The Meaning of Life

Sometimes life gets so mundane and slow-moving that it really makes you wonder what we're all here for. And yet, although it seems that life is slow-moving, it also moves so quickly that you don't really get to appreciate it very much. Time plays tricks with the human mind; we are here for so short a time that I feel so insignificant, less than a speck of dust in the Earth's atmosphere, floating around, desperately trying to find a way out.

I don't think that life has no meaning. I feel that I am here now, to do something. But to do what? Do I help, ultimately, in the course of what will one day be history? There is no answer, and I will probably not get an answer even after my death. I will not get an answer many years beyond that, because where is the evidence? Who will be able to say that I, any small and single human being, was able to change the course of history? Perhaps if one were Confucius, Socrates, Newton or Einstein, one could say that - but where would one be, in time, when one wants to say that? Would one's consciousness be floating in space? Or would one be another on this small planet, forever condemned to observing the universe through a small fleck of divinity?

It's hard to think, really, that I am here now. The world seems so old - the universe is so old. I am here only for such a short amount of time, and yet - why am I able to see the results of the universe so many years after its creation? Or, was it always there? What is it that defines creation, and what is it that defines eternity? Can something be eternal? Eternity feels like such a fabrication of my imagination that it is hard to imagine it being real. Because how can something be exactly the same as it was a moment ago? Is that possible?

I have so many questions
But I have no answers
For what is a question
And what is an answer?
Incomprehensible
Inexplicable

I sometimes wonder why
I am able to come up with something
That I cannot answer
Nor can I fully understand

Your thoughts?

The meaning of life is to reproduce because without reproduction then life would cease. :P

Err,

I do however think that everyone (or most people) do have a talent for something. The hard part is finding it and even then when you have found ithow is it going to help you or humanity?
Bah that's just even more questions.

Very interesting little piece of you have there. First off, I personally believe that we are here for the a reason, but for each individual person, you have to answer the fundamental questions to be able to live:

1. Identity - Who am I? Do I have a body and a soul, or am I just a material thing? Am I immortal and/or important?

2. Social - How do I relate to others (the opposite sex, family, marriage, friends).

3. Vocation - What is there worth while doing in life?

4. Religious - What is the ultimate reason for existence?Mr McCann

Reproducing, finding identity, finding talent, finding a calling... hmmm, so we're all here just to make meaning of what is given to us? That's actually a pretty good conclusion. Now, I'm going to sleep on it!

Good night, guys.

Reincarnation is an interesting way to look at it, I was wondering do you believe in Nirvana (what you reach when you had lived the perfect life) which is what some people (Espesially in old time Japan) believed.

Yes. Life has meaning:

1. As a Christian, I believe life has plenty of meaning, but I will not go into that (unless someone wants me to do so).

2. I think a major part of life having meaning is to have allfour types of goals. There's the short-term, such as getting one's hw done on time ;). There's also medium length, such as finishing your grade or graduating. One also has long-term goals, such as getting a gold watch after working for years and years (or for some, after the first year :P).

3. Another thing that gives purpose is the fourth type of goal. These are the strongest of all. I sometimes call them "Die Happy" goals. These are the things you want to accomplish before you die. I have two: one is to help as many people as possible in addition to drastically changing (or saving) at least one person's life. The other goal is to share my faith with others (again won't get into unless asked).

There are other points too, but I will let you all dwell on those for now ;).

Yes. Life has meaning:

1. As a Christian, I believe life has plenty of meaning, but I will not go into that (unless someone wants me to do so).

2. I think a major part of life having meaning is to have allfour types of goals. There's the short-term, such as getting one's hw done on time ;). There's also medium length, such as finishing your grade or graduating. One also has long-term goals, such as getting a gold watch after working for years and years (or for some, after the first year :P).

3. Another thing that gives purpose is the fourth type of goal. These are the strongest of all. I sometimes call them "Die Happy" goals. These are the things you want to accomplish before you die. I have two: one is to help as many people as possible in addition to drastically changing (or saving) at least one person's life. The other goal is to share my faith with others (again won't get into unless asked).

