Life: Its Problems and Some of Its Unanswerable Questions

By Dr. Nicholas La Bianca

L I F E : Its Problems and Some of Its Unanswerable Questions


Most of the people go through life trying to cope with the immediate physical needs that the everyday life presents and very rarely try to explain to themselves in a rational way the reason for being on this earth. Religion for most of them answers all the questions that may come to their mind, and each one comes up with a personal explanation for them. Since different religions usually have different answers, many try to find out in a rational way what are the correct answers, and how people should live in order to better fulfill their destiny as human beings. This book tries to raise some of these questions and when possible tries to bring forth feasible solutions to bring all people to strive for the common good.


Most of the people go through life trying to cope with the immediate physical needs that the everyday life presents, and very rarely try to explain to themselves in a rational way the reason for being on this earth. Religion for most of them answers all the questions that may come to their mind and each one comes up with a personal explanation for them. Since different religions usually have different answers, many try to find out in a rational way what are the correct answers, and how people should live in order to better fulfill their destiny as human beings. This book tries to raise some of these questions and when possible tries to bring forth feasible solutions to bring all people to strive for the common good.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 12, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462821242

Dr. Nicholas La Bianca

Dr. Nicholas La Bianca was born in Giovinazzo, (Bari), Italy in 1930, and during his early life had to live under the Fascist regime and witness depravation, death, and destruction brought by WWII. He received the best classical education available in that country and after the war moved to the United States. He joined the US Air Force during the Korean Was and after being discharged he obtained a BA from the University of Illinois (1957). Moved to New York City and attended night school at CCNY where he obtained an MA in Education (1965). After three years of teaching in the public schools of New York City and an additional three years teaching overseas for the State Department, he settled in Stony Brook, Long Island where he received a DA from SUNY at that location. He spent the next 25 years teaching Languages at the Three Village School District in that area. He retired in 1990 and continues to be active in the field of Education.

Book preview

LIFE:

ITS PROBLEMS

&

SOME OF ITS UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS

SECOND EDITION

DR. NICHOLAS LA BIANCA

Copyright © 2008 by Dr. Nicholas La Bianca.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 10/27/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

580445

CONTENTS

Chapter IWho Are We? Why We Are Here?

Where Did We Come From?

Chapter IIWho Is God? How Did He Get There?

Why Did He Create the World in which We Live?

What Does He Expect Us to Do and Why?

Chapter IIIThe Universe

Chapter IVReligion and Its Role in Our Lives

Chapter VThe Human Race

Chapter VIThe Individual Human Being

Observations I

Dance Like No One’s Watching

Chapter VIINationality

Chapter VIIIGovernment

Chapter IXPolitics

Chapter XJustice

Chapter XIEducation

Chapter XIIPossible Solutions

a)Part I: On the Financial Aspect of the Problem

b)Part II: On the Educational Aspect of the Problem

c)Part III: Social and Civil Right Changes

Chapter XIIIAdditional Questions on Customs, Traditions,

and Morality

Observations II

Chapter XIVImprovements on the Social Services

Chapter XVDealing With Crime and Punishment

Chapter XVIReality Check

In loving memory of my son Angelo, my mother Maria,

my father Angelo, and my brother Peppino.

May they rest in peace!

INTRODUCTION TO

LIFE

Another suitable title for this book could be: Decoding the Purpose of Life.

And in order to do so, the several chapters point out the steps to be taken:

a.Identify, and set goals for the ideal life on this earth.

b.To do so we must have peace all over the world.

c.To have peace we have to eliminate the causes of wars.

d.Identify the causes for war: Religion, Pride, and Greed.

e.Analyze the origin of Religion and create a rational and world wide tolerance for all of them.

f.Identify the source of extreme national Pride and eliminate it.

g.Take a close look at Greed that is very prominent part of human nature, and set rules and regulations to prevent it.

All my life I have been in the field of Education, and even after retirement I have been interested in bringing forth any learning material that could help improve the quality of life on this planet. All human beings, no matter where they live, are engaged in some activity, because our biological life requires us to provide for our own subsistence, but the quality of this life changes from one person to another according to the knowledge that people have of the world around them. One can very easily divide all humans in three main groups:

One group includes all those people who live at a vegetative level. They work, eat, and sleep and nothing else matters to them.

The second group operates on the animal level. In addition to the three main activities mentioned, they are also interested in getting rich, have good time, or pursue fame and power that would put them above the rest of the people, and make them feel superior and more important than other people.

The third group is more selective in the activities and operates on the intellectual level trying to find out what it the real purpose of life on this earth, and direct their efforts toward that goal.

