Entitlement

I have a sense of entitlement. I was born this way. I am entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'm also entitled to freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, and to decide where I'll live, what religion I'll belong to, and what I'll feed my family. There are a lot of things that I'm "entitled to" but I've come to realize that this perception of entitlement is based solely on where I was born and what time period I was born into.

Had this been 14th century England, I'd have a different set of ideals and not as much of a sense of entitlement. The truth is, it wasn't until the enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries that people began centralize the self. The self became the measure and center of knowledge. Before this time, knowledge came from outside and tied into the self. After the enlightenment (Descarets, Hume, Kant) knowledge started with the self, and worked outwards.

This is a significant shift in that people before this time, were apt to accept life the way it was handed to them. Evil, pain, suffering, it was just a part of life. There wasn't as much of a sense of entitlement as to what we "should" have or what we "deserved". It was more of an acceptance of the way things were.

Are we better off with this mindset of entitlement? How would a lack of entitlement change the way we view God and those things of theology and religion that we hold so dear? Do you think there would be a problem of evil? How would predestination fit without a sense of entitlement to make you think you "need" to play a part in the process?

Just some food for thought.