Born to Die, part fifteen

My personal survey of scripture, of sacred literature (which, I’ve admitted, is for me primarily the Bible), brings me to the conclusion that it deals with three basic questions. Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is the reason I’m here? At one extreme is the fatalistic response that it doesn’t matter. There’s no way of knowing for certain where I came from or where I am going; neither does this explain why I’m here. I am. That’s the long and the short of it, and I waste my time first by asking such absurd questions and further by trying to answer them. At the other extreme is an equally fatalistic response that all is preordained by an omniscient, omnipotent higher power that negates any reason for my asking the questions or seeking answers to them. God put me here, so to speak, and that is all I need to know. The Judeo-Christian approach, however, that humans have been created just a little lower than the angels, presents an invitation to ask and attempt to answer. Adam and Eve died. Why? Moses died. Why? Jesus the Christ was “crucified, dead and buried.” Why? It is the “why” of which the human mind is capable of asking that becomes the very crux of the matter. Why was I born? Why am I going to die? Why am I even able to ask the questions? These, in my opinion, are the issues with which scripture deals.