Ricky- Life here is just so hard, I have so much debt from college and even thinking of getting married and having kids seems impossible. I don't know how I would make ends meet! The world is getting so evil too, I'm scared what kind of place my future children will be brought up in. God is still good though, He will take care of us.
Lucy- How can you look around and say there is a loving God taking care of us? To think there is a big man up in the sky looking down is ridiculous. You're crazy.
Ricky- Well, what do you believe?
Lucy- We just formed here, and are just supposed to live a good life.
Ricky- So according to you, we have no purpose or meaning to life, and after we're dead we just stop there, nothing afterwards?
Lucy- Yeah.
Ricky- That's crazy.
We are all our own kind of crazy.
Where our life came from, and the meaning to our life here on Earth, has been a matter of debate for centuries. Here are what some famous philosophers and/or spiritual teachers said concerning life:
Aristotle- “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”
Solomon- Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 "I, the Teacher, was king of Israel, and I lived in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done under heaven. I soon discovered that God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race.I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless—like chasing the wind. What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered. I said to myself, “Look, I am wiser than any of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them.” So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind. The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. To increase knowledge only increases sorrow."
Shannon L. Alder- “There are no coincidences in life. What person that wandered in and out of your life was there for some purpose, even if they caused you harm. Sometimes, it doesn’t make sense the short periods of time we get with people, or the outcomes from their choices. However, if you turn it over to God he promises that you will see the big picture in the hereafter. Nothing is too small to be a mistake.”
Friedrich Nietzsche- “Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.”
Bertrand Russell- 'There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.'
Swami Sivananda- "Always do good to others. Be selfless. Mentally remove everything and be free. This is divine life. This is the direct way to Moksha or salvation."
You see, there are all different opinions regarding the meaning and existence in life. Honestly, when you get down and think about the origin of life, and the meaning behind our existence from the viewpoint of each major belief system-it's absolutely crazy. How does anything sound logical?
Here are the basic views:
1. One intelligent being created this beautiful world out of nothing, and we live to give Him glory.
2. In the beginning, there was nothing, but something blew up and created everything. We evolved from blown up matter and we have no purpose.
3. There is no beginning and no end to the earth. We are supposed to live a good life, and when we die our soul lives on and we can receive a better body.
4. Earn our way to heaven by working to erase our sin.
I think they all sound quite crazy, but that is where faith comes in. We cannot scientifically, 100%, prove ANYTHING. The constant debate about not teaching faith in school is impossible, any belief system about nature and life on earth needs some element of faith. No matter what you believe, you are going to be crazy in the eyes of someone else. Just choose your own kind of crazy that you want to believe in. I am not saying that all belief systems are right, and you just have to choose. That isn't how the world works. But don't be under the assumption that other people are crazy for not believing you.
How we live our life is our choice, that is how God created it, and it is 50/50 where you end up. I chose to accept God's grace and forgiveness, and I put my faith in the God of the Bible. He was upfront about how hard it would be following Him, the path of Christianity isn't a easy road to walk. (Matthew 7:13) In Matthew 18, Jesus talks about having the faith of a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. How does a child like to discover new things? They are always inquisitive and love to learn more, but if they don't understand, they take it by faith. That is how I want to live my walk with Christ. As I study history and science, I see more and more evidence of God and His hand in the creation of this world. A wonderful site is www.answersingenesis.org, I encourage you to visit there! I want to constantly learn more and more, and if I don't understand, my faith in God and that His word is good and true steps in.
See? We are all crazy, I just hope and pray that you accept God's grace and forgiveness so you can join me in our crazy, beautiful, heavenly home.
