10 profound questions that make you think.

I’m a member of a website called Webanswers which is a Question and Answer website. There are a lot of normal questions like “Where can I buy green cabbages?” or “How do I cook Irish Stew?” but occasionally there are some profound questions that really make you think.

I must admit that I love to try and get my mind around these type of questions, and it's fun and interesting to see the different answers and the debates they cause.

Here are the ten questions that make me think the most – note I have provided a link to a couple of them so you can see the quality and variety of answers:

 

What is the meaning of life?  

This is one of the most profound questions you can ask anyone and the multitude and diversity of answers is often amazing. You of course get a lot of people answer 42, thanks to Douglas Adams and his amazing Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, but quite often you’ll come across some very personal and insightful answers. It’s amazing how many simply see the meaning of life as a way of furthering humanity, and generally being able to pass on teachings. My own personal answer: for me the meaning of life is one of expanded the knowledge and spirituality of humanity. This isn’t necessarily religious, but is more about understanding humanities place in society and becoming comfortable with that place – it’s a journey that will continue for millennia.

If you made a bucket list, what would be on top of the list?

A bucket list is a list of things that you want to do before you die – these can be amazing things like ‘Visit the Moon’ or simple things like ‘find a wife’. It’s amazing what different people add to a bucket list. I recently wrote my own – at the time my daughter was pregnant so top of my list was ‘Have a healthy grandchild’ – luckily for me, my top bucket list worked out the way I wanted!

If you could meet any person (dead or alive) who would it be?

I love history and over time there have been some amazing characters. It’s amazing to see what people answer for this question; some list a pop star, some a philosopher, some a writer. Some are more profound and list a grandparent they never met. For me I’d really love to meet Einstein!

Do you believe in the death penalty?

I asked this question on Webanswers; it was inspired by a callous execution style shooting of a policeman in Lakehurst NJ recently. The incident sparked such anger, and amazingly the perpetrator was found thanks to a campaign on Facebook. It made me think if the perpetrator deserved to live; personally, as I thought about it, even though it was a heinous crime, I wholly believe that I do not have the right to decide that someone should die, he should be punished and probably should never leave jail, but dying is too much for me to choose.

Is there any real proof (other than faith) that God exists?

It’s amazing how much debate God creates, and if he exists I’m assuming he has a sense of humor because he has left such doubt about his existence! The problem for a lot of people is that they cannot simply have ‘faith’ and must see some positive proof. Personally I am agnostic – some call it the cowards way out – but until I see conclusive proof that God exists I will sit on the fence – I do not doubt that he could exist…

Do you believe in fate?

Is every action of ours pre-determined, or do we truly have free will in everything we do? On one hand you can argue that everything that happens, happens because of some sort of chemical or atomic reaction and therefore everything can be predicted, however there are ‘random’ events that we cannot (yet) predict. Personally, I believe that some acts are fated – there are things that happen that are just so ‘lucky’ that there has to be fate involved somehow!

Would you kill one person if you knew it would save millions?

I remember my history teacher asking the class what the world would have been like if Hitler had died young. Most in the class thought things would be better, but a couple of argued that potentially we may not have learned the hard lessons that we did if the holocaust hadn’t happened, and it was possible that things could be worse. We went on to discuss whether we would then go on to kill Hitler if we had the chance, knowing that he was going to massacre Jews. After thinking long and hard I decided I would not kill Hitler (or anyone) even though I knew it may save millions. Without knowing the full consequences of my actions I could not justify murdering one person.

Why is suicide a sin?

This always inspires a lot of religious commentary about how life is sacred and how only God can choose when and where you die. I always counter this by saying that God has given us free will and therefore it shouldn’t be a sin. Personally I don’t believe it to be a sin; I think it is a horrible act and much must be done to help the people who are suicidal, but the actual act is one of desperation not of sin.

Is there life after death?

For some reason humans don’t like to think that they simply ‘end’ when they die; many believe in re-incarnation, and others believe they will ascend to heaven. As an agnostic, I find it hard to justify any of these and while I do believe in the soul, I simply can’t see any logical reason why there should be life after death – I hope so of course!

Of course there’s one profound question that pops up more than any other – believe it or not, one of the most visited and answered questions is:

What is Justin Bieber’s Phone Number?

So why do I list this in my 10 profound questions. Well the question itself isn’t profound, it’s the underlying message that really is. So perhaps the profound question should be ‘Why do we put celebrities on a pedestal’ – for me they are just like us – they eat, sleep, poop and do everything else we do, so why do many people feel the need to touch or be with a famous person, what in the human psyche makes us think they are better than us?