Philosophical Journal 1: What is/ are my Origin(s)?

What is/are my origin(s)?

The origin of life is the greatest mystery of mankind. There are different theories presented as to how we came to be and how things came as we know them. There are numerous theories that I am not familiar with, but I know a lot has been thrown pertaining to the question of our origins. Some believed the question of our origin is scientific and explained the evolution of life from a scientific standpoint. Others approached the origin of life from a religious viewpoint, like Genesis and the Story of Creation in the Bible. The latter which I chose to believe as true. In Genesis, man is created after the likeness of God, he breathes life into us. The very first man he created is Adam and the first woman is Eve. Through Adam and Eve, mankind flourished and has walked the earth since then. God also created all cosmic matter, heaven and earth, and all lifeforms. God created mankind to have dominion over the creatures that moved on land, the sea, and the sky. I will say my origin is something of a divine plan, engineered by the one true God. I was created after God’s likeness, equipped with intellectual capability that allows me to perceive things around me. I also remembered one of my classmates sent a message on the chat during the tutorial, that humans are intellectual while beasts aren’t, technically the only living being on earth capable of thinking. This could be reflective to say that in essence, God created me after his physical and intellectual form. That is how I came to be, created by God after his image and likeness.

 

Connecting my thoughts to the reading of the Apology. The Apology is written by Plato about the trial of Socrates. Socrates was brought before a jury to defend himself on the two charges against him. They accused Socrates of rejecting the Gods the Athenians believed and, in the process, corrupted the youth. Others accused him of accepting monetary returns in exchange for receiving instructions from him. When his friend Chaerephon asked an oracle in Delphi if there is any man wiser than Socrates, the oracle answered there was no one. To challenge this, Socrates placed a mission on himself to expose those who pretend knowledgeable, earning enmity towards him. Socrates accepts the punishment of death, saying: “I would rather die having spoken after my manner than speak in your manner and live.” Socrates also said that “I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy..”.  In Socrates' final statement he said he is a gift to mankind, a gadfly, given to the state by God and if he dies, there will be no successor like him.

 

Socrates likes to question everything that is going on around him.  He was accused as “An evil-doer and a curious person, searching into things under the earth and above the heaven.” He answered this accusation by his now-famous unexamined life quote, it goes: “examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living.” In relation to the guiding question on this journal, what is my origin and to my answer, that I am created after the image and likeness of God, Socrates quote echoes my belief. Being human is with the ability to think, which makes us different from the beast and other creatures on earth. It is our obligation as humans to explore our feelings, evaluate ourselves and it is our duty to examine and understand the things around us.

 

Reference: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1656/1656-h/1656-h.htm

Author: Plato; Translator: Benjamin Jowett; Release Date: February, 1999 [EBook #1656]; 

 

Penned on October 1, 2021. MRPM