Purity

. . . to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.

 - From Hebrews 2

Death is the thing we all fear, and hate, the most. We know we are all mortal . . . yet we strive in vain to forestall the inevitable. Every great philosophy emphasizes the supreme value of living for the moment. Yet humanity obsesses about the future, while attempting to stimulate our urgent hungers and passions, instantly.

Death is the enemy. It is the Big Problem that motivates everything we do, from the most basely violent, to the most nobly elevating.

But humanity, with all of its grace, and power, and creativity, and intelligence, will not approach the problem of death with the simplest and most obvious question: Why do we die?

The answer cannot be found in Science. Well, yes, there are biological reasons why we die . . . but that's not the question. Why did the universe establish death as a thing? Why did it evolve? What purpose does it solve? What good is there in it?

But why do we die? It is a question that requires heretofore divergent philosophies to work together. To add to the Scientific element, we need to probe the philosophical, the theological and ethical underpinnings of the problem of death.

What if our most remote ancestors, lacking a Scientific skepticism and having only their survival instincts and senses intact, had minds that were clear enough, and open enough, to actually touch the divine? What if God, or some evolutionary force, approached our First Parents, for the simple reason that they were approachable?

And then what if truths about our origins and destiny were shared with them, to be handed down? What if those truths are only accessible to minds that are truly open?

This is the origin of Faith.

There's a high order of behavior that belongs in the human heart and soul. There's a selflessness, and a long-view combined with living in this moment, and a mastery of our thoughts, words, and deeds that makes us truly noble. It is how we become the glorious celestial beings we were meant to be.

It's the supremacy of the individual over him or herself, that, combined with the same impulse in every other human heart, the yields the only sustainable human progress.

It's that most elusive of all human aspirations: purity.

Sin is a rejection of purity. And sin is why we must die.