h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Life goes on.

The purpose of life living.

"man was born to suffer and die"... The fact that other people suffer and die is an obsevation. The edict given however, is a definition of the purpose in life. Clearly, a definition that can be put into context in the Christian world, more specific in the Enlightenment. The consensus at that time was that we are all sinners (hereditary sin was big back then), and our only salvation was to pray a lot and hope to redeem ourselves through faith.
Suffering, making sacrifices, was one of the ways to do that. To die was just the inevitable (as, you might say, it is now), but not in the way we see it now. The meaning is in life after death. At the end of days, our salvation was to follow if we lived our lives as well as we could, handicapped as we were, being sinners right from the start and all that. Pretty depressing, as the best you can hope for is suffering and then dying... But then, that was the spirit of that age. Thankfully, we went a little less strict to ourselves, and we can now even trie to enjoy life. Memento mori was replaced once again by Carpe diem.

I think you will find to this day poor and deprived people live for a good funeral.

A truly wonderful meaning of life.

Carpe diem.
Actually doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere either.
It seems to have helped us to become greedy and irresposible as we use up resources and poison the world for the next generation.
Tomorrow never comes is a fairly dangerous ideal .

Goyahkla, well said. Having said said sorry for being a sinner and thanking our Lord Jesus Christ for dying for my sin a couple of years ago; I now wake every morning with purpose.
Having previously been a big bang Darwinist consumer with a twist of 'education' and an 'at one with the world' pagan attitude, I revolved my life at that time in a self understanding direction. The world passes by and I could only do my best to 'do the right thing' for myself and others.
Still at that time my lifes meaning made no sence as, even if I managed to succeed in prosperity and happyness by what I had around me, and happyness in the love I have for myself and others, I would still die and ..for what?
The question posed, 'what is the meaning of life' has to be put in it place as a humanistic self-righteous question. We constantly feel and think in our time frame of living. Accomplishment in our needs weather we reach them or not cease when we die. Our input stops as we know it when we die. The general populous ask about the meaning of life, the question should be: WHY...AM I ASKING ABOUT THE MEANING OF LIFE. Are we so caught up in getting a quick fix answer/dropping the question scene as most people won't ever find the the answer, and forgetting that there is obviously somithing inside us searching for the RIGHT answer!
I myself now live permanently happy, truly happy knowing I am now grafted to the true vine. Living in longsuffering in this satan possesed world is hard and saddening. If I now lost everything and endured extream hardship for whatever reason I cannot change my underlying happyness!

Through FAITH life has a meaning. To love Lord Jesus Christ and to understand His love for us, to live each day with Him, everlasting life after physical death is worth this short hardship of time here.

Proselytizing gives meaning to some lives.

It was not my meaning to make a religious statement, I was only giving remarks on the edict "Man is born to suffer and die". These are not my beliefs, nor do I endorse any evangilizing based upon them. People must make thier own choices. I do belief Darwin was right, the passage in Genesis is clearly not the case. I am not a religious fanatic, nor will I ever become one.

Hope not to have made offense to anyone, but I felt I had to make this statement

Just because something is inevitable, it doesn't mean it is our meaning for life.
Just because it seems to be inevitable, doesn't mean it is inevitable.
Just because something is inevitable, it doesn't mean it has a meaning at all.
Just because something is extremely probable to happen, it doesn't mean it is inevitable.
Just because something has happend in every known case so far, it doesn't mean it's inevitable.
Just because something is probable,doesn't mean that you have to give in to it.
Just because it seems probable, it doesn't mean you have to give up hope.
Just because it seems probable, it doesn't mean it is.
Just because you think you have a meaning for your own life, it doesn't mean you do.
Just because you DO have a meaning for your own life, it doesn't mean that it's the same meaing for my life.
Just because you DO have a real meaning for my life, it doesn't give you the right to force it upon me.
Just because you believe in a magical invisible man in the sky who made the universe in no time at all but who took seven days over the world, who inspired (and thus indirectly wrote) one of the most uninteresting, unspecific, unapplicable, intolerant books ever, it doesn't mean that it's true for me....
BUT.......
Just because you believe in an all-powerful merciful pater in the sky who's power is manifest all around despite the fact that certain people choose not to acnowledge it, it doesn't mean it's NOT true for you.

Life has no meaning.

It is shallow, brutish and short!

Malus

Life is like a . . . it's . ., and ..
( I really, really, can't be bothered.)

Without life there would be nothing to bother about.

Life is.

Sorry to turn into a bespectacled semanticist, but in what quality are you referring to life? Life1 as in the strict biological sense, life2 in the loose theological sense, life3 in the enjoyment-adrenaline feeling of euphoria? What?

This is an answer session. Please contribute any knowledge you might have on the topic from an angle of your choice.

Live and let live.

Oh, for crying out loud. Am I not then allowed to ask questions in an attempt to understand a previous question?

Don't cry. it is a complete waste of time.

Get a life an join in. In the fullness of time you may or may not understand what it is all about, many people die quite contentently never having understood anything. So why worry?

Live!

By the way if forgot to mention the answer is 42, but we all know that and just skirt around the question.

42 - understanding the question - after life - who's life ?
Have all gone before.