ↗
Is gravity a force, or a bend in space and time?
The force picture and the spacetime picture explain the same world at different levels of detail.
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An artist’s concept of Gravity Probe B, which tested predicted spacetime effects with gyroscopes in Earth orbit.
NASA/MSFC, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
How do we know dark matter exists if we cannot see it?
We can’t see dark matter, but we can measure its pull in five different ways, so here is the evidence, the case for changing gravity instead, and what is still unknown.
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The Bullet Cluster, two galaxy clusters that collided. Pink shows hot gas seen in X-rays, which holds most of the normal matter. Blue shows where gravitational lensing says most of the mass is. The two don’t line up.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/M. Markevitch et al.; optical: NASA/STScI, Magellan/U. Arizona/D. Clowe et al.; lensing map: NASA/STScI, ESO WFI, Magellan/U. Arizona/D. Clowe et al., via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (NASA) · Image source ↗Why Do Stars Shine—and Where Did Our Atoms Come From?
A star’s light comes from fusion. Its long history also helps explain the matter that makes planets and people.
Did time begin at the Big Bang?
Scientists have measured the hot early universe in detail, but whether time itself had a first moment is still an open question.
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NASA’s timeline of the universe runs from the earliest moment scientists can probe, at left, to today. Its labels use earlier WMAP-era figures; ESA’s Planck later gave about 13.8 billion years. The glow at the far left edge is where this question lives.
NASA/WMAP Science Team · Public domain · Image source ↗
Author’s hypothesisThe book behind the questions
Can faith and science share a table?
Can someone love science and still believe in God?
Many scientists believe in God and many do not, so here is what the surveys show, what science can and cannot say about God, and where both sides meet.
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Physicist Abdus Salam in Amsterdam in 1987, at an event where children talked with Nobel Prize winners. He quoted the Quran at his 1979 Nobel banquet, and he shared that year’s physics prize with Steven Weinberg, an atheist, and Sheldon Glashow.
Bart Molendijk / Anefo, Nationaal Archief (Dutch National Archives), via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 NL · Image source ↗
Science and Faith: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners?
The 'war' between science and religion makes a dramatic story, but the real history, and what scientists actually believe, is more surprising and more welcoming.
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Georges Lemaître, priest and cosmologist, with Andrée Bartholomé at the Burroughs E101 computer, Catholic University of Louvain, May 1959.
Historical photograph · Archives de l'Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · Image source ↗
Was the Big Bang first proposed by a priest?
Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest and physicist, proposed the ideas that grew into the Big Bang, and he worked hard to keep his science and his faith distinct.
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Lemaître’s 1946 book on his primeval-atom hypothesis, L’Hypothèse de l’Atome primitif, in the collection of Musée L in Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
JoJan, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · Image source ↗
What did Einstein actually believe about God?
Einstein’s own letters and essays show a man who rejected a personal God, refused the atheist label, and felt deep awe at the order of nature.
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Albert Einstein during a lecture in Vienna in 1921, photographed by Ferdinand Schmutzer. Eight years later, a New York rabbi cabled him a blunt question: “Do you believe in God?”
Ferdinand Schmutzer (restoration by Adam Cuerden), via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
Can you accept evolution and keep your faith?
Evolution is established science; many faith traditions make room for it and some reject it, so here is what several of them say in their own words.
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A page from Charles Darwin’s Notebook B, begun in July 1837. Under the words “I think,” he sketched living things branching from a common ancestor, marked 1.
Charles Darwin, Notebook B (1837–38), page 36, from Darwin Online, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
Is the universe fine-tuned for life?
Many physicists say life depends on a few numbers of nature falling in narrow ranges, so here is what that means, why 137 is famous, and how design, many universes and luck each try to explain it.
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The carbon star U Camelopardalis, seen by the Hubble Space Telescope, inside a shell of gas it blew off as helium around its core began to fuse. Its atmosphere holds more carbon than oxygen.
ESA/Hubble, NASA and H. Olofsson (Onsala Space Observatory), via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · Image source ↗Why do bad things happen to good people?
Science can explain how many bad things happen but not the deepest why, so here is what believers, skeptics and researchers each bring to one of the oldest hard questions.
What are the main arguments for God’s existence, and how do people respond to them?
