What is the meaning of life?

Answer 1

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 2

This is a question everyone asks but it is often confused with the purpose of life, which is an entirely different subject. Meaning means: "An idea to be conveyed or intended to be conveyed." The meaning that life conveys to me is simply that "life is the meaning of life." Without it I have and can have nothing. It is therefor sacred and so I should revere it.

What I do with my life is the purpose I give to it and that may be anything almost. It is also probable that since life is so rare (it seems to last only a fleeting time and must have originated like me from other life) and so tenuous (it is so easily snuffed out) it must have been created and sustained somehow by or with a living thing. What this entities purpose was in originating life is not known to all alike but some profess to know it. I make it my purpose in the conduct of my life to find out, if possible, that purpose.

Answer 3

efw, the first answerer, thinks that religion forces the answer on us. But the simple fact is that everyone is seeking meaning and they naturally wind up thinking about God.

Real meaning comes from living for a real purpose. I think everyone agrees on that. Real purpose can only come from God:

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

Without God, life is inherently purposeless and meaningless. All we can do is to invent some activities that make us feel good, focus on happy thoughts and keep us too busy to think about our meaningless existence.

But if God exists, our meaning must come from seeking Him.

Answer 4

Life just is. It has no intrinsic, or built in meaning of it's own.

All the meaning that life will ever have is the meaning that you give to it.

Looks like its up to you.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 5

To gain a lot of money.