A Plate of Arrogance with a Little Ignorance on the Side - a Look into Religion and Its Ability to Make You Live Forever
By: Stenly • Essay • 1,397 Words • May 25, 2010 • 1,445 Views
A Plate of Arrogance with a Little Ignorance on the Side - a Look into Religion and Its Ability to Make You Live Forever
A Plate Of Arrogance With A Little Ignorance On The Side:
A Look Into Religion And Its Ability To Make You Live Forever
Human beings have been longing for an answer to immortality and have been trying
to answer why we are here since the beginning of our creation. Answers to these
questions seem to come in similar yet respectively different packets from culture
to culture.
The Jews and Christians believe that God created the heavens and the Earth
by use of His divine, begotten powers and in the process created Man in His
image whom He called Adam. This is what the Old Testament in Bible leads us
to believe or base faith in. From what we can tell, Man was granted everlasting
life and was given free reign over all God had created. He was given the power
to name the plants and animals as he saw fit and after doing so, Man became
lonely. He asked God to bring him a companion. God then put Adam into a deep
sleep, removed one of his ribs and created Woman. They lived together with all
the animals God had created and both Man and God were happy.
Woman, Eve as she had been named by Adam, was deceived by Evil into believing
that by eating a fruit, which God had forbid them from eating, she would gain
all the knowledge that God possessed. She gave some of the fruit to her husband
and told him what Evil had said to her. They ate the fruit together where they
then became aware of their nakedness and when God came looking for them they
hid because they were afraid to be seen now. God was upset with them and with
Evil for tricking them. God banished Evil and condemned Man to mortality. Or
so the Bible says. Many choose to believe that the Bible itself is nothing more
then just another attempt to reach some level of immortality. They believe that
the story of God who is an all powerful, immortal entity that created man in
his image was merely a ploy and no more true or false then the gods that "existed"
in any other culture.
To look at the question of whether man is trying to transcend mortality it
is important, if not needed, to take a rational, almost Atheist view on the
subject. To do so one must believe, if, but for a moment, that there is no higher
being or beings. We must come to understand and accept that for whatever reason
human life just appeared due to a great coincidence and stroke of luck.
With that in mind it is easy to understand man's fear of death. It must not
have, and for many still does not make sense as to why we are here. What is
the point of all this? To live, create offspring, till the land and then die?
Well any rational being would surely attest to such an empty existence so of
course the most logical thing to do is to gain the arrogance that one has the
ability to live forever. The greatest example of this is the creation and then
belief of a higher, begotten entity that is just like us in image, but in addition
they are immortal, all-powerful and all-knowing.
The Bible proposes that we are to live our lives according to the Ten Commandments,
which were sent down by God himself into the hands of Moses on top of Mount
Sinai. These commandments laid out rules for staying in God's good graces and
ensuring life everlasting in Heaven as a reward for doing so. But for those
who