Volume 8, Issue 17
There is a third discretion for moral purpose of existence, caring for one another.
Life after death, in and of itself, is one of the greatest philosophical enigmas encompassed by the human mind. It is the basis for all ideological perceptions of attitudinal cerebral reasoning. The existence of an afterlife resulting in eternal consequences always forces a reality check on the convictions of the here and now.
A non-apologetic atheist believes that life ends at death. There is no consciousness whatsoever projected in the hereafter. Such a belief systemmust then confront the obvious question of what difference does any actionmean? In the absence of a moral code, immorality is only relevant to the consequences of the immediate situation. Agnostics, deists, and others who recognize a god-like entity, determine with great difficulty what life after death may be in the absence of any connection to eternity with this system of things. They must then confront the obvious shortcoming of describing a hereafter that is only the substance of imagination and fiction.
The Christian faith envisions a life hereafter in heaven. This heaven is the Kingdom of God as originally purposed for mankind in the Garden of Eden as Paradise. Original sin entered the world through Adam. Jesus Christ, as the only begotten son of God, lived to define purpose of existence. He died for all sin as the sacrifice required to bring mankind back into alignment with God the Father. He was resurrected to fulfill the promise that there is life after death. He is seated at the right hand of the Father to prepare a place for all who accept His gift of dying for our sins.
This Paradise will have no sickness, no tribulation. We can only imagine a societal existence where there is no need for hospitals, health care, a military, a Department of Education or welfare. There will be no need for Homeland Security or FEMA because there will be no terrorism, floods, tornadoes or hurricanes. Natural and man-made disasters will cease to occur. There will be no debt or deficits because there will be no government costs to incur.
So, why, in the Christian faith view, was this system of things allowed to inflict on individuals “the outrageous fortunes of slings and arrows?” So that mankind can learn to understand that God’s laws are meant to benefit all peoples. And, as peoples, we are to love one another. Through trials, tribulations, pestilence, pandemics, natural disasters and unrighteousness, we are to help each other through the crisis in devoted relationships. In realizing these lessons, we learn the basic tenets of living with God in peace and security throughout eternity.
Atheists and deists are ultimately frustrated in psychological temperament in that there is no strategic connection between their morality in this system of things reconciled with a life hereafter. An atheist may argue that there is no evidence of eternal life. If so, life has no ultimate purpose other than the results of accidental constructs that intelligent life establishes. Therefore, any moral code is as much the figment of their imagination as is a deist vision of the life hereafter.
Hamlet weighed his decision for suicide or life against the possibility of anguish after death in fear of perpetual bad dreams. Either choice actually in his mind could leave him condemned to personal suffering. Not reconciling one’s purpose of life in this system of things with any perceived vision of life after death, leaves one in exactly the position wherein Hamlet found himself, frustrated.
What does this have to do with the coronavirus pandemic?
The question of whether to open or not to open businesses is not the complete summary of consideration for only the trendlines of new cases. The answer to the question also is inclusive of the fact that COVID-19 may now always be with us. The New York Times recently published an article warning politicians of the difficulty in developing a vaccine. The coronavirus produces the common cold. A vaccine is yet to be developed to eliminate the common cold. These scientists predict that it may take longer than 18 months to develop a vaccine. If one is engineered, it will be expensive and may take time to produce. Their recommendation is to plan for a new normal that will require different disciplined codes for societal behavior.
The economy is very fragile. The supply chain of numerous products and services is under stress. The livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens could be lost forever if we do not heed the warnings of scientists who are fearful that there may be no easy fixes.
The course of action taken by the U.S. government impacts the entire world. America is the only country that can backstop freedom against socialism. China awaits the opportunity to advance communism as a totalitarian economic state. The Sino polemic mission is different than the former Soviet Union. Their purpose is economic dominance. The Soviet Union’s purpose was political and cultural dominance. The objective of each is the same, government control of decisions for one’s destiny.
If the United States economy were to collapse into socialism, the entire world will become a global socialistic economic system. In such a reality, history teaches nationalism will rise, wars will ensue, and depression will result.
To be clear, protecting lives is the paramount moral purpose of individuals and governments. However, the determination of whether and when to open businesses need not center only on the axis of no new COVID-19 cases at the expense of a collapsing economy. The virus may in fact become a new element in the world’s new normal. If so, the ongoing truth to be codified in action is that we institute values wherein we commit to help each other at all times as a way of life.
Hamlet found no relief in the options of his perceived reality.
“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.”
The greater purpose of life, and therefore, the absoluteness of this system of things, is to get through the suffering of the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” together. And, in so doing, choosing caring relationships as the otheraction.
There is life after death. It is Paradise. Its protocol is brotherly love.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?