Is there a meaning to life? Does there need to be in your opinion?

Question

I think not, freedom of thought unless you restrict others is close to my thinking. Living is enough of a gift, we need an explanation too??

So many beautiful answers. Tankyou.

does that help robertb? Isn't the joy and beauty of existenece enough?

Love your answer PeaceloveBZ,that's close to how i see it.

developing, learning and growing is what it all about to me Keira, it doesn't matter if you have one chance or lots, make this a magic experience. =)

Apologies, i was a li'l mashed on Friday.=) Many wonderful answers here.

I don't think there needs to be a meaning to life, as in *Why am i here?* etc but that doesn't take away my desire to make my existence opportunity the best experience i can.

I do actually agree with Robertb very much, it really grieves me that so many of my fellow humans suffer unnecessarily and don't have the same opportunity to enjoy and explore their existence we do. This ain't fair!!! Potential quality of life shouldn't be subject to one's place of birth.

You might want to check out my other, similar, post for more details on how i view this question.

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070713201150AAcKNzc

I'm off to the Glade dance festival this afternoon so will choose a best answer now. Oh heck!!! It's pouring down rain here, hope it ain't going to be like this over the whole weekend of the fest. =)

Answer 1

I knew it once, but I forgot. =)

I don't think there is an overall meaning of life. In my opinion there are no universal answers. However there should be a meaning to your own life. Your own individual meaning, that's as unique as a snowflake.

Addition: Existence is enough. However look at my heros like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, etc. To have a calling in life is nice too!

Answer 2

Now the answer ... is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for life and life has no meaning.
— Somerset Maugham, (1874-1965)

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.
— Bertrand Russell

I don't think we're here for anything, we're just products of evolution. You can say, “Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose,” but I'm anticipating a good lunch.
— James Watson (Nobel prize winner; co-discoverer of molecular structure of DNA)

Life has no meaning beyond this reality. But people keep searching for excuses. First there was reincarnation. Then refabrication. Now there's theories of life after amoebas, after death, between death, around death. Now you come back as a shirt, as a pair of pants. If Shirley MacLaine tells some brilliant guy, "There's an ethereal planet that sits right next to a delicatessen in Ethiopia and if you go shop there twice a day, you'll live forever," this putz believes it because he needs an answer from somebody. People call it truth, religion; I call it insanity, the denial of death as the basic truth of life. "What is the meaning of life?" is a stupid question. Life just exists. You say to yourself, "I can't accept that I mean nothing so I have to find the meaning of life so that I shouldn't mean as little as I know I do." Subconsciously you know you're full of ****. I see life as a dance. Does a dance have to have a meaning? You're dancing because you enjoy it.
— Jackie Mason

Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy.
— Carl Sagan

Life should be lived so vividly and so intensely that thoughts of another life, or of a longer life, are not necessary.
— Marjory Stoneham Douglas

Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.
— Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)

From my rotting body,
flowers shall grow
and I am in them
and that is eternity.
— Edvard Munch (1863-1944)

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
— George Santayana (1863 - 1952)

Sacrificing the earth for paradise is giving up the substance for the shadow.
— Victor Hugo, (1802-1885)

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
— Douglas Adams

If you require even more info on the Meaning of Life, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life

Answer 3

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 4

The reason your parents were put on this earth was to have you, the reason you were put on this earth is to find a companion and make the next generation. Life is just a battery, as the Martix says you are born into slavery, but the mask is life should be fulfilled, human rights are basic things to sustain existence, but greed creeps in and makes people want more.

Answer 5

I agree with you completely, there isn't just one "meaning of life." Life can't be defined that simply...that quickly.

You aren't living if you can't love and be loved. It is also important to, along the course of your life, make the world a better place than it was before you came here, because you came here for a reason, and that reason wasn't to just sit there, do nothing, and allow life to pass you by and vanish in one blink of your eye. If you live your life to the fullest extent are are true to who you really are underneath your exterior appearence, I believe life has enough of a meaning already. :)

http://www.meaningsoflife.com/
http://truemeaningoflife.org/about.htm

Answer 6

There is no meaning to life any more than the lowest insect or lichen on the rocks, so make the most of it in the happiest way possible. without treading on others, as they are in the same boat as yourself

Answer 7

Sorry the only meaning in life is to procreate. Thats what we are here for and once that is finished and we have helped the human race to continue thats our lot!!!!

Answer 8

You think you have a meaning to your life? I think you are thinking WAY to highly of yourself if you think someone took the time after making the vastness of space, all the planets/stars to give your life meaning...

You live...You die...The End....Hope you had fun

Answer 9

I don't think that there is an exact meaning. More or less life is to live and to create and to not so much to learn who we are but to become who we are!

Answer 10

"The only reason that you are alive today is because you have a hope that something will turn up that's aesthetic, interesting, pretty, entertaining and so on.
You will hold that hope sodidly and you'll go through anything to obtain it"