What do you think is the meaning of life?

Question

It is my personal belief that there is a god and our lives are being judged based on actions. If the good outweighs the bad then you will find peace in the afterlife, but why are we here? I just feel like we were granted time to be free and do as we please by a greater being. Our actions are our own and yet controlled because we fear what we do not know for certain, and the gray area is death.
Religion feels forced at times does it not? It is the key to filling in that gray area of death, but they all have a major flaw. Everyone says their's is right and everyone else's is wrong...but...how is that fair? How could it be that one group of people gets to be right and live happily ever after, and the rest burn in hell? That's not right... it can't be right. People get so worked up about who's right and wrong.. We fight over meaningless things. We think too much of the future and can't see what lies in front of us...

It is my personal belief that the meaning of life is... to live.

I see the branching path in front of me and the multitude of decisions that I must make in life. I just don't want to believe that if I walk blinded down one road, it was the only one that was actually there.

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

I am agnostic so will answer from that position. If you are religious or a theist, you will derive your interpretation of the "meaning of life" from your beliefs. If there is a Great Cosmic Purpose for life, unrelated to the god of any theology, we can not know what it is, but it may operate upon the principle of meaningfulness. Otherwise, regardless of our positions or philosophies regarding a Creator, we each create our own meaningfulness in our lives. There are those who believe that "everything happens for a reason". It is human nature to interpret the events in our lives as meaningful. Still, there exists the possibility that, in fact, there is no real meaning in life, particularly if atheism is true, because even the Universe will cease to exist sometime. Nothing is forever, and, if there is nothing afterward, then meaning is only in the minds of the currently living...

Answer 3

I agree with you as far as the religion thing, some people are Christians, some are catholics, I don't have a religion, I think is should be good enough to believe in God and that's it. So if there is right kind of religion to be, how would we know which one is right? I think we should live and be happy as long as we're alive because we only live once, no one really knows what happens after you die. I think people should be happy while they are alive.

Answer 4

You have a lot of truth in you summery of life, there are many paths to our father. We should not force our beliefs on others and kill for religion. Feel we are here to learn and help our brothers along the way.
When we leave this old earth the only thing we will take with us is what we gave away.

Answer 5

You've answered your own question. Religion feels forced because it is manmade and thus suffers the bias of Man. Fairness is not necessary for life to proceed, and to rely on a higher being to mediate your disputes for you as if you are still a child looking to a parent keeps you from seeing truths beyond man's game. I do not fault those who choose to follow religions, as long as they think for themselves and understand what they are following and why. You start your explanation telling us you believe there is a god and that god judges our actions. You end up saying the meaning of life is to live. You have worked through this question in that short space, realizing that religion is a system to assuage the fear of that judgment, the fear of the future and death, but that it is arbitrary and makes no sense in the context of outside religions that may conflict with the one followed. It is man's balm and stronghold against the night of eternity. Once one simply lives and drops the fears, the systems of appeasement fall away in our innermost being. You yourself should get the best answer for this one. I think you are thinking out loud. Keep going with it and do not allow yourself to become bitter or judgmental against those who feel better having one or another religion in their lives whether or not it differs in doctrine. I must admit I have my own "thought cushions" but I fluff them regularly. Cheers!

P.S. I hope this does not come off as sounding like an arrogant atheist answer. I do not discount the possibility that there is a god or gods. It is the system of religion that I fault for fomenting division within societies of men, not the idea that there is or is not a god.

Answer 6

Forget humans for a moment and look at all other life forms i.e., plants, insects, animals, mammals. What is the meaning of it all. Start with wild grass. When you get all done, if you aren't too arrogant and religiously indoctrinated,you will have an idea what we might be doing here.

Answer 7

The meaning of life. Have you ever watched the discovery channel? Their are some species of insects that live only for a couple of days before dieing. What do they do with these couple of days? Have sex. We are put on this to do to things. Reproduce and to die. That is how our live will be written, no matter how intellectually superior we are to other species. We can not defy the laws of nature.

Answer 8

The principle goal of the Christian is (or ought to be) to seek God. The goal is NOT to be good, nor is the goal to get to heaven. Being good naturally flows with transforming our minds through the building of the relationship between us and our Creator. Heaven is just a place where those who want to be with their Creator will be with their Creator. Hell is a place for those who don't want to be with their Creator. You can't find yourself in hell by accident. The gates of hell are barred from inside.

It is clear to me that having real meaning is very important. I think that God put that need for meaning inside of our human nature to point us to seek Him. But we also want to be independent of God so we just make up purposes for living and then pretend they are real just because it makes us feel good. Not meant to offend you but to think that the meaning of life is "to live" is just self serving. It means do whatever it is that you feel like doing. That's what the vacant eyed cows in the pasture do.

Answer 9

If you had asked me this years ago, the answer surely would have been self-serving. Now, this is what I truly believe: that the sole purpose of mankind is this...
"Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" Ecclesiastes 12:13

Answer 10

Meaning of life? its simple. to obey by Gods law and his commands. animals you see they all do it, the moons and the stars they all do it, planets they all do it. you dont see the planets going of course do you ? they always exactly at the exact orbit. not one single meter away from its orbit. its floating in space, you see rain at places falling and being created into rivers and stuff for animals to drink, for plants, trees. everything is designed to what they do , you find out what you were created to do ? just like everything else. you were given instruction, other things dont havefree will, we as humans do, weare the only created thing to have a free will. its a gift, you were given laws and instruction on how to live your life which is that you are supose to obey God and do what he commanded you to do.

Answer 11

i believe in reincarnation

please respect me thoughts and views and i'll respect yours

i believe that we are here to learn a certain lesson .. be it true happiness.. true love... true struggle.. w/e

like a semester in school we graduate at death.. we go over what we have learned and set a lesson plan for our next "semester" we are born again and at the end.. when we've learned everything we need to know.. we are at last ready to be one with the gods, or at peace

like i said just me i guess but let it be known that i will not change my ways b/c of what someone says on the internet, just as i don't expect anyone to change their views by reading or hearing my thoughts on a subject