What is the purpose of human life?What is the difference between life of an animal and human?

Question

few common things in animal and human are:

1.eating(one can say animals don't eat in restaurant as we do, )

2. having sex(one can say we do it in our houses but they do it openly),

3. sleeping(one can say they don't sleep in well consturcted houses as we do)

4. and defending ourselves from other living beings.(one can say animal defend themselves by their sharp teeth and nails but humand defend by bombs, guns , army etc.)

i think human are doing the same activities as animals

are we just an advance version of animals or just little polished animal


Is the pupose of human life to eat,sleep, have sex and defend by collecting money for our maintainence and security.

What is the purpose of human life?

Answer 1

The purpose of Human life is understanding the meaning of life. I would say it is much more philosopical and Spiritual and our atachment to Our God (Lord Krishna in our case) -

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

The purpose of human life is to understand our sambandha or relationships with God and act upon that relationships and purify our existence by serving God and go back to Godhead at the end of life remembering God in great love or Krishna -prema that is the sum & substance of all vedic litterature

We need help of bonafide Guru ,sadhu or saintly persons and shastra or vedic scriptures without which it is impossible to go back to the spiritual kingdom of God

This is the very understanding we can develop as we have superior intelligence compared to the animals who do not have intelligence to understand God but if we misuse our superior intelligence to do the same as animals then we are no better than animals and instead of God consciousness we become animal consciousness looking for facilities for eating ,sleeping,mating & defending & today this whole world is busy making better facilities to eat,sleep,mate & defend whereas in the actual human life we should be making advancement by reducing eating,sleeping,mating & defending and devote our entire life to God.This is the true meaning of human existence .

Answer 3

There is a definate purpose for human life, and it is explained to us by God, through his Word the Bible. In short:

The purpose of God for mankind is happiness & security, while living lives that glorify him.
The difference between men & beast is that men have a spiritual side...

Here is a link to an on-line series of articles which answer --in much more detail-- both what its purpose is, & how humans differ from animals:

Humans---Just Higher Animals? :
- Who Are We?
- - - What Is the Purpose of Life?
- In the Image of God or Beast?
- - - Where We Differ From Animals
- Looking Up, Not Down for Answers
- - - Why We Don't Want to Die... http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/1998/6/22/article_01.htm

By clicking on the Scripture-reference-links, you can read the actual Scriptures, that the articles are based on.

(For more info, or, when a link's URL changes.) http://watchtower.org/search/search_e.htm

Answer 4

Srila Vyäsadeva recommended:
anartha upaçamaà säkñäd bhakti-yogam adhokñaje.
If you want to get out of this anartham, unwanted and purposeless life of material existence... That one should first of all understand, that this material existence is anartham. Anartham means purposeless life. There is no purpose. Real purpose should be how to get out of the spell of material nature. That is real purpose. They do not know. They do not know. They are taking very seriously some temporary purpose of life, which will be changed with the change of body. Now, as human being, I am manufacturing so many purposes of life, but as soon as the body is changed and I get the body of a cat or dog or tree, the whole purpose is changed. Therefore it is purposeless life, anartham. There is no meaning of this purpose. Because everything will be changed with the change of your body. Therefore they do not... They shudder to think of, that "We have got next life." They therefore deny, "No, there is no next life. This life is finished." A foolish life. That is not.
So finding the way for re establishing our forgotten relationship with Lord is the purpose of any human being.

Answer 5

You missed what is probably the BIGGEST difference between animals and humans...

...and that is 'self-awareness' or 'self-consciousness'...

This can be simply demonstrated through certain animal behaviors such as the elimination of bodily wastes and public copulation.

Why not also ask about the purpose of an animal life?

One important (and primary) purpose is for that 'entity' which is housed by the animal body is to have the experience of, and/or to learn how to follow or obey 'DNA/genetic' coding.

We have choices or make choices--even though we may not be consciously aware of the choices we make.

