"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." -Ecclesiastes 1:2
I remember a clear sunny day riding home from school on the big yellow bus when I first tried tracing 'why' all the way back. "Why I am riding on this bus?" To go to school and back. "Why am I going to school?" So I can get a job one day. "Why am I getting a job?" So I can raise a family. "Why am I raising a family and having kids?" So my kids can do the same thing I'm doing: Go to school. Go to job. Start a family. It's an endless cycle with no ultimate destination. "Well hold on maybe I'll find the cure for cancer or something and help humanity move forward?" So what? What is the point of advancing society? "Well the more we advance society the less people will suffer." So what? What is the ultimate purpose of reducing the suffering in the world? What will that lead to? The universe clearly doesn't have a problem with humans suffering from all sorts of things. Besides, if all the humans disappeared there would not be any human suffering. So that can't be the ultimate purpose of anyone's existence--alleviate human suffering; help humanity move forward. It's a circular problem. Humans can't be their own ultimate purpose for existing.
If you delete humans from existence you delete the problem.
If all humans were gone, would the universe miss them? No. "Well maybe God would miss us?" So what? What is the problem with God being lonely in the universe? If God is the creator of everything then he created loneliness. Why not just delete loneliness and solve the problem that way? Matter of fact why doesn't God delete himself? Then all problems would be solved. No humans to keep God company therefore no human suffering. No God therefore no lonely God. "Wow! There is no ultimate purpose to any of this. There is no ultimate purpose for my existence. There is no ultimate purpose for God's existence. There is no ultimate purpose for existence, period."
"If all of Existence ceased to exist, would anyone care?"
Years later I learned to summarize this conclusion with a simple riddle, "If all of Existence ceased to exist, would anyone care?" Even with that glaringly obvious question, some people still don't get what I'm talking about when I say there is no ultimate purpose for Existence. That's okay. At least the guy who wrote Ecclesiastes seemed to understand what I was getting at.
Dying and ceasing to exist are not the same thing.
"Well Mr. Existence is Pointless, why don't you just kill yourself since your life is ultimately pointless?" Well, dying doesn't mean you cease to exist. It just means you're dead. Even though having an afterlife is pointless there is still a possibility it exists. Our Creator certainly doesn't require things to have an ultimate purpose when deciding what should exist. And there's no guarantee that afterlife is any better than current life. Suicide might piss God off. God is possible. I'm thirteen and functionally agnostic.
"What do you care what God thinks, he's pointless, so his opinion obviously should not matter to you? Besides there is no need for God so what really makes you think there is a God?" Nothing makes me believe there is definitely a God, but God is certainly a possibility.
Nonexistence is possible, but not likely. So now what?
"Well if life is ultimately pointless and you possibly don't have the option of nonexistence then what is there worth doing?" I searched for the answer to that question for the rest of my teenage years. "What goals are worth pursuing?" My search lead me through the Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People, through Deepak Chopra, through Gandhi, through I Ching, through eastern philosophies that seemed to me more straightforward and well thought out than Christianity.
Christianity felt like Fisher Price Theology. Christianity: Osh Kosh B'God.
Christianity always felt like a cartoonish explanation of God. A God so human-like with emotions and jealousy and anger and happiness. The authors of the Bible must have thrown that stuff in there just to make it more user-friendly for the masses. Christianity: the Macintosh of Organized Religion. The Eastern religions made a lot more sense. God is a simple abstract force in the universe. A set of consistent principles that Yogi's or zen monks or ninjas could learn and live harmoniously with to achieve their goals. I studied the weather patterns of life as documented by the I Ching: The Book of Changes. A very curious book about balancing the yin and yang, earthly and heavenly, passive and active forces of my life. I only have theories on how it could lead me to such powerful insights through its hexagrams. My simplest theory is Luke 11:9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” I sought wisdom so He gave it to me.
Visualization: think of it as multimedia prayer.
When I was young teenager Stephen Covey mentioned it and Shakti Gawain spelled it all out for me: Creative Visualization. I learned to visualize things I wanted and it became so effective that it forced me to take seriously that there is some intelligent force at work in the universe that science had not yet explained. Heading into eigth grade, I remember spending all summer daydreaming about this beautiful girl in my class. Towards the end of the summer Dad tells me he wants to try going to a church. This is the first time I ever remember my dad wanting to attend church. And of course the one person I knew at that church was that girl. I should have visualized courage to ask her out too. Oh well, better luck next time.
