WHAT'S THE GOAL? ASK MOM...

What is the purpose of life? To live? Possibly. Anyone who claims to be in possession of any definitive answer to that one is either out of their mind, supremely arrogant or a religious nut who ignores his own faith's teachings that much of creation and life is shrouded in mysteries beyond human understanding. And who can deny that such mysteries abound? The founding of religions is merely the reaction to, and the acknowledgment of, forces above and beyond our human senses. Faith is an attempt by mankind to make sense of the fierce and beautiful chaos of the natural universe, starting with our own tiny corner of Creation.

For millennia, our religious aspirations reached no further that our immediate surroundings and the stars visible to the naked eye, also representing a miniscule slice of all that exists. Then we invented telescopes that informed us that we are somewhat less than The Crown of Creation. Even our unmanned probes into our Solar System and beyond are equivalent to exploring a spot on the couch an eighth of an inch away from where you are seated. Now our orbiting space telescopes are providing us with images of fantastic events and locations on so vast a scale that the human mind is staggered at the almost painfully beautiful complexity and unimaginable size of the Universe.

Which still leaves us all here on the third stone from a smallish star in a galaxy far, far away from everything. If and when humanity spreads out into the rest of the galaxy, we all pretty much know it will not be in the lifetimes of our great-great-great-great grandchildren. So, that leaves us pretty much to our own devices back here on Planet Earth, to deal with each other as best we can. And truth be told, we haven't been all that nice to one other, like forever. And being that we're here for the foreseeable duration, maybe it's time that we decided what is the purpose of life for humans. Leaving aside the unknowable mysteries of all of creation, people need to figure out some kind of game plan for this planet.

Winging it, as we've been doing all along, sure hasn't worked out all that well for the majority of humans. Our history has basically been a bloody mess, a fairly comprehensive guide to what went horribly wrong and what sort of behavior to avoid. Wars, slavery, genocide, starvation and the brutal exploitation of the many by the few are the major themes of human existence. That and mass starvation, which kills even more of us than our wars and murders. We still haven't gotten that stuff out of our system, no matter how many religions we invent to tell us how wrong these things are, both to slay one another so earnestly and to do nothing while so many die from lack of food on a bountiful planet. Maybe it's time for Plan B.

There have been countless people with an ambitious Plan A throughout history, but they always seem to have been designed to conquer, kill and enslave, and not a single one of them has ever succeeded in their stated aim of spreading their Plan A to every nation on earth. Most plans did not even outlive their planners. Just ask Alexander the Great and Adolph the Not-So-Great. The longest run any empire ever had was Rome, the better part of a thousand years, with most of those years marked by slaughter on a grand scale, pillaging, crippling taxation and mindless oppression. The portion of the world that was the Roman Empire didn't miss them all that much when they finally went away.

Other rapacious empires came and went and still mankind had no plan, no vision of what these lives of ours are supposed to mean, with so many people understandably taking refuge in the faith that death would bring us a rewarding afterlife. Small wonder when most people's lives were ones of endless drudgery broken up only by a series of terrifying catastrophes. Who wouldn't look forward to death if misery, fear and degradation was what life is all about? And the sad fact is that so many of the religions that invented these comforting beliefs were huge perpetrators of the misery visited upon humanity while they lived their earthly lives. Talk about adding Inquisition to injury!

Can we change all this crazy nonsense? We've pretty much exhausted all the possibilities of bloodshed and mayhem, from traditional war to genocide to proxy wars to to biological warfare to conquest, slavery, human sacrifice and brutal oppression. Even the "new wrinkle" of suicide bombings is getting old, and has no more solved anyone's problems that all the other rotten things we've done to each other since beyond memory. Anybody satisfied with the outcome of any of these things? Not at all, but like that concise definition of insanity, we keep doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. Can we take a breather here, a little time out to think things through, maybe take a tranquilizer and have a nice hot cup of tea?

We need a new definition of the meaning of our lives. We have to end our wars, declare them all a draw, with no winners to march the boulevards in grand victory parades and no losers to lick their wounds, bury their dead and plot their bloody revenge. Been there, done that, been there, done that, been there, done that... Time to rethink our thinking. Can we make a plan that includes all God's children, however we think, or don't think, of God? And speaking of God, can we allow everyone to worship as they please, but allow none of our religions a voice in running our civic affairs? Total separation of church and state.

Since no two religions completely agree, and most of them have a hell of a lot of blood on their hands, let them sit this one out as we try to come up with a new way to deal with one another in a way that pays no attention at all to whom the other guy prays, or doesn't choose to pray. There are few things less relevant to ethical behavior than one's religion, and few things more liable to arouse divisiveness and hatred. That's no condemnation of anybody's faith, merely a literal reading of history. What happened, happened, and the role that our various religions played in the bloody mess of history has been that of major players in the mayhem. When government and religion are intertwined, the results are always the direct opposite of what governments and religions are supposed to be about. This applies not only to events we read about in history books, this is current events. Read the papers.

So lets leave religion a private matter and come up with a set of ethics because it is the right thing to do, and also because it is in every person's best interest. Before we enter school as very small children we know it is wrong to harm another person, wrong to lie or cheat or steal. We know greed is bad and sharing is good. We know it is better to be nice to everyone and have good manners than to be surly and ill-tempered. We have been taught that generosity is better than greed and friendship is better than hostility. We learned that talking out our differences is better than coming to blows, and patience and understanding is better than anger and intolerance. We learned firsthand that love is the very best thing that people can share. We all learned these lessons as children and passed them along to our own children. We just didn't act on these lessons very consistently.

So here's Plan B: Let's all behave like our mothers taught us to behave: Play nice and share. Be good to your brothers and sisters and don't be selfish. Be the best boy or girl you can be and help others to do their best. When someone gets hurt, help them, when someone needs you, don't turn your back. Don't be a pest. If we apply these simple lessons we learned before we could read, this world would be a better place tomorrow. When you think about it, people really don't have to formulate any grand new scheme to live better lives and get along a lot better with others in this world. We just have to listen to our mothers. They had life figured out pretty good. Let's play nice.