Is there any meaning to life, and what happens when we die?

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

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 answer to your question depends on your background, culture, religion (or lack of it) and also depends on your attitude (which is also a result of many factors: your genes, the environment surrounding you, the relationships and exchanges throughout your life, etc).
Nobody can say that he/she KNOWS the answer for sure...why? Because nobody has come back from death to tell us...:-)
About the meaning to life, it depends entirely on you.
In some cultures, the meaning of your life is given from birth: you know that you are part of a community and that your "purpose" is something that that community needs from you (and they also give you something in exchange). Those are called "collectivists" cultures.
In most of the countries of the western culture, we are mostly individualists (and because of that, you ask that type of question: the meaning of life).
If you ask the Science and its discoveries, we are here just like the rest of the natural things: we are an accident, but depending on how you take it, we could be a wonderful random accident!
The fact that you are alive is already a miracle: and that you are able to make those questions. That means that you have more than Shopping Malls and an structured life in your brain. Everybody asks that at some time in their lives.
Some have all the answers from their religion or culture, and they decide don't look further. They accept what their culture or religion says as "the Truth". Problem arises when those people try to convince, or reject, or impose or in anyway hurt others based on what they perceive as "the only Truth".
Some people try to look further and don't take anything for granted. In that case, I would say you will suffer and feel discouraged some times, but if you persist, you'll find some answers that are good for you. Your truth is not the truth for everyone. And you can build your own system of values. Not to "do as you please", as some people think, but to live a live in that way that you don't regret too much when you die...and mostly, that you could see yourself in the eyes of your children (or yourself, if you have none) and don't feel ashamed or sorry.
That is, for me, the meaning of life...
After we die? Your body will become part of Nature, you will be in the air, in the root of trees and in the stomach of many animals...isn't that beautiful? You will "survive" and be "eternal" and will be part of everything...you get it?
Have a good life...

Answer 4

< :Life is nothing more than small battles won in the sake of sanity: > A fav. saying of mine! When we die, we will be allowed to know the purpose of the lessons we've learned in our present life, all things happen for a reason , be it good or bad, we are all born with free will and the ability to choose our paths to some extent, I think we reincarnate, simply to experience ALL life....when we have achieved this, we can join the Angels and guide those still learning. Our goal is to reach Purity of mind and spirit ...as it once was. Remember to always listen to the wisdom of your own inner voice and follow your heart.

Answer 5

I'm not sure if there is meaning, but why search for the meaning, just take life at it comes and do crazy things. Dont worry about things too much either!!

When we die, well who knows, We could go to some heaven, or we could just get reincarnated! Different people have different views.

Have a good christmas
xx

Answer 6

~~~ It could be that the meaning of life is to make it more pleasantly meaningful for somebody or something else. In life people or animals that we love die,and it hurts the ones left behind really bad. Then some day we die too, and it doesn't hurt so much. I miss my husband,but he probably doesn't miss me. R.I.P. Cliff. ~~~

Answer 7

The meaning of life is to have purpose and it is an individual quest to give our own life purpose.

When we die we die; out of nothing, back into nothing.
Make the most of it.

Answer 8

The only meaning in life is to love yourself and those who you share it with. When you die you will be given back to the earth. Make the most of it it's short.

Answer 9

God is Love and created all living things with love. In the beginning there was ONE then One became many.
We were created to love each other truly, completely and eternally. Every form there is on earth is a form of HIS; until we realise this and understand that we are all from the one and only SOURCE we just come back again and again until we really understand and learn this lesson -to love every living being unconditionally.
GOD IS LOVE
LOVE IS GOD
LOVE IS THE ONLY LESSON AND MEANING OF LIFE!
L

Answer 10

Hello,

(ANS) The purpose of life is to love !!

When you die your ego dies, & your physical body returns back into the primal void from where it originally came. We all came from the primal void and we all return to it.

**As an existential atheist I don't believe in a heaven or hell, I don't believe in a god of any kind nor religions either.

Ivan

Answer 11

You would do well to read Ann Ree Colton's "Men in White Apparel," Helen Greaves' "Testimony of Light," Jim Tucker's "Life before Life," and Mark Prophet's "Climb the Highest Mountan,"

If one's soulfield energy is becoming more materialistic, denser, then one may notice less and less the Godly in one's surround, "as one grows older." However, with meditation, prayer, lovingkindness, an increase in soul awareness often occurs--the inner childlike is championed, one matures in Grace. Modern examples of the latter are noted in "Autobiography of a Yogi," Yogananda, "The Beautiful Story of a Master," Louise-Marie Frenette, and "Essence of Aikido," Morihei Ueshiba.