What is the meaning of life? Could you associate death with how you choose to live your life?

Question

do you associate death with life's possessing a meaning? is death of prime consideration in weighing how you should live and what life's meaning or purpose is?

thanks for any answers =)

Answer 1

The philosophical question "What is the meaning of life?" means different things to different people. The vagueness of the query is inherent in the word "meaning", which opens the question to many interpretations, such as: "What is the origin of life?", "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", "What is the significance of life?", "What is valuable in life?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?". These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.

These questions are separate from the scientific issue of the boundary between things with life and inanimate objects.
Popular beliefs
"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. The responses are shown to overlap in many ways but may be grouped into the following categories:

Survival and temporal success
...to live every day like it is your last and to do your best at everything that comes before you
...to be always satisfied
...to live, go to school, work, and die
...to participate in natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future of intelligent life
...to compete or co-operate with others
...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
...to gain and exercise power
...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
...to eat
...to prepare for death
...to spend life in the pursuit of happiness, maybe not to obtain it, but to pursue it relentlessly.
...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction (alike to participating in evolution)
...to protect and preserve one's kin, clan, or tribe (akin to participating in evolution)
...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
...to observe the ultimate fate of humanity to the furthest possible extent
...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means
...to attempt to have many sexual conquests (as in Arthur Schopenhauer's will to procreate)
...to find and take over all free space in this "game" called life
...to seek and find beauty
...to kill or be killed
...No point. Since having a point is a condition of living human consciousness. Animals do not need a point to live or exist. It is more of an affliction of consciousness that there are such things as points, a negative side to evolutionary development for lack of better words.

Wisdom and knowledge
...to master and know everything
...to be without questions, 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 understand and be mindful of creation or the cosmos
...to lead the world towards a desired situation
...to satisfy the natural curiosity felt by humans about life

Ethical
...to express compassion
...to follow the "Golden Rule"
...to give and receive love
...to work for justice and freedom
...to live in peace with yourself and each other, and in harmony with our natural environment
...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
...to serve others, or do good deeds

Religious and spiritual
...to find perfect love and a complete expression of one's humanness in a relationship with God
...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
...to become like God, or divine
...to glorify God
...to experience personal justice (i.e. to be rewarded for goodness)
...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. to seek objectivity)
...to be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
...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 discover who you are
...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

Philosophical
...to give life meaning
...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 know the meaning of life
...to achieve self-actualisation
...all possible meanings have some validity
...life in itself has no meaning, for its purpose is an opportunity to create that meaning, therefore:
...to die
...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
...nature taking its course (the wheel of time keeps on turning)
...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever
...life may actually not exist, or may be illusory )
...to contemplate "the meaning of the end of life"

Other
...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 participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
...to make conformists' lives miserable
...to make life as difficult as possible for others (i.e. to compete) -

Answer 2

80% of humanity, the religious folks, don't need to ask the meaning of life, the church tells them....the supernatural explanation. But the rest of us can't swallow religious dogma, because there's no evidence. Nobody can prove that there life after death, that people are tortured or rewarded after life or that there's invisible spirits running around.

I've come to two conclusions recently:

1. Life has no meaning
2. Life has a million meanings.

First, there's a certainty that death and annihilation awaits not only you, but the Earth in general. It's an astonomical certainty that our sun will supernova and leave the earth a burnt crisp, not to mention all the other extinction level events around the corner.

Second, the million things that give us meaning are the pleasurable experiences we can conjure up during the short period we are here on the earth, in the form of the relationships we have with our kids and other people, and the 'housekeeping' types of purposes. What i mean by that are the curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, preventing war, helping other kinds of things.

So the bottom line is, we only have a temporary meaning to life, to reduce pain and increase pleasure, other than that everything is lost to oblivion.


To be or not to be? "To be" is temporary and "not to be" is inevitable.....

