Important things Article

Elliott Weinberg
Western Civilization
2/4/10
I think that the most important things in life are the necessities that we need to live that life. The things we need most in life are food, water, and shelter. Without these basic needs we cannot survive as a human on earth. Once we have the necessities, there are other categories of things that are also important. Those categories are wants, religion, and the laws or government that allows people to live together in a civilization. All of these are things are important to everyday life. If any of these things are missing, the people in the civilization, or even the civilization as a whole, would be hurt in some way.
The first category that I am going to be looking at is the category of necessities. These are the basic needs like food, water, and shelter. These are necessities because we literally need them to survive. We can only live a short time without food and only three days without water. If we go past this limit, we will die of thirst or die of hunger. If you don’t have a home or a roof over you there could be serious consequences. One of these consequences could be getting sick because you are not protected from the weather. In the winter the weather gets harsh and cold. If you don’t have a place to be warm you could get Pneumonia and die. When you go for long times without food, your body actually begins to eat itself. Since there are not any nutrients in the body anymore, your body gets the nutrients from the vital organs and tissue. When your body goes for a long period of time without water you can't survive because your body is made up mostly of water so if you don’t get that you cannot survive. The last necessity would be clothing. Everyone should have clothing so they can have some kind of dignity. Clothing is also important because it protects you from the weather when you are outside of your house and gives you a better standard of working and going through your everyday lives. Shoes are even better because if you are working in a rocky terrane you need something to protect your feet. This is why necessities are important to life.
Another category of important things in life are wants. Wants that you and your civilization have are things that are nice to have but you don’t really need them to survive. Wants are important because they keep the morale up. If you keep up the morale of your civilization then it will thrive. An example of a want would be like a certain type of clothing, so you could have the best fashion. Another example of a want would be jewelry. We can understand why these are important because if everyone wore the same clothes all the time there would be no personality. One last want would be a want for different technologies. Just like in modern times, if a new videogame or computer comes out we want it. The same goes for back in ancient times. When a new game or weapon came out, they probably wanted it as much as we want new technologies today. The Egyptians and Persians probably wanted to stay with the times as much as we do.
The next category of important things to life is religion. Religion is extremely important when you are talking about a civilization. Most civilizations base their life and work off of what religion or concepts that they believe in. Even today we base our lives off of Christianity by acting like a Christian and helping people out. Religion is very important because it defines the values of a group of people, including how to treat each other and what is good and bad. Also, as a Christian, we make time for God and go to church on Sundays to show God that we include him in our lives. The ancient Egyptians also based their lifestyle off of their religion. The Egyptians used to believe that there was this key to eternal life named Ka. If Ka granted you eternal life then you could go to the afterlife. If he didn’t grant you eternal life then you had to stay on earth for all of eternity. To know if you move onto the afterlife or stay on earth, Osiris would weigh your heart against a feather. If the weight of your heart balanced with the weight of the feather than you got to move onto the afterlife. If the weight of your heart was not in balance with the weight of the feather than you would not move onto the afterlife. The Egyptians even produced burial grounds that were way beyond any other monuments of their time. The Egyptians were famous for their construction of the Pyramids. These were actually used for the burial of the Pharaoh and his family. The whole process of getting the Pharaoh ready for burial was a spiritual process. The first step was to take out his brain. They did this by breaking off the nose and taking the brain out by a hook. The next step in the mummification was to take out all the vital organs except for the heart, and put them into special containers so the Egyptian gods could watch over them and protect them. The next step would be to put oils on the body and cleanse it. After the cleansing the last step would be to wrap the body in linen cloths to preserve the body even further. It is obvious that religion was a very important part of Egyptian life since they went through this difficult process to prepare for the afterlife.
The last important thing to a civilization would be having some order to the way the people should live in the civilization. In most countries, there is some form of government and laws that everyone has to live by, even if all of the people are not the same religion. In America, we have many freedoms in our lives. These freedoms are written into our laws and the form of government that we have. Because of government and laws, we all know how we have to behave to live together and have all of these freedoms. Freedoms are important to people because without them, people do not have the rights and the free will of living life how they want to live it. Freedoms and human rights are what made America what it is today. America is different from other countries because we have more of the freedom and human rights than many other countries in the world. It is because of these freedoms and human rights that we get so many immigrants each year.
The important things for a civilization to have are the necessities that are needed to survive, the wants to make people try to be better or have new things, and religion, government and laws to give people the values and order to live peacefully together. With these important things, a civilization can exist and grow better for a long time.

Citation:
"Ancient Egyptian Religion." St. Petersburg Times Online. Web. 05 Feb. 2010. .

"File:BD Hunefer.jpg -." Wikimedia Commons. Web. 05 Feb. 2010. .