[b said:
Quote[/b] (Jim @ Sep. 06 2004,2:39)]But are you saying you could go your whole life alone? Without any human company? Social isolation has been proven to have detrimental effects on the human psyche. Don't lonely old folks need visits from friends and family? Otherwise, whats the point? Why stay alive if no one really needs you?
As far as your mother goes, I won't pretend to know the situation; it's certainly not my prerogative to assume that she doesn't need you to provide emotional support, or even medical care. It is certainly possible for Christians and non-Christians alike to be in similar circumstances. Yet, the meat of what I was saying was addressed further in your response:
Why stay alive if no one really needs you?
Maslow, in his theory of a "hierarchy of needs" (
here is a good summary, though I'd recommend picking up a psychology textbook for a better explanation; that's the trouble today; a lot of the best things I reference to people are in books, but the internet has been deemed as much more convenient...), illustrates that we do indeed
need other people. In his hierarchy, it starts with the individual (physiology), and the next three steps are related to our interactions with people (safety, love, and esteem)! He places self-actualization last, the highest need but most often not reached. If anything represents more closely the general thought-process of the world, this is it, whether one has thought about it decidedly or not.
But we've all seen how cruel the world can be (even the "Christian" world; I won't attempt to pull any wool over your eyes here), and how, more often than not, the world stresses the rights and needs of the
individual. Just looking back at your former post, you stated all the things that
you want to accomplish; and I've been in the world, and I know what that can involve. It very rarely involves becoming intimate with a group of people without personal pseudo-utilitarian motives.
And that's the interesting, and amazing, thing about Christianity. There is a large emphasis on both the horizontal and vertical relationship; your self-actualization is achieved by your relationship with God; and your relationship with God may be bolstered moreso by your relationship with other believers ("iron sharpens iron"). Yet even at
that level, the other people don't really
need you, the individual, to survive.
What's the point of being alive, then, if nobody cares? I asked myself that question my senior year of high school, when I approached the possibility of suicide. There really isn't anybody out there who would cease to function without me, Chuck Meeks, by their side. My parents would be sad, distraught, but they could still function because of the intervention of someone else in practically any other capacity. Your mother, despite the condition, is not actually dependent on
you; really she is dependent on the role that you fulfill in her life. These could be construed as broad generalizations, I understand, but please understand what I'm saying.
So the point of living, then, is to fulfill the real role of our existence...to acknowledge God and to worship him. To do what I'm doing now in proclaiming that God did a good work in His Son, and that He actually, really, without a doubt, has done something in my life, and His truth proclaims that He longs to do it for others. Paul says in Romans that instead of worshipping their Creator, people have become satisfied to worship that which was created! Whether that means worshipping avarice, or intellectualism, it still amounts to not worshipping God.
I guess that's about all I can say without going in circles too much. Like I said, nothing I (Chuck Meeks) can say will ever change anybody; but it is my hope that Christ, with the firm desire to rescue those who have not accepted His love, can can use these dumb words I've said.