What is the point to life?

[President_Elect_Shang]

Originally posted by Hotfoot:
You don't lose at life, it just ends, like any video game ends.

Yes, everything comes to an end eventually, and while it might seem meaningless, it's only got the meaning you give it. If you feel it's meaningless, it will be. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Why are we here? To live, to exist, to continue. Those are our basic instincts, it's how we managed to survive evolution. Beyond that, it's our decision. That's the burden of sentience. So you have to decide if you want to make your life worth something or not.

I look at it like this. We have survived, as a civilization, for thousands of years. We strive ever forward, attempting to make our lives better, to improve things, and to learn. If I can leave behind a legacy for future generations, if I can do even the smallest something to help further that goal along, my life is worth something. If I were to die tomorrow, I'd know that I've had some impact on the world, however small it may have been.

You live for yourself, to enjoy life as much as you can. Life's too short to endlessly wallow in the bad things that happen or in despair. Contribute your skills and talents to make the world a better place, and learn. Never stop learning, and never stop teaching.

Yes and thank you. I have meet so few who see what I see.
Gratuitous bump!

[BadAxe]

The very basic components that make up our bodies are indistinguishable from the components that make up all the other structures of the universe.

We are in fact the universe made aware of itself. Our atoms were born in the hearts of the stars, and those stars now live in us. And through us they learn about the miracles and mysteries that we are only beginning to comprehend.

I gaze into the night sky and imagine the slow passage of time, and the transformations and travel that my atoms have made, to remarkably stand on a small planet circling a small star, and know what I am.

The meaning of life? I think it is the miracle of knowing we are alive!

[minipol]

Just read this thread. Well, for me, the answer is simple. There is no point to life. You just live it. That's it. No big answer. Off to playing the Star Trek Mod.

[Puke]

someone had to do it:

Why are we here, what's life all about?
Is God really real, or is there some doubt?
Well tonight, we're going to sort it all out
For tonight it's the Meaning of Life.
What's the point of all this hoax?
Is it the chicken and the egg time,
Are we just yolks?
Or perhaps we're just one of God's little jokes.
Well ça c'est the Meaning of Life.
Is life just a game where we make up the rules,
While we're searching for something to say,
Or are we just simply spiralling coils,
Of self-replicating DNA?
In this life, what is our fate?
Is there Heaven and Hell? Do we reincarnate?
Is mankind evolving or is it too late?
Well tonight here's the Meaning of Life.
For millions this life is a sad vale of tears,
Sitting round with nothing to say,
While scientists say we're just spiralling coils,
Of self-replicating DNA.
So just why, why are we here?
And just what, what, what, what do we fear?
Well çe soir, for a change, it will all be made clear,
For this is the Meaning of Life
-c'est la sens de la vie,
This is the Meaning of Life.

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

with apologies to Eric Idle, John Du Perez, and Monty Python.

[ October 07, 2003, 20:53: Message edited by: Puke ]

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by President Elect Shang:
What is the point of life? I did not know it needed a point. In our short lives we scream that everything needs a point. Life is all inclusive; lions, tigers, and bears oh my! Does a lion think about the point of life? I think it is simply growth. I was born, I have grown and now I continue to seek growth or face stagnation. But that is me and I am alive. I “suggest” the original question be rephrased to: “What is the point of a human’s life?

Does not the fact that we are constantly seeking a point to life, an indication of something? I have thought that the common Freudian/Nietzschean dismissals of this universal religious drive to be too pat and dismissive.

[Renegade 13]

Here's a question for you all:

What is the point to life, without death?? What meaning would life have, if we have an eternity to live it?? Maybe this is just a wacky way to look at it, but perhaps death is a gift, a gift which forces us to treasure what time we have. You can't afford to waste 50 years if that is half of your life. Whereas, if everyone lived forever, 50 years would be nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Renegade

[Renegade]

Isn't this debate about pointless? Look at the issue this way, who the hell cares?

"These are the best of times, these are the worst of times."