Since then I have been searching for answers to those questions. When I became a teenager I realized that virtually all people, at some point in their lives, ask themselves these same questions. These questions bind us together as human beings, but the way we attempt to answer them can divide us. When two religions answer these questions in different ways, it can create conflicts that are not easily resolved.
Every other species on the planet seems to know its purpose and does not need to find a meaning for its existence, but our large brains have made human beings into the most unusual creatures on the planet. We must seek purpose and meaning as other animals search for food and water. When we are unable to find purpose and meaning in the midst of our suffering, the pain can be unbearable.
As a result of our craving for purpose and meaning, human beings seem to be the only organism in the world capable of committing suicide because life feels meaningless. Even more unusual, we seem to be the only organism capable of hating itself and its entire species due to trauma. Psychologist Erich Fromm described human beings as “the freak of the universe,” because our large brains make us aware of our inability to change the laws of nature and our powerlessness to stop the inevitability of death. Fromm explained:
Self-awareness, reason, and imagination have disrupted the “harmony” which characterizes animal existence. Their emergence has made man into an anomaly, into the freak of the universe. He is part of nature, subject to her physical laws [such as the aging process and death] and unable to change them, yet he transcends the rest of nature … Being aware of himself, he realizes his powerlessness and the limitations of his existence. He visualizes his own end: death …
Man is the only animal … that can feel evicted from paradise. Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape.1
When Fromm said human beings are the only animal “that can feel evicted from paradise,” he was referring to the Garden of Eden. In the Bible, the story of the Garden of Eden depicts humanity as an oddball among all other animals. In the story, Adam and Eve eat a piece of fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Consuming the fruit gives them a new awareness that causes them to feel embarrassed about their exposed genitals. Their embarrassment symbolizes a feature of the human condition we just discussed, when we explored how human beings are the only creatures who can feel deeply insecure about a natural aspect of their physical appearance.*
This new and heightened human awareness expands the thinking of Adam and Eve in other ways, resulting in their eviction from the Garden of Eden, which is a paradise where old age, suffering, and death do not exist. Exiled to the harsh and unforgiving wilderness, they must grow old and die against their will.
In addition to the story of the Garden of Eden, countless stories from cultures all over the world depict human beings as oddballs different from other animals, outcasts from nature, or freaks of the universe who suffer because of our heightened human awareness. The San people of Africa (also known as “Bushmen”) are one of the oldest human populations, and they have a story similar to the Garden of Eden. In this story, fire is a metaphor for humanity’s heightened awareness. Religious scholar G. R. Evans explains:
A Kalahari bushmen’s creation story tells how once people and animals lived beneath the surface of the earth with the Lord of Life, Kaang (Käng). This was a golden age, an age of happiness, when there was no quarrelling or warfare and everything was bathed in a light which did not come from the sun. Then Kaang decided to make a more wonderful world above ground.
He created a great tree whose branches stretched out across the whole world. Under its roots he made a passageway down to the place where people and animals were living comfortably together. Then he led the first man up to the surface, followed by the first woman, and then all the people. After that he brought up the animals, who rushed out eagerly, and some of them swarmed up into the branches of the tree.
Kaang gave them all instructions. They were to continue to live together peacefully, people and animals. He gave especially firm instructions to the people not to build fires. If they built fires evil would come. They promised and he left them to their lives, moving away but continuing to watch over them.
In their underground world it had always been mysteriously light, but above ground the sun set and it grew dark. The people were frightened because they could not see what was happening and, lacking the fur the animals wore, the humans felt cold. Someone suggested building a fire to give light and heat, forgetting Kaang’s warning. But the fire frightened the animals, who ran away to live in mountains and caves, and people and animals lost the ability to talk to one another.2
These primordial stories about human vulnerability, along with the large amount of psychological problems in the modern world, show that the primary difference between human beings and other animals is not that we drive cars or go to the moon, but that human beings can perceive themselves as cut off from nature and be deeply troubled by their very existence. In the ancient Greek epic the Iliad, written by Homer nearly three thousand years ago, Zeus says, “There is nothing alive more agonized than man of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.”3
Although our heightened human awareness can cause us to feel like outcasts from nature, which is symbolized by the eviction of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, our heightened human awareness also strengthens us by expanding our ability to think, enabling us to conceive of things that were once inconceivable. The heightened awareness and expanded thinking of our large brains allow us to change aspects of nature to a degree that exceeds the ability of any other species. This gave our nomadic ancestors a powerful survival advantage.
For example, we can change animal skins into warm clothes that protect our bodies during winter. We can change raw meat into cooked food through the use of fire. We can change sticks and stones into a wide variety of tools. We can change wild wolves into loyal and loving dogs. We can change wild plants into cultivated crops. We can use irrigation to change dry land into moist soil. We can combine copper and tin, changing them into bronze. We can combine iron and carbon, changing them into steel. We can change the ink that flows from a pen into words, sentences, and ideas. We can create ideas that change the world.
But despite all our brilliance, we are unable to change basic laws of nature such as the irreversible flow of time and the inevitability of death. We can change wrinkles into smooth skin through plastic surgery, but it is only an illusion. We cannot truly change time and death, which gradually consume all that is alive. Worst of all, we are aware of our powerlessness to change the laws of nature. Although we can use weapons to stop lions and hyenas from killing our family, we are aware of our inability to stop time and death from eventually killing us and everyone we love. Indeed, our incredible capacity for self-awareness is a blessing, but it is also a curse.
Our powerlessness to change the laws of nature, despite our vast intelligence that allows us to change so many aspects of nature, makes us fragile and vulnerable as a species. Like a tragic Greek hero filled with hubris, we may believe we have total mastery over nature, but Thor reminds us of the truth. In Nordic mythology there is a story about Thor, the mighty god of thunder, participating in an odd wrestling match.
When Thor visited a royal palace in the land of the giants, the king challenged him to wrestle an