Why Are We Here?

Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? Two of the most ancient of questions. Is there an answer?

We are born, alone in most cases. In the case of twins, triplets, etc., we are still actually born alone. We have shared the womb with another but enter into the world one at a time. Most of the time we are a welcome addition to this world, but there are those times that a child is far from welcome because of hardship or inconvenience. This is where the questions come in: Why are we here and what is our purpose?

In ancient days, actually up until the mid-20^th century, most children were born simply to increase population and/or assist in daily survival activities such as farming, hunting, and/or gathering. After World War II, when the soldiers returned home, families started to grow out of an earnest sex life that had been derailed by the war. The Baby Boomers were the first generation that was born out of pleasure instead of necessity. But, why are we here? I don’t mean as individuals but, as a whole. Why does the human race exist and what is its purpose?

The scientific explanation is simple enough. We evolved from a simpler life form into the intelligent species that we are; if you can call what we are intelligent. From that single cell ameba to the complex Homo sapiens over many millennia we have evolved. Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon to Homo sapiens; it’s been quite a journey for us.

The Biblical explanation is even simpler; we were created by God in his image. Period. Out of dust we rose by the will of an omniscient being. No evolution. No missing link. We just appeared in Eden as modern day mankind. Simple.

Now, back to the question. According to the Bible, we were created for one purpose; to worship God. That’s it. Oh, and to take stewardship over the Earth; nothing to worry about, nothing to think about, nothing to question. But, is this what really happened? If we just appeared approximately 15,000 years ago on Earth, after the entire Universe was created in the six days before, plus one day for the Creator to rest, how are the dinosaurs explained? How is it that science has determined that the Earth is approximately 20 billion years old and the Universe is much older than that?

For the topic, we’ll just assume that evolution, not creation, is how we came about. If mankind evolved from Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon to Homo sapiens, why did we evolve into what we are? Why did we not just evolve into something more similar to apes?

Science has all kinds of answers to those questions. The big questions, though, have a more philosophical basis. Why are we here? What is our purpose?  Are we here just to be born, grow, and die? Are we here for a short time, pass on to another plane of existence to learn more and finally become deity?

We are born into this world helpless. As we grow, we become more independent and then, at the end of our lives we become helpless once again. Is that all there is to life? In today’s world we have about 16 years of dependence on others then take over our own support until we age to the point where we become dependent again. During that independent time of our lives what do we do? We work. We’ve had our fun while we were children with no cares. Once we enter adulthood, we work to pay for the privilege of living. Oftentimes we work so much that we really do not have time to actually live life.

In this scenario, we live for a few short years of living life, learning the entire time how to cope with others in society and to be able to effectively communicate and function during our adult years. Once we enter our adulthood, we work to support ourselves and our needs and wants. Do we actually live life during this time? Unless a person is financially well off, not really. We spend more time working to make money to survive and pretend to live life than we do actually living. We finally end up, dependent, once again, on the care of others before we pass from life to death.

What, exactly, is our purpose for being here? We come into this world, and have for thousands of years, and destroy that which keeps us alive. We cover the ground with trash or bury it. We fill the skies with smoke and toxic gases. We pull coal, oil, natural gas, precious metals and stone out of the ground to be used to further pollute our world.

To top it all off, we try to kill off every living thing that we can, including ourselves, from the buffalo to whales to bees, either for sport, to eat, or to use in various destructive ways. We are a species bent on self-destruction and we aren’t going down alone; we’re going to take everything else with us. Is that why we are here? Is that our purpose?

Through our adult lives we learn about greed, lust, corruption, and a host of other “sins.” The problem with that is we don’t just learn about these vices, we embrace them. Over the millennia we have fought each other over land, power, money, and, yes, religion. More people have been killed in the name of religion than any other reason. People will lie to each other to gain the upper hand over some small piece of real estate that sometime in the future will be taken over by someone else. We only rent what is here. After all, we only live so long then we return to dust taking nothing with us. Why do we need to have so much that it has to be taken from someone else?

A person can spend only so much money in one lifetime. Yes, if there is a surplus at the end of your life you can will it to someone else so that they don’t have to work for it. But is acquiring a mass fortune so important that a person needs to lie, cheat, steal, to get it from someone else?

Power over others is also a temporary thing. From the ancient beings that came before Homo sapiens to the kings and rulers of today’s world, power over others has been sought after and fought for. A person can only rule so long before they die.

Is that what we are here for? To rule over others and take what we can from them? Is the human race so arrogant and egotistical to believe that power and money will make us immortal? On average a human being will only live around 75 years. For those that seek power and money, those years are wasted. They live only to take from others for their own gain only to leave this world empty handed, alone.

Capitalism, freedom, liberty, socialism, oppression, control, war, peace, poverty and wealth are all just concepts that the human race has developed to categorize and divide with. The ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots;’ the rulers and the ruled; the free and the oppressed are all the same. Each human being on this planet is essentially the same as every other human being. We all bleed red. We all breathe oxygen. We all drink water. We all eat food. We all love, hate, laugh, cry… we are all part of the human race. None of us know why we are here. All we know is that because we are here we are going to fight, kill, maim, and destroy our home and each other for nothing more than temporary gratification or a misguided set of beliefs that one is better than another.

Is that why we are here? Is our purpose just to destroy each other and the one and only home we have? It seems that it is. That is what we, as a race, have done since the beginning of time; since before we were the ‘intellectual and civilized’ species that we are. We continue the destruction today and probably will until there are no Homo sapiens or Earth left.

That, my friends, is our purpose; the reason we are here. If it weren’t, we would have learned long ago that the seven deadly sins are a waste of time and energy and there would be peace on Earth and the world would not be taken advantage of to the point of destruction. We are born, we grow, we destroy, we die and leave a world worse off than what we started with.

If Creationism is the true beginning of mankind, the Creator made one big mistake. If science is the true beginning, we - mankind, the human race, have made one big mistake. Christianity says, “When I was a child, I thought, spoke, acted like a child. When I became a man, I put away those childish things.” Paganism says, “In all things, harm none.” Isn’t it time we grew up and learned to share this world with each other and leave the pettiness of childhood behind us, harming none as we go about our lives? I think so.