Why Do I Exist?

The purpose of creation is a topic that puzzles every human being at some point in his or her lifetime. Everybody at some time or another asks themselves the question “Why do I exist?” or “For what purpose am I here on earth?”

The variety and complexity of the intricate systems which constitute the fabric of both human beings and the world in which we exist indicate that there must have been a Supreme Being who created us.

Design indicates a designer.

To answer the question “Why did God create man?” it must first be determined from which perspective the question is being asked. From the point of view of God it would mean, “What caused God to create human beings?” while from the human point of view it would mean “For what purpose did God create humans?” Both points of view represent aspects of the intriguing question “Why do I exist?”

This is a difficult and complex topic for human speculation, because human guesswork cannot possibly produce the whole truth in this matter. Think about it.

How can human beings intellectually deduce the reality of their existence when they can hardly understand how their own brain or its higher entity, the mind, functions? Consequently, the many philosophers who have speculated on this question down through the ages have come up with innumerable answers, all of which are based on assumptions which cannot be proven.

Questions on this topic have even led a number of philosophers to claim that we do not really exist and that the whole world is imaginary. For example, the Greek philosopher Plato (428-348 BC) argued that the everyday world of changeable things, which man comes to know by the use of his senses, is not the primary reality, but is a shadow world of appearances.

Many others, as was previously mentioned, claimed and continue to claim that there is no purpose for the creation of humans at all. According to them, Human existence is merely a product of chance. There can be no purpose if life evolved from inanimate matter which only became animate by pure luck. Humankind’s supposed ‘cousins,’ the monkey and apes are not bothered with questions of existence, so why should human beings be bothered with them?

Although most people put the question of why we are created aside after occasional brief reflection, it is extremely critical for us to know the answer. Without knowledge of the correct answer, human beings become indistinguishable from the other animals around them. The animal necessities and desires of eating, drinking and pro-creating become the purpose of human existence by default, and human effort is then focused in this limited sphere. When material satisfaction develops into the most important goal in life, human existence becomes even more degraded than that of the lowest of animals.

Human beings will consistently misuse their God-given intelligence when they lack knowledge of their purpose of existence. The degraded human mind uses its abilities to create drugs and bombs and becomes engrossed in fornication, pornography, suicide, etc.

Without knowledge of the purpose of life, human existence loses all meaning and is consequently wasted.  Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that human beings correctly answer the question “Why are we here?”

Live and Learn. We All Do.

Thanks for stopping by. Please share

Please don’t forget to leave a comment. 

Filed under: Islam, Philosophy, Religion, Self-Improvement Tagged: Democracy, god, human, islam, Why

via WordPress http://ift.tt/2iFAYYD

Honest Opinions: Being A Girl Or A Boy

National Geographic traveled around the world to talk with 9-year-olds and ask what it’s like to be growing up in 2016, and how gender affects their lives.

Live and Learn. We All Do.

Thanks for stopping by . Please share

Please don’t forget to leave a comment. 

Filed under: Children, Culture, World Tagged: 2016, boy, children, Gender, Girl, National Geographic

via WordPress http://ift.tt/2i9Yk4o

Islam Is Simple, Culture Is Complicated

The Islaam being practiced in much of the Muslim world today may be referred to as Cultural Islaam or Folk Islaam (as Christian Missionaries like to refer to it).  The main feature of this version of Islaam is the blind following of local traditions.

The existing cultures are generally a product of practices handed down from earlier generations.  Some cultural practices are based on authentic Islamic traditions, while many are not.  However, the cultural Muslim is unable to distinguish between the two.  All traditions are identified as Islamic and any attempt to exclude any aspect of the cultural traditions is met with stiff resistance.

Although it is well known to all Muslims that Islaam is based on the Qur’aan and the Sunnah, when cultural Muslims are advised to follow instructions from the Qur’aan or the Sunnah they immediately make excuses why they cannot.

The excuses usually consist of statements to the effect that Islaam was not practiced that way in their village or country.  Cultural Muslims are brainwashed with this response.  Whenever they questioned a practice while growing up, their parents would scold them for questioning their traditions saying, “if it was good enough for our forefathers, it is good enough for you.”  Or, do you think our forefathers were all wrong?”

In order for Muslims to re-establish Islamic civilization and promote its ideals to the world as an alternative to Western culture, the inherited excess baggage of cultural Islaam must be eliminated.  Only pure unadulterated Islaam can stand in the face of Western civilization’s cultural onslaught.

Live and Learn. We All Do.

Thanks for stopping by. Please share

Please don’t forget to leave a comment. 

 

Filed under: Culture, Religion Tagged: Culture, Islaam, islam, peace, Western Civilization

via WordPress http://ift.tt/2hfuV8R

Nutritional Security Should Be Given The Same Priority As Food Security.

Nutrition is becoming ever more central to our understanding of virtually all metabolic processes. Its biological basis offers insight into the mechanisms by which diet influences human health and disease. Nutritional biochemistry broadens and deepens our understanding of many aspects of human biology including immunity, development, and aging. Research in this complex field must integrate information from a myriad of fields including cellular and molecular biology, molecular genetics, physiology, epidemiology, and clinical medicine.

