Soul Purpose
Posted: August 7th, 2009 | Author: LumDimSum | Filed under: A Day In My Life, Food For Thought, Personal | Tags: Alan Wong, Benoit Thebaut, Bling, David Kim, Hatsune, Hotel G, Scarlett | 9 Comments »Two days ago, I had a surprisingly deep and meaningful conversation with Riviera founder and PR socialite, Benoit Thebaut. He was staying at Hotel G while I happened to also be organizing a ladies wine dinner in Scarlett.
Our conversation took an unexpected turn from small chit-chat to an immersed and evocative dialogue of our lives and having a greater purpose. I came to learn a different side of Ben. Someone who’s constantly in the limelight, organizing the infamous Shanghai & Beijing pool parties along with other top fashion, media events, I was pleasantly surprised to hear him discuss his burning pursuit to make a difference in the world, to uncover his life’s purpose.
And this got me thinking – beyond Hatsune, beyond Bling, beyond PR, what is my ultimate goal? How will I make my mark on the world?
And today is when it hit me. Hard.
Today, I had an intense discussion about life, but this time, in terms of religion.
Let me paint you a picture of Michelle. Michelle is one of Alan’s 3 summer interns, working in Beijing for two months from UNC, to learn from Alan’s restaurant business. She’s incredibly friendly, bubbly, beautiful, eloquent, easy to talk to, easy to befriend. She’s someone I could meet for ten minutes and immediately feel like I can relate to her on so many levels in so many ways.
Before our business lecture, Michelle was describing her previous abroad program to North Africa where she was taught survival tips and explored remote villages and stayed with a host family. Inquiring more into this program as it sounded like an incredible learning experience, she explained that it was a 3 month program provided to Christian college students interested in living abroad and learning about 2nd and 3rd world countries from first-hand experience.
And before I knew it, I found myself engrossed in the deepest discussion with her about her beliefs, her devotion to Christianity, and my non-existent beliefs…in pretty much everything.
I’d like to consider myself as a positive, happy person with strong morals and a strong sense of what is right and wrong. I hold sound values and standards for myself that have been instilled in me for as long as I can remember. And these principles are not unwavering, I have learned the value of context through experiences. But overall, the standards I hold for myself are solid and none of these standards reflect God. I am who I am regardless of beliefs and religion, or in my case, lack of beliefs. I try to be happy, positive and loving because I believe it’s infectious and it makes me happy to see others smile.
I am Atheist. There, I said it. I used to say I was agnostic because I thought it sounded less cynical. I thought it was better to say that you don’t know what you believe in than to admit that you don’t believe in anything at all. But as much as I like the idea of guardian angels, an all-mighty God looking over me, heaven & hell or reincarnation, or some sort of after-life, I don’t. I don’t believe in miracles, I don’t believe in fate. I imagine these are all creations of very convincing individuals who gave people something to believe in for those needing to believe.
I believe in evolution. I believe in science. I believe that we have developed from molecules and will continue to evolve and change slowly over time. I believe in coincidences, I believe in chance. And after life? I’m not sure. No one knows, even if they think they do. I guess when I die, I’ll find out, but I highly doubt either a heaven or hell will await me. Like everything else in life, you never know what to expect next. You can wish, you can anticipate and you can guess all you want, but nothing ever turns out the way you want or expect it to for that matter.
Above all else, I believe in honesty, loyalty, and the goodness in people.
But as an atheist, Michelle also made me question my purpose in life. Why am I here? What do I aspire to accomplish? Why do I think any of us here?
I’d like to think I could make a positive impact on the world, I don’t know what difference I would make, and to be honest, I think it would be rather ambitious of myself to think that I even could.
Maybe that’s the wrong attitude. Is it wrong that I don’t know? Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in life’s daily, menial takes of e-mails, meetings, dinner dates, and parties, I forget to see the bigger picture.
Even now, I see myself pursuing my life and career in China for at least the next 5 years. I hope to someday start my own business. But beyond that? It’s a pretty blank slate that I hope I’ll figure it out in due time.
Puzzled that I didn’t have a more lucid answer to such a direct question, I return the question back to her.
Her reply:
“I believe that I am here on Earth to glorify God and God can only be fully glorified in us when we are fully satisfied in God.