There are other points too, but I will let you all dwell on those for now ;).

just4yoshi

Wow, you're basically a combination of my beleifs and things our health teacher told us about goal setting :)

the answer is 42

the answer is 42

Game_Geeks

:lol:

Wow, lots of different ideas, guys. It's great; it gives me a pretty good refreshing view of life myself. I could never get why life equalled 42, though. Haven't read all of "The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Universe".

I tend to waver between nihilistic (we live to die) and rather more optimistic in my views. When optimistic, since I believe in reincarnation, I believe that the meaning of life is to learn, each incarnation giving the soul new experiences.Blade_Tr4iner

I believe in reincarnation as well, but I believe that although each incarnation gives the soul new experiences, it doesn't make the current mind any the wiser, and it is dependent on the collaboration of the current mind and the aging soul to achieve enlightenment (nirvana).

Yes. Life has meaning:

1. As a Christian, I believe life has plenty of meaning, but I will not go into that (unless someone wants me to do so).

2. I think a major part of life having meaning is to have allfour types of goals. There's the short-term, such as getting one's hw done on time . There's also medium length, such as finishing your grade or graduating. One also has long-term goals, such as getting a gold watch after working for years and years (or for some, after the first year ).

3. Another thing that gives purpose is the fourth type of goal. These are the strongest of all. I sometimes call them "Die Happy" goals. These are the things you want to accomplish before you die. I have two: one is to help as many people as possible in addition to drastically changing (or saving) at least one person's life. The other goal is to share my faith with others (again won't get into unless asked).

There are other points too, but I will let you all dwell on those for now .Just4yoshi

Nice, the four goals are a really neat way of dividing up paths in life. I've never thought about them like that until now... that shows how organised my thoughts are! :P

Reincarnation is an interesting way to look at it, I was wondering do you believe in Nirvana (what you reach when you had lived the perfect life) which is what some people (Espesially in old time Japan) believed.

Sparky-05

Nirvana is what the Buddhists want to achieve :P
No I don't believe in Nirvana, since perfection is impossible, so is Nirvana. Everything has at least one flaw.

[QUOTE="Sparky-05"]

Reincarnation is an interesting way to look at it, I was wondering do you believe in Nirvana (what you reach when you had lived the perfect life) which is what some people (Espesially in old time Japan) believed.

Blade_Tr4iner

Nirvana is what the Buddhists want to achieve :P
No I don't believe in Nirvana, since perfection is impossible, so is Nirvana. Everything has at least one flaw.

[QUOTE="Blade_Tr4iner"][QUOTE="Sparky-05"]

Reincarnation is an interesting way to look at it, I was wondering do you believe in Nirvana (what you reach when you had lived the perfect life) which is what some people (Espesially in old time Japan) believed.

Sparky-05

Nirvana is what the Buddhists want to achieve :P
No I don't believe in Nirvana, since perfection is impossible, so is Nirvana. Everything has at least one flaw.

The word you're looking for there is righteousness. We humans lack righteousness.

dude we humans are f***edGame_Geeks

That's why we need Jesus. Otherwise, f***ed doesn't quite cover it.

[QUOTE="Blade_Tr4iner"][QUOTE="Sparky-05"]

Reincarnation is an interesting way to look at it, I was wondering do you believe in Nirvana (what you reach when you had lived the perfect life) which is what some people (Espesially in old time Japan) believed.

Sparky-05

Nirvana is what the Buddhists want to achieve :P
No I don't believe in Nirvana, since perfection is impossible, so is Nirvana. Everything has at least one flaw.

And perfection, of course, belies the truth of that matter, in that without the concepts of "evil" or "immorality," then a land of God's goodness (read: the Judeo-Christian concept of Heaven) could not be construed as perfect so much as solitary. There is much derision, but to quote an oft over-quoted quote, without the light, there can be no shadow.

I believe that righteousness, sin, Heaven, Hell, and all other ilk are purely concepts of human incarnation. Human beings are, at our core, weak creatures, and the very concept of death stands in the face of all that we hope to one day overcome. We have conquered the resources of our planet, been to all but the very depths of our oceans, and even put our species on the moon. Diseases have been cured, the skies conquered...but still, we die. What good can come of being good if there is no life after here? Why, then, should we help the helpless and hope to redeem ourselves and our fetid society?

