ANSWERS: 25
  • Why does life need a meaning?
  • We give meaning to our lives by what we do with them. I ask myself the question: Is the world a better place with me in it? If I don't like the answer I change my behavior.
  • Why should life have a "meaning"? What is the meaning of the 233rd pebble on your drive? What is the meaning of three o'clock on Thursday? What is the meaning of the color blueish purple? Life doesn't have a meaning. Life is. Make the best of it.
  • My purpose in this life is to become a God and help humanity evolve in a positive direction.
  • Blowjobs! ;-) [C'Mon DRs!)
  • Does life really need a meaning.
  • Let's pretend. Let's randomly take some large number of people that happen to be ________ and ask them what the meaning of life is. What could we put in that blank to receive the same or similar answers from everyone selected? The answer is nothing. In other words, not theists, atheists, Communists, Norwegians, short people, Hispanics, or any other group classification will be able to agree on what the meaning of life is. So why ask atheists about the meaning of life? They have no claims common between them all, just as those who don't believe in Thor or leprechauns have no common beliefs. I understand you may just be trying to get a feel for the atheist perspective, but illogical generalization doesn't work. I would put a great deal of money on the line that if you were to poll every Christian in America as to what the meaning of life is, words common to every human being such as "love" and "good" would come up more often than words only common to Christians like "Jesus" and "savior."
  • Life doesn't have a meaning, it's not a semantic construct. But that's being a bit picky... what people normally mean with this question is "how can life be meaningful and satisfying from a human perspective if there's no deity or afterlife?" That question comes from a number of unspoken assumptions -- that life is somehow lacking in meaning and value inherently, that satisfaction is not possible in this life and can only come in an afterlife, and that God is the source of satisfaction and value. If you take way those assumptions, and just ask "can life be satisfying, just as it is, without some promise of rewards later on?", I think the answer is clearly yes -- some people (I count myself among them) are simply satisfied with life as it is, and find it meaningful and valuable already. It does not need to be repaired or compensated for by some system of rewards. It's already rewarding.
  • In a purely materialistic paradigm, there can be no transcendant values -- or really values of any kind. There are only appetites, desires, pleasures, pains, and the like. All emotions and sensations are just electro-chemical reactions with no more "meaning" than there is in iron rusting. But not all Atheists are pure materialists. Many even believe in some form of afterlife and even cosmic justice - e.g., "orthodox" old-school Buddhists ... who are actually anti-materialists as they believe the physical world is just an illusion.
  • No criticism intended here either just calling it as I see it. Let's identify the meaning of life for a theist: kiss God's ass and He will let you continue to kiss his ass after you die. Fail to kiss God's ass and He will kick your ass when you die. Kissing supernatural ass isn't my idea of a life let alone one with meaning. Living my life my way, setting my own goals and achieving them is. My family, my friends, and humankind mean more to me than any sycophantic sky daddy ever could and that is where I find my meaning.
  • I respect every single persons prespective, however I wish I could believe in god my life would be better. I simply can't put my life in the hands of someone or something that I can't see or touch. I do believe in science. I think and this only my opinion that we are here for a reason we shouldn't sin but please point one person who hasn't . Karma , what goes arount comes around , maybe not exactly to us but to the people we care most about. This might sound absurd to many but when we die our soul continues to live therefore we all need to figure who we were in the past and clean all the strugle that our soul has gone thru so that our soul can rest and not continue the fight for survival . When we sleep we see dreams some relate them to the day you've had or thoughts and worries but it's mostly the soul that does the wondering. When we are deep asleep the body and soul separate and it can go to the past, present and future. An example , a week or 2 before Abraham lincoln died he told his wife in his dream he saw the white house and there was a funeral when he asked who died he was told " the president killed by an assassin" he also saw that he would be killed at a theatre and he was . So that was his soul traveling to warn him. And many other cases . My purpose here is to try to clear myself of all the sins and try not to have any and learn about my past so that my soul can rest when I die. Also I wouldn't want my lived ones to be punished for my sins. Is that believing into someones god ? Maybe, I don't know what religion that is if it is, but that's what I believe in
  • If God doesn't exist then meaning ceases to exist but whatever meaning we choose and historically what others choose for us.
