Interactive Gospel
- Considering 'Religious' Issues - by Paul Hazelden
1. Summary
We
believe that life cannot be fully lived without considering some
basic 'religious' issues.
You know the questions people ask:
Who am I?
Why are we here?
What is the purpose of life?
Is there any life after death?
You can call these questions 'religious' or 'philosophical' -
they are probably in a crossover area which belongs to both
camps, but does not entirely belong to either. They
are not religious questions (like questions about creeds and
liturgies), and neither are they philosophical (like questions
about the nature of truth or the meaning of
freedom). So I put the term 'religious' in quotes to
show my uncertainty.
In any case, if we are to function as human beings, we need
some kind of answer to these questions. It may be a
very poor answer, or an extremely tentative one, but we find it
impossible to live with no idea at all whether our life has any
meaning. For the most part, it seems that people in
the Western world believe that their life does have some meaning
and purpose, even though they have no rational grounds for this
belief.
Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living.
That's probably going a bit far, but it does seem fairly obvious
that it is hard to live fully if you have no idea what you are
living for.
The only alternative seems to be where most people are: they
feel that life is worth living, and think they are making a fair
attempt at living life to the full, but have never really
considered any of the basic questions.
I cannot disprove their position, but I can offer this
observation: when people start to consider these questions, they
generally find that life does not get any easier, but it does
become better at some deep level.