LIFE Questions: Answering LIFE Questions helps us to find a deeper condition within ourselves.

By Trevor Peach and Neil Peach

Life Questions is an open invitation for readers to explore the nuances of life's biggest questions. It mixes philosophical and spiritual academic thinking with the personal views of two brothers. Life Questions provides a clearheaded and informed view of the topic at hand-whether it be spirituality, religion,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trevor Peach
• Release date: Nov 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9783982362908

Trevor Peach

Since 2013 Trevor lives in Mittenwalde Germany a fairy tale country town just south of Berlin having met his German wife on the Argentine Tango dance floor in Brisbane in 2009. Apart from writing together with his brother he is mainly involved in community activities from local planning to community building renovations and endless small building projects. His main focus is keeping his wife happy with endless walks, lake swimming and making her lunches, while Evelin continues her work as an EFT couple therapist and as a social worker in Berlin. Both having interest in developing communication skills and widening their perspectives on the ingredients to happy relationships.

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Introduction

Questions about life can invoke our deepest thoughts and feelings , a striving to find some connection with the mysterious. This awakening arrives as we marvel at the human being striving to understand, to nourish through science, our experiences and our differences and the answers that we strive to ponder. In our lifetimes, each one of us is part of the unending process that propels life forward, and we expect that the universe is waiting for us to unfold its secrets.

The importance of questioning has rewards as we face every day, experiencing our connections within and outside ourselves. As readers, each one of us has some part of the puzzle, and by knowing when we are projecting our individual thoughts and energies, we can then collectively enable a process to better judge the possibilities leading us forward. We—the authors, Trevor and Neil—are brothers who decided to spend some time together to get to know one another better. What we pursued in 2020, during the stay-at-home restrictions, were months of email exchanges between Berlin and Brisbane to share our different views on life. It was then that the chapters in this book began to emerge.

We grew up as young sunburned Australians in the ’50s, in a favorable environment in suburban Brisbane, Australia, with affection from our parents as well as many aunties and uncles. Our mother, grandmother, and older sister were especially caring and always watching over us. Dad was the outgoing, confident younger twin in his family of thirteen siblings. Dad had a spirit for life that showed. He grew up in a country town environment with security, a big family around him, and plenty of chores. As it was in those times, his father fed and sheltered the family and was very authoritarian. Between school and sport, Grandad kept the boys busy tending their herd of dairy cows and also kept them constantly on their toes in case he found reason to give the boys a hiding. Obedience was paramount in most families in the ’50s, and to some degree, this discipline has flowed into our baby boomer upbringing, although it is mostly not so graciously received or understood by our Gen-Xer children!

As brothers, we had spent a lot of our midlife years living in different parts of the world, and there were seldom times to get down to serious talk when we would visit as there was lots of family catching up to do. So time passed, and by 2020 we resolved that we should get to know how we had grown to hold opinions that were seemingly so different. Part of the challenge for us was to confront each other’s opinions for the first time and try to understand what these opinions meant. Perhaps we would expand our own views, which would allow us to be more open to other views, without judgments of right or wrong, or good or bad. It would be a truly unique journey, not knowing how the outcome might change us.

We learned that our morals, beliefs, drivers, and other aspects of our personalities seem to have been shaped by our environments, our natural instincts, and of course, from our individual, unique experiences. Not surprisingly, we have quite different views and thoughts on the nature of things. It was our differing views that gave rise to closer internal self-review of what our experiences must have been to have thus formed our opinions and perspectives on life. Over time we moved toward a consolidation as well as a deeper understanding of ourselves.

Exploring what lies behind the differences or harmonies between siblings was not the genesis of this book; our purpose was simply to get to know each other better. It is the human spirit and our given natures that enable us, as individuals, to charter the courses we so decide.

The objective of exploring the questions in this book also had the underlying, shared expectations of finding each other’s unique individuality, in harmony with the universe, and perhaps seeing whether any of our views might shift by the sharing of them during the process of becoming our own witnesses.

None of what is presented in this publication is intended to be complete or comprehensive—its contents are a sharing of our progress on our journey to understand ourselves better. We started writing for the purpose of understanding our views on different subjects, and having achieved some progress, we moved together through structure, limits, compromise, wisdom, insight, understanding, and adaptability. Above all, we were united in appreciating the nature of our differences.

Although the following chapters reveal the very different perspectives of two siblings, we accept our individual natures without the need to change or influence the other. As brothers we explore and share our views on life and ponder creation, religion, life’s journey, happiness, insights, and the nature of things. We look at ourselves at the end of the book and ask, Have any of our perspectives changed?

INSIGHTS FROM A GENIUS

A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.¹ (Alice Calaprice)

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.² (Albert Einstein)

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.³ (Albert Einstein)

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1. Alice Calaprice, The New Quotable Einstein (Princeton University Press, 2005).

2. Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, originally published in Forum and Century (1931); later published in Ideas and Opinions, based on Mein Weltbild, ed. Carl Seelig (New York: Bonanza Books, 1954).

3. Albert Einstein, a statement to William Miller, as quoted in LIFE magazine (May 2, 1955).

Chapter 1

Do You Believe in God?