That society which robs, rapes, kills, and generally destroys. To what avail? Should there only be this life, being affected by such disastrous events would be crippling. If there is no after here, then why not take all that we desire, regardless of who it affects and in what ways? Ah, but the rejection of eternal bliss, the embrace of eternal damnation!...that is a very solid reason to fear the reprocussions of our actions.

And that's all it is. Telling kids that if they're good, Santa will come and give them presents. If not? Well, charcoal or a beating, depending on which culture and philanthropic demi-deity handles your holiday gift partitionings.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Faith can bolster and heal, and it can make life tolerable. Some things just aren't meant to have answers. A woman here was involved in a car accident and was trapped inside of her car for eight days. She survived and will most likely lose her legs. Did divine intervention keep her alive? I doubt it, as that same divine intervention could have simply prevented the car crash in the first place. Then again, that's the rub...and maybe there is a higher power that is casting shadows in order for us to appreciate the light.

Or maybe it's just easier for mankind to sleep at night feeling as if there's someone watching over us, and that everything at the end of the our lives will be so much better. Whether it's the "make believe" lands of Valhalla or the "make believe" undoing of our world in Ragnarok, or the "real" land of Heaven or the "real" undoing of our world in the Rapture, man's self-flagellant nature is all too apparent in the religions and faiths that we concoct, as is his overpowering ego. A few more thousand years will pass, and the current religions will pass, being viewed as the false musings of uneducated peoples. New religions will spring up, ushering in new world orders, new faces on the same problems, and a new twist on that unfailing suspicion that we're alone in this damned universe, and when we die, there has to be, no, there IS something better waiting for us on the other side.

*Shrug*

At least that's my take on it.

[QUOTE="Sparky-05"][QUOTE="Blade_Tr4iner"][QUOTE="Sparky-05"]

Reincarnation is an interesting way to look at it, I was wondering do you believe in Nirvana (what you reach when you had lived the perfect life) which is what some people (Espesially in old time Japan) believed.

EtherTwilight

Nirvana is what the Buddhists want to achieve :P
No I don't believe in Nirvana, since perfection is impossible, so is Nirvana. Everything has at least one flaw.

And perfection, of course, belies the truth of that matter, in that without the concepts of "evil" or "immorality," then a land of God's goodness (read: the Judeo-Christian concept of Heaven) could not be construed as perfect so much as solitary. There is much derision, but to quote an oft over-quoted quote, without the light, there can be no shadow.

I believe that righteousness, sin, Heaven, Hell, and all other ilk are purely concepts of human incarnation. Human beings are, at our core, weak creatures, and the very concept of death stands in the face of all that we hope to one day overcome. We have conquered the resources of our planet, been to all but the very depths of our oceans, and even put our species on the moon. Diseases have been cured, the skies conquered...but still, we die. What good can come of being good if there is no life after here? Why, then, should we help the helpless and hope to redeem ourselves and our fetid society?

That society which robs, rapes, kills, and generally destroys. To what avail? Should there only be this life, being affected by such disastrous events would be crippling. If there is no after here, then why not take all that we desire, regardless of who it affects and in what ways? Ah, but the rejection of eternal bliss, the embrace of eternal damnation!...that is a very solid reason to fear the reprocussions of our actions.

And that's all it is. Telling kids that if they're good, Santa will come and give them presents. If not? Well, charcoal or a beating, depending on which culture and philanthropic demi-deity handles your holiday gift partitionings.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Faith can bolster and heal, and it can make life tolerable. Some things just aren't meant to have answers. A woman here was involved in a car accident and was trapped inside of her car for eight days. She survived and will most likely lose her legs. Did divine intervention keep her alive? I doubt it, as that same divine intervention could have simply prevented the car crash in the first place. Then again, that's the rub...and maybe there is a higher power that is casting shadows in order for us to appreciate the light.

