Does life have meaning?

Islam is the response to humanity’s search for meaning. The purpose of creation for all men and women for all times has been one: to know and worship God.

The Quran teaches us that every human being is born conscious of God,

“(Remember) when your Lord extracted from the loins of Adam’s children their descendants and made them testify [saying]: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said: ‘Yes, we testify to it.’ (This was) in case you say on the Day of Judgment: ‘We were unaware of this.’ Or you say: ‘It was our ancestors who worshipped others besides God and we are only their descendants. Will you then destroy us for what those liars did?’”(Quran 7:172)

The Prophet of Islam teaches us that God created this primordial need in human nature at the time Adam was made. God took a covenant from Adam when He created him. God extracted all of Adam’s descendants who were yet to be born, generation after generation, spread them out, and took a covenant from them. He addressed their souls directly, making them bear witness that He was their Lord. Since God made all human beings swear to His Godhood when He created Adam, this oath is imprinted on the human soul even before it enters the fetus, and so a child is born with a natural belief in God. This natural belief is called fitra in Arabic. Consequently, every person carries the seed of belief in God that lies deeply buried under layers of negligence and dampened by social conditioning. If the child were left alone, it would grow up conscious of God - a single Creator - but all children are affected by their environment. The Prophet of God said, “Each child is born in a state of ‘fitra’, but his parents make him a Jew or a Christian. It is like the way an animal gives birth to a normal offspring. Have you noticed any young born mutilated before you mutilate them?”[1]

So, just as the child’s body submits to physical laws, set by God in nature, its soul submits naturally to the fact that God is its Lord and Creator. However, its parents condition it to follow their own way, and the child is not mentally capable of resisting it. The religion which the child follows at this stage is one of custom and upbringing, and God does not hold it to account for this religion. When a child matures into an adult, he or she must now follow the religion of knowledge and reason. As adults, people must now struggle between their natural disposition towards God and their desires in order to find the correct path. The call of Islam is directed to this primordial nature, the natural disposition, the imprint of God on the soul, the fitra, which caused the souls of every living being to agree that He Who made them was their Lord, even before the heavens and earth were created,

“I did not create the jinn and mankind except for My worship.” (Quran 51:56)

According to Islam, there has been a basic message which God has revealed through all prophets, from the time of Adam to the last of the prophets, Muhammad, may God praise them all. All the prophets sent by God came with the same essential message: “Indeed, We have sent a messenger to every nation (saying), ‘Worship God and avoid false gods.’” (Quran 16:36)

The prophets brought the same answer to mankind’s most troubling question, an answer that addresses the yearning of the soul for God.

What is Worship?

‘Islam’ means ‘submission’, and worship, in Islam, means ‘obedient submission to the will of God.’

Every created being ‘submits’ to the Creator by following the physical laws created by God, “To Him belongs whosoever is in the heavens and the earth; all obey His will.” (Quran 30:26)

They, however, are neither rewarded nor punished for their ‘submission’, for it involves no will. Reward and punishment are for those who worship God, who submit to the moral and religious Law of God of their own free will. This worship is the essence of the message of all the prophets sent by God to mankind. For example, this understanding of worship was emphatically expressed by Jesus Christ,

“None of those who call me ‘Lord’ will enter the kingdom of God, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

‘Will’ means ‘what God wants human beings to do.’ This ‘Will of God’ is contained in the divinely revealed laws which the prophets taught their followers. Consequently, obedience to divine law is the foundation of worship. Only when human beings worship their God by submitting to His religious law can they have peace and harmony in their lives and the hope for heaven, just like the universe runs in harmony by submitting to the physical laws set by its Lord. When you remove the hope of heaven, you remove the ultimate value and purpose of life.

Otherwise, what difference would it really make whether we live a life of virtue or vice? Everyone’s fate would be the same anyway.

Humans have the intellectual creative potential to give anything meaning. According the Hitchhikers guide life the universe and everything, it's 42.

I also asked Jabberwacky.com (a proto-AI) if

"The Meaning of life was to survive"

He replied "Then how would you be happy."

The meaning of life according to science is procreation and evolution. and god said "be fruitful and multiply" and Spock said "live long and prosper"

The meaning of life according to religion is truth, salvation, and spiritual betterment.

The meaning of life according to many people is to make money, or acquire wealth (more in practice than in priniciple)

The meaning of life according to Star Trek:

"To explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldy go where no one has gone before."

The meaning of life according to God: Perfection and purification through Expiramentation and Free Will.

The meaning of life according to Buddhism:

Enlightenment

But if you really want an answer that few know, fewer would accept:::

Transcendence (check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_C... for an odd example or the original star trek movie or loosely the matrix movies

In other words to become part of something larger. i.e. giant super computer that stretches galaxies. Or a higher form of life (energy beings).

Some believe we may evolve into "gods" ourselves.

But, personally, I think the meaning of life is love(not valentines but mother-child, sister-brother, husband-wife, american-iraqi).

1)It makes all of the above possible, probable, and meaningless in compare

2)It solves all problems.

3)It fills us with a sense of importance (meaning) and reminds us we are needed (reason for being) by others.

4)It overpowers rational thought

5)It is the loftiest of human expression

6)It heals the world and helps it grow and learn

7)It's what makes us human

Of course, I think the meaning of life is different for each life.

Check out the Wiki page too,

Of course! life has meaning everyone has bad and good days. The important thing is to appreciate what you have could be your health, your family anything that is vulnerable to you. This question makes me think maybe you are missing religious issues

Yes. It's 42.

Yes...as a whole...and once again in each individual's life.

You go thru life making new discoveries.....you never get to the end. That's what makes it so appealing.

Yes, but we may not find out what it is, so our job is to just live it to the fullest.

Yes, and it is our job to figure out what that would be.

Umm... Sure.

I am glad we got that one figured out

yes

yes