Life?

[The Grand Nudger]

I never understood why people get caught up in this question, or why people say there isn't a meaning or a purpose. The purpose of life is to perpetuate life. It's a common and unifying function of every living thing. Its a falsifiable hypothesis that makes predictions, and its effects can be reproduced. In fact it takes no specialized equipment (other than that naturally endowed) and little to no knowledge of the mechanism at work.

I mean, add anything else you like, obviously. Just that this particular requirement needs to be met, continuosly, so that we can continue to ask this question.

[jason56]

A long drawn-out human life with much suffering and leading to death is perfectly equal to a caterpillar that falls into a puddle and drowns.

It just depends on your evaluation.

I personally like caterpillars.

[The Grand Nudger]

Surely there's some timeless and inspired book somewhere that can solve these issues for us.

[Epimethean]

Yep, and I know just whom to ask.

[Minimalist]

I never understood why people get caught up in this question

Human ego. Some people think they are so important that they can't simply DIE like every other animal. They invent gods and heaven and souls and all sorts of bullshit to delude themselves into thinking they are more than what they are. They been sold a bill of goods by preachers who, in return for all that suffering, assure them that they will get some sort of fucking "reward" after they die. The preachers are fucking liars.

We call these people theistic shitheads.

This video perfectly explains this mental aberration.






I'm sure that by now you need no help in figuring out which posters around here have their lips surgically attached to Hank's Ass.

[Pel]

Life is absolutely absurd; there is no way to circumnavigate the puzzling state of our existence. Why is it absurd? For the majority of human beings who do not live a life of luxury, the overarching themes of ones life includes being born, suffering, and dying. Everything which happens during the “suffering” stage of our existence is nothing but mere details; or so says I. Where is the meaning of our existence? Does life have any meaning or purpose? These questions have agonized the minds of Homo sapiens for as long as our species has developed the ability to critically ponder our place in the cosmos.

Young one, don't worry about the meaning. You can have good ethics and morals as an atheist. You probably have better morals than serious monotheists.
Life is beautiful. Never lose hope that you might find meaning. Or the meaning could be what ever you choose it to be. I would just encourage you that whatever choice you make that it be some sort of good doing.

I am a deist and I feel more comfortable discussing my belief with atheists than with theists. You are worth a lot more than what you think.

[Darwinian]

Life is the way that the Universe can understand itself. Sorry, but I'm watching Babylon V :p

[Welsh cake]

The purpose of life is to live, nothing more. Unfortunately for some, this answer is far from substantial.

How your life is lived is circumstantial. If things are going your way, it can be relatively pleasant enough to give it subjective meaning to you, however your life is crap, and I mean CRAP i.e. your family just died in a freak accident, there are no doubt going to be days where you'll long for the release of death.

100 years from now no one will give two shits I ever lived and died once. Any memory of me and my life will be gone. To quote Roy from Blade Runner "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain." Ultimately we each justify our own existence, we must establish the "value of life", be it priceless or worthless, no one else can do that for us.

[Epimethean]

Bladerunner ... Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: Another reason why Philip K. Dick was one of the true greats in Sci-fi.

[Faith No More]

I have yet to read that one, but 'A Scanner Darkly' is my favorite book period.