FREE ESSAY ON RANDOM PHILOSOPHIZING ABOUT LIFE

RANDOM PHILOSOPHIZING ABOUT LIFE

Do humans need god/spirituality? The short answer to this question is a simple no, humans
do not need either god or spirituality. All human beings, however, use their beleifs as a
way of defining, evaluating, and assigning a purpose to their lives. Therefore, it can be
said that all human beings need to beleive in something. This something need not be
either god or spirituality, but beleiving in something is essential to nearly all people.
Many people choose to believe that religion and spirituality hold within them the true
meaning and purpose of life because they enjoy the personal validation that they get from
being a part of a large group whose members all ascribe to a nearly identical philosophy.
Religion also substantially augments its large herd of blind followers by bringing people
into the faith when they are still children, too young to question what is being said to
them, and too young to even fully understand what they are being told. This is my largest
problem with organized religion, that it robs people of their ability to choose what they
want to beleive in by indoctrinating them as children, before they have been given the
freedom, or even developed tyhe ability, to choose their own views of life. 
In my opinion, there is no singular purpose of life that applies to all human beings, and
no adequate explanation thereof either. Existence is what each individual makes of it,
nothing more, and nothing less. Should a person choose to believe that the purpose of
life is to give oneself to god, then for that individual, giving oneself to god is indeed
the purpose of life. However, should a person decide that finding true love transcends
all other things in life (including god), then for them, the purpose of life embodies
love rather than religion. Neither individual can really be said to be right (or wrong),
as answers to such abstract questions as why are we here? and what is the meaning of
life? do not really exist. No one possesses such knowledge, nor is it likely that anyone
ever will, thus everyone is left to make his or her own decisions regarding what life is
really about. Of the fortunate few that are actually free to choose how they want to
think (i.e., they don't have beliefs forced on them by family, society, peers, etc.), not
all will choose to believe in a philosophy that includes a god, or any sort of spiritual
existence whatsoever, but all will choose to believe in something, even if that something
ends up being a belief in nothing at all. Thus, it is belief that is essential to
humankind, and belief is not limited to god/that which is spiritual. Belief gives people
a standard against which they can compare their lives, and a constant which they can use
for guidance. The constancy is more important to people than the specific beliefs which
give rise to it, and because of this, god and spirituality and unimportant. It is the
personal stability that is created by a belief in god/a spiritual side of life that
matters, and this stability comes from belief, not from the fact that the belief embodies
a specific set of ideas...if god and religion were nonexistent in society, then people
would simply find a new belief to give structure and meaning to their lives. 
All humans will invariably find something which they believe in, be it god, love, money,
power, politics, or a belief that life is simply a meaningless journey which is lived in
futility as after one is dead one ceases to exist in all but the memories of the people
who knew you (or, if you did something really spectacular, in history books and other
texts), so that the purpose of life simply ends up being have as much fun as humanly
possible before you die, because there are no second chances. It is this belief, however,
that is essential to all members of humankind, and not a belief in god, religion, or
anything what can be considered spiritual, which in my opinion, are all human creations
which arose as a way for us to dead with our insecurities about our own mortality, as
well as to have an easy answer to tough questions. No matter how great heaven supposedly
is (assuming it exists, though I believe it doesn't), I sincerely hope I never end up
there, for only a fool would ever long to go on living for an eternity... 
Bibliography
None.