Thoughts on Protagoras

Protagoras said, “Concerning the gods I am unable to know either that they are or that they are not, or what their appearance is like. For many are the things that hinder knowledge: the obscurity of the matter and the shortness of human life.” I can’t help but wonder if that is the way God intended things to be. After all, we can come to know so many things in the realm of science and the arts, etc. It seems interesting that the one thing we cannot know about simply by means of its obscurity is religion. I am a Christian, and I have faith in God. I don’t know how much relevance I should give some accounts of Christianity however, as they are all accounts given by men. And as the quote points out, our knowledge base is finite. Perhaps that is what tests us most as believers: the fact that we must hold on to something which we cannot see, hear, or feel. Maybe that’s the true definition of faith. What is even more interesting is that of all the things in the world which people are most willing to die for, religion is at the top of the list. It has the most meaning for human beings. In fact, and in contrast to the thought of Protagoras, I don’t feel that even if human beings lived for 100 years more than they tend to now, that we would gain any more insight into our God. There exists, at some point, a gap which cannot be surpassed. That seems to be another sign of our mortality. It is a good way to look at things because I sometimes think that people must realize we are not the center of the world, especially as individuals. We must tame our egocentrism. Obscurity and the shortness of life give it more meaning, because our time on this earth is limited, and instead of being unsettling, this is actually quite beautiful.