(On my second 40 day/40 night visit to Mt. Sinai, the following information was passed along to me.)
What is the purpose of life? For the most part, life is cosmic good luck (a blessing, if you will) that you have received, and nothing else. There is generally no pre-ordained purpose to life, but there are obvious rules about how to proceed in life for a most good/least harm end result. There are, however, no absolute guarantees that good results in only good.- What is life about? Life is about what you make of it. We have all passed through periods of victimization. But what becomes of you reasonably is what you make happen – even in an unreasonable world. We are stuck with this reality and have to make the best of it.
- What should I do? Do what you want, but in the words of the Boy Scout maxim: Leave the campsite a better place after you are gone than it was before you came.
- What is immorality? Immorality is pollution of the body or environment-everything else is arbitrary and is a convention of the society you live in.
- Discuss death. Death is the waste product, not the end product, of life. The purpose of life is not death. The purpose of life is life. Bearing in mind the concept of “for the most part” life should not be prolonged inappropriately by human intervention.
- If I do things right or wrong, how will they turn out? If you do things right, for the most part they will turn out right, but there are no guarantees and so occasionally they will turn out wrong. The same is true if you do things wrong: if you do things wrong, most of the time they will turn out wrong, but occasionally they will turn out right.
- There are no absolutes. Since there are no absolutes, then “for the most part” will govern or relate to virtually all circumstances very nicely. Life being this way will allow humans to make decisions, which some will do correctly.
Here is a printable (pdf) version of Cosmic Questions: Best Answers
H. Robert Silverstein, M.D.
Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine
Fellow of the American College of Cardiology