What is the meaning of life?

Question

I just want to see what people think.

Answer 1

It comes down to the individual. We all have our own meanings to walk this Earth. Whether it be religion, love, career whatever. The reason you walk this Earth is your meaning, however on a larger scale I think we are meant to advance our knowledges and understandings of everything that life can offer. We are meant to love one another and act humane, put aside our differences and focus on the things we have in common, as opposed to us only focusing on our differences.

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 true meaning of life is to know what life is on you and to others. This is i think vital to humanity -- to value it as a source of inspiration and determination. If you failed to do it, then you have no reason to live in this wonderful world. One thing more, you must also be religious -- you may ask what is the essence of this - To know more about God because he dwell on us and the surroundings around you is all because of Him.

Answer 4

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BUt seriously- what does that question actually mean? What meaning does life play have in the bigger picture, you mean? That depends on if you see a bigger picture, or if life itself is the whole picture. If you say that God is the bigger picture(I'm a Christian but he might or might not be called a "bigger picture") then life is the work of God. Life is his love, or rather, what he loves, I'd say. You would really have to go into why God created us, wouldn't you, to really answer?

Answer 5

Real meaning or just the feeling of meaning?

Real meaning comes from living for a real purpose. Real purpose refers to why we were put on this earth and what are we supposed to do here. Real purpose requires a Creator/God.

“Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.” –Bertrand Russell(philosopher, mathematician and Nobel Laureate)

So we can't create real purpose for ourselves because we didn't create ourselves. We can, however, create the feeling of meaning and purpose through various psychological tricks.

For example, one answerer writes, "Let us all strive for a greener/brighter future by helping to create a solid foundation for future generations to build upon, so we can hand them a beautiful world, filled with never ending awe and wonders!!" Here the answerer invites you to do something significant so you can praise yourself and imagine others praising you. This praise feels good and soon you can imagine that building this wonderful world of the future is the purpose for which you came into the world. It uses the good feelings of self esteem to create the illusion of purpose.

Answer 6

If you take the biblical viewpoint (AsI do), then the answer is........For the in-dwelling of God`s spirit. The Bible teaches us that our bodies are the temple of God, that he created us to dwell in us. We may build great buildings and call them temples or tabernacles, or churches, or whatever, but our bodies are the only temples God made. That is what Christ meant when he said the kingdom of Heaven is with-in you. God created us to worship and serve him, and as a dwelling place for his spirit. God also said in the bible,(Proverbs, I think) the whole duty of man is to fear God and keep his commandments.

Answer 7

I have lots of info that I think you will find quite helpful and enlightening:

http://360.yahoo.com/blorm_multaeeneea_lavacom (For tons of inspirational info)

http://ecowellness.multiply.com/ (For all the environmental info)

Let us all strive for a greener/brighter future by helping to create a solid foundation for future generations to build upon, so we can hand them a beautiful world, filled with never ending awe and wonders!!

Where peoples differences and uniqueness are accepted, where we all live as one, helping one another so that we can all play our own mysteriously beautiful melodies in the never ending, awe inspiring, song of life :-)

I truly have faith in humanity and believe that someday our lives and the world in which we live will truly be transformed for the better.

Answer 8

To enjoy life to its fullest. Finding the ultamete love for you in all aspects of life.

Answer 9

love --- that's the meaning of life for humans.

what is the meaning of life for birds? and prairie dogs?

the same thing.

Answer 10

What meaning do you want? If you just want to be a natural animal, then mate, breed and die. If you want to be Human, then Love, mate and live.