Or maybe it's just easier for mankind to sleep at night feeling as if there's someone watching over us, and that everything at the end of the our lives will be so much better. Whether it's the "make believe" lands of Valhalla or the "make believe" undoing of our world in Ragnarok, or the "real" land of Heaven or the "real" undoing of our world in the Rapture, man's self-flagellant nature is all too apparent in the religions and faiths that we concoct, as is his overpowering ego. A few more thousand years will pass, and the current religions will pass, being viewed as the false musings of uneducated peoples. New religions will spring up, ushering in new world orders, new faces on the same problems, and a new twist on that unfailing suspicion that we're alone in this damned universe, and when we die, there has to be, no, there IS something better waiting for us on the other side.

*Shrug*

At least that's my take on it.

But what is the meaning of life? :P

Ether you sound like me when I'm feeling particularly depressed - only you express it rather more clearly (I thought I had good language skills... you proved me wrong... )

I believe, or maybe a better term would be place my hope in, reincarnation for various reasons. The most obvious reason is, of course, a desire for immortality - few and far between are the people who could face the reality of death if it was proven to be nothing but... nothing.

The second reason is twofold, revolving around the main point of boredom - I find boredom to be the most intolerable experience in existence, and to me the concept of either eternal blankness or sitting in paradise/purgatory repeating the same actions until and beyond the end of the universe... well, that sounds mind-numbingly tedious to say the least. With reincarnation, the soul is never truly bored - the whole point of reincarnation is for the soul to learn and experience new things.

So, on the whole, the meaning of life to me is for the soul to escape boredom.

But what is the meaning of life? :PFoolz3h

There is no ultimate meaning, in my view at least. Though I am a spiritual person, I do not believe in an afterlife. I believe in a soul, but I view it as energy within us that is capable of supernatural things. I have had personal experiences with that - seeing ghosts, getting glimpses of others' thoughts, what have you - but within the most rigid terms of our world, I still believe our soul to be a natural extention of our body.

Kirlian photography (My avatar is a kirlian photograph of a butterfly) takes a picture of kinetic energy. Kirlian photographs of less than whole objects - e.g. a leaf that's been torn in half, the end of a man's arm whose hand has been amputated - will still show the missing appendage on the kirlian photograph. It's a strikingly peculiar phenemon, and whether it's actually the soul's energy being picked up, or a strange phenemon within our own bodies wherein energy is still exuded to the phantom limbs can vary from person to person.

But a soul, ultimately, is most likely energy. The same way that my brain works on chemicals and electrical impulses, so too does my soul reside within my body as energy. When I die, that energy will diffuse and be reabsorbed into the earth (unless, heaven forbid, I'm murdered and shoved in someone's freezer or something). I do believe in an overarching connection between all that energy, but that's really all it is.

Given that, the meaning of life? Whatever you want it to be. Want to save people in less fortunate countries? Want to be a famous author? Or do you want to sit in your home playing videogames and eating Fritos all day? Perhaps even become a criminal? Or just kill yourself because you hate your life? It doesn't really matter. Your life is your life, do with it and believe in and experience what you will. I'm not about to tell someone how to live what I view as their one and only life, just as I don't like it when people try to tell me how to live mine.

But having a "meaning" to life, really, is a presumptuous claim that invites self-flagellation and/or self-righteousness. The man on the pulpit delivering his sermon believes himself a better man than either his congregation or the people outside of his church that Sunday. Buddhists restrict their lives, ever working towards enlightenment through a crippling belief that the destruction of the body's will and desire will grant that knowledge. Satanists hate you, and they hate me, but they probably hate you even more and just want to do whatever it is that they want, regardless of who it affects and in what ways, until they die unto nothingness. The vow of silence with the removed tongue. The penance paid by a length of cord against your own back. Running into battle frenzied, knowing that death by the blade will be honorable, ushering you into that exclusive club in the sky.

Different names, different faces, different times in history...but the same result. Self-flagellation and self-righteousness. If that's someone's meaning, that's okay by me - well, the self-flagellation is okay, not so much the self-righteousness. But life, really, means whatever you want to apply to it. An ultimate meaning implies a higher power...and we're just alone here on this rock called earth.