  • I'm going to try not to repeat all the variations of "why does life have to have a meaning?" responses you have already received. The question is semi-loaded (for lack of better description off the top of my head) to suggest that life MUST have a meaning. I suppose to a believer that is a "must". Perhaps the fact that you have faith in a particular meaning makes it even harder that for many of us, life is not viewed as this broad thing that must have specified , pre-designated meaning. Perhaps it does, but for me it is irrelevent. IMO everything does not have to have a meaning, at least not one static meaning that we are born with and carries us throughout life. The "meaning" or my life when i was born was that my father got my mom pregnant and decided to keep me. After being born, the meaning of life was to eat,sleep and be held by mom. It has shifted many times depending on my circumstances. In other words, the "meaning" shifted dynamically based on my circumstances and life choices. For me now, the meaning of life involves being the best parent i can to my children but that is not the sum of it because, truth be told, I really don't find myself looking for a sum. I find this question similar to the various incarnations of "if god does not exist, where does morality come from". Like morality, the concept of life having some fixed , universal meaning is man made construct that each of us have various reasons for applying to our lives. I try my best to do what my culture agrees (at least for the most part) is "right" because it is the right thing to do and whether God exists is not relevant to that desire any more than whether life has some kind of meaning. or the short version: To me, the meaning of life is as simple as "It means, I'm not dead yet. No more, no less."
  • I dont believe in God because the word symbolizes an impersonal being. Apparently the personal being doesnt exist, otherwise we would know the devine name. meaning for life is in the community where we live. we help our neighbors. we make life easy for other people. we follow the rules and dont get in trouble.
  • There is no meaning, you live, you die, you turn to dust, game over.
  • Life is what we make of it.
  • I think this question makes more sense the other way round: If God does exist, what is the meaning of life? What is your perspective on the point of living a life prescribed and mandated by an all mighty being ? Please, looking for answers from the believers. Not here to criticise, just wondering how meaning can be found in 'coloring by the numbers'. regards JakobA
  • Google: Secular Humanism. It's not always about god....There is life outside god....
  • The only reason people believe life has a meaning is because of their religion. To an Atheist, personally, there is no meaning. It is just life. It is what we are, everyone does it, everyone leaves it. It is nothing with a particular meaning for one particular person, but a broad event that a person can make something out of, or not. It all just depends on what someone does with their life, not what was already predetermined. The point of living is to just live, take what is provided and just go. Making something special out of something that is so short, is special. Making it yours and not just a general term.
  • There is no such thing as meaning until a certain kind of reasoning living thing can conceive of it. Life precedes meaning. Meaning is developed as life progresses. To ask what is the meaning of life is to put the cart before the horse.
  • You answered your own question without God there is zero meaning to anything.
  • Meaning of life? Someone has to say it. Forty-two.
  • I think each person has to find their own meaning but I believe that my purpose is to make the best of my life while I'm alive and to improve every person's life that I come into contact with in any way I can from smiling at people I pass on the street to volunteer work in the community to buying flowers for a stranger. My life goal however is to improve life on a large scale for large populations of people.
  • There is no meaning. Why do people search for this meaning. It's simple, you're born you live, you die. During your life you try your best to be happy if you're normal, if your a nut you do all kinds of stupid things and are miserable, simple. The more normal you are the more you learn what to do and what not to do. If you're nuts you keep doing things that puts you in a position to be miserable. Life is to learn, if you learn enough you can be happy, if not, you are not happy. Simple. The meaning of life is to find the wisdom to be a happy healthy person. As it's said in the declaration of Independence, the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.
  • I guess there are not enough Oscar Wilde fans in the world, because I have a very good epigrammatic answer to this. I call it Humanity's Mission Statement. Humanity's Mission Statement: The purpose of Humanity is to determine what the purpose of Humanity is. This is a no-lose proposition. If Humanity has no ultimate purpose, than by discovering that, we have fulfilled our purpose as defined by the Mission Statement. If Humanity has some other ultimate purpose, then by pursuing knowledge of that Greater Purpose, we have fulfilled our purpose as defined by the Mission Statement. It works!....:-D...

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