There are many times when people criticize my interest in studying philosophy..particularly on how it affects my view on my religion. Though the study of philosophy mainly involves questioning many well-established dogmas (be it science, religion, ethics), I feel that questioning is something that everybody should learn to do. We should not question merely to become a skeptic, but to become a critic... someone who questions so that he or she can construct a strong foundation to support his/her beliefs. I recently came across a philosophy essay I wrote 2 years ago pertaining to the question of essence and existence of man. Though the essay discuss the point of view of a famous atheist philosopher, reading it again made me even sure of the existence of God and more importantly why we need Him in our life. Here are excerpts from my essay:

Satre first explains that existensialism is the belief that "existence precede essence"- there is no preconception of human nature. For example, essence precede existence for a paper knife since it can only be produced after its purpose, thus its essence, had already been conceived. Since the time of Plato, it has been widely believed that this is also true for the case of human being. Since God can be thought as the Creator of human, thus essence of human must have already being conceived before they are created. For Satre, who does not believe in the existence of God, there is no reason to believe that there is an essence in human that is prior to our existence - thus a man exists first and then define who he is.

This sense of existensialism, however, inevitably leads to the feeling of abandonment and despair. The rejection of existence of God, which is the essential feature of of Satre's atheistic existensialism, will cause the rejection of all moral guidelines set forth by religion. With no moral guidelines to help man choose a particular course of action deemed to be right, there will be no values that man can put in his course of actions. Thus "man is condemned to be free" - free because our existence precedes our essence but condemned because that very freedom means that therre is no essence of human nature that can guide man in making decisions in life. Worse still, all the course of actions that a man takes will ultimately be his own responsibility since there is no human nature, passion or fate in which he can blame. Moreover, there is always a feeling of despair that a certain plan that man has worked out will not be fullfilled. Without the existence of God, man cannot put hope that the possibilities of the future can be adopted to his desire.

-Hafiz Raja Ahmad-

Thus my question now is: are human meant to be free from any essence yet be condemned to live a life of despair? Or are we still bounded by the limits of religion and human nature yet still able to find happiness in life? For me, to find happiness is the ultimate human desire. We all want to find happiness - be it today, or when we are old, or even in the afterlife. As for me, I prefer to be happy than to be free - and that means I affirm my belief in the existence of God and my need for Him to be in my life.