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What is important in human life
What is important in human life
Buddhism and the afterlife
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The question is whether it is worth being alive right now? Should I just suffer through this unbearable situation or just kill myself. Dying is like falling asleep, but forever. The pain of this world will just finally end and suffering will be no more, but there is much uncertainty. Committing suicide at this point seems the most desirable course of action, but what would happen to me in the afterlife? If death is like sleep, then we must dream when we die, but these dreams will probably haunt me if I end the suffering of this world. Who would tolerate the suffering one receives throughout life, the tyranny of a tyrant, proud men’s contempt, your love being rejected, an authority’s insolence, and people taking advantage of weaker people? Why
`Where did we come from?', `Why are we here?', `Where are we going?'. These are questions which surface, centre stage, at some point in most people's lives. For philosophers, and others, they constitute the core problem known traditionally as the Meaning of Life.
Life, it might be argued, is the distinguishing feature of all organisms and may most usefully be thought of as involving various kinds of complex systems of organization providing individual organisms with the ability to make use of those energy sources available to them for both self maintenance and reproduction. Underlying this deceptively persuasive definition, however, lie those persistent traditional problems inherent in the search for an essential, distinctive substance characteristic of all forms of life. Additionally, as evolution theory makes clear, there is the problem of borderline instances, organisms of which it is not easy to say whether or not they may be defined as being alive. One such case is that of the virus.
The human race is a curious species; they thirst for knowledge and seek answers to impossible questions. They turn the impossible into the possible. They wonder about their existence and how it came to be. They make theories about life and modify them over time. The books The Grand Design by Stephan Hawking and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams provide insightful opinions of the true meaning of life. They both provide observations of the theory of uncertainty, the perception of reality as well as the answer to the universe.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Are words that can be found on The Declaration of Independence, a documented piece about the founding of the American life. Every life radiates with an illuminated glow, certain components in life add the sparks that set this mortal existence into firing flames and add light to an otherwise dark world. In order for this life to have an ambience in this dark society, it needs have liberty, the absence of fear, and the freedom to be oneself without negative consequences.
Every decision that we make has an effect on one’s life. Simple choices like the clothes we wear to complex decisions like the schools we attend shape our future. Most decisions made by people are to help them achieve success or live a “good life.” The common steps to living a “good life” are going to school to get educated, going to work to support yourself, and retiring to enjoy the remaining years. Just two years ago, I made a decision to go to LASA high school instead of my home school. Why did I do this? I felt that being educated would help me live a “good life.” The problem I had was that I neither understood what a “good life” was, nor did I know how education would help me live a “good life”. The quest for the answer will help me understand more about myself and my values, as well as help me find steps to create the life I want.
If we take a step back from the world that we live in today, we can see that people are very different all over the world. This is because people all over the world, or even in different areas in the same part of the world have different views. Looking at how different people’s religion is on an individual level we can see that they vary from believing in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, no religion, or many more. These different types of religions can lead people into having different beliefs. Since people aren’t the same all over the world it may lead every individual to see things differently and when asked what is the meaning of life. We may receive many different answers to this question. Looking at the definition of life we can
lives to God. If it was God’s plan for us to suffer then we must obey
“I have made terrible mistakes that have hurt the people that I cared about the most, and I am terribly sorry. I am deeply ashamed of my terrible judgment and my actions” (Anthony Weiner). It is said by many different people online that on average we make about 35,000 decisions each day and 3,000 as a young child. In my short 19 years on this earth I have already made over 242 million decisions. Many were small and quite a few were big. The biggest mistake, or wrong decision, I have made was the night I decided that life was not worth living anymore.
