Aim in Life, Spiritual or Material
People don't mind much how the world has been built through past decades, centuries, or tens of thousands of years.
It is as if one were thrown into a river and tried just to swim better without thinking about where the river came from and flowed to. The person who has found that he is just in a river would just try to swim better so as not to die by drowning. So, it is natural for men to try to tackle challenges posed to them in their daily life, which means for them to follow the norm and custom of the society where they were born in any era of history.
But of course people should think about why and how the world has developed to the present state without getting devoted to living better and earning money.
It means that people should learn history and traditions like even Christ Jesus sometimes referred to The Old Testament. By learning the past history, men can judge a current situation meaningfully.
However, if one gets great knowledge about past things and a series of events along time, he may abuse it. But to cope with such evil guys, people should learn history more.
Of course, without knowledge of history, one can avoid evil things and one may try to live as righteous as possible. Conversely, with knowledge of history, evil one is still evil. However, with right knowledge of history, most people can judge a present situation more correctly so as not to be misled by evil guys.
In this context, we have to know the origin of today's civilization, epoch-making events in the past, and specific historic incidents.
About 4600 years ago, great pyramids were built in Egypt, which might be regarded as the start point of the material civilization of the modern mankind. About 4000 years ago, Abraham left the ancient city Ur in Mesopotamia, which might be regarded as the start of the spiritual culture of the modern mankind. About 2500 years ago, Judaism, Buddhism, and Confucianism were established, which might be regarded as the start of religious conditions of the modern mankind. About 2000 years ago, Christianity started to prevail. About 1300 years ago, Islam started to emerge. Today's world has been shaped in line with this history.
But the most decisive incident for the mankind in the past is that God sent His Son to the world who was called Christ Jesus 2000 years ago.
As God is almighty, the world today was conditioned by this unbelievable incident 2000 years ago. Since the appearance of Christ Jesus means direct interference by God with the human world. It cannot be neglected.
And, all these past great incidents tell us that men should not live simply pursuing wealth, happiness, and satisfaction of human desire. Rather, these incidents suggest that we should be oriented more to spiritual matters rather than material matters.
Accordingly, an end of life of each man should not be realization of rich, safe, and happy life.
Rather, the aim in life for each man should be to understand why God gave life to him or her. And, to realize the understanding, we have to be more spiritual with support from knowledge of our history. .
http://www.slideshare.net/jmseymour/world-history-characteristics-of-civilization-module-1
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Joh 5:26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
Joh 5:27 And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.