Five classic families of arguments, plus Pascal’s wager, each at full strength and each with the strongest replies, for believers and skeptics alike.
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The Ancient of Days, the opening plate of William Blake’s book Europe a Prophecy, first printed in 1794. The image of a maker measuring out the world has long stood for questions of design, which believers and skeptics read in different ways.
William Blake; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (copy K), via the William Blake Archive and Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
What if the answers I was given stopped fitting?
Is it okay to question what you were raised to believe?
Doubt is common among people who stay in their faith and people who leave it, so here is what surveys, scriptures and research say, and how to talk about it at home.
What Is My Religion? Not Knowing
Where and when we are born shapes what we believe. That is why the most honest answer I can give about my own religion is not certainty, but “I don’t know.”
What is the difference between an atheist, an agnostic and a “none”?
The three words answer different questions, so here are fair definitions, where “agnostic” came from, and what Pew’s surveys show about the nones, many of whom still believe in God.
How do I tell my family I have doubts about my faith?
Many believers live with questions and many stay in their faith, so here is what research says about telling family, how to make the talk kinder, and how to stay safe.
Why do I still feel fear or guilt after I stopped believing?
Feelings learned over years can outlast the beliefs that shaped them, so here is what research shows, why it happens, and what helps, whether you leave, stay or return.
Can You Be Good Without God?
Most Americans now say you don't need God to be moral, though views differ sharply around the world. The harder question is what makes goodness real, and there thoughtful believers and skeptics part…
What is the meaning of life, and who gets to decide?
Philosophers offer three main families of answers and surveys show where people find meaning, but no lab can say which answer is right.
Four Decades of Questions
At forty, I looked back at a science book, a church, three magazines, several reinventions, and a daughter—and found the same question running through all of them: what should I do with the life I…
Can I feel wonder without a creed?
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Physics can trace the universe back a long way, but every answer starts with something already there, so here is what science, faith and philosophy each offer.
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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), painted around 1695 by Christoph Bernhard Francke. In 1714 Leibniz wrote that the first question we can fairly ask is why there is something rather than nothing.
Christoph Bernhard Francke, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
Night Is Just Earth’s Shadow, and We Are Stardust
Two ordinary truths—the turning of Earth and the atoms inside our bodies—can make the sky feel much closer than it did before.
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Earth’s day–night line, photographed from the International Space Station.
NASA/Christina Koch, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
Where did the gold in a wedding ring come from?
The gold on your finger was made in space before the Earth existed, most likely when dead stars called neutron stars collided, so here is the evidence, the debate, and gold’s long trip into the…
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The galaxy NGC 4993, about 130 million light-years away, before and after two neutron stars collided in it. The small red dot at right is the kilonova, the glowing debris of the collision, which carried freshly made heavy elements.
ESO/N.R. Tanvir, A.J. Levan and the VIN-ROUGE collaboration, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · Image source ↗
Is the mind just the brain?
Brain science shows the mind depends on the brain, but whether the mind is the brain and nothing more is still an open question.
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Phineas Gage, holding the iron rod that passed through his head in 1848. Smithsonian magazine calls his the first case to suggest a link between brain injury and personality change, though later retellings exaggerated how he changed.
Photograph by Jack and Beverly Wilgus of a daguerreotype from their collection; enlarged and retouched by Joe Haythornthwaite; via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Image source ↗
Why do we feel awe under the night sky, and is it a spiritual experience?
Psychologists say awe comes from meeting something too vast to take in, and people of every belief feel it, even as city lights hide the Milky Way from many of us.
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The Milky Way over Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California, stitched from 30 images in 2005 by Dan Duriscoe of the U.S. National Park Service. Duriscoe later co-wrote the 2016 atlas showing that light pollution hides the Milky Way from more than one-third of humanity.
Dan Duriscoe, U.S. National Park Service, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
What makes a life well lived?
Science can’t pick your values for you, but decades of research keep pointing to one thing: the people in your life.
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A Roman marble copy of a Greek bronze portrait of Aristotle, whose idea of eudaimonia, or living well, still shapes how philosophers and psychologists talk about a good life. The stone mantle is a modern addition.
Photo by Jastrow (2006), via Wikimedia Commons; bust after Lysippos, Palazzo Altemps, Rome · Public domain · Image source ↗
How closely related are all humans?
