Truth, Reason, Doubt and Faith - Part 3 of 3

Belief: if I accept and hold to a religious mindset, then after death I’ll be rewarded with heaven.  If I reject this mindset, I’ll be punished forever in hell.                                                 

Truth: this life is truth.  The opportunity to do what either benefits or harms creation and humanity is truth. The opportunity to live in gratitude for what has been received is truth.  Once someone dies, that person no longer remains a member of humanity, and isn’t seen again, that too is truth.  Life therefore, is incredibly precious; it’s an opportunity without equal.  Life is precious for everyone, not just a select few. 

We don’t know how we got here…we don’t know what happens after we die.  This too is truth.  It’s a really big truth, and somewhat uncomfortable not to know.  If I surround myself with more comforting ‘beliefs’ that insulate me from others, from the state of the world, and from making a real difference here and now, then I have walled myself into that prison or fortress.

If I face my fear, acknowledge that I don’t know how I got here, nor where I go after, and then get about the business of paying attention to what I have to work with, and applying reason, compassion, logic, and love to whatever situation I find myself in…wouldn’t I be doing something positive and wouldn’t that be a grateful response to the opportunity of life that I’ve received?

Nobody within humanity has ever claimed to have created the world and itself.  There is, at least to date, more evidence that something outside of this creation put everything together, than there is for some sort of cosmic accident being the origin of what we see all around us.  Therefore there is at least the appearance of some concrete evidence for a Creator, even if some of that evidence is the lack of anything against it. 

We have the evidence of creation itself as testimony to the character of a Creator.  We see that creation is provided for; we see an interconnectedness, and interdependency between remarkably different creatures.  We see that mankind is somehow different.  Creation doesn’t need mankind; it can manage on its own.  Mankind is unique, with tremendous capacity to cultivate great good or to inflict great evil.  What is mankind's purpose?

To paraphrase Ecclesiastes 12:13...perhaps the whole point of life is this:  be grateful for being here, with honour and thankfulness, and employing reason and thoughtfulness, both enjoy and care for what you have been entrusted with, leave it as you found it, ready for the next person to enjoy, for this is the whole duty of man.