Answer 3

I once heard a quote that the meaning of life is that we are born to die. And in thinking about that statement, I guess in a way we are as from the day of our birth we are technically getting older and closer and closer to death. I think most people would say that death is associated with how we live our lives. It' s why we as mortal beings try to do so much, try to see so much and reach for so much. Because we feel our mortality and don't really want to waste the time. As we get older, it becomes more vital that we get things done, not necessarily bad things but, just that we have a full and complete sense of being for the time that we have. The younger we are, the more reckless because we don't really think about our mortality. Interesting question.

Answer 4

The meaning of life is what you chose it to be.
I used to be a Christian, and believing in my eternal soul, the existance of Heaven and Hell, and that we had a duty and mission to accomplish here ,certainly shaped my choices on how I wanted to be.
Now I don't feel certain there is anything beyound my current life for me.I have a choice about what I want to do in the short time I'm given. I want to make sure that people I love and care about know it. I'm like a ripple in a pond. If I do good and loving things, then those around me are affected and react accordingly. If I did selfish or hateful things, that too is magnified by the reactions of those around me. I want to be part of a wave of positive things that makes the world a better place.
I wish that others could see it this way, especially some who believe if they are a suicide bomber for God in this life, then they will be greatly rewarded in the afterlife. What a shame they waste their own and their victems chance to experience this life to its fullest, and perhaps make the world a better place for those coming after. Pain and hate is their only legacy.

Answer 5

The meanig of life can only be understood if you know the One who made you and why He made you. As you get to know Him through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, your life has a special meaning from day to day.
Death then becomes the door to enter into a face-to-face relationship with Him and death is no longer the gate to the fearful unknown, but the consummation of a "long-distance" friendship finally becoming one face to face.

Answer 6

It's simple, we dont have a clue... Just do whatever the hell feels good whenever the hell you want as long as it doesnt hurt anybody else... And if u do whatever the hell makes you feel good throughout your life you're gonna die happy... and as far as i can tell thats all that matters... (just pray for an ever after)
And i dont think the way we live influences our life after this (if there is one) all i know is we should just do whatever feels good, as long as it doesnt hurt anybody else...

Answer 7

issues will replace once you pass to college. You meet new people optimistically fall in love and start up your man or woman existence. you elect how lots you like your loved ones on your existence. Why do your acquaintances hit you? that is extraordinary. i could seek for a church for help in the meaning of existence.

Answer 8

death is a very vital process...it is sticking to life all way along...in fact we all know that anyone of us may die at any moment...that's why we keep thinking ahead "setting a purpose" putting death of me or any other person in account.

we don't think about death....we fight it all the time even if we don't see it...we just feel it.

Answer 9

Time spent pondering death is time spent not living life.

There is a functional difference between existing and living.

Answer 10

We praise Him for whatever He takes or gives or whatever He inflicts on us or tries us with. He is aware of all that is hidden and He sees all that is concealed. He knows all that breasts contain or eyes hide. We render evidence that there is no god except He and that Muhammad - peace be upon him and his progeny - has been chosen by Him and deputised by Him -evidence tendered both secretly and openly, by heart and by tongue.


By God, certainly it is reality not fun, truth not falsehood. It is none else than death. Its caller is making himself heard and its dragsman is making haste. The majority of the people should not deceive you. You have seen those who lived before you, amassed wealth, feared poverty and felt safe from its (evil) consequences, the longevity of desires and the (apparent) distance from death. How, then, death overtook them, turned them out of their homelands and took them out of their places of safety. They were borne on coffins, people were busy about them one after another, carrying them on their shoulders and supporting them with their hands.

Did you not witness those who engaged in long-reaching desires, built strong buildings, amassed much wealth but their houses turned to graves and their collections turned into ruin. Their property devolved on the successors and their spouses on those who came after them. They cannot (now) add to their good acts nor invoke God's(Allah's) mercy in respect of evil acts. Therefore, whoever makes his heart habituated to fear God achieves a forward position and his action is successful. Prepare yourself for it and do all that you can for Paradise. Certainly this world has not been made a place of permanent stay for you. But it has been created as a pathway in order that you may take from it the provisions of your (good) actions for the permanent house (in Paradise). Be ready for departure from here and keep close your riding animals for setting off.

Answer 11

"Death does not concern us ; because while we're alive, death is not there, and when we die, we're no longer there."