What is the meaning of life?

Answer 1

"What is the meaning of life?" is a question many people ask themselves at some point during their lives, most in the context "What is the purpose of life?" Here are some of the many potential answers to this perplexing question:

Survival and temporal success

* ...to accumulate wealth and increase social status
* ...to advance natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
* ...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future human
* ...to compete or co-operate with others
* ...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
* ...to die having succeeded in your purpose
* ...to gain and exercise power
* ...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
* ...to live
* ...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction or asexual reproduction
* ...to protect one's family
* ...to pursue a dream, vision, or destiny
* ...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
* ...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
* ...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means (see life extension)

Wisdom and knowledge

* ...to be without question, or to keep asking questions
* ...to expand one's perception of the world
* ...to explore, to expand beyond our frontiers
* ...to learn from one's own and others' mistakes
* ...to seek truth, knowledge, understanding, or wisdom
* ...to try to discover and understand the meaning of life
* ...to understand creation

Ethical

* ...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
* ...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
* ...to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land
* ...to become like God, or God-like
* ...to be rewarded for your deeds
* ...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. God)
* ...to express compassion
* ...to follow the "Golden Rule"
* ...to give and receive love
* ...to live in a way that you don't harm yourself and don't harm your environment
* ...to work for justice and freedom

Religious and spiritual

* ...to be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
* ...to die and become a martyr
* ...to live in peace with each other, and in harmony with our natural environment (see utopia)
* ...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
* ...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
* ...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
* ...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
* ...to serve others, or do good deeds
* ...to turn fear into joy at a constant rate achieving on literal and metaphorical levels: immortality, enlightenment and atonement
* ...to understand and follow the "Word of God"
* ...to worship, serve, or achieve union with God
* ...to disprove the existence of a or all all gods

Other

* ...to achieve self-actualisation
* ...to contribute to collective meaning ("we" or "us") without having individual meaning ("I" or "me")
* ...to find a purpose, a "reason" for living that hopefully raises the quality of one's experience of life, or even life in general
* ...to live, and enjoy the passage of time
* ...to have fun
* ...to participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
* ...to make the conformists' lives miserable (see non-conformism)
* ...to participate in the chain of events which has led from the creation of the universe until its possible end (either freely chosen or determined, this is a subject widely debated amongst philosophers)
* ...to relate, connect, or achieve unity with others
* ...to resolve all problems that one faces, or to ignore them and attempt to fully continue life without them, or to detach oneself from all problems faced (see Buddhism)
* ...to seek and find beauty
* ...as there is no intrinsic meaning to life, to each individual, the "meaning of life" is whatever he/she decides it is. In that sense, every point above is potentially valid.
* ...an answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?" is that it is just simply being able to ask the question, "What is the meaning of life?" (see Sri Sri Ravi Shankar below)
* ...a combination of any of the above.

No purpose, and therefore...

* ...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
* ...just a series of events
* ...just nature taking its course
* ...the wheel of time keeps on turning
* ...the cycle of life
* ...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
* ...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever (see nihilism)
* ...who cares?

Answer 2

A movie by the wonderfully wacky (and now defunct since Graham Chapman died) Monty Python comdey crew (although I always liked Monthy Python and the Holy Grail, and The Life of Brian better)..

Answer 3

We live in this world but we are not totally from here.
A part of our being is from this world and it is mortal.
We have another part, a magnetic champ around us, and it is not from this world, it is immortal.
The immortal part is the original son of God but he is lost.
We, two parts, mortal and immortal, are together so that the immortal inside can awake and return to the condition of son of God.
For that we must follow a special path... we must find it and walk the way ahead.
Our mortal part, must understand this mystery and cooperate, because we are born for that.
It is the most marvelous mission we could receive.

Answer 4

The question should have been why was i born or why am I here.

Life has no meaning - if the word meaning is correctly understood.
Why are there snakes? why are there kangaroos?

Answer 5

We are here on earth to perfect our soles for God. There is no negativity in heaven therefore we came to earth to learn from our negativity's. We have previously charted our lives out so that we could learn from our experiences by making the right decisions.

Answer 6

To live by the word of God and get ready for eternal life.......it never ends and is worth living God's way

Answer 7

everyone has their own meaning. it is what you create for yourself. it is when you understand why you were put on this earth that you will find what the meaning of life is (for you)

Answer 8

I don't know about the meaning, but the purpose is to be who you are and to love yourself and others.

Answer 9

to praise God, show thankfulness, pass this test "which we call life" and hopefully be in heaven in the hear after!

Answer 10

the meaning of life? well.... for me, its serving and praising God... it is living according to His will. (",)

Answer 11

To glorify God.
cause he deserves it.
cause he's God.