In presenting this question, we realize that it is often a question that stays with us for a lifetime and perhaps has little to do with the time and place of our own lives. This question will continue to be significant for generations to come. Humans believe in a higher order of being, often crystallized in the idea of God , which has been a significant issue for human civilizations over thousands of years. Human perspectives up to the late nineteenth century permitted little doubt about the existence of a god. Now, however, at least in the more developed countries, it is more likely not a question that has the same level of significance as so much has been revealed on the evolution of man and the universe he inhabits. In some ways we have attempted to accommodate both transcendent perspectives and immanent perspectives of what God represents in contemporary society .

Further, in this context, we have specifically separated the questions of God, spirituality, and religion as we understand them as now being related to, but not dependent on, one another. In the past these three concepts would have been considered to be tightly interrelated, but today they can be viewed independently and applied to ordinary lives.

Throughout much of our history as a species, Homo sapiens had looked beyond itself for answers, reasons, as well as psychic nourishment. There is a long and widely held perspective that humans, unlike other living creatures, have always existed in a state of yet to be, always seeking something beyond what we already have. Some thinkers describe this as a lack. Others refer to it as the need for a supplement. Consider the Greek myth of man’s creation:

Prometheus and Epimetheus were given the task of creating man. Prometheus shaped man out of mud, and Athena breathed life into his clay figure. Prometheus had assigned Epimetheus the task of giving the creatures of the earth their various qualities, such as swiftness, cunning, strength, fur, wings. Unfortunately, by the time he got to man, Epimetheus had given all the good qualities out and there were none left for man. So Prometheus decided to make man stand upright as the gods did and to give them fire.⁴

Our history, much of which has been taken up in becoming human, has been characterized as a process of exteriorization. By this what is meant is that we have sought to fulfill our lives by means other than or outside our own life. In a sense, man seeks to complete himself by his engagement with God, fire, weapons, art, and technology. The diversity of our efforts to seek our fulfillment by means outside our own person can be reflected in cave paintings, worship of deities, development of technologies, space travel, religion, creative writing, and so on. The development of writing and its preservation in stone and papyrus, then even further through the printing press and now through digital technologies, has expanded humans’ capacity to develop, retain, and diffuse knowledge outside ourselves. Plato saw both the dangers and the benefits in allowing so much of what we think and remember to be stored outside of our own human physical makeup.

Through exteriorization, belief in a God was and still is a pathway that enables humans to complete themselves. However, in more recent times we have developed voracious appetites as consumers, one way of overcoming our lack. By collecting wealth or knowledge or buying more physical/worldly things, we seek to complete ourselves.

In the process of evolution, we lifted ourselves up onto two legs, and this de-paw-ification of our front limbs gave us hands to make many things. The odors that were once vital to our four-legged survival, when our noses were much closer to the ground, now disgust our senses, and the frontal revealing of sexual organs now introduces a sense of shame or guilt. As our brains enlarged and we became more sophisticated, this sense of yet to be has propelled our creativity and inventiveness to an extent that we are now sufficiently capable of destroying our own, very best intentions.

It is vital for our futurity that we provide ourselves with the nourishment provided by those things which sit outside of our being—our god(s), our technologies, our sophisticated social organizations, our arts and creativities. These are what Plato called our pharmakon—the means to our survival, growth, and creativity and the mechanisms for our own demise at the same time.

In looking at this history, some have questioned the extent to which those things outside of us—be they stone axes or gods, writing tablets or computer chips—have shaped us as much as we have shaped them. So the question for all those things through which we seek to complete ourselves becomes, for example, Did God make us, or did we make God? This issue is mirrored in the enormous impact that technical development has had on our lives. We once used tools to help us do our work. In many situations now, machines are becoming more independent, and we must take care that the tables of control cannot be turned.

Today all over the world humans are confronting their understanding and their relationship of and with God. The Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) protect freedom of belief and religion as well as nondiscrimination. To this question—Do you believe in God?—there are no right or wrong answers. As noted above, our focus at this point is only about belief and not about religion or spirituality. We will consider religion and spirituality separately in the next chapters.

This compelling question remains at the heart of our current human development, and the search for God or something we understand to have a higher intelligence is still unanswered. Yet we continue our journey in the progression and direction of human socialization and civilization. While it may not appear so, it is predicated on the notion of there being three dimensions or planes in life: (1) the individual; (2) society as the collective entity encompassing all individuals; and (3) something other, about which there is much debate as to where this other sits in relation to the first two planes. Is it above or below us; or is it before or after us; is it because of us or are we the because of the other?

Also, at times there is much store placed on the name of the other in which we have invested much emotion and belief. For many, God is the most appropriate designation for what used to be the most significant other in our lives. There are many different names across many cultures, and to varying degrees they give some indication of what the relationship is between these three planes. Today there are also many other important others who have a major influence on man’s existence and future.

During the writing of this book, we find ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic that has changed many aspects of the world as we know it. Having faith or belief in a god is known to help some people in times of crisis. For some it has provided fellowship within a wider community, and for others it has most profoundly been a sanctuary within.

