The Meaning of Life

I like the quote from Grandma Moses:

"Life is what you make of it."

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To me, this says that if I want my life to have meaning, I have to give it meaning.

Ruv Draba said:

The Magic Mirror has perhaps the most existential angst of all those characters. What is the purpose of its existence? To answer questions about beauty? And who says that life is a job anyway? And should it lie? Should it make constructive suggestions (e.g. "Why not try hair-dye?") How does it know when its done a good job -- and given its fragility, should it ever tell the truth? A utilitarian argument would indicate that it will always have more future ahead of it than past -- as long as it keeps people happy. Moreover, telling people the truth will make n-1 people unhappy. How does it cope with this ethical dilemma?

Perhaps, for the magic mirror, there is no escape into a meaningless existence. What a chore! Maybe that's a lesson for us too.

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Just for reference, Here's the EQ Scene from Annie Hall:

When my mother took me to see
Snow White, everyone fell in love with
Snow White. I immediately fell for the
Wicked Queen.

The scene dissolves into a sequence from the animated Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs. The Wicked Queen, resembling Annie, sits in the palace before her
mirror. Alvy, as a cartoon figure, sits beside her, arms crossed in front of
him.

WICKED QUEEN
We never have any fun anymore.

CARTOON FIGURE ALVY
How can you say that?

WICKED QUEEN
Why not? You're always leaning on me
to improve myself.

CARTOON FIGURE ALVY
You're just upset. You must be getting
your period.

WICKED QUEEN
I don't get a period! I'm a cartoon
character. Can't I be upset once in
a while?

Rob, as a cartoon figure, enters and sits down on the other side of the Wicked
Queen.

CARTOON FIGURE ROB
Max, will you forget about Annie? I
know lots of women you can date.

CARTOON FIGURE ALVY
I don't wanna go out with any other women.

CARTOON FIGURE ROB
Max, have I got a girl for you. You are
going to love her. She's a reporter-

The cartoon figures of Alvy and Rob walk past the Wicked Queen; the screen
dissolves into the interior of a concert ball. Rob's voice carries over from
the cartoon scene as the screen shows Alvy with the female reporter. It's very
crowded, noisy; policeman and reporters are everywhere. Alvy stands with his
hands in his pockets, watching the commotion.

CARTOON FIGURE ROB'S VOICE-OVER
-for Rolling Stone.



http://www.woodyallenmovies.com/movies/anniehallscript.php

Learn, be loving, leave a legacy you are proud of. Sentence fragment.

The meaning of life, of that I have no idea. The purpose of life is to fight entropy.

kdnxdr said:

When I entered into that love relationship with God, that I was created for, I found the meaning and purpose of my life: to be loved by God and to love Him.

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I'm glad that you have purpose because (my silly jokes aside) I think life is better-lived with purpose than without.

Here's my question to you, as a secular humanist to a monotheist: I see many Christians stare in bafflement at unfortunate events in their lives and console themselves with the statement 'It's all part of the Plan'. By contrast, my atheistic friends are more likely to shrug and say 'Crap happens. Deal with it and move on.'

I know what it means to be purposeful in the face of adversity, and I also know what it means to abandon purpose when you can no longer meet that intent. What I don't understand is how one can be purposeful when one doesn't actually know what that purpose is. Is it the same as saying 'I don't actually know my purpose, but I don't have to worry about that because I've decided how I'm going to live, even if why is unclear to me.'

In other words, are you living a Purposeful life, or simply a Principled one?

For me, "The Plan" simply translates to accept the fact that God loves me, created me as the object of His Love and that He desires to be loved by me. To be in a living, personal, intimate relationship with God is the specific end for which I am purposed.

Because of the reality of that relationship, living a principled life is possible and when I am genuinely operating in that love relationship with God, a principled life is the expression of that love.

kdnxdr said:

For me, "The Plan" simply translates to accept the fact that God loves me, created me as the object of His Love and that He desires to be loved by me. To be in a living, personal, intimate relationship with God is the specific end for which I am purposed.

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...the relationship presumably being the vision of your goal and the purpose if I understand you rightly, is to become fit for that relationship.

But how do you know whether you are progressing? Do you just check how well you're adhering to the principles you've adopted, or is it more than that?

Monkey and Ruv Draba,

I agree with you, anyone, for whatever reason and in whatever way they deem "principled", can live a principled life. I'm sure what is a life principle to one, might not be a life principle to another. Though there is probably a common consensus as to what is generally considered a principled life.

What one considers right, another considers wrong.

Religion operates pretty much the same way, IMO.

Religion can be, and usually is, dictated by the adherents of that religion.

For me, being in a love relationship with God The Father, Jesus Christ His Son and the Holy Spirit (The Triune Godhead ) is very much like that of an intimate, personal relationship with a spouse.

In an intimate, personal, vibrant relationship, what your spouse has to say, what your spouse is interested in and what your spouse desires, becomes significantly meaningful to you and operating from that reciprocating love, one responds.

There isn't so much a list of steps or mandated rules to follow, often times one can get caught in the rigor of such things and lose the love of the relationship.

