Talk:Meaning of life/Popular Beliefs

Popular beliefs of the purpose of life[edit]

"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 common answers to this perplexing question:

To survive or achieve temporal success...[edit]

...to kill or be killed
...to live every day as if 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 participate and contribute to a given society by working, paying taxes, being a good citizen, and contributing to raise the collective quality of life.
...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 sleep
...to ensure that all others after you remember your name.
...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 (see life extension)
...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 live it. To simply keep functioning. This applies to everything. That includes songs stuck in your head to rocks. Everything has a bit of life in it. - Prof. E.C.D. (This cancels all others except the one directly below)
...to find and follow an artistic passion
...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.

To seek wisdom and knowledge...[edit]

...to master and know as many things as possible
...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
...to enjoy all the enjoyable things one really want and available in the world and filled with joy in inner through out the journey of life
...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 find the meaning of life
...to achieve self-actualisation
...all possible meanings have some validity (see existentialism)
...to 'be' that which we truly are, meaning, to manifest in the flesh that which we are deep inside
However, a meaning of our presence on this earth has never been proven. Although all the rest of the items on this list may seem like great reasons for living, a truly objective purpose for living is not known, and possibly never will be.

To do the right thing...[edit]

...to express compassion
...to follow the "Golden Rule", treat others as you would like to be treated
...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 (see utopia)
...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
...to serve others, or do good deeds
...to leave the world in a better condition than when you came into it
...to live an honorable life and die an honorable death
...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life

To find eternal peace or internal fulfillment...[edit]

...to worship the Lord
...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, and enjoy Him forever
...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 hell
...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
...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 (see Buddhism)
...To prepare for the meeting with God
...To be tested to see whether you deserve to go to Heaven or Hell

Life in itself has no meaning, being an end in and of itself, the purpose of which seems to be...[edit]

...to create meaning
...to end (die)
...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial objective purpose)
...nature taking its course (the wheel of time keeps on turning)
...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever (see nihilism)
...life may actually not exist, or may be illusory (see solipsism or nihilism)
...to contemplate "the meaning of the end of life"
...to figure it out
...to understand oneself
...to question life itself
...to contribute to collective meaning ("we" or "us") without having individual meaning ("I" or "me")
...to find a purpose, a "reason" for living that hopefully raises the quality of one's experience of life, or even life in general
...to participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
...to make conformists' lives miserable (see nonconformism)
...to make life as difficult as possible for others (i.e. to compete)
...to accomplish something that has never been done before