The questions provide our purpose. The answers provide the destination. The path between the two is our journey. However, if we were to have all the answers we would be left without questions, resulting in a lack of purpose.
Luckily, by our very human nature we are never without questions that need answering. It’s just that sometimes these questions are somewhat irrelevant or don’t provide for much of a journey.
Over the millennia there have been many different scientific, theological, and philosophical concepts that have all sought to answer the same 3 questions: 1) “Who am I (are we)?” 2) “Why am I (are we) here?” 3) “What happens when I (we) die?”. These questions seek answers to the fundamental questions of our Past: “Where do I (we) come from?”; Present: “What’s my purpose?”; Future: “Is there life after death?”. By seeking answers to these questions, along with all their iterations, we will find ourselves immersed in all kinds of scientific, philosophical, and theological perspectives. There are some of us who have put these questions to rest with answers provided to us by our respective religions. This does not mean that those who have accepted the answers from a particular dogma are any less intellectual than those of us who haven’t. It is just that they have chosen to use their intellect on other questions which are more applicable to their work, relationships, or hobbies. However, there are those of us who thirst for the answers to the 3 questions and will seek clarity until they are satisfied with the answers. These people are typically the ones that fuel scientific and philosophical progress. Without their thirst for the answers to the 3 questions, we would not have the progress in science that we have today. As a matter of fact, I would argue that if in fact science had the answers, it would almost entirely halt scientific progress in the field of cosmology and evolutionary based science. If you want an example of how science progress is stifled when fundamental questions are answered, just look to the aviation industry. Most the fundamental science of the existing aviation technology has existed for almost a full century. For commercial aircraft, the designs have gone through only slight modifications since the 1960’s. Is the lack of scientific progress in the aviation industry due to the fact that we know all we can ever know about flight? Or is it due to the fact that once science answered the question to “How can we make man fly?”, science moved on to other questions that need answers. Again, if the fundamental question has been answered, it is akin to not having any question at all.
By consciously asking ourselves “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?”, or “What happens when I die?” we allow ourselves to evaluate the perspectives of others to our own to help us define not only our origins or our purpose, but also our legacy that we wish to leave when our time on Earth is through. Whether you believe in evolution by chance, Creationism, or anything in between, you will likely agree that we were in fact formed to be social beings. As social beings, if we were to embrace the perspectives of the people that we regularly interact with, we would not only have more comprehensive insight into the answers of these 3 questions (and their various iterations), but also we would start to understand truly what life looks like in another man’s (or woman’s) shoes. In seeking these answers together, we not only strengthen our purpose as individuals, but collectively we all will feel a shared purpose, on a shared journey with true empathy for one another.