I believe that God is the most wonderful, gracious, holy thing in the world and I want my life to emulate him. I want to use my skills and passion to glorify this great thing that I believe in with all my heart. When I do this, I find satisfation in the thing I glorify.
In the midst of suffering and grief and sorrow, I believe that you can find the glory for God and a greater hope.
I want to be more than what I am. I want to be better, and I know it’s a sin to want to receive more recognition, but I am never satisfied if I try to glorify myself – it only leaves me thirsty for something more. But when I glorify God, who is ultimately beautiful and wonderful, I am satisfied as I believe he is the only one worthy of that glory that I give him.”
It’s fascinating to think that I can relate so closely to someone to discover that we differ so much in our core beliefs and life philosophy. It does not change our relationship, but it definitely gives our relationship a new light to reflect upon.
And in terms of our existence, our sole purpose in life, are we so different?
For now, I am doing PR for Hatsune and other restaurants and clubs in town, while Michelle does PR for God.
A whole other scale.
As Michelle so eloquently phrased it:
“Hatsune is more than a restaurant, it’s more than a company and it’s more than Alan Wong, its an empire, it’s a philosophy, its wonderful …but it’s not ultimate. God is the only ultimate and the only one worthy of our praise, admiration, and glory. And the glory displayed through our lives ultimately is all just a small reflection of him.”
After leaving Michelle and hearing her parting words, I have a new-found respect for her and her devotion to God. I may not fully understand it or agree with it, but I admire her passion in her beliefs and her love for God.
And her words stuck with me. For the rest of the day, I found myself thinking about the things she said and her beliefs that I found myself full of curiosity. I had so many unanswered questions.
One thing I did not know before and could not understand was that Christians like Michelle believe that only those who truly believe and follow God with all their heart can be saved by God. So those of us who are not religious (myself included) and those who believe in other religions have no hope of salvation?
I may not believe in afterlife, but if I did and if there was a heaven and hell, I’d like to think I’d pass with flying colors on Judgment Day. It bothered me to think that according to her beliefs, none of the good that I could do would ever make any difference ultimately in my fate. As an Atheist, I could spend the rest of my life doing good, being righteous, spreading love and kindness, and I’d still be screwed come Judgment Day.
So I inquire with another devout Christian, my dear PR partner, David Kim, about his beliefs and his views of Christianity.
David’s belief in Christianity is one clear message:
“I believe in love. Love conquers all. Just Love.”
Similar to how Michelle described her love for God, David tried to explain the love he feels and shares with others.
“You need to understand this love. To practice love the way I do, I needed to first understand it. Through fucking up, in the darkest times, I saw light.
As a child, love to me was just an idea and at one point I even cursed love, I cursed my life, and I cursed God for letting bad things happen to me. You only understand through comparison. You must first see the ugly before you discover beauty. For me, it was through the hardest of times when I first saw a glimmer of light through all the ugliness and once I noticed it, I held onto that glimmer and through different experiences, it has led me to my religion. With anything in life, if you never try it, you never know. I believe in sharing love with humanity and celebrating life, and that is evidence of God’s love in me.
I am blessed and I never take it for granted. Some may call it an acquired skill, but I see opportunities and blessings that often come in a disguise. I consider myself pretty devout to Christianity. No one can shake me of my beliefs and it’s because of that, it makes me an open person and that allows me to love you, regardless of your background and religion. My faith is a lens I never knew before, it’s a view I hold. The world could crumble around me and I would still be at peace.”
His thoughts on fate and afterlife?
“I live today. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Yesterday is done. A profound quote once said by King Solomon: ‘What I am today is not who I was yesterday.’
Because of the love I feel and experience, because I know where I am going (heaven), I can focus on today. Because of that, I can feel happy that I made someone smile today. And isn’t doing that good today, worth more than anything?
We are all human. We can’t do everything ourselves. We must rely on one another.”
His purpose in life?
“It’s not about spreading Christianity. Word should be the last resort of evangelism. My life should reflect my beliefs.”
And what about me? You talk about love, and because of this love you say you are secure in your ticket to salvation. What is the difference between the love you feel and my love? I may not have found love through hard times, but I believe the love I share is genuine and generous. Is the love I feel and share different or less than your love because my love is without God?
“You already have God, whether you want him to be with you or not, he is already with you. I don’t worry about you because you already are saved.”