As in any good marriage/love relationship, there is a naturally developing maturity and depth of understanding. So progress is just that the knowledge and emmotions related to one another get sweeter and sweeter.

As a Christian my perspective on the meaning of life is pretty much the same as kdnxdr. As we live on this earth we grow in love toward God the father and his son Jesus through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But that’s just so many words, and as Ruv Draba ask how do you know when you are progressing? Because we love by faith our faith is often tested. The temptation to abandon our faith in God is constantly being encouraged by the world around us, but as our love grows so does our faith. With stronger faith we more easily resist the temptation to abandon it. Yet this is not enough, to love that which we can’t see or know is impossible to sustain. This love by faith must be encouraged by something tangible, which is why John says in 1st John 4:20 that “anyone who can not love his brother, whom he has seen can not love God, whom he has not seen”. This love is manifested in the action of helping those in need--what John calls giving comfort, not just words but deeds. Jesus gave an example of loving him in Matt 25 When he separates the sheep and the goats. Those that are accepted (the sheep) are accepted because their love for Jesus was expressed by their compassion for others. Matt 25:40 “whatever you did for the least of these my brothers, you did for me.” This gives Christians something to gauge their progress. Unfortunately Christians have not always shown a lot of progress in this area.

One misunderstanding however is that we need to become fit for a relationship with God, we don’t do anything to become fit for our relationship with God we are made fit for our relationship with God. It is after we are in a relationship with God that we learn to love God and love our brothers.

One interesting aspect of this question is the discussion of paradise and paradise lost. Paradise and bliss or a life without worry and conflict do seem to be the goal of many religious and non-religious people, yet we all also seem inclined to reject it, at least for now. It does seem that most people accept that there is a need for struggle, and even for pain. We don’t grow stronger unless we exercise our muscles and we have even learned that our brain changes physically when we exercise it. The same seems to be true of what a Christian would call our spirit. The struggle to maintain our faith or to serve our fellow man seems to bring out the best in us, religious and non-religious, and make us happier than just having everything we want.

"Everything that lives is Holy, and Life delights in Life" - William Blake

I think Blake had it right. The Universe is God on his journey of self-discovery.

If there is a meaning to life, and I'm ever meant to know what it is, I won't know until I die. And then what good is that knowledge to me?

I don't think the meaning of life is all that hard to discover, nor do I think it is exclusively religious. Lots of people religious and non-religious have found things to do that give their lives real meaning and satisfaction. The key, I believe, is in the doing, not the finding.

Original post deleted.

Ruv Draba said:

The Magic Mirror has perhaps the most existential angst of all those characters. What is the purpose of its existence? To answer questions about beauty? And who says that life is a job anyway? And should it lie? Should it make constructive suggestions (e.g. "Why not try hair-dye?") How does it know when its done a good job -- and given its fragility, should it ever tell the truth? A utilitarian argument would indicate that it will always have more future ahead of it than past -- as long as it keeps people happy. Moreover, telling people the truth will make n-1 people unhappy. How does it cope with this ethical dilemma?

Perhaps, for the magic mirror, there is no escape into a meaningless existence. What a chore! Maybe that's a lesson for us too.

Click to expand...

I notice that I revamped the Wicked Queen into the Evil Queen. Just my Sci-Fi/Fantasy training I guess. Nobody is "wicked" in Sci-Fi/Fantasy. A crucial lesson perhaps.
Anyway...about the Magic Mirror. Why on Earth does the WQ need the mirror to tell her about Snow White? Don't they live in the same Castle? And why is the mirror the ultimate authority? What else does it do?

There is a difference between the meaning of life and the purpose of life. The meaning of life is purely a philosophical question, up for interpretation and argument. The purpose of life is a question based in the real world. My purpose is to make the world a better place – to repair the world. Others may have a difference purpose. We can't do everything, but we can each do a little toward our purpose.

Other than newbie forums, I've yet to really lend my voice to this site, but I'm compelled to throw two cents in the wishing well.

Raised as a Baptist Christian, I can understand and agree with kdnxdr and Guffy. Having explored the realms of many different beliefs, I have to throw in a very important addition. Entering a loving relationship with your creator is a worthy meaning, by all means, but to me that's stopping just a shade short. One can enter a loving relationship with their god while locked away in the solitude of their home, never stepping foot into the world outside and facing the storm clouds that gather in their name.

In my humble opinion (IMHO for you IM'ers out there), the meaning of life is to understand life...all of life. What does that mean?

That means, when you're confronted by someone who is screaming obscenities at you because of your ideals, that you have the patience and presence of mind to try and truly understand why that person hates you. I know many Christians who will simply say that "they hate me because they don't know God like I do." That's true to a point, but again, you're selling the real message short. Maybe that person hates you because they haven't walked a mile in your shoes and haven't even tried to. Do you hate them back? Or do you try to walk a mile in their shoes and try to understand? In that understanding, brotherhood can truly be achieved.