Any two people share almost all of their DNA, so here is what that number means, where our shared family tree leads, and what race does and does not capture.
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The Blue Marble, photographed in December 1972 by the crew of Apollo 17, the final Apollo mission, on the way to the Moon. Africa, where our species arose about 300,000 years ago, is near the top.
NASA / Apollo 17 crew, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗Before We Are Nations, We Are Life
A cosmic case for human dignity. Before we are nations, we are life. Before we inherit a border, we inherit a planet.
I saw something. How would we know?
Have UFOs been shown to be alien spacecraft?
Government and NASA reviews have looked hard at UFO reports, so here is what they explained, what they could not explain, and why a missing answer is not the same as an alien one.
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A NASA and National Science Foundation super pressure balloon in flight in 2009. Seen from far away, a high research balloon can look like a hovering, glowing object, and balloons are among the most common explanations in official UAP reports.
NASA, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (NASA) · Image source ↗
What Do Official UFO and UAP Reports Actually Say?
What U.S. government and NASA investigators found, what they still cannot explain, and what kind of data would help settle the rest.
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A long exposure above Yepun, one of the four Very Large Telescope units at ESO's Paranal Observatory, catching sunlight flashing off an Iridium communications satellite.
Was interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS an alien probe?
A visitor from another star raised a fair question, so here is what was observed, what was inferred, whether the evidence supports an alien probe, and what is still unresolved.
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Hubble photographed 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, and showed a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off its solid, icy core. NASA said its dust behaved much like that of comets from our own solar system. The short streaks are background stars, smeared because Hubble was tracking the moving comet.
NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA); image processing: J. DePasquale (STScI), via ESA/Hubble and Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · Image source ↗
Are governments hiding evidence of aliens? What do the records show?
The records show real government cover stories about UFOs, from spy planes to Roswell’s classified balloon, but no public evidence of hidden alien craft or bodies so far.
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A Project Mogul “balloon train” with foil radar reflectors, in a 1947 photo reproduced by the Air Force. In 1994 the Air Force concluded that the Roswell debris most likely came from a Mogul balloon, which was classified at the time.
U.S. Air Force, from The Roswell Report (Weaver and McAndrew, 1995), via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (work of the U.S. federal government) · Image source ↗
What is the Fermi paradox: if aliens exist, where is everybody?
The gap between a vast universe and no confirmed alien contact is a question, not evidence that we are alone.
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Dishes of the Very Large Array, a radio observatory in New Mexico, photographed in 2012. Radio searches can test specific signals, directions and times.
John Fowler, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0 · Image source ↗
Why do extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence?
A claim that breaks with a mountain of past evidence has to climb that mountain first, so here is where the rule came from, when surprising claims won, when they failed, and how to use the rule…
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Alfred Wegener, photographed between about 1924 and 1930. His 1912 idea that the continents move was not well received in his lifetime; new evidence from the ocean floor later revived it as plate tectonics.
Unknown photographer, via Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur and Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
Why do some conspiracy theories spread so easily?
Real conspiracies have happened, so suspicion can be reasonable; here is why some theories spread so easily, and how to check one fairly.
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The title page of Book II of the Church Committee’s 1976 final report. The Senate committee, led by a Democrat with a Republican vice chairman, documented real abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies, and scholars still use its reports today.
U.S. Senate (“Church Committee”), via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (work of the U.S. Congress) · Image source ↗
How can I check a viral video before I share it?
Smart, caring people share false videos every day, so here is a calm routine for tracing a clip to its source, and what research says about spotting AI fakes.
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Visitors photograph fish at an aquarium exhibit; the photographer’s description places it at the California Academy of Sciences. Every viral video starts as someone’s recording, and finding that first recording is the heart of checking it.
Tychay, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Image source ↗
Astrology, psychics, awakening: what holds up?
Why do we feel awe under the night sky, and is it a spiritual experience?
Psychologists say awe comes from meeting something too vast to take in, and people of every belief feel it, even as city lights hide the Milky Way from many of us.
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The Milky Way over Racetrack Playa in Death Valley, California, stitched from 30 images in 2005 by Dan Duriscoe of the U.S. National Park Service. Duriscoe later co-wrote the 2016 atlas showing that light pollution hides the Milky Way from more than one-third of humanity.