I'm seventeen and I got some cool soul skills. Now what?
So all this eastern mysticism, all this searching for ways to expand my influence over my present reality it didn't answer the big question: "If there is no ultimate purpose to existence, then what is worth doing with my life?" So I went back to the biographies I really admired, everyone from Jesus to Leonardo da Vinci to Gandhi. Towards the end of high school, all these biographies and all these teachings came down to one verb: Love. The only thing worth doing with one's life is to love others.
Love is the Game. Who is the Guru?
"So love is the answer. Which teacher knew this and expressed this above all others?" Jesus. The greatest philosopher of all time. Mind you, I did not consider myself a Christian because of this conclusion. I knew Jesus was a great teacher and somebody worth emulating. I learned this from all the biographies of the people I admired. However, I had no intention of affiliating myself with a group of people who blindly followed religious dogma; who cared more about banning abortion and fighting gay rights than living out the highest commandments: "Luke 10:27 He answered: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ [ Deut. 6:5] ; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ [ Lev. 19:18] ” Most Christians I knew back then were just not that impressive, certainly not like the hard core Christians I had read about like Mother Theresa, and St. Francis of Assisi. I had no motivation to call myself a Christian and no emotional connection to Jesus' death on the cross. It was Jesus' life that impressed me. That is what I decided I should strive to emulate. In the final years of my adolescence I focused my spiritual study almost exclusively on emulating Jesus and simultaneously paying little heed to conventional Christianity or to the whole issue of sin and redemption.
Sin is silly. College Christians are sincere but seemingly sedated.
Sin didn't mean much of anything to me. I've made mistakes in the past, but I never really felt condemned to Hell. Salvation solved a problem I didn't have. The challenge and adventure of emulating Christ's life kept me intrigued for years leading into college. So I read the Bible on a regular basis. The parts that made sense like prayer, meditating, fasting, keeping few possessions, and having a heart of charity I pursued with a vengeance. The parts that didn't make sense like: "Why would God send someone to eternal punishment for temporary mistakes?" or "Why is homosexuality a sin?" or "Why should Adam's sin ruin my chances to become sinless like Christ?" those questions I set to the side. Into sophomore year I found myself attending bible studies and hanging out more and more with Christians, no one hard-core like St. Francis of Assisi but definitely students sincere in their faith in Christ.
Sophomore year sucked. Time to sit in silence by a stream and accept salvation.
Then sophomore year brought on stress like I had never experienced before in my life. 19 credits of mostly boring and stressful classes and working 10 hours a week and pseudo-dating a girl that was mostly just causing me more grief. One October weekend I had to get away from it all and spend some time in the woods down by the stream behind Hopkins campus. I was reading Living Faith by Jimmy Carter. He was impressive in a more conventional sense. He did a lot to share God's love with others and at the same time he also raised a family. Sitting there on a rock along the stream behind Hopkins campus I asked God what is the next step in my spiritual growth? The answer came quietly and clearly, "Accept salvation, pledge your allegiance to Christ and get baptized." Accepting salvation was a huge step for me.
Jesus is not just the greatest gamer of this grand game of life. He is the Game.
Not much really profoundly changed in my life after accepting salvation through Christ, but it meant acknowledging that Jesus' death on the cross mattered to me. It meant that achieving Nirvana, Samadhi, complete fulfillment, getting into heaven, being one with God, or winning the game of life depended completely on another human being. It meant winning the game of life wasn't just about emulating the highest quality example, like studying Pele to become the greatest soccer player. There was this extra unintuitive/awkward part where I had to admit that I couldn't win the game by training hard. Only Jesus wins the game and only by joining his victory dance do we get to taste victory ourselves. Not very intuitive for me at all. It still befuddles me some. The whole concept of God's grace is still sinking in.
I have the freedom to love and not worry about anything else.
I'm still learning that the game of life isn't about becoming a household name as a great spiritual leader. It's not about going hard-core to earn my page in the Encyclopedia Britannica. It's about accepting a free gift from a benevolent God. It's about taking that free gift of salvation and being set free from sin. And it is about using that freedom to freely love God and to love others without having to worry about anything else.
No Purpose. Play anyway and play to win.
Like I said at the beginning, there is no ultimate purpose to this whole game of existence. My stance hasn't changed on that at all. However it has no bearing on my decisions because I don't believe we have the option of ceasing to exist. So since we are here playing this game, we may as well play to win. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. -John 14:6 I'm following Jesus because he is the only real way to win.
