Random Philosophizing About Life Essay, Research Paper
Do humans need god/spirituality? The short answer to this question is a simple no, humans do not need either god or spirituality. All human beings, however, use their beleifs as a way of defining, evaluating, and assigning a purpose to their lives. Therefore, it can be said that all human beings need to beleive in something. This “something” need not be either god or spirituality, but beleiving in something is essential to nearly all people. Many people choose to believe that religion and spirituality hold within them the true meaning and purpose of life because they enjoy the personal validation that they get from being a part of a large group whose members all ascribe to a nearly identical philosophy. Religion also substantially augments its large herd of blind followers by bringing people into the “faith” when they are still children, too young to question what is being said to them, and too young to even fully understand what they are being told. This is my largest problem with organized religion, that it robs people of their ability to choose what they want to beleive in by indoctrinating them as children, before they have been given the freedom, or even developed tyhe ability, to choose their own views of life.
In my opinion, there is no singular purpose of life that applies to all human beings, and no adequate explanation thereof either. Existence is what each individual makes of it, nothing more, and nothing less. Should a person choose to believe that the purpose of life is to give oneself to god, then for that individual, giving oneself to god is indeed the purpose of life. However, should a person decide that finding true love transcends all other things in life (including god), then for them, the purpose of life embodies love rather than religion. Neither individual can really be said to be right (or wrong), as answers to such abstract questions as “why are we here?” and “what is the meaning of life?” do not really exist. No one possesses such knowledge, nor is it likely that anyone ever will, thus everyone is left to make his or her own decisions regarding what life is really “about.” Of the fortunate few that are actually free to choose how they want to think (i.e., they don’t have beliefs forced on them by family, society, peers, etc.), not all will choose to believe in a philosophy that includes a “god,” or any sort of spiritual existence whatsoever, but all will choose to believe in something, even if that “something” ends up being a belief in nothing at all. Thus, it is belief that is essential to humankind, and belief is not limited to god/that which is “spiritual.” Belief gives people a standard against which they can compare their lives, and a constant which they can use for guidance. The constancy is more important to people than the specific beliefs which give rise to it, and because of this, god and spirituality and unimportant. It is the personal stability that is created by a belief in god/a spiritual side of life that matters, and this stability comes from belief, not from the fact that the belief embodies a specific set of ideas…if god and religion were nonexistent in society, then people would simply find a new belief to give structure and meaning to their lives.
All humans will invariably find something which they believe in, be it god, love, money, power, politics, or a belief that life is simply a meaningless journey which is lived in futility as after one is dead one ceases to exist in all but the memories of the people who knew you (or, if you did something really spectacular, in history books and other texts), so that the purpose of life simply ends up being “have as much fun as humanly possible before you die, because there are no second chances.” It is this belief, however, that is essential to all members of humankind, and not a belief in god, religion, or anything what can be considered “spiritual,” which in my opinion, are all human creations which arose as a way for us to dead with our insecurities about our own mortality, as well as to have an easy answer to tough questions. No matter how great heaven supposedly is (assuming it exists, though I believe it doesn’t), I sincerely hope I never end up there, for only a fool would ever long to go on living for an eternity…