What IS the MEANING OF LIFE???

Question

... why are we here? To live, die and then rot in a hole? ...Or are we here for a greater purpose?

Answer 1

In Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life", this is it:

'Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.'

However, to be completely honest, it is for every person to decide for themselves.

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

The meaning of life, or you could say the purpose of life is to survive. I don't just mean eating and sleeping and staying alive, but to survive in the sense of having and giving pleasure. And you would break down the pleasure into parts of life. Like you, your family, your group (whatever it might be, like church or school, clubs or whatever), mankind as a whole, animals and plant life, the stuff of the physical universe, and then the spiritual universe and of course, God. Those are all the parts of life you survive as, or through, or with. And the amount of survival would be judged by how much pleasure you had in each area. And of course, the pleasure accomplished with regard to GOOD stuff for you and others' parts of life as well. In other words, being unethical, even if you thought it was good or needed, would not be survival as it would hurt others. So lets say you made yourself a goal in life to become a piano player. If you did this, became good at it, you would have pleasure, others would have pleasure, and you would be surviving in the true sense of the word. I hope I described this in a way that is understood. There's a whole book about it!

Answer 4

Now that is a tricky question, and you will get a thousand different answers from people who believe in different things. To me life has no meaning, depressing yes, but it's a thought one gets used to. Just remember that you are a living being like every other creature and plant on the planet and if they have no greater purpose, like most believe, why then should you?

Answer 5

If we were put here for a greater purpose, I think there would be more evidence of it. It's not possible to know either way, so you should do what you feel is best. I don't believe life has meaning, but that doesn't mean it's pointless.

Answer 6

The "Answer" is simply "42." In the story, the Answer to the Ultimate Question about Life, the Universe, and Everything is produced using the hypercomputer Deep Thought. And Deep Thought cannot lie.

Answer 7

42

Answer 8

42

Answer 9

I think that we are here to live our lives to the fullest and do whatever we can to have a good life, but in reality nothing that you did matters in the long run. Eventually everyone will die and none of it will have mattered.

Answer 10

Love