My Insights Into My Faith
- Meaning of Life
- God
- Light
- Windows XP - A Pleasant Surprise...Or Not!?
- Reflection after WYD
Meaning of Life
Why Are We Here?
I think everyone has asked this question before, "Why are we here?" It is one of the most fundamental questions a human being can pose and I think it is also one of the most important questions that needs a definite answer.We live in a capitalistic society. We are judged by what and how much we own. "Wow, that guy drives an M3!" or "She has the latest Prada bag!" are phrases we often hear. We are constantly being bombarded by advertisements that promote the ownership of goods. Our value as a person is based on what we have. Naturally, we start to believe that our happiness is also derived from the ownership of these material goods.
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We also live in a society where status and success also indicate your value as a human being. Many people often equate another person's value with his success. There are those who think that in order to make his life meaningful, he should obtain success through accomplishing something. They fill their schedule up with things to do, things to learn, etc. These people often think that since they are contributing to society in some way, they are better off than the materialistic people mentioned above, that they have more worth!
Something More
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However, I truly truly believe that life is more than obtaining the most amount of money/things or achieving the most success in work/school. If these were all we were meant to do, how shallow life is, just a game where the winner is the one who gets the most!! When we search for the meaning of life, we have to look at our origin, our roots. We have to ask the more fundamental questions: Why do we exist? How did we get here? And it points back to God (I strongly suggest you read the "God" section as well since you've come this far already). Since this world was created by God, our purpose here must be what He intended for us to do. I am currently taking a course called "Varieties of Christian Experience" at school. The professor reminded me the meaning of life for a Christian and that is to glorify God. It's a problem when you're someone that doesn't believe in the existence of a god or an afterlife. I think that is one of the saddest things in someone's life. There is absolutely nothing to look forward to. Life is but a haphazard occurrence. Let me tell you, there is something more. |
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The Human Condition
Before going any further, let's discuss the human condition. Have you ever been really satisfied about something? I am sure you have, but how long did that satisfaction last? A day, a week, a month? Not very long when compared to how long we spend our time on here on Earth. We are constantly in an unhappy state, and why are we unhappy? By looking at the story of Genesis (first book of the bible), we will see that Adam, the first man, committed the first sin, or the original sin. As a result, humans have fallen from the grace of God. We were originally in a perfect form and eternally happy, but because of original sin, we have fallen to our state now. |
Although the Genesis story is not to be taken literally, the meaning behind it is ever so true. How do I know this is true? Let's take an analogy given by Pascal (the great mathematician in his work, Pensées). He asks, do we ever feel sad that we don't have three eyes instead of two? But, if you lost even the vision of one eye, it would almost be the end of the world. And why is that? It is because we originally had two and after losing even one, we miss it so very much. But because we never had three eyes in the first place, no one ever complains about having only two. This analogy applies to the human condition. Why are we constantly unhappy? It is because we have fallen from a state of grace. And that fall was caused by original sin.
The Infinite
This leads to human's unending journey of trying to return to the state of happiness Adam once enjoyed. However, in a world like our own, there are many distractions. How do we actually obtain this happiness? The easiest way of doing so is through immediate gratification. We have all experienced immediate gratification when we get a perfect mark on our test, when we receive a gift we have wanted for a long time, when we are recognized for our efforts. Because we have these experiences so often and after feeling good about them, we develop an attraction for them. Our life finally revolves around these gratifications. It is as if there is a hole in our lives. We need to fill this hole of unhappiness but because this original sin and our human condition is the cause of this unhappiness, this hole is infinitely big. It is impossible to fill it with finite things such as toys, computers, palm pilots, cars, etc. Even achievements and social status are finite. |
How then can we fill this infinitely big hole? And if you have studied calculus, you will know that the limit of any constant over infinite is zero, but when you have a limit of infinite over infinite, you can use l'Hopital's rule and differentiate the top and bottom and find the limit (the answer is likely non-zero). Therefore, we can only fill our infinitely big hole with something that is infinite. And the only thing that is infinite is God.
The Answer
The meaning of life is then two-fold.- Since we have fallen from our original state of grace, our human instinct is to return to this state of grace.
- The only way to this state of grace is through God and the true meaning to life is to return to God. To do so, we must follow His teachings and glorify Him. In glorifying him, we receive true happiness. And at the end of our journey on Earth, we will hope to return to our original state of eternal happiness.