After dealing with a glitch on my computer's network, I write and publish once more . . . to ask this question:  is there purpose?  In a debate that appeared on public television recently, Lawrence Kraus, author of A Universe from Nothing, and Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, squared off against Dinesh D'Souza, author of What's So Great About Christianity?, and Ian Hopkins, a professor of nuclear physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, over this question:  does science refute God?
     In case you're wondering, according to audience vote, Kraus and Shermer won.  But that's not the point here.  The larger issue is a statement that Kraus made toward the close of the debate.  He stated that to ask why is to suggest purpose, that is, to ask why is to assume or imply that purpose exists.  To this, he is absolutely right.  When we ask why, about anything, we are assuming that either we, the object of our question, the world, or one or all of these things has purpose, that it has a point.  What if, he then asked, there is no purpose?
     Unfortunately, Kraus contradicts himself.  Assuming that there is no purpose ironically assumes in turn that there is.  Why else would we ask?  Why would we ask about purpose if there was none to begin with?
     We wouldn't ask if we did think it necessary to do so.  But we ask anyway.  Why?  Clearly, if there is a reason we ask, it didn't come from us.  It's hard to explain why we ask about purpose when we insist that there is none to ask about.  So why are we here?  In ourselves, we will never know.  But we nonetheless think to ask.  Hence, the question actually becomes this:  how can there not be purpose?