What do you think the meaning of life is? Do you think the most important thing is to "enjoy it/have fun"?

Question

What do you think the meaning of life is? I know a lot of people say "to live it to the fullest, to have fun and enjoy yourself, etc... What's your belief ?

Please also specify what your religion is as well please. i.e. atheist, agnostic, buddhist, etc.

Answer 1

Its definately not to just have fun and enjoy yourself.   Because think about it.  Dont rapists and murderers enjoy themselves and have fun by hurting others?

The meaning of life is to live righteously by choice and serve God.   Follow the 10 commandments and enjoy Gods blessings.

I follow the teaching of the bible.

Answer 2

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 h**l

...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 se

Answer 3

I try to enjoy my life as much as I can but each individual needs to find out what is best for them.

I am a Southern Baptist (that is what I have been baptized as) but there are parts of other religions that I incorporate into my personal beliefs that don't exactly follow the Baptist dogma if you

Answer 4

well im christian, and ive been taught that it's to follow God's word, help other people, and live a full, healthy, helpful, life. Generally be a good person and make the world a better place before you pass.  

Answer 5

...to enjoy all that LIFE IS in the moment, everyday...

...to do my best today and better tomorrow for a better world....

...animistic...

...thanks for asking...

Answer 6

I'm catholic. The meaning of life, from my prospective, is what someone believes in. some people think life is not worth living, some do. People have been trying to find what the meaning of life is. Why spend your life trying to figure out why you are living, instead of living before you won't be able to. Personally , we are all here to get the chance to be part of society divided by religions and beliefs. We die so other people can live this life. In other words, when one person dies, another person is born. Life will not always be happy to everybody because of short lifes, innocent murders, depression, loneliness, suicide, etc. People tell you to live it at its fullest, to have fun and enjoy yourself, so you wouldn't ask questions like this one, and live your desired life.

Answer 7

Joy comes as grace...from loving others.

Answer 8

i'm a Christian and the meaning of life is to serve God and bring Him glory!

Answer 9

Atheism isn't a religion but a non-religion. I myself have no religion, they get in the way of finding God.

This is a synopsis of a book entitled "God Speaks." The book was written in 1955 by Meher Baba and explains the meaning of life.

Life is a journey that God is traveling.

The first phase of God's journey is evolution. It is initiated from a totally unconscious God as if an infinite Ocean of Knowledge, Power and Bliss were in a state likened to deep sleep. This unconscious God speaks the First Word "Who am I?". This question disrupts the limitless, undivided, absolute vacuum, and its reverberations create individualized souls, compared to drops or bubbles within the Ocean. By speaking the First Word, God establishes the process of Creation, in which he assumes evolving forms to gain increasing consciousness.

Individuality is the vehicle of this quest. Evolution marks a series of temporary answers to "Who am I?" The soul traverses a multitude of forms, beginning with simples gases and proceeding slowly through inanimate stone and mineral forms. These early evolutionary stages obviously have only the most rudimentary consciousness and cannot provide a satisfactory answer to God's original question.

The original query thus provides a continuing momentum for the drop soul to develop new forms each with greater consciousness, including the many plant and animal beings. Every evolutionary kingdom reveals new dimensions of consciousness and experience. Each also offers opportunities to gain different kinds of awareness. For example, when the soul identifies itself with varied species of fish, it experiences the world as a creature living in water conversely, as a bird, it enriches its consciousness by flying through air.



When the drop soul finally evolves to human form, consciousness is fully developed, but an individual is still not aware of the potential of his or her consciousness.

So the original "Who am I?" imperative persists and inaugurates the second phase: reincarnation. Since consciousness is fully developed, there is no longer a need for evolving new forms. The individual's experience, gathered in early stages of evolution, is now humanized and expressed in countless lifetimes. The impulses gained in sub-human forms can play themselves out in the broader context of intelligence, emotions, choices, diverse setting and interactions with people.