You have a rather cynical view of the world, Ether. I'd rather believe that the "energy" of our souls transfers to another "container" than believe it simply... disperses.

Sorry dude, but you are depressing.

[QUOTE="Foolz3h"]But what is the meaning of life? :PEtherTwilight

There is no ultimate meaning, in my view at least. Though I am a spiritual person, I do not believe in an afterlife. I believe in a soul, but I view it as energy within us that is capable of supernatural things. I have had personal experiences with that - seeing ghosts, getting glimpses of others' thoughts, what have you - but within the most rigid terms of our world, I still believe our soul to be a natural extention of our body.

Kirlian photography (My avatar is a kirlian photograph of a butterfly) takes a picture of kinetic energy. Kirlian photographs of less than whole objects - e.g. a leaf that's been torn in half, the end of a man's arm whose hand has been amputated - will still show the missing appendage on the kirlian photograph. It's a strikingly peculiar phenemon, and whether it's actually the soul's energy being picked up, or a strange phenemon within our own bodies wherein energy is still exuded to the phantom limbs can vary from person to person.

But a soul, ultimately, is most likely energy. The same way that my brain works on chemicals and electrical impulses, so too does my soul reside within my body as energy. When I die, that energy will diffuse and be reabsorbed into the earth (unless, heaven forbid, I'm murdered and shoved in someone's freezer or something). I do believe in an overarching connection between all that energy, but that's really all it is.

Given that, the meaning of life? Whatever you want it to be. Want to save people in less fortunate countries? Want to be a famous author? Or do you want to sit in your home playing videogames and eating Fritos all day? Perhaps even become a criminal? Or just kill yourself because you hate your life? It doesn't really matter. Your life is your life, do with it and believe in and experience what you will. I'm not about to tell someone how to live what I view as their one and only life, just as I don't like it when people try to tell me how to live mine.

But having a "meaning" to life, really, is a presumptuous claim that invites self-flagellation and/or self-righteousness. The man on the pulpit delivering his sermon believes himself a better man than either his congregation or the people outside of his church that Sunday. Buddhists restrict their lives, ever working towards enlightenment through a crippling belief that the destruction of the body's will and desire will grant that knowledge. Satanists hate you, and they hate me, but they probably hate you even more and just want to do whatever it is that they want, regardless of who it affects and in what ways, until they die unto nothingness. The vow of silence with the removed tongue. The penance paid by a length of cord against your own back. Running into battle frenzied, knowing that death by the blade will be honorable, ushering you into that exclusive club in the sky.

Different names, different faces, different times in history...but the same result. Self-flagellation and self-righteousness. If that's someone's meaning, that's okay by me - well, the self-flagellation is okay, not so much the self-righteousness. But life, really, means whatever you want to apply to it. An ultimate meaning implies a higher power...and we're just alone here on this rock called earth.

Thanks for replying, Ether. You've got a very deep sense of life, but there's just one thing I want to say.

Buddhists restrict their lives, ever working towards enlightenment through a crippling belief that the destruction of the body's will and desire will grant that knowledge.EtherTwilight

I'm Buddhist, and I don't think we restrict our lives - not the modern ones, at least. Destruction of the body's will and desire will not grant the knowledge of enlightenment; rather, the ability to help people, to put others before yourself, and to be able to let go of attachments are parts of the essence of Buddhism. My religion isn't just about sitting in a temple and meditating or chanting all day (that seems to be a huge misconception), but rather to help others and to make this world a better place. Enlightenment is often achieved through helping others, less so by trying desperately to destroy the body's will and desire just so to get to the other shore. Of course, I know some less opened-minded Buddhists who would rather sit in temples and chant mantras all day... that's just my two cents.

I'm really not too sure waht to think about life. A theistic viewpoint might be that God or a supreme being puts us here to fulfil our destiny. An athiest might say our only job on Earth is to reproduce and pass on our genetic line.

The few thoughts I've given the matter usually lead me to the idea that all we are here to do is repeoduce. We can take our destiny into our own hands, and give life any meaning we want it to have.

It keeps saying there's a new post in here but there isn't!:(