Greatings, lumdimsum.com to GoogleReader!
Have a nice day
Wow lots of thoughtful words! As long as they don’t try to sell their convictions at all costs, it’s always interesting to have a talk with people so different was it in term of religions, political views, or simply beliefs… May makes life deeper than it seems!
Great post Kristin, but I ask, what was your conclusions about your purpose? Did you find that what you are doing is not fulfilling in someway? I have reached some similar conclusions in my time here, as we have at times done similar jobs, PR socialite (I like that term by the way). I have wrestled with the idea that i need to devote my life to humanitarian pursuits, or political ones, or whatever. But I have not made any big moves, yet.
I have found that my struggles to believe in anything (religiously or otherwise) have led to a point of agnosticism, I guess, whereby I cannot commit to believing or not believing in anything. I have even had a hard timing believing in people, which is painful. I was raised a religion that doesn’t believe in proselytizing, so I had a different perspective on people who do believe in it. Either way, the important message you portray here about ‘Love’ is paramount. I learned from my father who is one of the most intelligent and reasonable people i know, and not religious by most standards, that the most important job for a man to do: “Be sweet to other people”. Here this coming from a successful, jewish corporate lawyer, I always thought that was special. and I try to follow his advice.
You bring up some important ideas here, I will think about them more. But one thing you said right and thing I have noticed is that you really bring smiles and a positive energy to the room whenever you walk in it.
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Will
“Xiao Bizzle”
I second Will – great post. I really enjoyed reading your blog and talking with you. I have some questions about David’s beliefs. I agree with David in his statement that God is love. I believe God is all-loving – and that His love is perfect, unchanging, and unconditional. I also believe that God is just. I am curious to know David’s view of God’s justice. Towards the end of David’s quote he mentioned that God is in everyone and saving everyone regardless of their beliefs. I disagree. I believe that God has offered salvation to everyone, but that salvation is contingent on one’s belief in Jesus Christ. Let me explain . . .
First, let’s start with God’s justice. If God is, as I believe, perfectly just, even His love for humanity cannot overlook the guilty and leave sin unpunished. God must act in accordance with His character, which means that He cannot let sin go unpunished or else this would undermine His perfect character and He would no longer be fit to be God. Therefore, He must act justly. He must punish sin. Sin is basically when we as humans choose to worship, trust, hope in, or serve anything in the place of God. The Bible teaches in Romans 14:23 that “whatever is not from faith is sin.” And Romans 6:23 says that “the punishment for sin is death”. Sounds pretty harsh, and since I constantly choose sin over obedience to God – it sounds like I’m pretty much screwed. But let’s not forget God’s unfailing love. He loves humanity and wants to live in relationship with humanity – the problem: His justice in light of our sin. No matter how much he loves me, he cannot dismiss my sin and guilt without the just price being paid. This presents quite a dilemma. How does God remain both loving and just? The answer: by sending His Son, Jesus Christ to bear the punishment and wrath of humanity’s sin. Jesus paid the price. He took our guilt. He bore our punishment. All we have to do is believe. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). God’s love has been poured out and his justice has been served through the death and resurrection of Jesus. But in order for our sins to be forgiven we must accept this act of love and justice through belief. I quoted Romans 6:23 earlier, stating that the punishment for sin is death; this verse goes on to say “but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.”“For God so loved the world that he sent His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life”(John 3:16).
I believe in God’s love. I believe in His justice. I believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was God’s ultimate plan to bring salvation to the world as a complete loving and just God. I believe that through this belief, and only by this belief, all can be saved.
Kristin, really interesting post. It made me think about a lot of things and made me wish I could have taken part in some of these conversations. I’m really glad to have met you this summer, I’ll definitely be following your blog in the future
I have to agree with Michelle (and not just because she’s super hot). I think it is dangerous to proclaim “God is love” and stop there. The Bible does say “God is love” (1 John 4:16), but it also says He “executes justice” (Deuteronomy 10:18) and is “wrathful” toward unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). Jesus loved (and loves) the outcast, the poor, the weak, the sick and the sinner, but he regularly told people who thought they could earn their salvation, and thereby use God as a means to their own ends, that they were hypocrites who were headed to hell. Saying that “God is love” and leaving it at that is like saying that a wild lion has a warm, fuzzy mane and failing to acknowledge his teeth.