But obviously no single lifetime can bear the burden of "humanizing" the entire evolutionary inheritance randomly or simultaneously. There must be a method for re-experiencing the pre-human legacy in manageable segments. The soul thus experiences alternately a series of opposites, organized according to themes. Accordingly, in different lives, the soul becomes male and female, rich and poor, vigorous and weak, beautiful and ugly. Through exploring the potential of these many opposites, one eventually exhausts all possible human identities and, therefore, has fully learned the entire range of human experience.

Here begins the third phase: involution, the process by which the soul returns to the full awareness of the Divine Force, which created him. As Meher Baba puts it, "When the consciousness of the soul is ripe for disentanglement from the gross world (the everyday world of matter and forms), it enters the spiritual path and turns inward."

Like evolution, involution has certain states and stages, consisting of "planes" and "realms." But individuality continues along this spiritual path, and there are as many ways to God as there are souls.

Each new plane denotes a state of being that differs from the states that proceeded it. The first three planes are within the subtle world or domain of energy, "pran." There follows the fourth plane, the threshold of the mental world, where misuse of great power for personal desire can lead to disintegration of consciousness.

The fifth and sixth planes represent true sainthood, which is understood to be increasing intimacy with God as the Beloved. On the sixth plane, the mind itself becomes the inner eye that sees God everywhere and in everything. "The loving of God and the longing for His union," says Meher Baba "is fully demonstrated in the sixth plane of consciousness."

The seventh plane marks true and lasting freedom. Impressions go. Duality goes. The drops burst and again become the Ocean. God answers his question of "Who am I?" with "I am God." The Infinite has returned to the original starting point. He now knows, however, with full consciousness and full awareness that he was, is and always will be infinite with infinite Knowledge, Power and Bliss. And he realizes that the entire journey has been an illusory dream, the purpose of which is the full awakening of his soul.

Answer 10

In so far as our evolving spirit soul becomes permeated by truth, beauty, and goodness as the value-realization of God-consciousness, such a resultant being becomes indestructible. If there is no survival of eternal values in our evolving soul, then our existence is without meaning, and life itself is a tragic illusion. But it is forever true: What you begin in time you will assuredly finish in eternity--if it is worth finishing.

While the level of intelligence has contributed considerably to the rate of cultural progress, society is essentially designed to lessen the risk element in the individual's mode of living, and it has progressed just as fast as it has succeeded in lessening pain and increasing the pleasure element in life. Thus does the whole social body push on slowly toward the goal of destiny--extinction or survival--depending on whether that goal is self-maintenance or self-gratification. Self-maintenance originates society, while excessive self-gratification destroys civilization.

Answer 11

I've always wondered. and I still dont know, but I think its that you have to help others to have a good life, and others will help you. I think you should have a good time, and enjoy the life you are given. To love, give love, and be happy.

Answer 12

to reproduce

thats all it is for other animals, the grow old enough to reproduce as many times as possible, then they die. because we are intelligent, we believe that our lives must have meaning. the way i see it, our individual lives only have meaning to a small proportion of living beings. but in the big picture, our lives have no meaning

as you may have guessed, im atheist

Answer 13

Hi there,

I am atheist. I don't really give a p**p how us humans got here, but we just got here! I don't want to waste my life time worrying about how we became, i believe you should just enjoy life and make the most of it!

:D Keamy Linus

Answer 14

42.

No really, does there need to be a meaning to it all? We live, we die but everything still keeps going on. I live to live. I am alive so I'll make the most of it while I'm here. I'll strive to be happy and fulfilled. I'll try to be kind to people and understanding and empathetic. I don't need a meaning to do those things, I do them because it makes me feel like I'm living the best life I can while I have the life in me.

I am not a religion. I do not choose to put a label on the belief structure I have or don't have. I have an open mind. I accept people believe what they believe without condemning them for it. If they believe what they believe then to them that is the truth and the only truth for them. I am who I am without the need to label what I am. I just am.  

Answer 15

The meaning of life is to learn the lessons presented to you in this life...

You will be back again to learn those that you ignored or thought unimportant if you don't. You are and always have been. You are a spirit being trapped in a physical body. When you finally get it right, you will ascend to a higher plane and be a lamp unto those that need you here on earth.