The earliest man was already using tools. Generally speaking, the use of tools is one of the points that distinguish man and beasts.
Existentialists hold that as to all tools, those 'ideas' come first and next their existences follow. To take an example of desk, the idea of 'desk', "a plane board a man works on", comes first, next we actually make a desk from wood or metal based on idea. And existentialists proceed with their argument. But for human being existence comes first, we are thrown into this world first, then we have to seek for your aim for living that is human's 'idea'. That is to say, human being is the existence that is thrown into this world.
Though this existentialists' assertion gives us a chance to confront ourselves, it only drives us to feelings of solitude and fear. In addition to that, existentialism can not demonstrate us clearly how to set human being free from solitude, uneasiness and fear of death.
But, Mr, Ryuho Okawa preaches that human being is given eternal life by Buddha's will and is the existence that reincarnates between this world and the other world with purpose(idea) of the soul training under the laws of progress and harmony. And he reveals clearly the path of emancipation, the four noble truths(the teachings of 'suffering', 'its cause', 'its extinction' and 'the path'). That is the way which sets us free from suffering from this world. From this spiritual view point, existentialists do not know the Divinity, they do not know who creates universe, what the source of all existences is.
I think existentialism is a kind of disease caused by the fact that we can not escape from the series of freedom of choice. After the Industrial Revolution, for the purpose of making up labor force, the freedom to choose occupation was given to people, and they have been able to choose whether they settle in city and work or remain farm land as a farm laborer. They have come to get a lot of freedom of choice. On the other hand, they began to be worried with freedom of choice. Why are people worried? I wonder they do not know standards of choice nor causes of choice. It seems that they had not known reason for living. Therefore they did not know standard of choice, they make choice for the sake of self-aggrandizement and self-gratification. Because they do not know their nature of Buddha nor true self-realization, they do not know whether the choice they make are good choices or bad ones. Existentialism is the thought that faithfully shows this situation.
People believe invisible things, rather because they can not prove them. If they manage to prove invisible things, they will not believe in them but we will come to know them. Once one of my friends, who was an atheist, told me that he could not believe in God or divine power, because no one had been able to demonstrated it. Then I asked him what did he mean by his words 'he could not believe'. Because if we can prove something, we will not believe but we will come to know it. And I asked him whether he had believed anything or not, and why he believed something if he had believed anything. After a few moments he confessed me that he wondered if he had not believed anything ever since he was born.
Consequently, believing is definitely different from knowing. But still there is something to discuss. I came to the conclusion that believing is different from knowing, while we care nothing for it in daily life. In some cases, the relationship between believing and knowing seem to be relative.
I have read a certain philosopher insisted that Fact is different from Truth. We know that air consists of nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and many other elements. Though few people are able to demonstrate the Fact that air consists of many elements, we believe it is True and no one doubt it. We have come to know scientific Facts and we assume that it is reasonable as Truth, just because we learned in school or read books or heard that scientists demonstrated something phenomena. But unless you can demonstrate scientific phenomena, there is no difference between knowing and believing. How can we demonstrate existence of nitrogen to uncivilized primitive people? It is almost impossible.
If you were an astronaut and saw the earth from space, you would find out the earth is a Sphere. It is a knowledge that you experienced. But in fact, most men have not traveled to space, and they can only watch pictures of the earth taken from spaceship and believe it is true.
What is knowledge? Some of our knowledge is that a person have experienced. Some is that a person obtain from books and television. Most of our knowledge consists of what others say and mass communication (newspapers, TV, radios, magazines) cover. If you believe nothing what mass communication cover, what do you know? In sort, when we get knowledge, we consciously or unconsciously postulate that we believe what others say.
70% of the surface of the earth is covered by the sea. So the first Russian astronaut Gagarin said that the earth was blue. Assuming there was a nomad who lived in a desert and he did never see the sea nor heard of it. If he heard what Gagarin said, the nomad would never believe the earth was blue, because the nomad had only seen a desert. On the contrary, assuming there was a fisherman who lived at seaside and he did never see a desert nor heard of it. If the fisherman heard of a desert and nomad, he would never accept it and come to believe it easily. Because, he could never imagine there was sand as far as the eye could see and a nomad lived there.
Generally speaking, we tend to ignore or deny something completely new idea that we cannot accept as true, though there are many things unbelievable in the world. This seems to prove that individual knowledge(how much and what kind of knowledge a person has) affects whether he/she comes to believe something new idea or not. Though this explanation is reasonable enough, on the other hand, some people tend to ignore or deny something new idea because their abundant knowledge interfere to accept new idea. Eventually it is the matter whether a person is suspicious or not. Whether a person accepts and comes to believe something new idea or not depends on a tendency of his/her soul and what kind of experience he/she has had in this world.
Many Christians do not tend to accept a concept of reincarnation, just because the concept of reincarnation was not written in the Bible. It is against the traditional Buddhist commandment to drink too much, but smoking too much is not written in Buddhist commandment. Because 2600 years ago in India they did not know about tobacco nor had never smoked any tobacco. Of course, addicted to smoking is as bad as addicted to alcohol. I suppose that Christians should not deny the concept of reincarnation, just because they can not find the concept in the Bible.
To be accurate, the concept of reincarnation was not obviously written in the Bible. If you assume that we reincarnate between this world and the other world, you will easily understand many passage in the Bible.
Unended part VI
Unended Quest vol.2