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2007-08-29 09:11:28 · 9 answers · asked by Tom W 2 in Arts & Humanities Philosophy

9 answers

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) -

2007-08-29 20:13:26 · answer #1 · answered by Jayaraman 7 · 0 1

The meaning of life is to live forever on a paradise earth with peaceful conditions. Psalms 37 talks about the meek and righteous inheriting the earth forever. That is a promise by God. However, due to the world's conditions, many people do not believe that. And it's actually not taught in a lot of religions. God created Adam & Eve to be perfect and wanted them to fill the earth, with perfect children. However, they lost their perfection when they ate the forbidden fruit. But, God's purpose for the earth and for people never changed. If it did, that would make God a liar. And we also know that God cannot lie. Therefore, there will be a destruction of the wicked and Gods's true Christians will live on a paradisaic earth in a perfect state.

2007-08-29 09:37:57 · answer #2 · answered by Louisianachick25 1 · 1 0

If you asked 100 different people this question you'd get 100 different answers.

Some would say to live life, prosper and be happy.

Others would say to be all that God created us to be, love God with all our heart, mind, body and soul. To be fruitful and prosper. To preach the word of God.

Another might say to become rich, have lots of toys and die happy.

A politician might say to become president, have lots of power and rule the country.

Than others might say to love each other and help them with their needs.

This is an individual question that gets an individual answer that is the right answer for the person who is answering it but not the right answer for another. It has many faces and many answers and there isn't any wrong answer, just answers that fit the answerer and not necessarily others.

This is a really great question.

I bet you will get many different answers that will all be very thought provoking and as individual as we all are.

2007-08-29 09:51:10 · answer #3 · answered by Hillbillee 5 · 0 0

In my opinion life is a game. And the meaning and point to this game is to see how far you can get. Its all about how you spend it. Basically what you can accomplish.

If you get involved with drugs and die because you accidently shot up too much, you lost. Game over.

If you're happy and you got what YOU wanted out of life... wether it be a career, a family, happiness or all of those things, congrats, you won the game. =)

2007-08-29 11:45:52 · answer #4 · answered by CSF 6 · 0 0

From our 2097 page Epochal Revelation of Truth, now fully in the public domain, no copyright, freely share:


Page-1434 [Jesus stated, around AD23:] "Personality is that cosmic endowment, that phase of universal reality, which can coexist with unlimited change and at the same time retain its identity in the very presence of all such changes, and forever afterward.
Life is an adaptation of the original cosmic causation to the demands and possibilities of universe situations, and it comes into being by the action of the Universal Mind and the activation of the spirit spark of the God who is spirit. The meaning of life is its adaptability; the value of life is its progressability -- even to the heights of God-consciousness."

Page-1773 [A great Greek philosopher, who recently became a believer in Jesus, stated in AD29:] "Animals respond nobly to the urge of life, but only man can attain the art of living, albeit the majority of mankind only experience the animal urge to live. Animals know only this blind and instinctive urge; man is capable of transcending this urge to natural function. Man may elect to live upon the high plane of intelligent art, even that of celestial joy and spiritual ecstasy. Animals make no inquiry into the purposes of life; therefore they never worry, neither do they commit suicide. Suicide among men testifies that such beings have emerged from the purely animal stage of existence, and to the further fact that the exploratory efforts of such human beings have failed to attain the artistic levels of mortal experience. Animals know not the meaning of life; man not only possesses capacity for the recognition of values and the comprehension of meanings, but he also is conscious of the meaning of meanings -- he is self-conscious of insight."

There are many more references on

the fact of life
the value of life
the purpose of life
the progression(s) of life
gravity and life
pattern and life
Light and Life
Eternal life
many others

2007-08-29 09:43:07 · answer #5 · answered by ? 5 · 0 0

42

2007-08-29 09:19:36 · answer #6 · answered by cristelle R 6 · 0 0

To do whatever you desire to do, subject to an important condition, that you assist others in doing what they desire to do, and that you work toward a reconciliation of the conflicts that discordant desires create.

2007-08-29 10:02:51 · answer #7 · answered by Christopher F 6 · 0 0

To multiply !!

2007-08-29 10:02:32 · answer #8 · answered by I cannot believe it! 3 · 0 0

tagged

2007-08-29 09:18:58 · answer #9 · answered by Nerdsbane 3 · 0 0

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