The Speak Life Podcast Steven Bartlett Asks The Question Haunting Our Age — But Who Can Answer It? || SLP610
Oct 7, 2025
A thought-provoking conversation unfolds as Glen Scrivener comments on a roundtable exploring the 'meaning crisis.' Alex O'Connor argues this dilemma stretches back to the human condition itself. Greg Koukl challenges naturalism, emphasizing our innate hunger for meaning. The discussion raises intriguing questions about whether God grounds meaning or renders it arbitrary. Strategies for overcoming feelings of meaninglessness are discussed, offering listeners a variety of remedies from philosophy to faith.
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Friend Finds Purpose In Conversion
- Stephen Bartlett recounts a friend who was depressed in Dubai and then suddenly converted to Christianity and found purpose.
- The conversion dramatically changed his behaviour and sense of meaning.
Hobbies Don’t Always Fill The Void
- Stephen Bartlett tells of a female friend who wants to collect 200 named plants yet still feels lost and enters therapy.
- Her hobby didn't resolve her deeper sense of meaninglessness.
Meaning Crisis Predates Modernity
- Alex O'Connor argues the meaning crisis is as old as the human condition, not just modernity.
- He says religions arose to address human finitude and the desire to commune with something less finite.