Man's Spiritual Need
So man spends life constantly trying to satisfy a variety of needs that he has inherited. Life lasts less than 100 years. Accumulated wealth helps satisfy needs and is of no further use after death. Is that all there is? Is the secular world the result of a cosmic accident that has created this situation for mankind? Did man's genes that carry these needs come out of a random accident? Is the reason that man is the most successful and dominant species on this planet simply that his drives to satisfy needs make him so powerful? Is death just a tool of nature to bring forward new generations of humans that can survive and thrive better than the previous generations? Is the survival of the homo sapiens species the only real scientific purpose of each man's life? Since the earliest time, there is evidence that man has been curious about whether the secular world is really just random or if there is some kind of order. Is there a Creator? If so, has the Creator ever communicated with man? Is there something this Creator or God wants from us? Despite the tremendous growth of scientific knowledge, there are no scientific answers to these questions. Man has shown willingness to consider what is beyond scientific knowledge, that is, the supernatural, in order to find answers.
Man has one more kind of need, called a spiritual need (or self-transcendental need), which is satisfied only with believing in the supernatural. Some people do not have this need at all (such as atheists), but the majority do, evidenced by the history of man's spiritual beliefs. The three great Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilizations, spanning thousands of years, all had organized, ritualized worship of multiple idols and gods representing nature's forces and important activities in secular life. As mighty as these civilizations were in their time, they no longer exist, nor do their spiritual belief systems. Rather, there are five major organized religions today: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddism. The first three are related in that they believe there is one God who has revealed himself to them historically. The last two do not believe in one god nor in any historical evidence that God has directly communicated with man. Judaism existed at the time of the three great civilizations but had only a small group of followers. It is called Abrahamic because the person of Abraham played a key role in the development of the faith. Christianity and Islam are also Abrahamic. All of the stories about the revelations of God in the Jewish Bible, including Abraham, are the same as those in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The New Testament of the Christian Bible chronologically follows the Old Testament with the telling of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The Islamic Quran rewrites the stories in the Old Testament, recognizes the existence of Jesus as a prophet but not as the Son of God, and focuses on the life and teachings of Mohammed as the most recent prophet. Let's see how Christianity developed.
