What is the most important question human beings must answer? Choose your question wisely, and then examine how Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity attempt to answer it.
John Green posits this question in his book ‘Looking for Alaska’ in the form of a world religions essay topic. Damn, this man is good.
By introducing it as an exam question deeply buried within the plot of the book, he asks the readers the same question in a roundabout way. Now, I’m only halfway through the book as of yet, so I’m not quite sure how it’ll come into play later, or if it does at all - but it’s John Green, so I imagine it’ll have more to do with the story than most readers originally think.
I can’t help but contemplate it, myself. Now, I don’t know much about world religions, so I probably won’t spend a whole lot of time answering the second half of the question. But the first part, at least, has really struck me.
In my head, I break it down to three parts: ‘what IS the most important question’; ‘human beings’, and ‘MUST answer’. This breakdown leads me to more questions, mostly about Green’s word choice. Why ‘must’? Where’s the urgency? Who determines why it’s urgent, if it is at all? Why distinctly ‘human beings’? Is it to differentiate us from other species? Is it to make us think we are a different species? Or just to prompt us to contemplate our relation to other species and identify what, if anything, DOES make us different?
I think it’s somewhere along those lines. And what really sticks out to me is the fat that human beings are infamous for, well, thinking. For asking questions. For contemplating and deducing and reasoning and all those wonderful things associated with a higher level of brain activity.
Which isn’t to say that we’re the only beings on Earth with a higher mental capacity - I really have no idea either way. To me, we’re simply the most vocal about our intelligence. And I highly doubt that so much outer space could exist without there being other intelligent life out there. I certainly hope that human beings aren’t the most intelligent beings in the universe. What a scary thought.
That being said, I think the fact that human beings have managed to maintain such a high level of brain activity certainly makes us different from many other species on this plant. Maybe not all, but they’re not speaking up, so I digress.
It seems to me the word ‘must’ with all it’s urgency is utilized because that’s how must people go about addressing ‘the most important question’ to them on a personal level.
What I don’t understand is why that urgency and that personal a question develops into something the public at large, as a WHOLE, is required to answer. It just seems like such a personal question that should A) be answered on a PERSONAL LEVEL and B) shouldn’t really be asked of others unless they’ve expressed an interest in sharing their own ‘most important question’ with others.
But that’s really it’s own tangent. Back to the question at large: ‘What is the most important question human beings must answer?’ This makes me wonder: why must human beings answer any question at all? Not necessarily in a ‘people can do whatever they want / don’t answer to no one’ way. Really, it’s more along the lines of why do human beings need an answer at all?
To my this falls somewhere along the lines of ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ and the question they ask the super computer” What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?’ Naturally, the answer to THAT question is 42 - but I don’t think that’s the question everyone’s clamoring to answer. At least, not such a specific question.
I think there are two questions, nut an individual will probably only ever ask themselves one. The most common is ‘Why?’ - the less often asked ‘Why not?’
Anyone of a religious nature is the ‘why’ asker - you can tell because they have an answer at all, and that answer is invariably along the lines of ‘for eternal salvation’ or ‘to spend the afterlife in the presence of God/Kingdom of Heaven’, etc. Which is all well and good - these people believe themselves to have found a purpose, to have obtained a goal. It’s an admirable quest at all, and honestly remarkable that they’ve found that one think in their life that they wholeheartedly believe and strive for.
But I think I, personally, am of the second mindset. I ask myself ‘why not?’ Not to be contrary, not because I find myself lacking a directed faith or a religion to which I’m comfortable subscribing, but because I find myself not needing an answer. I first asked myself ‘why’ and answered with ‘why not’ - so why not?
Maybe if I were to spend more time in thought I’d explore the possibility that maybe they’re not religion or no-religion questions. Maybe there are more categories, maybe even more or rather different questions than the tow I’ve thought up. But for now, my hand is cramping because I’m handwriting this, as I’m currently on a plane with no internet, and thus, no access to my blog.
On a side note, the guy sitting next to me is a fairly attractive, hipster-chic graduate student attending Harvard University in the pursuit of the anthropological intricacies of a not-well-known sect (I can’t remember the name) of Islam of which, apparently, there are maybe one million believers. I wonder what he would have to say on the subject...
‘But now my heart stumbles on things I don’t know
my weakness I feel I must finally show.’ - ‘Awake My Soul’, Mumford & Sons
my weakness I feel I must finally show.’ - ‘Awake My Soul’, Mumford & Sons
Wow. That guy will either never have a job, or always have one job because he is needed for his very specific knowledge. My guess is the former. But ask him!
ReplyDeleteHaha it was too late to ask him, we were on the verge of landing when I finished writing this rambleedoo. :)
ReplyDelete