What is the meaning of life?

Question

Feel free to answer this question based on how you percieve the meaning of your own life or the meaning of life in general.

Answer 1

The meaning of life is exactly what a lot of people like you are doing: Asking about the meaning of life!0!

When you are satisfied with an answer about this, then you will have found it, at least until you're not satisfied with that answer anymore, and then you start asking the same old Q one more time!0!

Little by little, step by step, door by door!0!

Good luck!

Answer 2

Life actually does have an intrinsic meaning, but to get to it we're going to have to progress a little sideways. So bear with me...

Before we can talk about the meaning of life, I think it's productive to first ask the question, "What IS life?". This is a bit easier to answer, if not perfectly clear, because biologists obviously have to be able to explain what, exactly, the bio- part of their name refers to.

Biologists themselves often approach the question backwards. Instead of defining life as a whole, they instead consider the number of things that we generally consider to be 'alive' and figure out what qualities they all seem to have in common. This gives us a handful of properties that all living things we know of seem to have, including growth, reproduction, and the ability to make long-term adaptations to the environment.

Okay. So what does that MEAN? Again I think we need to break down our question with another one: "What IS meaning?" I'll take the same approach as the biologists on this one and consider examples. If a boulder fell on someone's house, and one observer asked another, "What does that mean?", what would acceptable answers be? I can think of a number of them ("It means that was a bad place to build a house"), and what they seem to have in common are that they describe greater implications and intent. Or in other words, given the event, process, or object, what will happen in the future, what led to it in the past, and what effects and intents does it have in the present?

So what does life do? It changes things. We know from the definition of life that it grows, consumes, spreads, alters its environment and alters the ways in which it does all these things. Having living things around means things are going to be different later, and probably were different before. Any time we imagine a place where nothing is ever different the only way that image works is to make it completely devoid of life. So that is something.

But it's not everything. Life doesn't produce just ANY change, but a certain flavour of it. Simply put, living things want to live. The changes living things make, generally speaking, either help them do so or kill them off. So life is not just about change, but change ideally for the better, even if practically it falls short sometimes.

This, then, must be the meaning of life. To change for the better.

Curiously enough, a quick survey of major philosophies, religions, and systems reveals that almost all of them seem to integrate this concept. Change for the better. There may be other important things, as some of the above systems would suggest, but to 'change for the better' is, at least, is the one thing implied by the very nature of the way things are. So do it!

Answer 3

I keep seeing this question over and over and usually avoid it, because I feel that depends on the individual.

That is something you have to find for yourself. I feel I am here for a reason, but not sure what the reason is, but I have learned it is definitely not to hate others or do intentional harm. I am learning to love more and understand more and have more compassion than I used to. I will know some day because I believe in an afterlife with Christ.

Answer 4

It seem to many of the people who post questions here that the meaning of life is to post the same question over and over again until they find an answer that they like. this question is asked two or three times a day. It even has an answer that is becoming common to people who amswer questions frequently >42. Please read the responses to previous questions. Thank you.

Answer 5

Life has no meaning at all anymore. If you will read the whole book of Ecclesiastes, you will find that even the most intelligent person who has ever lived and whose intelligence will never be surpassed or reached by others(as mentioned in the bible), who is King Solomon, said that life has no purpose at all for everything will all be gone in the end and that you won't be able to bring anything to where you are going when you die...

Answer 6

I do not know the meaning or even know if there is one but that does not mean I will not search for it. So the meaning of life for me, at least partially, is the search for the meaning of life.

Answer 7

Beer

Answer 8

Sophist is right.

Please consider that this question gets a lot of attention and has been answered...in some cases, quite well...several times in the past couple of months.

Answer 9

Do things that will make you happy.

There is no "answer" not because we don't believe in God (which is just a crutch, an artificial answer imposed on the problem to feel better about it), there is no "answer" because you are just alive. There's no "reason" for it, it just is, so at least enjoy it while you can.

Answer 10

Life – it has a meaning and loving purpose - you just have to find your purpose and live it.

I believe every person is here for a definite purpose. Each person is special and valuable; that refers to me, you, your family, friends, in fact everybody! There is a loving plan for each of our lives here on earth and there is no such thing as coincidence. I don't believe that anything in life happens by chance and that every aspect of our lives points to something deeper.

You need to decide now to live for God rather than for yourself. You spend your life on Earth preparing yourself (as best you can) for death. I don't see death as a scary, negative experience, but birth into a bliss filled eternal life with God. I believe that this is something you have to consciously choose or not during your life on earth.

The meaning of life is for us to discover that we are true children of an infinitely loving God, to find out what our responsibilities are to our Creator, and to fulfill those responsibilities. Each of us is called to affirm, accept and develop the talents God has given us. -