The history of our world clearly shows that wars have been the most destructive activities that have held back humankind from making advances in the quality of life for everyone on this earth, and detracting us from pursuing the real goals that human beings should be trying to reach. If we analyze the reasons why people go to war, we can limit them to three main ones: Religion, Greed, and Pride.

If we take a close look at religion we come up with the fact that all religions are based on faith and it is very difficult to find a rational reason why one should be more important than another. Therefore, the book takes a close look at the history of all religions through the centuries trying to see how and why people join a specific religious sect. The conclusion is that there is only one God, and no religion has a monopoly on how to worship Him, and each person should be free to worship according to his own faith. The next most important reason, is to find out what is the reason for the world to exist, how it came about to be, and avoid the mistake that one’s religion should be imposed by force to another person. The advances that mankind has made through the centuries, and, the discoveries that we have made about our Universe, are a great help, and give us hope that someday we will have better answers to our questions.

Once we have proven that there is no reason to go to war on religious grounds, we can take a look at the wars that are caused, by Greed. Unconsciously we all wish to get something for nothing, or with the least possible effort, and many times we try to get more that we deserve. This causes a social imbalance that from an individual level is transmitted to the national and international level. That’s why many nations take advantage of weaker ones in a political or financial way, and these improper actions cause resentment by the abused people, and most of the times create violent reactions. Only the Romans were able to conquer the whole known world, and avoided wars for several centuries. They did so by bringing the people of the conquered nations to be part of the roman nation with the same privileges. It was called the Pax Romana. But this peace failed because the people had no sense of direction and did not fully understand the purpose of life, which ultimately led to their destruction. Through the Centuries many attempts were made to repeat the same feat, but no one ever succeeded in doing so.

In order to overcome greed at the national and international level, it is imperative to educate the single individuals the best possible way on the ethical values of life. Unfortunately even with all our great resources we have failed in the field of Education because majority of the people running the programs are not competent enough to do so, and the programs are not equal and sufficient to meet the students’ needs. In this book suggestions are provided to improve education on the financial and pedagogical levels in order to create the best possible results.

It is a common knowledge that no matter how we select our public officials, in the administration of public services, many individual will not be capable to walk the straight line, because of egotistical interests, which are part of the human nature, it is the responsibility of society to set up systems which will eliminate the temptation for people to take more than they deserve, thus breaking the equilibrium that is necessary to keep peace among mankind. Also, in the case when people go astray it is necessary to provide a better method to rehabilitate the criminals and those who fail to follow the required ethical and moral rules. Better social services are necessary to give everybody an acceptable living standard, even in cases where people found themselves in great financial difficulties. It is the responsibility of society to guarantee each individual the necessary food, shelter, and, medical attention all the time, but our system does not seem to be very adequate to provide such services, and many times the system is inefficient and also abused by the free loaders.

Finally we have to take a look at PRIDE. It can be carried to an extreme, and many times people forget that this world was created without any borders and should be available to everyone to enjoy equally. Many people are willing to leave their own countries to seek better living condition somewhere else, in order to raise their families with dignity and peace, regardless of the nationality involved. The first goal of each man is to have a job that can provide means to raise a family with dignity, and to each mother to have a home in which to raise her children in peace.

PREFACE

During our early years, we accept without reservation all the explanation that our parents or religious leaders give us about our life on this earth. Later on we get involved with our future, and all our efforts are directed in making sure that we develop our talents and acquire all the skills necessary to have a very comfortable life. Our daily lives as adults are always under stress from the demands of our jobs, our families, and other related problems that we have to face. Most of our recreational time is spent on hobbies, vacations, and sports events; and very rarely, we try to find an answer for our existence in this world. The believers find all the answers in their religion, some of the non believers create their own ethical and moral rules of behavior, and others do not care to find any answers, and their only desire is to make their lives as comfortable as possible even at the expense of other human beings. This creates an unbalance in the relation among peoples with the relative, selfish, immoral, and unethical practices that make life difficult for all. Regardless, there is a time in our lives when we try to find answers to the reason why life exists on earth. Even for those people who accept the fact that we are here to serve the Lord, still there is a need to explain why there is a god, where did he come from, why there is a universe and how it was created, why he creates us, what is the purpose of our life, and how we should live it to fulfill our destiny.

While we are finding all sorts of rational explanations to the physical world around us for these questions, no one has come up with a universally acceptable one. It is only when we are facing death that we wonder about if there is life after death, and what is all about. Some accept it with serenity since their lives have been according to the rules imposed by their religion, others try to repent at the last moment in order to avoid some possible horrible punishment from the higher authority, and others don’t care about anything and believe that at that point it is the end of everything. Unfortunately if you ask people in the street about life, the most common answers are: life sucks or life is a bitch, and then you die or at best life is a bitch and then you marry one.

