What if... In a Rental Car

About the Book

What is life all about? Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? To answer these questions, a search for the meaning of life is essential. How does one perform such a search which must be objective to be meaningful? This guide takes the reader on an imaginary auto trip in search of the answers, urging participation with questions and opinions to individualize the answers.

Defining the meaning of life is the problem to be solved for peace of mind. A method based on engineering principles is used to solve this philosophical problem. The "what if" method analyzes the pros and the cons of the existence of the soul, a hereafter, God and the divinity of Christ to evaluate the consequences of acceptance or denial on one's approach to life. Flow diagrams are used to clarify this dualism. An analogy of the use of a rental car is especially significant in clarifying the relationship of the soul to the human body, and the reason why behavior in human relations is the only allowable discrimination.

Science and the modern culture are reluctant to admit and deal with the spiritual universe, thereby denying its existence. The search for the meaning of life includes the spiritual issues by integrating them into the physical existence of the universe and the human being. A concept of the Big Picture with original views completes the trip. It proposes how the spiritual and physical forces cooperated in the evolution of the universe from before the Big Bang. This unified and logically compatible approach solves some of the controversial issues about how we became what we are.

For more information please go to: www.bonkbooks.com

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About the Author

Cas Bonk is a retired aerospace engineer. He received his degree in Aeronautical Engineering at the Catholic University, Washington, D.C. where he took courses in Philosophy. As a preliminary design engineer at General Dynamics, he was involved in many proposals for advanced contracts to which he contributed by writing and editing. His current interests are writing, reading books on philosophy, science and current social trends; and trading in the stock market for which he uses computerized analysis. In sports, he was a rated fencer and competed in national meets into his seventies. He lives with his wife of fifty-four years, Emily.

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Excerpt

Introduction

In all things, there's a beginning, a middle, and an end.

There is cause, action and result.

Who am I?

Why am I here?

Where am I going?

These are the vital questions that must be answered to achieve enduring happiness. They are the stepping stones to finding the meaning of life, which must be addressed before that happiness can be ensured. Without a map, the trip of life in the modern materialistic world is a continuous struggle to stay on the right road with the conviction that the destination is known and achievable. But knowing the destination amid the babble of advice spewed by the modern culture is not easy. We seek reality through scientific explanation but science refuses to address the complete scenario of universal reality. Our reliance on science, therefore, is limited to the definition of the physical universe, leaving us to develop our own understanding of the how and why of the total universe, the combined reality of the spiritual with the physical.

Searching for these answers is the subject of this book. The answers will have different meanings for the post-1950 counterculture questioners than for those of the pre-1950 traditional conservatism. I have lived in both periods so I know the cultural differences. I have witnessed the deliberate attempt by the materialists to destroy the traditional culture, which includes the spiritual side of man's existence. This battle for the human mind has created confusion in what life is all about. This has left the younger generations without knowledge of, or experience in, traditional values and how these values sustained order in earlier societies. Regardless of the differing attitudes in this search for truth, objective answers should point to those basic values that affect all human behavior, for truth has only one set of answers. Every human being wants to find happiness. This desire is so basic to human nature that it was included in the American Declaration of Independence as one of the three inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But what is this happiness that is desired and can be pursued? It varies with the individual. For some it is a comfortable life without suffering and poverty. For others it is the accumulation of worldly goods or the acclaim of achievement. Some seek only pleasure, while others pursue a dedicated vocation. In all of these, which are attainable in a lifetime, what is it that creates happiness? It is the possession of the desired object. Is there another type of happiness? Yes, for those who believe in an afterlife, it is the certainty of possessing an eternal happiness after all the others have ceased to exist. The others are the possessions of earthly desires, which are the goals in life. But achieving eternal happiness is the only important goal of life, for if there is an afterlife and that goal is not met, all of life's efforts were meaningless. Can it be that a subconscious yearning in each human being for that ultimate happiness explains why any earthly happiness always seems incomplete? If so, we must search for the answers that will lead us to that complete happiness. How is one to go about assuring that both goals are compatible and mutually reinforcing? It is through a search for the meaning of life. Life has a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is no choice in being born, nor about dying (except by suicide). But the middle is controlled by the human intellect and free will, which shape life's precarious journey to an undefined destination. The search for meaning consists of finding the answers to the three questions above. Objective answers will reveal the road of life that leads to both types of goals.

The mind of man has three thirsts concerning life's mysteries: to understand his own being, to identify reality, and to relate earthly life to an eternal life, if it exists. Only by combining philosophy with logic and faith can this be done: philosophy to ponder the questions, logic to test the soundness of the philosophy, and faith when the former two fail.

To deal with these thirsts, I propose an imaginary trip, in which we make stops to gather information and to contemplate the effects of that information on our developing search. Throughout this search I use the analogy of an auto trip culminating in a unique analogy of a rental car as the human vehicle on the road of life.

The reasons for undertaking such a search can vary. For some it may be a genuine desire to understand their relationship to the rest of the universe. For others, it may be a search for values by which they can mold their lives. But for some it may be merely a quest for information, with no intention of letting that information affect their lives. For those in the first category, the main purpose is identification of "self," the initiator of activity, and motivation for reaching life's goals. (Although the term self is the same as ego in the Webster dictionary, the use of self is intended to imply identity rather than any psychological connotations.) For the second category, finding what is important to develop an edified mode of living is closely related to the first reason in that it sets up a basis for evaluating what is important in life. The last category may find many conflicts between the evolving self and contemporary culture, a culture that impedes an objective analysis of the mystery of life by its demands for liberation from traditional practices and morality based on natural law.

If searching for the purpose of life is important to you and: you don't know what the goal of life is, you don't know how to find it and where it will lead, you don't know "where" is, and you're confused by the inconsistencies of the modern culture, then you need help.

This book will guide you in the search for the answers that can bring peace of mind and happiness through knowing the basic issues that are important in life and their consequences. Acknowledging a need for such answers is necessary for conducting an objective and meaningful search.

The search is not restricted to or modeled for any specific age group. It is for all ages. For the young, it can be the beginning of awareness that life has meaning other than mere existence. Immersed in a culture that has lost the intrinsic traditional values, this age group will have the most difficulty in shedding biases. For the middle-aged, the search may be instrumental in reevaluating the priorities of what they are doing in finding the meaning of life. For the elderly, it is time to take stock of where they have been and what they have done with respect to helping others avoid the mistakes they made. I'm in this last category, and this is my chance to pass on my experience of having found life's meaning.

My hope is that this book will get you to think about those three important questions. It is not a book on religion, although, it does invade the realm of spiritual and metaphysical subjects. Religion is the worship of someone or something. The search is an attempt at understanding, not worshiping, reali