I realize that this is not an easy message. The Bible blatantly admits it’s offensive. But for too long we as westerners (and arguably humans in general) have deceived ourselves into believing that offensiveness is a factor in truthfulness. I will find gravity to be very offensive if I jump of the roof of my house, but it is still true and I have to believe it.
When we begin to seek Truth without regard for offensiveness or uncomfortableness, I think the best method for doing so is to understand the full implications of different beliefs and worldviews, and to analyze how they line up with the reality we experience. The part of your post that I found the most interesting was your belief in “honesty, loyalty, and the goodness in people” and “a strong sense of what is right and wrong.” I can not understand how atheism and Darwinist-evolution naturalism, which emphasize the chance, un-orchestrated origin of human life and society, provide any foundation for these beliefs, and yet you and I seem to have them inherently ingrained within us. To me, it seems that the message of Christianity provides the most viable foundation for issues like morality, pain and suffering, creativity, love, and the simultaneous human desires for tight-knit community and unique individualism.
I realize that my response here may make me seem arrogant or intolerant, but I hope that won’t be the case. I am simply excited to see that you are dealing with issues that I am also constantly thinking about and that I love talking to people about. Keep the great posts about Beijing and higher things comin’, I look forward to reading more
I really enjoyed reading this article, kristen. You bring up some good points and I think it takes a lot of courage to tell the world exactly what you don’t believe in. I think we can all agree that love, loyalty, honesty and the goodness of all people can do a hell of a lot to bring us all closer together. Isn’t that what the kingdom of heaven is all about? Trip, why is a belief in a higher power necessary to make the world a better place?
God is the creator. He created light, life, the world, and all that exists within it. He created people. People, as we all know, are subject to sin and death. Why is the human race doomed to a fate of sin and death? It wasn’t the apple, it wasn’t the snake, it wasn’t even Eve. It was free will. Free will allowed Eve to take the apple, though God forbade it. God created man to have free will, just as he created man to have a limited capacity for logical reasoning. Unfortunately, God did not grace humankind with the capacity to logically reason about the nature of God.
Descartes had a famous argument proving the existence of God:
1. God is defined as an infinitely perfect being.
2. Perfection includes existence.
3. So God exists.
“If God is, as I believe, perfectly just, even His love for humanity cannot overlook the guilty and leave sin unpunished. God must act in accordance with His character, which means that He cannot let sin go unpunished or else this would undermine His perfect character and He would no longer be fit to be God. Therefore, He must act justly.”
Both of these are circular arguments. With words, we can turn God into whatever we want Him to be. I have always wondered, if God created man, and man then in turn created language, how can man be so presumptuous as to turn around and define God with something as imperfect as words?
I believe that we, as people, cannot make assertions as to what God is or isn’t. God is much bigger than us. We were created with eyes on the front of our faces so that we might see the world that was laid out before us. We have ears so we can listen to each other. We have hands to change the environment that we were born into. We have noses because flowers smell good (did I get that right, Darwin?). Whatever God is or isn’t, we are capable of moral reasoning, we are capable of being compassionate towards one another, we are capable of leaving the world a better place than the world we were born into. During our brief stint in life, it is our responsibility to live life, embrace love, and smile every once in a while. Even if there is no eternal reward for doing so.
Thanks for directing me to this post Kristen!!! It’s given me a lot to think about! I’ve also managed to write a mini essay. Eek, hope you can get through it!
So, I was at a party last year and I met a guy who said to me “you’re a Christian? I just read an interesting article somewhere that said that science and religion don’t conflict. I find that hard to believe. What do you think?” At that point, I hadn’t really thought about it so I kinda shuffled around and managed to change the subject. Fast forward a year later, I’ve had the same question posed to me over and over again. It shows that our culture believes that science and God are in direct battle against one another. Moreover, thanks to Richard Dawkins (who wrote the God Delusion), most people now also think that if you had half a brain you wouldn’t believe in a God at all.
Thankfully, I’ve also had a year to brood over it and I really do think there is a false dichotomy between science and religion. It isn’t true to say that if you’re a scientist then you automatically can’t believe in God. In actual fact, you can be an intellectually fulfilled atheist like Richard Dawkins and you can also be an intellectually fulfilled Christian (like Francis Collins who is the director for the Human Genome Project). So it isn’t a matter of intellect or science, but a matter of worldview. A worldview is how one views or interprets reality. It is a framework through which or by which one makes sense of the data of life (I got the definition from an encyclopaedia).
