What Is The Meaning Of Life?

Every creature has those instinctual survival aspects, but it is only human kind which ponders the meaning of death and fears what may come after death, and changes its behavior based upon those ponderances and fears. I believe that most human-made religions are born of this fear of death and the need to explain it.

says who? There are many intelligent species on this planet........who knows what dolphins or elephants spend their hours thinking about. No human has ever found a means of fluent communication with them to discover this. I understand your statement.....but understand it is completely based on your conjecture, nothing proven or even researched.

IMO, Life shouldn't have a meaning. Hypothetically, if we were to discover it, what would we do then?

If their is a God, and he intends us to have a meaning, after we fulfill it, what then? What would be our purpose to existing?

And if their isn't any God, then life doesn't have a meaning anyway. When we think of "the meaning of life" we tend to think that someone of omnipotent power has beset us with a purpose.

If we find a meaning and fulfill it, we become unnecessary. And if there is no meaning, why do we b*tch? Frankly it'd be best to leave the matter alone.

Life doesn't have any particular meaning.However,one can still find a personal meaning in the life one leads.

It was my intention to wait and see how this thread would evolve, and it overlaps too much with this one. Merging.

And if their isn't any God, then life doesn't have a meaning anyway. When we think of "the meaning of life" we tend to think that someone of omnipotent power has beset us with a purpose.

sorry, but uh-uh. We exist on a planet. Out planet exists in it's present form due only to it's intricite cycles and the cause/affect relationship these cycles have with one another. When one talks about "meaning of life", usually they are speaking of purpose....purpose implies cause......cause implies affect..........none of it has to do with any "god" garbage. This planet had many species of plant/animal life keeping it's ecosystems going....long before the homo-sapien or any of it's ancestoral species ever walked the earth........let alone walked it long enough to dream up a god or even understand the concept of a god if one actually existed.

Originally posted by Evil Dead
sorry, but uh-uh. We exist on a planet. Out planet exists in it's present form due only to it's intricite cycles and the cause/affect relationship these cycles have with one another. When one talks about "meaning of life", usually they are speaking of purpose....purpose implies cause......cause implies affect..........none of it has to do with any "god" garbage. This planet had many species of plant/animal life keeping it's ecosystems going....long before the homo-sapien or any of it's ancestoral species ever walked the earth........let alone walked it long enough to dream up a god or even understand the concept of a god if one actually existed.

when you say purpose, who imposed that purpose? It didn't come out of nowhere. I ain't tryin' to debate the existence of a God, but to have a purpose means someone/thing has given us(humanity) one, unless we gave it to ourselves. But since we're trying to figure it out, we obviously didn't. SO... who did give us this "meaning to life?" That's what I was trying to get at.

purpose is a man made idea, it's used to describe a cause/affect relationship after the fact. It can be used to describe an intended cause/affect relationship......but ofcourse you can only describe an affect of any cause after it's already happened, therefore using it beforehand is not proper usage. The entire idea of your last paragraph just doesn't hold up. There requires no intelligence for a cause to occur. The wind blows and my trash can falls over. Cause and affect. I can sit here until the cows come home and say, "that damn wind only blew to knock my trashcan over so I'd have to go out in the rain and pick it up. That wind's purpose was to make me get wet".........just doesn't make it so. Still doesn't lend any creedence to an intelligence making the wind blow.

So you're saying that the meaning of life is just a natural phenomenon like the wind. That in fact there may not be a meaning, we humans are just riding out existence affecting our surroundings?

already stated, on the previous page actually.....

there is no true meaning to life.......

humans are so egotistical. We share the same life cycle as every other living species on the planet, yet look for some sort of "meaning" to this cycle that only applies to humans.

from what I can see.....the only reason life exists, be it human, elephant or dandilion is to reproduce allowing each species to continually carry on the exact same function in it's ecosystem facillitating all other naturally occuring cycles on our planet.

here's the meaning of life.......birth --> reproduction --> death. Apply it to any species of life on this planet be it animal or plant.

Ah, should've read the the thread before posting. Still, meaning or not, it's unproven either way. It's opinion till we do prove it.

Which we won't.

very true.

We can't prove......but we can rule out. Any "meaning" to life must apply to life in general......even a Tulip. Any "meanings" offered that can not possibly apply to all life be it pear tree or fruit fly based on known scientific fact must be completely discarded, correct?

now.......let's here some other people's opinions, ideas and hypotheses that can apply to life in general.

Our mind does only understand meanings, if something has no meaning we will not know. To say that life has no meaning is already to try to give it a meaning.

We've tried to give it meaning, but so far it's been in vain.

since our creation ,mankind has pondered this and i might have thought of the answer.it is about friendship,love ,and living life to extent without caring about what ppl think about u just live your life any thoughts by anyone

it is about friendship,love ,and living life to extent without caring about what ppl think about u just live your life any thoughts by anyone

but how can this be the meaning to life? There is much life out there that is not capable of any of the emotions you just listed, atleast to our knowledge so far. How can an Oak tree know of friendship or love?

Tree pedophiles get arrested for having seed catalogues in their homes.

lol... Sorry, the idea of trees experiencing love made that come to mind.

Originally posted by Evil Dead
but how can this be the meaning to life? There is much life out there that is not capable of any of the emotions you just listed, atleast to our knowledge so far. How can an Oak tree know of friendship or love?

It is like you have said before;

The meaning of life is life and nothing more. It is like saying, why is the universe so beautiful when no one sees most of it? It just is...

Originally posted by Evil Dead
but how can this be the meaning to life? There is much life out there that is not capable of any of the emotions you just listed, atleast to our knowledge so far. How can an Oak tree know of friendship or love?

Except the tree-love thing... creepy.

hey its as god a answer as any

no it's not. I've already stated reproduction as a better answer. It certainly applies to all species of life on this planet whereas the answer you give does not apply to all life, making it moot in this subject.

the pre-requisite to giving a "meaning" to life is that it applies to life.......the answer you gave does not apply to life, as a matter of fact it could only apply to human life.........a very small percentage of life.