Life II

My Mom, who was a High School science teacher for many years, now retired, says that the capacity for growth and self-repair is crucial to identifying what is alive.

Life

Life, what is it? A question that biologists and philosophers do ponder, what is the essence of life? What separates animate from inanimate? Life is a property of certain objects. Is life a property of God? A basic answer to the question would be 'movement.' Any form of self-started movement characterizes living things. Things that have no movement, in and of themselves, aren't alive. Something made by a scientist that is able to move itself would be considered living by this definition. For example, a lawn mower, able to start itself, perform its function, shut down, and start itself again in 2 weeks to perform its function again, would be considered a life-form. Even when the lawn mower is shut down, it has tiny movement going on within in the form of a timer and maybe a sensor periodically scanning the grass. Should we think that life is something that must be given by God?

Deaths in the Family

On Earth, all living things die. Humans die. I just saw in the online 11/7/09 RBL (Review of Biblical Literature; see bookreviews.org) a listing of a 2007 book by a Robert M. Price, Jesus is Dead (Cranford, NJ: American Atheist Press). Join the club, Jesus. My grandparents are dead. My Dad is dead. My brother Michael is dead. My Aunt Ida, my Aunt Edith are dead. My Uncle Bob and his wife, Aunt Mill, are dead, too. My cousin Tommy is dead. At some point, I guess I'll be dead. May God have mercy upon the dead! I think there are more people dead than alive. Jesus, before he died, said that all are alive to God (cf. Mt. 22:32). As an article of faith, I believe that Jesus is not dead, though he died.
George Washington, first President of the USA, is dead. The great Abe Lincoln, orator extraordinaire, is dead. I can think of certain religious figures who didn't die, according to the Bible, namely, Enoch and Elijah. The Taoist religion is big on immortality. Immortality also has its place in Greek myth. Plato and other ancient philosophers, taught that humans possess an interior component which is immortal, the soul. What is the truth of the matter? There is life. There is death. Moses told his fellow Israelites that I Am (YHWH) had sent him. There is God.

Killing

One of the Ten Commandments delivered by Moses from God to the children of Jacob is "Thou shalt not kill." By means of the Bible, all people should consider themselves ordered by the Creator not to kill one another.

Become as Passersby; Gospel of Thomas

Saying attributed to Jesus in Gospel of Thomas. "Become as passersby." James Geary includes it in his section on Jesus of Nazareth in his book, Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), p. 239ff. He lists 4 parallels to the saying. Here they are. "As long as he gives it, take care of it as something that is not your own, just as travellers treat an inn" (Epictetus [this is just the last sentence of a 10 sentence quote]). "Live your life without attracting attention" (Epicurus). He has not lived badly whose birth and death has (sic) been unnoticed by the world" (Horace). "Be in the world as if you were a stranger or a traveller" (Muhammad). Btw, Geary has the version, "be passersby." I prefer to include the word 'as' or 'like,' since this word is actually in the Coptic text recovered at Nag Hammadi and reminds one of similar usage elsewhere in Jesus' speech (e.g., Lk. 13:18f., kingdom of God like a mustard seed; Mt. 11:16, this generation is like children sitting in the marketplace). Jesus, may I say, was fond of making comparisons to draw out his meaning. We have in the saying, "become as passersby," a latent comparison between being at home and being 'on the road.' One may imagine Jesus observing his disciples and telling them, so, you are at home in the world; amen say I to you, become like passersby (for you know not the hour of your death). Jesus was a man with many miles on his sandals. We are all travellers, passersby, and too often forget it.

Why is there something, rather than nothing?

I remember hearing or reading something years ago that has stayed with me. I think I may have read it in a college textbook for one of the philosophy courses I took. What I had read was something like, ...a major contribution of much German philosophy to rational thought/analysis of the world is, why is there something at all; why not nothing? I think the quote had come from a British philosopher. I remember being impressed by this statement and thinking that German thought must be profound indeed, to ask such a question, which places the human agent in a godlike position, questioning, not reality, but the basis of reality. What is the basis of reality? Wouldn't you like very much to answer this question?