Animals are purely 'instinctual'--humans are both instinctual and 'rationalize'--we can also 'decide'.

Animals do not pray--humans do--we also stare at the stars in the night sky and wonder--animals do not.

A good example of 'similarity' between animals and humans, is that BOTH are here for, or to have experience.

Our purpose is to "have joy" and as explained above--to have experience.

Answer 6

deep...

can i address these individually before i address the entire question?

1) we do not just simply kill and eat something, we cook our food to taste. we make distinct choices in what we choose to eat, not just what ever game passes by. where we can decide and adapt to our own diet, i.e. vegetarian or omnivore, animals are limited to what they have evolved to require in order to survive and would perish if these needs were not met entirely.

2) true we both have sex, and true most people have sex in private and animals have sex, well, where ever, but you are missing the most fundamental difference. animals have sex to reproduce, they have no feelings of pleasure, love or joy when engaging in intercourse. humans do, and also associate many other feelings with sex as well. humans are also can actively choose to reproduce, when animals cannot.

3) sleeping in a fundamental need of every species on this planet. to regenerate oneself is the only way to survive. this doesnt change or make us any different because we can construct housing. thats just a comfort. (forgiving the fact that humans make shelter as a fundamental need for survival, i am just simply addressing the issue of sleep.)

4) animals defend themselves in order to not be killed immediatly. they do not kill in order to obtain territory or mates because the animal instinct tells the lesser of the two to back off when competition is tougher than you. hence the terms alpha male, alpha female, etc.. animals also do not slaughter each other in mass killings. people attempt to eradicate the competition through mass killings, i.e. bombings, war..etc.. are not trying to achieve defending themselves from immediate danger or even fighting over which one will get the girl, its simply for a feeling only known to man: greed. the desire to have and own something more than one has. the conquest. the control. same goes for murderers and the like, control is a powerful motivator and when you take someone else's life you have the ultimate control. killing in the animal world is emotionless.

what makes us different? we have evolved to have higher intellegence, the ability to reason, to recognize and choose between what is socially deemed right and wrong. we have overt emotions that drive our being almost entirely. we have sentiment and empathy. we have the ability to express how we feel through art and literature, verbal expression and an inate sense of body language.

the purpose of human life can only be defined by the person who is questioning it. i cannot say what it is for you, nor can you define it for me. it is inside you, the knowledge and understanding of why you exist.

Answer 7

Strictly speaking for the biological sense - our purpose is solely to pass on our genes via procreation.

Further than that is up to each individual to make a purpose.

"What is the difference between life of an animal and human?"

Important note: Humans are animals. We are primates of the family Hominoidea.

Answer 8

Humans are egomaniacs, with inferiority complexes. We are just smart enough to really get ourselves into a pretty big mess.
We are the most complex primates this planet has ever seen.
I don't feel any more important than the piece of leather in the road that used to be a squirrel.
The purpose of life is to live.
That's it.

Answer 9

You forgot souls, though technically it's a matter of opinion, I do believe that animals have souls just as humans do.

In my opinion the purpose of all life is to find harmony within oneself and that the only difference between humans and animals is simply the fact that we use technology while the animals survive by wits alone. But we have much more in common with animals then most people think, even more than is on that list.

Answer 10

The same as it is for all life that has ever existed or will exist.
Survival of the species. The rest is trimmings. Each species has its own strategy of survival. All life needs an energy source(food) and procreation(sex and sleep are not prerequisites for all life). One grim fact. Over 99% of life that has existed on this planet is now extinct. We humans know this and we have the intelligence to actually try and beat the system. Whether we will or not remains to be seen

Answer 11

Humans are self-aware, whereas animals only react to external events. That may seem simplistic, but that definition can be expanded. Humans are able to create new realities by thinking, such as using mathematics and science to go into intellectual areas that are contrary to our nature. Animals cannot stray from their nature. The purpose of humanity is to rise above itself, something animals cannot do. Humans are just unwilling to do it.