Worldview

A survey that a friend asked me to fill out. I very much enjoyed it, as it helped me summarize a lot of what I believe in currently. (Oct 2006)

1. Occupation?

     College Student, majoring in Information Systems

2. Marital Status?

     Single

3. On a scale of 0-5, how would you rate the following factors in contributing to a successful life? (0=unnecessary, 5=essential)

     Education = 5
     Wealth = 3
     Marriage = 4
     Children = 3
     Religious Belief = 2
     Friends/Relationships = 5
     Lucky Breaks = 1

4. What adjectives would you use to describe successful people you have known?

     Motivated (more internally, but also externally), dedicated, passionate, persistent, organized, focused, happy…

5. Some nationally known people, highly successful in their occupation, when interviewed by the media have described their lives without meaning, searching, empty, and unsatisfying. To what do you attribute this apparent contradiction?

     When people get caught up in the pursuit of professional goals, sometimes they lose sight of their personal goals and values. This happens because in order to focus on professional goals they reorganize their priorities. People who are truly successful find a way to balance their personal and professional lives, even integrate the two, so that they do not have to sacrifice anything they hold important.

6. What presently is the highest priority of your life?

     Doing well in college and determining what career to pursue so that I can be happiest and most successful after college.

7. At the end of your life what three things would you like to say that you have accomplished?

•     Impacted others in a positive way (including children if I have or raise any, which I probably will)
•     Contributed to my field of study/occupation
•     Lived a full and happy life with minimal regrets

8. Is there anything for which you would significantly sacrifice your personal standard of living?

     It is difficult to answer this type of question without truly being faced with a situation, but I would like to think that given the opportunity to give more than one person a better life, I would give up my way of life.

9. If someone asked you to explain to them your philosophy of life (what you live by), what would you say, and how would you justify it?

     See my graduation speech? :) Live life to the fullest, because we are given one life to live, one chance to make every choice we make. Our choices make us who we are. If we make bad choices, we must learn from them. Don’t not make a choice because it is risky – consider what is at stake and make the decision that is best for you and for others. Enjoy life because there is no reason not to. We are here to live, to thrive -- not to hold back, muddle through, and someday fade away into the dust.

10. How do you make decisions? For example: How did you decide upon your career? How did you decide to marry your spouse (if married)?

     I am a rather tedious decision-maker when it comes down to it because I tend to over-think things. I have been working on being more decisive over the past year or so (without being too hasty, though I don’t know if I’ll ever be too hasty). When I make decisions I try to determine what the possible outcomes of each option are, weigh the consequences, and figure out what is the most beneficial for myself and for others. This is the basic process for every decision, from what college I chose to what I ordered for dinner last night. Occasionally I do things that are not necessarily the best, but I usually know ahead of time that they are not the best decisions. I think that I probably do this to mix things up…it is the normally controlled sense of utter hedonism within me (and all humans) escaping for a breath of fresh air. I am not necessarily proud of such things, but I tend not to regret them unless someone gets hurt. And if so, I try my best to learn from my mistakes.

11. What questions trouble your mind most about life?

•     “Why do so many people suffer needlessly?”
     There are so many people without the necessities for life, and we probably have the capability to help all of them. It’s simply not right.

•     “Is there more purpose to our lives than to live?”
     If there is, I’m sure it will be carried out because purpose is purpose and probably cannot be defied on such a grand scale, so really we shouldn’t worry. But I still wonder sometimes.

•     “If there is a God, why would He be so petty and particular as many religions make Him out to be?”
     If just one religion, or one sect of a religion, turns out to be “correct,” then a whole lot of people are going to Hell or wherever. That doesn’t seem right to me, especially for all those people who live in the middle of the Amazon and have never had any contact with the outside world.

•     “Why can’t people just get along and respect each others’ beliefs and ways of life?”
     Intolerance is probably one of the sickest facets of humanity.
     (And I’m sure there are plenty more I could think of.)

12. Why do you think some people believe in God?

     I think that God is one all-inclusive answer to the big questions, the “why are we here.” The different interpretations of God from different religions stem from the different predispositions of individual minds and various cultures seeking answers to these questions. I may not believe in any one of these particular explanations, but I believe that every view has a possibility to be in some part “correct.” But whether it is “correct” or not does not matter because belief is based on faith, personal conviction, and personal beliefs have no value on the scale of “correct” or “incorrect.” In the end it is a comfort issue; not necessarily physical comfort, but a feeling of where we are most comfortable emotionally, ethically, mentally, morally, spiritually.

13. Why do you think some people do not believe in God?

     I think a quote from Stephen F. Roberts sums it up best:

“I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

     It is a process of elimination of the plausibility of a divine being. Even though many atheists will deny it, in my view belief in no gods requires just as much faith as belief in any gods. It is once again a comfort issue; if one feels no need for God, then God probably does not exist, at least in a form that requires one to believe in His existence.

14. How would someone decide whether or not God exists?

     There is no way to disprove the existence of some sort of God. But to feel as though there is not one is a matter of personal faith and logic, as I have pretty much covered in the last two questions.

15. What do you think about the possibility of miracles?

     I think that anything is possible if it is meant to happen in the grand scheme of things. I don’t think it is necessarily a divine force – though I accept the possibility – but possibly just the universe working itself out, especially when it comes to giving good people what they deserve.

16. In your opinion, do you think abortion is killing an innocent life? If it isn’t, what is it? How did you come to your view about this issue?

     Abortion is the one issue that I avoid as much as possible. I have not really come to a conclusion on whether a fetus if “alive.” We have no idea if it has any sort of awareness since we obviously can’t remember being in the womb. Sure, it has a brain, a heart, etc. but it could not survive outside the mother…so it is not an independent being. In a way, if a woman has an abortion, it is like killing a part of her. On the other hand, it is a potential life with a high chance of becoming a human being…at least a much higher chance than before conception. I really am undecided on the issue, but when it comes to government regulation on the issue, I think it is so delicate an issue that no government authority should be able to make a decision that is ultimately that of the individual woman.

17. If your child asked you the following two questions, how would you respond?

     “What makes something right, and what makes something wrong?”
In society, right and wrong are defined by laws because laws are what we agree on as right. Laws and rules do not cover every situation though, so we have to look to our own beliefs in many cases to find what is right. To determine what is wrong, figure out if the thing can harm someone. If something brings harm, then some part of it is wrong; that doesn’t always mean it does not need to be done, just that the decision to do it must be made ever more carefully, because sometimes sacrifices must be made. Right and wrong are very difficult to define, and most people, even…especially adults struggle to do so.

     “Why do people die, and what happens to them when they die?”
People die because their bodies don’t work anymore for some reason – their old and they wear out, or they get sick and something stops working. Many people believe many different things about what happens after. Some believe we go to a happy place, some to a bad place, and some believe nothing happens at all. No one really knows. But no matter what happens to our minds, our bodies return to the Earth to become parts of new people, creatures, and things, and this connectedness is something to take comfort in. And of course, our loved ones will never forget us. Even when our lives fade away, we will be kept alive in the memory of those we knew through what we teach each other.

18. What would you describe as the most essential beliefs of Christianity?

     Faith in Christ’s sacrifice. Love. Compassion. Selflessness.

19. What is the one question that you would like answered about life?

     If one or more of the world’s religions is actually “correct,” which one is it? And why?
     No human can provide this answer.

20. If you could change one thing about our world, what would it be?

     There would be no needless suffering, starvation, sickness, pain, etc.


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