1-the%20birth%20of%20venus.jpg

The Birth of Venus

CHAPTER I

Who Are We? Why We Are Here?

Where Did We Come From?

These and many other questions very often come to our minds, and each one of us tries to answer them in our own way. Going back to the beginning of civilization, we found that almost every generation has produced philosophers who believed to have found the answers to these and other questions; and thanks to their efforts, we have reached certain truths about the human race and the world around us. The first attempts to understand God took place among the civilizations of the Orient, but they failed in their intent because they combined myths with religion.

The Greeks were the first to establish schools of thought that tried to solve the problem in a rational way. Their attention was first directed at explaining the natural world and solving the problem of arkhe, which was supposed to be the beginning of everything. Thales of Miletus, one of the three Milesian natural philosophers from the Ionian School (sixth century BC), was the first to come up with the idea that water was the basic material from which all things originated, and he also stated that the soul (psyche) was the force (kinetikon) that moved things. He seemed to be quite advanced with other researches since, according to Herodotus, he predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BC. With Pythagoras and his school (550-500 BC), the search for a rational universal principle was also directed to politics, religion, sciences, and education. For them, the universe was under strict mathematical order; and being so, it created harmony and beauty. From then on, there was a succession of philosophers rejecting and changing the findings of their predecessors, and it would be too long a list to explain. It was only with the Sophists that ethics came into existence, particularly with Socrates.

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The Parthenon

Anything that we know about him was passed on by Plato. Most interesting are the so-called Socratic paradoxes in which the philosopher declares that virtue is wisdom or knowledge, and that no one does anything wrong willingly, and bad actions are only caused by lack of knowledge. Evidently, his philosophical views and his association with some of the aristocratic party in Athens were not very well accepted by his countrymen. He was brought to trial on charges of introducing strange gods and corrupting the youth, and was condemned to death. He was given a chance to escape during the thirty days between his trial and execution, but he refused to break the laws of Athens; and believing that he had done nothing wrong with his teachings, he drank the poison and died with a smile on his face (399 BC).

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Socrates

It was only with Plato (429-347 BC.) and his school, the Academy, and later with Aristotle (384-322 BC.) with the Lyceum, that the basis of modern philosophy with moral, metaphysical, ethical, and political issues were laid out, and from that time on, they have been the main sphere of interest of medieval, renaissance, and modern Western philosophy. Plato was one of the most influential philosophers mostly for his belief in the existence of universals. In the Theory of Forms he explains that they are not physical objects but heavenly forms. For him the meaning of life is in attaining the highest form of knowledge, which is the IDEA (Form) of the Good. All human beings must pursue it because from it all good and just things derive utility and value. Aristotle, on the contrary, argued that ethical knowledge is only general and not certain knowledge, and a person in order to become good or virtuous had to engage in virtuous activities. Every action should have good as its goal, which is the object of all endeavor. The highest good in all matters of action for uneducated and educated alike is happiness, which is good life and successful living.

During the Hellenistic period Cynicism was also another important philosophic school. They believed that the purpose of life was to live according to the laws of Nature. Happiness could be achieved by being in charge of one’s mental attitude, while false judgments of value would cause suffering, which would cause negative emotions along with vicious character. It also rejected the desire for wealth, power, and fame. People could achieve happiness by training in living a way natural to human beings. Aristippus of Cyrene, an associate of Socrates, founded the school of Cyrenaicism which emphasized that pleasure is the supreme good, and bodily gratification is more important than mental pleasure. They preferred immediate gratification to the long-term gain of delayed gratification.

Epicurus established his school of philosophy in 306 BC just outside Athens, called the Garden. It had active dissemination in the whole Hellenistic world and was very popular in Rome during the period 100-50 BC. For Epicurus the greatest good was to attain freedom from fear, by knowledge, friendship and virtuous living.

 . . . . By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish, and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest tumults take possession of the soul..

The Epicureans reject the immortality and mysticism. They admit that there is a soul, but it is as mortal as the body. They don’t believe in the afterlife, therefore non need to fear death;. . . . . Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved, is without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is nothing to us.

Stoicism instead, directs people to live according to reason and virtue, which will put people in harmony with the universe’s divine order. For them the meaning of life is freedom from suffering. The development of personal self-control is a way to overcome destructive emotions and develop clear judgment and inner clam, which will improve A D D one’s well-being. For them "virtue is a will" which is in agreement with Nature.

During the Enlightenment and the colonial era the philosophy of life changed by focusing less on humankind’s relationship to God and more