In Western culture, many nonreligious perspectives about an other are often expressed, and this speaks to the central (or now much less central) significance of this issue for many people. Consider the following very diverse perspectives which have been expressed by thought leaders in their particular spheres of influence within the broadly secular world that is the West.

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong. (John Lennon)

I am a child of the Enlightenment. I think irrational belief is a dangerous phenomenon, and I try to consciously avoid irrational belief. (Noam Chomsky)

This idea of God, or of the divine is also connected with all the natural forces and conditions—including man and human association—that promote the growth of the ideal and that further its realization. . . . It is this active relation between ideal and actual to which I would give the name God. (John Dewey)

To trust the God of the Bible is to trust an irascible, vindictive, fierce and ever fickle and changeful master; to trust the true God is to trust a Being who has uttered no promises, but whose beneficent, exact, and changeless ordering of the machinery of His colossal universe is proof that He is at least steadfast to His purposes; whose unwritten laws, so far as they affect man, being equal and impartial, show that he is just and fair; these things, taken together, suggest that if he shall ordain us to live hereafter, he will be steadfast, just and fair toward us. We shall not need to require anything more. (Mark Twain, A Biography)

POSSIBLE ANSWERS

How would you respond to the question, Do you believe in God? Would your response include one or more of the following possible answers?

God is a separate single entity that created the universe and is the focus of contemporary churches/religions.

God is a distributed consciousness within human beings, accessible through many different individual spiritual practices.

The question is too vast for our human minds.

It has no relevance because I do not believe in God, and the world works the way it does whether I say I believe in God or not.

God is a force of nature that operates in how everything in the world behaves, and we don’t have to do anything other than to be the best person we can be.

There are, of course, as many possible answers as there are people who consider this question. However, there appears to be several underlying factors that influence our beliefs and the way in which we respond to this question.

GENERALIZATIONS

It has been suggested that those who tend to act according to rationality and solely trust their mind rather than intuition are less likely to believe in God (rationality vs. intuition).

Further, it is suggested that people with higher academic pursuits are more likely to hold agnostic or atheistic beliefs in the absence of life experience. In contrast, people who are more connected with their inner selves, their whole being, and empathetic in understanding people may tend to be more religious or spiritual (individual needs vs social needs).

Those who sense that God has a plan better regain a feeling of harmony, or at least of acceptance, when things are not going well. In countries with a higher standard of living and a secular government, people seem to perceive less need for connection or attachment with a universal God that will protect them (more developed vs developing). This has some inconsistencies according to the Gallup Poll research in 2009, where we see that US populations have retained a higher percentage of religious believers, 69 percent; along with Greece and Italy at just over 70 percent; while the UK, France, Holland, Germany, and Australia have dropped to 40 percent and below; with Canada sitting at 42 percent.⁵ Other inconsistencies may cause variability to the model, including the level of economic equity/stability, level of social/political infusion of religious organizations/practices that promote God belief, and the nation’s state constitutions. It is clear, even in so-called developed nations, that lower economic equity and income levels in the less-integrated or less-educated populations reflect a higher need for holding religious beliefs.

In essence, there seems to be a few broad factors that play a significant part in our beliefs about God and associated religious and spiritual practices. The first one is our approach to thinking and reasoning (rationality vs. intuition); the second is our individual orientation toward self-enhancement and development (individual needs vs. social needs); and finally, the third is the socioeconomic setting in which we live (more developed vs. developing).

Of course, these are only general indications. It is not unusual when dealing with complex issues to find ourselves in a situation where we only know the answer when we start formulating our response. Of course, if you have challenged yourself previously with the question of whether you believe in God or not, you may be well prepared, having formulated your response as soon as you read each of the possible answers set out above. Even if this is the case, in order to further enhance our responses to this very big question, we have taken the answers from above and matched them with some different statements of opinion to put a little more reality around what we think some of these possible answers may really mean at a personal level.

DIFFERENT OPINIONS

First Quoted Opinion:

God’s existence becomes real to us when we live an honest, sincere life.⁶ (Fr. Rolheiser, Catholic priest)

First Answer:

God is a separate single entity that created the universe and is the focus of contemporary churches/religions.

Second Quoted Opinion:

Most people form their beliefs and live their lives somewhere in the middle of the so-called culture divide that outspoken atheists and believers shout across. The more these shouters shout, the more public discourse veers away from the subtle struggle of the average person’s attempt to be human. ⁷(Emma Green, journalist)

Second Answer:

God is a distributed consciousness within human beings accessible through many different individual spiritual practices.

Third Quoted Opinion:

The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe.⁸ (Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist)

Third Answer:

The question is too vast for our human minds.

Fourth Quoted Opinion:

We are each free to believe what we want, and it’s my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God.⁹ (Stephen Hawking, astronomer)

Fourth Answer:

It has no relevance because I do not believe in a God, and the world works the way it does whether I say I believe in God or not.

Fifth Quoted Opinion:

It is one extreme to believe in God; it is another extreme not to believe in God, and you have to be just in the middle, absolutely balanced. Atheism becomes irrelevant, theism becomes