Dan Duriscoe, U.S. National Park Service, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
Does astrology work? What happens when it is tested?
Nearly 3 in 10 Americans consult astrology or a horoscope at least once a year, so here is what happens when its predictions are put to fair, blind tests.
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A southern-sky chart from Andreas Cellarius’s 1660 star atlas. Its zodiac figures include Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn. At top left, the legs of Ophiuchus (labeled “Serpentarius Ophiuchus”) stand on Scorpio. The Sun passes through Ophiuchus too, but the zodiac leaves it out.
Andreas Cellarius, star atlas of 1660 (Harmonia Macrocosmica), British Library, via Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication) · Image source ↗
Do psychic abilities like telepathy or seeing the future hold up when tested?
Scientists have tested telepathy, seeing the future and mind over matter for more than a century; here is what they found, what parapsychologists claim, and what their critics reply.
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The five symbols of Zener cards, also called ESP cards, designed at Duke University for card-guessing tests. Guessing at random gets about one card in five right.
Mikhail Ryazanov, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Image source ↗
What is the law of attraction, and what does research say about positive thinking?
The idea that your thoughts pull good things toward you is not supported, but research suggests that hope works better when it comes with a plan.
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A meteor, often called a “shooting star,” streaks over Spruce Knob, West Virginia, during the Perseid and Alpha Capricornid meteor showers on Aug. 3, 2025, in a 30-second exposure. Studies of wishes and goals suggest a wish does more good when it comes with a plan.
NASA/Bill Ingalls, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (NASA) · Image source ↗
Can meditation change the brain?
Meditation has real but modest benefits, brain-scan headlines often run ahead of the data, and mindfulness, a practice with Buddhist roots, deserves to be understood on its own terms.
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Buddha Shakyamuni Seated in Meditation, a granite sculpture from Nagapattinam in southern India, Chola period, about the 12th century. His hands rest in his lap in the gesture of meditation. Art Institute of Chicago.
Art Institute of Chicago, via Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication) · Image source ↗What are near-death experiences, and what do they tell us?
Many people who come close to death describe light, peace or leaving their bodies, so here is what research has found, what might explain it, and what science cannot say.
What Does Science Say About Happiness?
Decades of research point to a surprising winner, other people, and give honest answers about money, gratitude, and the difference between pleasure and meaning.
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Men share a game of dominoes in a park in Tirana, Albania, in June 2018.
Photograph · Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Image source ↗
What are the most common thinking traps, and how do we avoid them?
Every human mind takes shortcuts, including the minds of scientists and of the people who wrote this page, so here are the best-known traps and the habits that help.
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A made-up damage pattern on a World War II bomber. The red dots show hits on planes that made it home. Planes hit in the empty spots, such as the engines, were more likely to be the ones that never came back to be counted.
Martin Grandjean (vector), McGeddon (picture), US Air Force (hit plot concept), via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Image source ↗
When someone has died, or you’re afraid
Why does grief hurt so much, even physically?
Losing someone you love can bring waves of pain, poor sleep and exhaustion, and research is starting to show why grief reaches the body as well as the heart.
When does grief need more help?
Most grief slowly softens on its own, but some grief stays stuck and heavy, and knowing the signs, and what actually helps, can make a real difference.
Is it normal to feel that someone who died is still with me?
Many grieving people feel, hear or even see someone they have lost, and studies suggest it is common, usually comforting and usually not a sign that something is wrong.
Is it possible to make peace with the idea of dying?
Many people do find some peace with dying, and research, philosophy, faith and end-of-life care each point to a different road there.
The Privilege of Having Existed
Science can study the edge of death, but not promise what lies beyond it. Gratitude for having existed may not erase fear, but it can change its shape.
Is there life after death? What can science say?
What the great traditions teach, what near-death research can and cannot test, and why the deepest part of this question lies beyond science.
What are near-death experiences, and what do they tell us?
Many people who come close to death describe light, peace or leaving their bodies, so here is what research has found, what might explain it, and what science cannot say.
What If Living Is Enough?
An adaptation of Ricardo Maldonado’s unfinished reflection on happiness, attention, and the ordinary gift of being alive.