I remember a clear sunny day riding home from school on the big yellow bus when I first tried tracing 'why' all the way back. "Why I am riding on this bus?" To go to school and back. "Why am I going to school?" So I can get a job one day. "Why am I getting a job?" So I can raise a family. "Why am I raising a family and having kids?" So my kids can do the same thing I'm doing: Go to school. Go to job. Start a family. It's an endless cycle with no ultimate destination. "Well hold on maybe I'll find the cure for cancer or something and help humanity move forward?" So what? What is the point of advancing society? "Well the more we advance society the less people will suffer." So what? What is the ultimate purpose of reducing the suffering in the world? What will that lead to? The universe clearly doesn't have a problem with humans suffering from all sorts of things. Besides, if all the humans disappeared there would not be any human suffering. So that can't be the ultimate purpose of anyone's existence--alleviate human suffering; help humanity move forward. It's a circular problem. Humans can't be their own ultimate purpose for existing.
If you delete humans from existence you delete the problem.
If all humans were gone, would the universe miss them? No. "Well maybe God would miss us?" So what? What is the problem with God being lonely in the universe? If God is the creator of everything then he created loneliness. Why not just delete loneliness and solve the problem that way? Matter of fact why doesn't God delete himself? Then all problems would be solved. No humans to keep God company therefore no human suffering. No God therefore no lonely God. "Wow! There is no ultimate purpose to any of this. There is no ultimate purpose for my existence. There is no ultimate purpose for God's existence. There is no ultimate purpose for existence, period."
"If all of Existence ceased to exist, would anyone care?"
Years later I learned to summarize this conclusion with a simple riddle, "If all of Existence ceased to exist, would anyone care?" Even with that glaringly obvious question, some people still don't get what I'm talking about when I say there is no ultimate purpose for Existence. That's okay. At least the guy who wrote Ecclesiastes seemed to understand what I was getting at.
Dying and ceasing to exist are not the same thing.
"Well Mr. Existence is Pointless, why don't you just kill yourself since your life is ultimately pointless?" Well, dying doesn't mean you cease to exist. It just means you're dead. Even though having an afterlife is pointless there is still a possibility it exists. Our Creator certainly doesn't require things to have an ultimate purpose when deciding what should exist. And there's no guarantee that afterlife is any better than current life. Suicide might piss God off. God is possible. I'm thirteen and functionally agnostic.
"What do you care what God thinks, he's pointless, so his opinion obviously should not matter to you? Besides there is no need for God so what really makes you think there is a God?" Nothing makes me believe there is definitely a God, but God is certainly a possibility.
Nonexistence is possible, but not likely. So now what?
"Well if life is ultimately pointless and you possibly don't have the option of nonexistence then what is there worth doing?" I searched for the answer to that question for the rest of my teenage years. "What goals are worth pursuing?" My search lead me through the Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People, through Deepak Chopra, through Gandhi, through I Ching, through eastern philosophies that seemed to me more straightforward and well thought out than Christianity.
Christianity felt like Fisher Price Theology. Christianity: Osh Kosh B'God.
Christianity always felt like a cartoonish explanation of God. A God so human-like with emotions and jealousy and anger and happiness. The authors of the Bible must have thrown that stuff in there just to make it more user-friendly for the masses. Christianity: the Macintosh of Organized Religion. The Eastern religions made a lot more sense. God is a simple abstract force in the universe. A set of consistent principles that Yogi's or zen monks or ninjas could learn and live harmoniously with to achieve their goals. I studied the weather patterns of life as documented by the I Ching: The Book of Changes. A very curious book about balancing the yin and yang, earthly and heavenly, passive and active forces of my life. I only have theories on how it could lead me to such powerful insights through its hexagrams. My simplest theory is Luke 11:9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” I sought wisdom so He gave it to me.
Visualization: think of it as multimedia prayer.
When I was young teenager Stephen Covey mentioned it and Shakti Gawain spelled it all out for me: Creative Visualization. I learned to visualize things I wanted and it became so effective that it forced me to take seriously that there is some intelligent force at work in the universe that science had not yet explained. Heading into eigth grade, I remember spending all summer daydreaming about this beautiful girl in my class. Towards the end of the summer Dad tells me he wants to try going to a church. This is the first time I ever remember my dad wanting to attend church. And of course the one person I knew at that church was that girl. I should have visualized courage to ask her out too. Oh well, better luck next time.