Nutritional biochemistry is a vital field of study. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, poor nutrition (along with inactivity) contributes to approximately half a million deaths each year. Poor nutrition is also a leading cause of disability and loss of independence. Healthier dietary practices, according to the US Department of Agriculture, could prevent at least $71 billion per year in medical costs, lost productivity, and premature deaths in the United States alone.

At the international level, the World Health Organization focuses on nutrition as one of the most significant factors influencing human health; under nutrition contrinutes to about a third of all child deaths around the world, amd growing rates of overweight and obesity worldwide are associated with the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.

Gene nutrient interactions in growth and developmemt and in disease prevention are fundamental to health, therefore regional Centers on Genetics, Nutrition and Fitness for Health should be established worldwide.

Heads of state must elevate, as a matter of urgency, Nutrition as a national priority, that access to a healthy diet should be considered a human right and that the lead responsibility for Nutrition should be placed in Ministries of Health rather than agriculture so that the health requirements drive agricultural priorities, not vice versa.

Nutritional security should be given the same priority as food security.

Live and Learn. We All Do.

Thanks for stopping by. Please share

Please don’t forget to leave a comment. 

Filed under: Health and Fitness, Science, World Tagged: biochemistry, Chad Cox PhD, nutrition, United States, US Department of Health

via WordPress http://ift.tt/2gqNhnr

My Friends, Do Not Lose Heart

My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind.

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

 

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.

The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

By Clarissa Pinkola Estes

American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves.

Live and Learn. We All Do.

Thanks for stopping by. Please share

Please don’t forget to leave a comment. 

Filed under: Philosophy, Politics, Spirituality, Women, World Tagged: Clarissa Pinkola Estes, earth, healing, love, soul, Women Who Run With Wolves

via WordPress http://ift.tt/2fLhvUo

Every Man Is The Builder Of A Temple Called His Body

In Scripture we are told that God made man in his own image. This is stated not only in the Christian Bible but also in the holy writing of nearly all enlightened people. The Jewish patriarchs taught that the human body was the microcosm, or little cosmos.

There is no doubt that the Old Testament is a physiological and anatomical textbook to those capable of reading it from a scientific viewpoint. The functions of the human body, the attributes of the human mind, and the qualities of the human soul, have been personified by the wise men of the ancient world. Today a great drama has been built around their relationships to themselves and to each other.

To the real Egyptian demigod, Hermes, the human race owes its concept of the law of analogy. The great Hermetic axiom was that which is above is like unto that which is below, and that which is below is like that which is above.

The religions of the ancient world were all based upon nature-worship, which in a degenerated form has survived to our own day as phallicism.

The building of temples in the form of the human body is a custom common to ALL people. The great Egyptian Temple of Karnak, The Tabernacle of the Jews, the religious structures of the Hawaiian priests, and the Christian churches laid out in the form of the cross, are examples of this practice.

If the human body were laid out with the arms spread in the shape of any of these buildings, you would find that the high alter would occupy the same relative position in the building that the brain occupies in the human body.

We know that the human body has been the inspiration for nearly all mechanical contrivances. Hinges are copied from the human body; likewise the ball and socket joint. We are told that the first plumbing was reproduced from the arterial and venous circulatory systems.

Hundreds of machines and implements have been inspired by the subtle workings of our own vehicles, for the human body is the most marvelously constructed machine that the human mind can study. We know that mathematics and geometry are the great keys to universal order, and they are nowhere more evident than in the physical body.

While on the subject of the debt of science to the human body we might add that the decimal system is the result of primitive man’s counting on his fingers, whereby ten became the unit of enumeration. The ancient cubit also was the distance between the elbow and the end of the second finger, or approximately 18 inches. So it goes back through the study of things until we find that nearly everything with which man has surrounded himself is an adaptation from the body with which God surrounded his spirit.

The word Adam, meaning species or type, signifies humanity collectively; that is, the wave of cosmic life that is now flowing through nature in the form of human beings.

The ancients therefore, gave us the concept that the body is a living temple of the living God. Each human body is a sanctuary for a spiritual entity or reality. This body, this temple, has been in various ways corrupted.

We have gradually lost the strength, the vitality, or the incentives to maintain properly this living temple. Most people do not even bother to consider the body a temple. Our attitude toward our own physical structure is almost unbelievable. In the first place, to most individuals the body is merely a servant of the purposes of the will, the mind, and the emotions. The body is merely a kind of animal, which is supposed to draw wagons as horses did, a faithful servant to the pressures that are forced against it.

The body in a sense is analagous to humanity. It gives us an understanding of the relationship of parts to the whole. Within the body of man there are more separate living entities than there are creatures upon the surface of the earth. Not only is this true of human beings, but of every form of life that exists.

Within the human body, however, is a far greater assembly of life than can be found anywhere else. Some of these are so small that we cannot see them. Because they sometimes are born and die within a few hours, and because they are so completely involved in the structures, which they nourish and sustain, we lose sight of the fact that we are not one being alone, but that the human body is a field of evolution for millions and billions of living things.

All of this together and very, very much more, brings me to the final realization that this body is indeed a sacred thing that it has been given to us for a reason, for a purpose.

Live and Learn. We All Do.

Thanks for stopping by. Please share

Please don’t forget to leave a comment.

Filed under: Culture, Health and Fitness, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Spirituality Tagged: body is a temple, egypt, health, Hermetic, human body, humanity

via WordPress http://ift.tt/2g4lloe