Inside Life Issue 28 Your FREE Copy Does life have a purpose? Atheism is not so smart Decisions, decisions Conflict is an opportunity Issue 28 1 Inside Life A Magazine of Understanding Number 28, March 2018 CONTENTS 3 Does life have a purpose? 7 Mankind: worthless or priceless? 8 Everything is meaningless 9 The pale blue dot 10 Decisions, decisions 12 Atheism is not so smart 15 Conflict is an opportunity Inside Life Our Cover: What is life all about? Are we here sim- ply because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar PO Box 304055, Hauraki Corner, Auckland 0750 fin anatomy that could transform into legs? Or is there Phone: 09 489 8910 a special overriding meaning, value and purpose for human life? Our lead article examines this important Email: [email protected] question. Website: www.insidelife.org.nz Photo Credits Editor: Rex Morgan Graphic Design: Philip Baldwin Cover © Henk Badenhorst | iStock photo ID: 628108504 Printed by PMP Limited Inside Life is a magazine of understanding. Rather p 4 © david5962 | iStock photo ID:93384991 than just reporting on life, Inside Life seeks to p.5 alfie_66609441 | cinematerial.com delve inside the marvellous mystery that is life, to p.6 © Sergey Khakimullin | iStock photo ID: discover what it is all about. What does life mean? 683539596 Where did it come from? How can we make the most of it? p.9 © ipopba | iStock photo ID:509662977 Inside Life provides insight and answers to life’s p.10– deep questions and challenges, and aims to provide 11 © rootstocks | iStock photo ID:464682294 articles of lasting hope, help, and encouragement p.12 © Ximagination | Stock photo ID:63331651 for successful living in today’s fast-moving world. p.13 © desifoto | iStock photo ID:465746702 Inside Life is published twice a year, free of © BWFolsom | iStock photo ID:539027657 charge, as a community service. © Grace Communion International 2018. p.14 © Ildo Frazao | iStock photo ID:670937624 All rights reserved. p.15 © NicolasMcComber | iStock photo ID: ISSN: 1177-3693 497628204 2 Inside Life Does life have a purpose? By Rex Morgan answer for, and he is sorry he has must have all been the result of not yet got to the point where he can random chance only, if there wasn’t sum it all up on a flyleaf”. a creative mind behind it. As far as s there any meaning to life? It’s purpose is concerned, in that case an age-old question that has Many philosophers have tackled we would be no different than bugs exercised the minds of untold this most basic of all questions, but which start out as eggs, grow into Inumbers of thinking people it seems that none of them has yet adults, in turn lay their own eggs and throughout the centuries. come up with a widely accepted and truly satisfying answer. What is life all about? Should we just live for the moment, or is there Walter T Stace, former professor of The world stage much more to it than that? Does Philosophy at Princeton University, One of “the immortal bard” each person’s life, and the life summed up the modern view of the William Shakespeare’s most of humankind as a whole, have meaning of life in this way: “The famous speeches comes from a special purpose, an overriding picture of a meaningless world and As You Like It: meaning? a meaningless human life is, I think, the basic theme of much modern All the world’s a stage, and all “The two most important days in your art and literature. Certainly it is the the men and women merely life are the day you are born and the basic theme of modern philosophy. players; they all have their day you find out why”, wrote author According to the most characteristic exits and their entrances. Mark Twain. But is there anything to philosophies of the modern world find out? Is there a reason why we from Hume in the 18th century to This is a description of life that were born? the so-called positivists of today, the makes sense, and has been quoted over and over in the In 1988, American Philosophy world is just what it is and that is the centuries since it was written. But professor Hugh Moorhead compiled end of all inquiry. There is no reason 2 if life is a stage and all people are a book entitled The Meaning of Life for its being what it is”. actors, is there a playwright? According to Our Century’s Greatest Noted palaeontologist Stephen Jay Writers and Thinkers. He asked 250 Gould wrote: “We are here because All of Shakespeare’s plays leading academics to respond to the one odd group of fishes had a peculiar were created by the hand of the question: “What is the meaning of fin anatomy that could transform into celebrated “immortal bard”. Can life?” and published their replies.1 legs for terrestrial creatures. We it be that life, the greatest play of all, is the one and only play The philosophers’ answers may yearn for a higher answer, but none exists”.3 without an author? Is it simply Philosopher Carl Jung wrote back: a random sequence of events “Really, I don’t know what the Eminent British philosopher Bertrand with each actor unaware of what meaning or purpose of life is, but it Russell referred to the universe as is behind it all? Or is there a looks exactly as if something were “purposeless” and “void of meaning”. master playwright directing the meant by it”. He said about mankind: “His growth, performance—an overall plan his hopes and fears, his loves and giving it meaning? Novelist Joseph Heller said he had his beliefs, are but the outcome of no answers to the meaning of life accidental collocations of atoms…”4 Shakespeare, sadly, was as “and I no longer want to search for mortal as the rest of us, but is any”. However the universe began, there a truly “immortal” bard whether with a “big bang”, with the behind the scenes of life? The Poet and essayist T S Eliot responded development of life through millions accompanying article examines that this is a question “which one of years of evolution, or in some this question. spends one’s whole life in finding the other yet undiscovered way, this Issue 28 3 Renowned Russian author Leo Tolstoy concluded that God had a purpose in creating life. eventually are eaten by predators or exist and why do I exist?” After words in his book Mere Christianity: die of old age, in an endless cycle spending many years searching “If the whole universe has no that repeats itself over and over for the answer to this quandary, in meaning, we should never have without any meaning. the end Tolstoy concluded that the found out it has no meaning: just as, solution was found in religion and if there were no light in the universe But somehow this doesn’t seem faith—it had to do with God. and therefore no creatures with good enough for us as humans. We eyes, we should never know it was have the amazing ability to think and When you think about it, Tolstoy’s dark. Dark would be a word without dream and even to ask questions conclusion makes some sense. meaning”.5 about the meaning of life. We can If there is a God, surely he would set goals and struggle to achieve have a purpose in creating life? So we are left with just two realistic them. Surely we are different to the But in the absence of a God, logic alternatives. Either the world began suggests that the only explanation by random chance, in which case life animals; surely there is meaning, for the universe is that it got here by has no meaning, or it was brought purpose and value to our lives? chance. In that case, it is devoid of into being by a God, in which case In his book, A Confession, the meaning or purpose, something that it would seem likely that he did it for just “happened”, nothing more than a reason and it does have meaning. renowned Russian author Leo a serendipitous cosmic “accident”. Tolstoy asked: “What is the meaning As a matter of interest, let’s follow of my life? What will come of my life? Celebrated writer C S Lewis touched the latter line of reasoning for a Why does everything which exists on this concept with the following moment and assume that God exists 4 Inside Life and the Bible is his revelation to forever. God has equipped our Three thousand years ago, King mankind. Is there something in the minds to deal with these thoughts David of Israel recorded his musings Bible to indicate God’s purpose for and concepts, of which animals on the meaning of life in one of his making the world and is that purpose have absolutely no inkling. The poems. Referring to God, he said: something that makes good sense? very fact we ask ourselves “What is “When I consider your heavens, the meaning of life?” highlights our the work of your fingers, the moon The Biblical view remarkable capacity to contemplate and the stars, which you have set According to the and explore such intangible things. in place, what is man that you are opening passage of the Bible, at the creation of the world God said: “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground”.6 So God made man to live on a higher level than the animals.