What can a “data of life” be? We could use evolution. You brought up evolution as an example of science versus God. Stephen Jay Gould who was a Harvard Evolutionary Biologist says “To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth million time: science simply cannot adjudicate the issue of God’s possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can’t comment on it as scientists. Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious belief – and equally compatible with atheism.”
Science and religion are simply not in competition with each other.
In regards to your comment about miracles:
“I don’t believe in miracles, I don’t believe in fate. I imagine these are all creations of very convincing individuals who gave people something to believe in for those needing to believe.”
Your thoughts actually mirror Feuerbach (he came up with the “you are what you eat” slogan). His main idea was: There is no God, people believe there’s a God (because they’re losers) so they fabricate God to make themselves feel better.
I know this isn’t what you said, but I think deep down a lot of people feel that way.
Just because we want something, it doesn’t mean that the thing can’t exist. For example, if I have a sore throat and wish for a glass of water it doesn’t mean it is or isn’t there in front of me. Desiring something in no way implies the non-existence of something. We can also apply Feuerbach’s logic on atheists. A lot of atheists want there to be no God, often because they don’t want to be accountable to him. They have no desire for God. Therefore, they believe there is no God.
Basically, what I’m saying is that just because we have feelings one way or another it doesn’t mean they do or don’t correspond to reality. Just because we want to see miracles does not imply the non-existence of miracles. That being said, I can reassure you that there is evidence of the miracles that we can look into further another time.
Karl Marx also once commented that religion is the opium of the people. However, Czeslaw Milosz (Nobel Prize winner for Literature) rebutted saying this “Religion, opium of the people! To those suffering pain, humiliation, illness and serfdom, it promised a reward in after life. And now we are witnessing a transformation. A true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death – the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.”
It’s encouraging to know you believe in the honesty, loyalty and goodness of people and I completely agree that there are moments in life where I see such great love from people. On the other hand, I also see moments of great depravity. Does the good that we see in humanity then automatically cancel out the bad? I’m not convinced. Surely the wicked things should be judged separately from the good! And that’s exactly what God does. He saw our wickedness (if we’re not perfect, then by definition we have done bad things in our lives) and made sure that justice was served by paying for it himself. So, all the nasty stuff we’ve done and will do has been paid for by Jesus.
Does this give us a free pass to do whatever we want? Actually, Saint Paul talks about this, he said “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace (grace means a gift we don’t deserve) may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? … We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” As Christians, we’re called to live a different life. Yea, we’re not perfect, but I don’t want to take for granted the fact that someone who deeply loved me had to literally pay his life for the bad I’ve done.
I also want to say that being a Christian isn’t just about the after-life. It’s really about a relationship with God. Imagine the smartest, nicest and most fun loving person in the whole entire world knocking at your door and wanting to be your best friend. What do you have to lose by saying no? If we said yes, but don’t spend any time with that person wouldn’t it be just like saying no? What if you said yes and decided to get to know the person by spending a lot of time with them, become best of friends so that it turned your life upside down in a good way? How fantastic would that be?
Anyhow, thinking about love is a great start because if God is love, your love is pointing you towards Him. We are given this lifetime to figure it out. It’s understandable that people have questions and I would encourage everyone to ask them. The comforting thing is that there are also answers to be found. God is bigger than us, but that doesn’t mean he is completely unknown to us. A comforting thing to understand is that when the word ‘mystery’ is used in the Bible regarding Jesus, if you look at the original ancient Greek text, it means ‘something that was previously unknown, but will be revealed.’ So, if you earnestly look, all will be revealed. Pretty cool eh?
Oh yea, before I forget, you can also find a good reference at http://www.bethinking.org for similar topics!
Hopefully we’ll get a chance to meet up again soon!
[...] I think ultimately your answers to the questions I’ve raised will reflect your personal beliefs and your faith. [...]
[...] lesson for our soul’s ultimate growth. As I have stated by personal beliefs in my post Soul Purpose, I am an Atheist. I believe in spontaneous combustion and that we have developed from molecules and [...]