What is the meaning of Life?

Question

So this question sounds stupid...but i think about it all the time...

What do yall think the meaning of life is...i want answers from all prespectives religious and secular...

thanks

I know I could get any answer...

Just for fun

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

The word "meaning" requires a plan or design and when we refer to our existence, a plan or design requires God. What did God mean when he created us is a logical question. We can't ask that question of any purely natural process such as mindless evolution.

The first statement then is that unless we assume God exists, your question about meaning is meaningless. Without God, we have to change the question to "what will make me happy and forget about my meaningless existence?" And there are some psychological techniques that can help there. Keeping too busy to think about a meaningless existence is one such technique.

But if we admit God might exist, then He must have put our intense need for meaning into our human nature to point us to seek Him.

Answer 3

For sure this is not a stupid question! Isn't this the most essential one can think about? But why it happens that when one thinks and really goes into it, that then one comes to a point where the thinking ends. It is like coming to a wall that can't be climbed or in any way one can overcome it? The thinking just doesn't work any more and indeed one might feel stupid when the limitation of ones mental capacity becomes so obvious.
Being aware of ones limitations, one still can use ones mental capacity to find out more. One can ask more questions. Why it seems impossible to find out with ones thinking about the meaning of life? Probably because we are trying to use the wrong tool. So let’s look first at this mental tool. Humans have developed their thinking capacity pretty high, but they not only use it as a tool, they are identified with it and this makes part of their personality, but often inhibits them to observe their thinking and also they have difficulties to be objective, because their thinking is always connected with their personal conditions.
Let’s look nearer at the question: “Meaning of Life” means that we want to find or give an explanation about life. This can only happen on an intellectual level using words. All words are symbols; they stand for a concept that gives meaning to something we receive with our senses. We give a description for what we perceive and this becomes a concept, so another person can understand something not even having made the experience by oneself. It is clear that the description of a taste for example can’t be a substitute for a direct experience when one is using ones taste.
Here we can realize how primitive our mental capacity still is and that we are stuck with it, using it not as a tool but as a means to proof our existence with it. Being identified with it and so one gets the feeling of existence from it. The word ‘life’ stands for a concept. We might use now other words to explain this concept, but we will not be able to produce the experience of life, as we are stuck with our established concepts and not being able to go beyond the thinking.
Conclusion: We can turn around ourselves, finding satisfaction by using our mind, but we will not be able to make a direct experience, the concept will always stand as a wall between the direct experience and ourselves. Is there any solution? When we are aware of our dependency, in this case from our mind, then we might be able to do a step beyond. What could this be? Can we be conscious about our existence without using our reactions, mentally or emotionally? Yes we can, although this is a step beyond our personality. Our personality will always be stuck with reactions on the emotional and mental level and being identified with them, not being able to observe these or do a step beyond. How is it possible to create the conditions that a person can develop beyond ones personality? The majority of humans in the present state of evolution are not capable, but there are individuals who are ready, although they need to work on it and use all their intention to get out of the cage of thinking and concepts.
Now, these are many words. Is your question answered? Obviously not, because words can’t answer this question. What will give an answer is that you live your life: NOW! You are aware that you are alive and there is no question left open…
BeiYin

Answer 4

There is never a single, true, or correct answer to this question. My answer is to be yourself. To be someone else (aka, me being jk rowling!). To laugh, to play, to sing and dance. To do whatever you're good at, whatever you're bad at. To watch reruns of Friends at 2 in the morning. To share sweet tarts with friends. The joy of Christmas morning as a kid. Feeling free to roam the world as you please. To talk on the phone for hours. To finally get your fist IM. To get your college acceptance letter. To read a book, and get lost in the world. To be silent. To scream at the top of your lungs. To pet a dog. To own your own home. To fal in love.

All these things and more are the true meanings of life, and so to conclude my ever-so-small list out of the big world of meanings:

The meaning of life is to Love, Learn and to LIVE your life to the fullest!

Answer 5

The meaning of life is LOVE! God loves you so you should love him back and love your fellow human-beings and all the animals he created. To know Gods purpose for you read; ( Ecclesiastes 12:13 )....( 2 Timothy 2:21 )....( Luke 9:23 ) If you don"t have a bible you can go to this cool online bible: ( http://bible.christianity.com ) So I must stress that the true meaning of why you are here is to develop spiritually so that you may form a closer connection with God: who is in essence the creator of love and who IS LOVE!!

Answer 6

The meaning of life. There is no one single meaning to life. Each society since the beginning of time has yearned for the meaning of life. NONE of then were able to really find it. And so, they developed religions and Gods to teach their children about because they loved their children and did not want to have to tell their children, that there is no meaning to life..at least none that we can really prove. Each religion, or philosophy you study will claim to know that meaning with certainty. But after you have studied them all, as I did, you will realize that you are more confused than when you began studying. Because the meaning...the real true MEANING of life, has never been given to us. Choose your belief. Follow it. And by "faith" adhere to what you think is most right. There is no other way.

Answer 7

The meaning of life is to live it - no matter what spiritual path you take, thats the liberating truth

Answer 8

I have thought about this question many times.... I've come to believe that it is have joy. Joy is "the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires"

What brings me joy??? my family, to be in love, my belief in Jesus Christ.

Answer 9

Just wondering what do you expect when you put a question like that on a site like this

Answer 10

to find the meaning of life

Answer 11

to live it the way you wanna!!!! =D