Ahad, 20 Julai 2008

Is a happy life possible without belief?

Is a happy life possible without belief?
As for life, if it is without belief, or if belief, because of rebelliousness, is ineffective, it will produce pains, sorrows and grief far exceeding the superficial, fleeting enjoyment and pleasure it brings. As an intelligent, thinking being, man is (in contrast to animals) intrinsically connected to the past and the future, as well as to the present time. He derives both pain and pleasure from them. Whereas, since the animals do not think, neither the sorrows arising from the past nor the fears and anxieties concerning the future, spoil their present pleasure. But if man has fallen into misguidance and heedlessness, sorrows arising from the past and anxieties about the future, mar his particular pleasure, diluting it with pains. Especially if it is an illicit pleasure, then it is like an altogether poisonous honey. This means that, with respect to enjoyments of life, man is a hundred times lower than the animals. In fact, for the misguided, heedless people, their whole life and existence, their whole world, consists in the day in which they find themselves. According to their misguided belief, all of time past and all past worlds have gone to non-existence. Their intellects, which connect them to the past and the future, produce darkness for them. Accordingly with their lack of belief, the future is also non-existent for them. The separations that become eternal because of this non-existence continually darken their lives.
By contrast, if they build their lives upon belief, then through the light of belief, both the past and the future will be illuminated and acquire existence. Like the present time, they provide, through belief, exalted spiritual pleasures and lights of existence for their spirit and heart

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