I'm seventeen and I got some cool soul skills. Now what?
So all this eastern mysticism, all this searching for ways to expand my influence over my present reality it didn't answer the big question: "If there is no ultimate purpose to existence, then what is worth doing with my life?" So I went back to the biographies I really admired, everyone from Jesus to Leonardo da Vinci to Gandhi. Towards the end of high school, all these biographies and all these teachings came down to one verb: Love. The only thing worth doing with one's life is to love others.
Love is the Game. Who is the Guru?
"So love is the answer. Which teacher knew this and expressed this above all others?" Jesus. The greatest philosopher of all time. Mind you, I did not consider myself a Christian because of this conclusion. I knew Jesus was a great teacher and somebody worth emulating. I learned this from all the biographies of the people I admired. However, I had no intention of affiliating myself with a group of people who blindly followed religious dogma; who cared more about banning abortion and fighting gay rights than living out the highest commandments: "Luke 10:27 He answered: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ [ Deut. 6:5] ; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ [ Lev. 19:18] ” Most Christians I knew back then were just not that impressive, certainly not like the hard core Christians I had read about like Mother Theresa, and St. Francis of Assisi. I had no motivation to call myself a Christian and no emotional connection to Jesus' death on the cross. It was Jesus' life that impressed me. That is what I decided I should strive to emulate. In the final years of my adolescence I focused my spiritual study almost exclusively on emulating Jesus and simultaneously paying little heed to conventional Christianity or to the whole issue of sin and redemption.
Sin is silly. College Christians are sincere but seemingly sedated.
Sin didn't mean much of anything to me. I've made mistakes in the past, but I never really felt condemned to Hell. Salvation solved a problem I didn't have. The challenge and adventure of emulating Christ's life kept me intrigued for years leading into college. So I read the Bible on a regular basis. The parts that made sense like prayer, meditating, fasting, keeping few possessions, and having a heart of charity I pursued with a vengeance. The parts that didn't make sense like: "Why would God send someone to eternal punishment for temporary mistakes?" or "Why is homosexuality a sin?" or "Why should Adam's sin ruin my chances to become sinless like Christ?" those questions I set to the side. Into sophomore year I found myself attending bible studies and hanging out more and more with Christians, no one hard-core like St. Francis of Assisi but definitely students sincere in their faith in Christ.
Sophomore year sucked. Time to sit in silence by a stream and accept salvation.
Then sophomore year brought on stress like I had never experienced before in my life. 19 credits of mostly boring and stressful classes and working 10 hours a week and pseudo-dating a girl that was mostly just causing me more grief. One October weekend I had to get away from it all and spend some time in the woods down by the stream behind Hopkins campus. I was reading Living Faith by Jimmy Carter. He was impressive in a more conventional sense. He did a lot to share God's love with others and at the same time he also raised a family. Sitting there on a rock along the stream behind Hopkins campus I asked God what is the next step in my spiritual growth? The answer came quietly and clearly, "Accept salvation, pledge your allegiance to Christ and get baptized." Accepting salvation was a huge step for me.
Jesus is not just the greatest gamer of this grand game of life. He is the Game.
Not much really profoundly changed in my life after accepting salvation through Christ, but it meant acknowledging that Jesus' death on the cross mattered to me. It meant that achieving Nirvana, Samadhi, complete fulfillment, getting into heaven, being one with God, or winning the game of life depended completely on another human being. It meant winning the game of life wasn't just about emulating the highest quality example, like studying Pele to become the greatest soccer player. There was this extra unintuitive/awkward part where I had to admit that I couldn't win the game by training hard. Only Jesus wins the game and only by joining his victory dance do we get to taste victory ourselves. Not very intuitive for me at all. It still befuddles me some. The whole concept of God's grace is still sinking in.
I have the freedom to love and not worry about anything else.
I'm still learning that the game of life isn't about becoming a household name as a great spiritual leader. It's not about going hard-core to earn my page in the Encyclopedia Britannica. It's about accepting a free gift from a benevolent God. It's about taking that free gift of salvation and being set free from sin. And it is about using that freedom to freely love God and to love others without having to worry about anything else.
No Purpose. Play anyway and play to win.
Like I said at the beginning, there is no ultimate purpose to this whole game of existence. My stance hasn't changed on that at all. However it has no bearing on my decisions because I don't believe we have the option of ceasing to exist. So since we are here playing this game, we may as well play to win. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. -John 14:6 I'm following Jesus because he is the only real way to win.
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