It also means taking a long look at how you interact with the world around you. How do you treat nature? Recycling isn't what I'm talking about here. I mean, when you kill an animal (if you do), why do you do it and what honor do you give the living creature that you destroyed? I mean, when you cut into the earth, are you doing it for reasons that are necessary and do you make every attempt to preserve the earth as best you can? Do you live off the earth or on it?

I believe God gave us everything we needed. Only we had the audacity to assume we could improve on that.

The purpose of life is to understand where we are, how we interact with others, nature and existence in its entirety.

And now I'll bow down off the stage.

Monkey said:

No, not the Monty Python movie, but the real meaning of life.

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To eat, procreate and to fertilize daffodils.

Tomo's response is strikingly similar to an answer given by Rabbi Menachem Schneersohn. A man wrote to him asking what his mission in life was, and that he had spent a long time searching for his purpose in life, even traveling around the globe for the answer. The Rebbe's response was:

"By the time you figure out what your mission is, you will have no time to fulfill it. So just get on with it."

It seems kind of counter-intuitive, but it makes sense. If you spend your entire life trying to figure out what your mission is, you won't be able to fulfill it. Man is the pinnacle of creation--we are given this world and this life by God, and we are meant to enjoy our time here. Yes, we have a purpose, but it is certainly not to spend our lives with tunnel vision trying to determine our station. You won't learn your life's purpose until the end, but you can find purpose in every day just by looking around and seeing where you can do some good.

To me, it's like someone else said. The meaning of life is simply to live it, to do good, etc. Earth is just a University. It's the more difficult avenue to evolve our souls much more quickly than by just watching from the sidelines. Sort of like learning how to drive a car by just reading the manual versus actually getting behind that wheel and driving.

There's a quote from the retired tv series, Northern Exposure, which sums it up for me : "The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark."

So yeah, the meaning of life for me (basically) is just to embark/live life to the fullest/learn from our mistakes.

Guffy said:

As we live on this earth we grow in love toward God the father and his son Jesus through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But that’s just so many words, and as Ruv Draba ask how do you know when you are progressing? Because we love by faith our faith is often tested. The temptation to abandon our faith in God is constantly being encouraged by the world around us, but as our love grows so does our faith. With stronger faith we more easily resist the temptation to abandon it. Yet this is not enough, to love that which we can’t see or know is impossible to sustain. This love by faith must be encouraged by something tangible, which is why John says in 1st John 4:20 that “anyone who can not love his brother, whom he has seen can not love God, whom he has not seen”.

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We can make whatever we want of our meaning (or not worry about it at all), but a common human experience is that moral values help to create meaning. That may not be the only reason to have them, but it is a commonly-reported benefit.

How do moral values help create meaning? I think it's because we then put a moral interpretation on our situations. We ask 'what is good? What is best? How then do I decide my part or role in this event?'. It's that last question which gives us a sense of purpose because it requires us to decide what (if anything) our involvement should be.

Although sectarian beliefs talk a lot about faith I'd like to suggest that any set of moral beliefs may require a degree of faith when we act on them, regardless of whether we believe in the supernatural or not.

I think faith is needed because a lot of things we consider good are not always easy or immediate to demonstrate. For instance, when parents try and choose what is good for their children, they can't wait to see what their children will become. They can use the evidence around them to give the best advice, but when that information isn't available or conclusive, faith is then needed -- especially I think it's needed when they're criticised or pressured to do something differently.

Likewise when people make sacrifices for intangibles -- donating to charity or giving directions to a stranger, or intervening to stop a crime -- there is a degree of faith that the donation will do something good, that the stranger will do good from our directions, or that any people we're protecting from crime are somehow worth protecting.

I think that faith is very important to our values, and to the extent that values may contribute to purpose I think it's also valuable to a sense of purpose. I think that it's not just a religious question though. Rather I'd call it a spiritual question -- a question of of human spirit. In that respect, I think that many of the tests of faith/values/purpose religious people experience are also faced (or at least understandable) by people of strong conscience and conviction who may not be religious.

42.


I don't see what the big deal is. People make things so complex. Okay, so they are, but think about it. What if we accepted 42 as the meaning of life, (which, by the way, it is)? We'd stop fighting. We'd stop arguing. Concepts would change. Would be less conflicted. We'd have one less AW thread.

semilargeintestine said:

Man is the pinnacle of creation.

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How so?

I believe God gave us everything we needed. Only we had the audacity to assume we could improve on that.

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You mean we had the audacity to use our brains? The things that, supposedly, god gave us? Who are you to say that this god of yours doesn't want us to advance in technology? If it's not part of his plan it would'nt be happening would it?

Rhys Cordelle said:

How so?

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Because we get to set the criteria for moral superiority? [Hey look! We came out on top. ] If you were going to write a job advertisement, would you let one of the candidates write the selection criteria?

This one came up in the fun but eventually abortive 'Are humans superior to other animals' thread on P&CE. I think there are epistemological issues (i.e.: what do we know? what can we reasonably believe?) with trying to ask the question, let alone the ethical issues in trying to answer it.

I don't see that 'being better than other animals' creates a very useful sense of meaning anyway... 'being the best animal I can be' seems to be a little more worthwhile to me -- course, we still have to work out what that means.