Have you ever wondered what the difference between living and surviving is? I certainly have. Human life is a fragile thing that most of us take for granted. In North America life is significantly more illustrious and enjoyable. Living is quite different from surviving, as I have taken years to discover. Living is being able to feel the world around us, being able to connect with people and not have to cower in fear. Just because we have breath in our bodies and blood pumping through our veins, does not guarantee you are living. In most of our lives we have young kids who are not quite sure how to work themselves into the grand scheme of agony we call life. The folks who are more elderly hold knowledge of things that have passed and can tell us how to make up for our extremely human errors. Our neighbours are not just the people who live next to us; in fact they are the people all around us and the trials they have faced change how they view life. Life, it is a valuable and precious thing, but it’s learning how to live that takes time accomplish. Surviving is usually a natural human skill that we recieved at birth. Surviving may mean having another day to see a sunrise but living to cry out in joy as the sun lazily rolls into the sky is just as staggering. Children have the ability to do either, they can see the wonder in almost anything.
Many individuals wonder what is the meaning of life, and if the life that they are living has some sort of meaning to it. Before determining what the meaning of life is one has to know what the meaning of meaning is. Meaning has to do with how a word represents something or communicates something. Life is not the kind of thing that that can just represent or communicate, and so it doesn’t make sense to ask about the meaning of life, but what if the question to ask about the meaning of life does have an answer? Most things have a clear definition, but is life that simple to have a definition that all individuals will accept?
What matters most to you in the world today? People often ask this question. I must say being 26 I have been asked this question many times in my life. The response I always give was my career. Winning and surfing, you see they are the only things that should matter. But I did not once stop to think that maybe the things that mattered more then just a surfing career was my family. I hardly got to see my children in the first stages of their life, never got to see them take their first step or say their first word because I was always out surfing and living up to my dream of being the one that no one could beat.
Existentialism was born against Age of Reason in order to reject abstract thinking and absoluteness of reason. Existentialists have claims and evidences to support their idea. They are trying to find absolute truth without absolute thinking because of this they will look for the truth all the eternity. In this essay, I will point out the existentialists’ claims in terms of denying absolute reason.
The abstract idea of life cannot be explained by such simple ideas as being animated, breathing, or speaking. Ordinary machines in this century can perform all of these basic functions. The quandary with defining death is not as abstract and elusive as that of life. The problem of defining life and death has plagued philosophers and the religious bodies for thousands of years for one reason; each philosophy or religion has tried to define the meaning of life and death from only their certain perspective. The seemingly appropriate approach to this problem would be to understand the ideas presented in various philosophies and religions and through this knowledge create a new definition for each idea of life and death. The movie Blade Runner has taken this exact approach in its attempt to finally define life and death in a logical and un-spiritual manner. By taking the position that death is a concrete idea that can be explained, Blade Runner accomplishes the task of interpreting the idea of life in terms death. Through this approach, the meaning of life is redefined to accommodate for the existence of the replicants. Also, as a result of this novel notion of life, it is apparent that humans and replicants never actually live, even though they are alive.
Everyone has a purpose in life, sometimes it 's hard to believe this, especially when everything seems to be going against you. It has taken years to find my purpose and believe when I say it has been a long and tough journey. I am going to rewind all the way back to the 80 's when I was born. My mother was an addict; unfortunately I was born addicted to the drugs that she chose to use at that time. Somehow, not sure how but my mother was able to keep full custody of me. When I was 18 months I almost overdosed on my mother’s medication because she was negligent and left them "lying around the house", 2 months later, my father walked into her apartment to find me in the kitchen with the gas running on the stove with no flame, that was the final
Lovin’s defines ethics as “…how we try to become good people and shape for ourselves a life that is worth living” (7). According to Lovin, Christian faith cannot be separated from our ethics as they shape and define each other. Moral choices define an individual’s ethics and each choice must be an individual decision that none other can make (7). Lovin’s definition must be divided into two parts in order to effectively comprehend his rationale. The first, ethics as an attempt to become good, encounters people in the crossroads of their lives. Christians live with the curse and blessing of being painstakingly aware of their goodness and task of doing good in the world. Lovin states “We wonder whether we pay enough attention to people in need…