Questioning is not a sickness, it is a symptom of the sickness, and part of the cure. When someone develops a common illness such as the flu, it is common to have a fever. The fever itself is not the illness, rather it indicates that the body is malfunctioning, and tries to combat the sickness by raising the temperature. To question what one has never before questioned, is to become aware of a flaw. Questioning reveals the flaw in its entirety and allows for a proper solution to be administered. During Kierkegaard’s transitions, the aesthetic begins to question his lifestyle because he no longer derives any pleasure from it. Through the process of systematic question the aesthetic reasons that his lack of pleasure stems from his lack of ethics, and so become an ethical person. Symptoms to not arise without an underlying cause, similarly healthy men do not question what does not exist.

Although life had purpose; Darwinian evolution, it has neither meaning nor value. While these terms are used as substitutes for each other in everyday speech, they are entirely different. Purpose is defined by the North American Encarta Dictionary as “the reason for which something exists or for which it has been done or made”. Meaning as “what a word, sign, or symbol means or what somebody intends to express, either in words or action”. And value as “the worth, importance, or usefulness of something to somebody”. Life has purpose regardless of how it originated and developed. If life arose through natural processes, its purpose as it has been revealed through history is to sustain itself through regeneration. If life was created by a god or gods, one can only assume that it or they are subject to the laws of causality, and therefore created life for a reason, a purpose. If it or they are beyond the laws or the universe, it or they created life for no reason in an act of randomness meaning life has no meaning, value or purpose. Purpose, value, and meaning are not the same word, and do not have the same definition. The very existence of life gives it purpose and nothing else.

Value, as defined previously, cannot be ascribed to life since it is exhaustible, non-transferable. Value exists only in things that are permanent, and if temporary it can be exchanged for something of equal or greater value. Diamonds are forever; their permanence renders them their value since they can be transported through time and space without diminishing. Individual lives are born, grow, shrink, and then die. It can not sustain itself without damage as it moves through space and time. Oil renders its value from the energy released when it is consumed. When life is consumed, it ceases to exist. All value exists because of a valuer who attributes value to an object. Value does not exist independently of those who value it. Although the consumption of life can be of value to one man, the consumption of his own life is without value to him. Though there is value in life, the value of life does not exist. The living person assigns value to many objects, actions, and situations. These things are only valuable within the lifespan of a valuer. A life in its entirety has no value to the valuer (assuming that the valuer and the possessor of the life in question are one and the same). It is neither everlasting, nor can it be exchanged for something else since it would rob the valuer of his life. If the valuer has no life, there is no one to assign the object in question value. Therefore life is lacking in value. Consequently questioning the value of life is like questioning a ghost: insane.

Life is devoid of meaning, “the meaning of life” is a mere nonsensical string of words. Meaning exists in those things that have a message to convey. Since life is a result of natural processes, there is no one trying to communicate, depriving life of meaning. If it is a result of a god(s): life could have any one of an infinite number of meanings. Trying to decipher that meaning would be like a pixel trying to imagine the image to which it belongs. Furthermore, by nature, every message is bound to be interpreted differently by every observer and every perspective. In addition, living is a passive act where a person lives in reaction to his environment. Actions have no objective meaning, only purposes. The meaning of an action, even an active action is completely relative. By nature, every message is bound to be interpreted differently by every observer and every perspective. As a result, the meaning of life, or anything is entirely subjective. For these reasons questioning the meaning of life is questioning something which either does not exist or is relative, which it clearly irrational.

Notwithstanding the non-existence or relativity of the meaning and value of life, questioning it is still cause for concern. When an object is working properly, that is, fulfilling its purpose without flaw, it is not self aware. Consciousness becomes aware of itself by questioning the ideas it operates on. According to Alan Watts “when the eye is fulfilling its purpose, it is not aware of itself, it does not see itself. When the eye sees itself, it is faulty; it has developed cataracts or glaucoma. When the ear hears itself, [the] ringing, it is defective.”1 Similarly the mind becomes aware of its operations when they are not being carried out properly. “When someone thinks, the stream of thought flows”2, but “when you begins to think about thinking, it gets in the way [of thinking]”3. One only begins to think about thinking if the stream of thought is not fulfilling its purpose, Watts calls this a “blocking mechanism”4. When a man is healthy, he lives without noticing. But when he begins to question, “[he] gets in the way of living”5 since the questions block the normal flow of life. When a lifestyle works, its possessor has not reason to question. Most people’s lifestyles and worldviews are based on a philosophy which incorporates some sort of meaning and value to life. These theories of life allow them to achieve their goals and dreams without difficulty. One only begins to question it if it ceases to work. One will only begin to question the value and meaning of life his existing notions of value and meaning no longer fit his desires. When one is no longer fulfilling his desires, he is no longer pleased, and in turn becomes depressed. Depression is a real sickness.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5- Watts, Alan. The Meaningless Life. The Alan Watts Audio Archives. Out of your mind-Disc 6- The inevitable ecstasy- aaaaaaaaaaaaPart2. California; 197X.

