Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Why?

Who hasn't been frustrated by a young child replying "Why?" with every earnest response to the prior "Why?"

The human brain is ever active. It is doing its job, creating new thoughts. When things go bad it is "Why me?" The obsession that occurs in romantic situations is quite active on "Why did she do that?", "Why did she say this?". The brain does not seem to rest until it finds an answer.

A child will ask "Where do babies come from?" We reply, hoping to end the conversation, "The stork brings them" or "From mommies bellies". Sometimes this is just enough. Other times more questions ensue.

Primitive desert religions dealt with this as well and they would go for a quick answer, so they could get on with whatever they were doing. This is the origin of the creation myth. A quick answer hoping to end the conversation. But thankfully humans continued to ask and not be satisfied, which is not evil, but a very important part of who were are, we search for the right answer. There is a "Lost" book of the Bible called The life of Adam and Eve (composed somewhere from the early third to the fifth century). It went beyond the very short and simplistic answers found in the first two chapters of Genesis. Its contribution is that all the angels were commanded to bow before man because it was God's best creation ever. How lucky! We are the entire focus of the entire universe. Got ego? The story goes only Lucifer would not bow. He became the snake who hung out on the the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He convinced Eve to eat, who convince Adam to eat and that is why this supposed mess started.

How grateful I am in particular that the Bible was not the end of discovery. We owe long debt of gratitude to scientist who did not settle with GOD DID IT, but went past that childish view of the world and they asked again, "Why?"

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