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Essays on importance of life
Importance of life
Importance of life
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Aristotle once quoted “the ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.” The subject of life and its value sparks much controversy and many base their beliefs regarding this issue on personal opinion. In the book, Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis, three characters land on an extraterrestrial planet, Malacandra, to find its population consists of rational human-like beings that still resemble familiar animal life on Earth. While on this planet, Devine, Weston, and Ransom all show how they value life.
Devine, a previous school acquaintance of Ransom, only thinks of man’s value in relation to how much he could get benefit from it. In a conversation with Weston about using Ransom as a sacrifice, he explains why the situation ended up absolutely is perfect. Unscrupulous about life of others, he feels as a man simply serves as a tool. Since his ultimate goal consists of getting gold from the planet, he looks at everything through a mind consumed with greed. With this clouding his vision, he thinks of his life above all...
live in the wilderness can recognize the central truth of existence, which is that death lives right beside us at all times, as close and as relevant as life itself, and that this reali...
... Ransom ties all of his experiences on Malacandra together and learns that trivial aspects of life should not be feared (153). Instead of fearing life and death, mankind should fear ignorance and inequality (imbalance). Through this mere statement, Ransom proved his understanding that through the use of morality, a greater understanding of life (especially fear) may be attained.
When Ransom first arrived on Malacandra, he encountered one of the Hross, who he thought were dangerous creatures. Having had the mental depiction of an evil sorn created by Devine and Weston embedded in his mind, Ransom feared the mythical beings. Instead of trying to flee or attack the Hross, he did his best to understand the language of the Malachandrians and ended up befriending them. It took all of Ransom’s courage to approach Oyarsa, the wise king of Malacandra. It took even more virtue to admit that he was scared of the superior being and to be honest about his situation. Through his journey in the silent planet, Ransom learned to be virtuous and along the way, made some friends because of it.
reader may believe that life is the greatest value to man, and to place anything
There are two ways to see life, “the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death” or “the existence of an individual human being or animal”. These definitions give the coldest and most cynical view of life, but overlook the emotions of human life. The drive and need that pumps through human blood. The seven deadly sins that taunt the human mind to do as it pleases not as it should. Flannery O’Connor, the author of “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, knew the idea of human life beyond just existing. Three of her characters; Tom Shiftlet, Mrs. Lucynell Crater, and the daughter also named Lucynell Crater, show the true meaning of human life.
Only a few variations of carbon molecules truly separate organisms from objects. Yet this seemingly straightforward science ignores why humans, in all of their complexity, stem from just random happenstance, revealing that the science of life does not necessarily expose its meaning. For that answer, famed Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau look within the self, rather than a laboratory. In his Self-Reliance essay, Emerson hypothesizes the meaning to be in independence; whereas, Thoreau, from his venture in the woods in Walden, theorizes it to be in simplicity. Writing Civil Disobedience later on, Thoreau would require that simple life be free of an intrusive government. But these discrepancies in detail should not mask the men’s fundamental advice: merely following intuition can achieve a meaningful existence.
In “Thanatopsis, ” Bryant influences the reader to accept death as all living things’ fate. Bryant explains death by nature’s laws and the fact that nature’s creatures must abide by these laws. In lines 26-28, Bryant explains how an individual must abide by these laws and surrender to the earth that nourished the living. “To be a brother to the insensible rock and to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain turns with his share, and treads upon.” (Bryant; 26/28). Through one’s fear of consciousness of time in our lives, Bryant tries to give the reader advice that one must truly accept their life and it’s mortality.
Though the idea of nature holding life’s answers isn’t a concept that hasn’t been previously discovered and developed by other intellectuals, Dillard builds this tangible connectivity and trust with the readers through her narrative, story-telling voice. The readers never feels as though he or she is distanced from Dillard, but more-so, she forms her personal experiences in a way tha...
Boss, Judith A. Ethics for Life: A Text with Readings. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 2001. Print.
Evil exists in every place imaginable; pain, suffering and wrong doings exist in every walk of life throughout history. As more evil is endured, human nature is to search for a way to eradicate the suffering but if that's not a possibility people look for a good essence to counteract the evil that is inevitable in life. The many religions that are spread throughout the globe show this, that human nature is to look to a higher power for explanations and help through tough times. Since religion is such a huge portion of conflict and peace for many people, it is often the object of many literary works throughout history. Out of a Silent Planet by C.S Lewis is one of those books. Although this book does not have an outwardly religious theme, it
She maintains that when we continue our space explorations we must keep the ethics of what we do to the Universe in mind or else we may destroy it, but the idea shouldn’t be what can we do to ruin space but rather what can we do to make it meaningful to us. When we reach the point of colonizing new planets, I think it is imperative to decide how we will use our resources to be productive, while conscious of our effect on the environment we choose to make our new home. We cannot as a society move forward into the exploration of space if we are too hesitant to disturb the undiscovered or possibly, but unlikely, nonexistent forms of life on other cosmic bodies, as demonstrated in Richard Greenberg’s fear of “Infecting Other Worlds” (Source F). Instead humans and the invasive species we are responsible for must learn to adjust and be accountable if a nonthreatening life form is discovered in our
My life’s path would have taken a drastically different course without the early, and continuing, influence of Leonard Peltier’s life and words. This article would not have challenged me to try and present a clear example of the problems that are shared by all of the inhabitants of Earth. These problems are inter-representational. They are all symptoms of the same sickness, poverty. The lack of resources whether monetary, for legal “defense”, or political, through not having a “voice”, the imbalance is shared across all nature.
Reflection on our nature as human beings and our place in the cosmos has a long tradition in philosophy throughout the world and has surely been a central concern in the history of Western philosophy.
This notion can be based upon the ideal that if we, as humanity are not benefitting from the relationship with the natural world, it is not as important as human life. Some may argue that compassion does not essentially suggest that one has to be concerned about the state of things within the same species. Thus, would it be ethical to care more for a plant than a fellow human being? By arguing that humanity is not interconnected with the natural world would validate the view of irrelevance of things other than human life. Being as though some people may not feel a connection to their surroundings, others may contend that by caring for the Earth we are wasting energy and resources that can be used to help sustain our human communities. With the rate of population growing exponentially and consumption continuously rising, one should ask what resources we will be able to use once the Earth’s resources are depleted. Eventually, our human population will plateau, since there will be not adequate resources to sustain its growth. There is an explicit correlation between humans and non-humans. Furthermore, this fact proves my argument, although one should not preserve nature only for human
The first principle states that the value of life, human or non-human, is intrinsic. This means that everything about it is valuable, including individuals, species, populations, habitat, and culture. When considering non-human life, it important to remember that deep ecology likes to include that which can be classified as non-living such as bodies of water and landscapes. Essentially, "the presence of inherent value in a natural object is independent of any awareness, interest, or appreciation of it by a conscious being." (EE p.147)