A sickness is the abnormal operation of a normal function. Normally, humans do not question the basic ideals on which they operate. Questioning although not a sickness, is a symptom of one, especially when nonexistent things are being questioned. Through the process of thought the thinker becomes aware of all that has been said above and stops questioning.

God as a being or an idea permeates every facet of human life. Most contemporary religions,namely Catholicism, insist that although god is omnipotent he does not intervene in the processes of the world, allowing for freewill. But god does not need to descend unto the mortal world to sway the masses. Just as the belief of Nazi nuclear weapons prompted the American government to produce actual an actual hydrogen bomb, the belief in a god (perhaps fear of such a being)is the reason many people do many things. Like pop culture icons of today, the Christian god and his all time best seller has been the fuel for an entire multi-billion industry [for centuries]. The rich, poor, and the marginally insane all benefit by catering to the faithful legions. Hollywood churns out a ceaseless series of biblical“reenactments”. All of them are instant box office hits that fatten the already obese wallets of the wealthy. In the troubled corners of the world millions of statuettes are fashioned from mud then painted by feeble hands in the likeness of a virgin mother and her son. They are then sold off to tourists by many poor laborers of the third-world. This feeds their hungry mouths and those of their malnourished offspring. Some people just sell grilled cheese Jesus sandwiches for $ 28 000 on eBay, to help other people feel like they are in touch with the eternal one. More importantly, this thing called god severs a much nobler purpose in the hearts and minds of the human animals. Besides being a money generator, god embodies the ideologies of much of the present day world. While secularism has experienced steady growth since the age of enlightenment,Abrahamic god (the god of the three Abrahamic religions: Christianity, Islam,& Judaism) and his divine comrades are still the ideological kings of the hill. The age of enlightenment was a period in the 18th century that accompanied the scientific revolution. It was characterized by the intellectual movement that advocated encouraged reason rather than blind faith. Philosophers such as Nietzsche felt that the relatively new scientific method explained natural phenomena without supernatural intervention, thereby denying the need for a god. Due to the success of the sciences and the increasing secularism in the west during the following centuries, Christianity saw a steady decline in followers and believers. The age of enlightenment was a purely western phenomenon, but post WWII globalization has aided in exporting atheism to the eastern world. As a result, the eastern religions have suffered the same fate among the “y-generation” as it did among the “x-generation” of the west. Nonetheless the devoted masses still outnumber the secular. The various sects of the three largest religions [by membership: Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism] all have followers numbering in the hundreds of millions. Combined, they constitute a clear majority of the world demographic. In all three of these religions the image of a god is used as a vessel to suspend and contain such illusive and arbitrary things as morality and ethics. Usually they are crystallized into a creed and called the ‘will of god’. Whereas the Hindus have a separate god for everything, Christians have a single god with multiple personality disorder. The Abrahamic god changes his attitudes and principles as the biblical time line progresses. Some changes are slight and gradual while others are abrupt and dramatic as is the change from the bloodthirsty god of the Old Testament to the forgiving god of the New Testament. The bible is full of contradicting personas, all of them belonging to the same god. Furthermore, Catholics have assumed god to be a triune. If this god were a human, he would surely be diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. Consequently this erratic temperament is reflected his believers. The sheer number of sects and factions that consider themselves Christian is dizzying. Most of them claim themselves to be the‘true’ Christian brand while renouncing the validity of all the others. Each of them is centered on a certain biblical time period or a particular persona of the same god. Consider for example the difference between various orthodox and evangelical sects of Christianity. Evangelicals found their belief in a fusion of the Old Testament god and the pre-crucifixion Jesus whereas orthodox Christians establish theirs on resurrected Jesus and the inspired teaching of apostles. All these factors are a product of the same idea; god. Only an exceptionally extraordinary concept can have an impact as great mentioned.