Religious Views On Lifes Meaning
Here are the view points of some prominant members of the main relgious faiths, and an Agnostic.
The Agnostic
'I beleive that no inherent meaning of life exsists. Human beings are the product of mindless evolution in which natural forces and process's work blindly. However, that does not prevent an individual form generating there own meaning of there own life. In fact, that might be an important task for each person to perform. I do not beleive in any form of after life. Thus whatever meaning I find in my life will be derived from my time on earth. I derive meaning from doing as well as I can in my various roles - a citizen, a slacker student and web site maker!'
The Hare Krishna
'Our purpose on this earth is to purify our exsistence. Its based on an understanding that this is a place of suffering, that we have to get out of this suffering and attain a spiritual levle. And that is done by a process of purification. Just like having some sort of disease - you cant let yourself rot, you have to find the cure. Our cure is a life of goodness, where we abstain from meat-eating, intoxication, gambling and sex. So we leave all our sins behind and try to get a taste from this other life, this Krishna - conscious life, by fixing our energy ont Krishna, who is eternal.'
The Catholic
'We are created, not finished - in some way we complete oursleves. We're called to live and love. By living and loving we can fulfil ourselves. We try to take a life of commitment, to love and to see Jesus and what he taught. This is a pattern of our way of life. I try to fulfil myself by living and loving as best as i can with one eye on Jesus, and the other one, if you like, on Francis Assisi - who was a close disciple of Jesus. Thats the model we take.'
The Evolutionsist
'I dont think there is any over arching, ultimate meaning to life. In terms of evolution, humans, like all other creatures, have purposes - plural. Natural selection has designed us to value certian things: food and shelter, the company of friends, lovers and children, the repect of our peers, safe communities, beauty, great works of art, wit, fair play, moral virtue and so on. So i suppose that I would say that the meaning of life was to pursue these goals - or that it is the pursuit of these things that gives life meaning.'
The Jew
The meaning of life is to lead it in accordance with God's will, which is to be ethically compassionate, humane, a serious member of society who works for its betterment. For Judaism, the world has not yet been redeemed. That is where we are different to Christianity - in that we believe the Messiah has not yet come. We believe that bettering the world will bring us that mcuh nearer to the coming of the Messiah, yet in our heart of hearts we believe it will never really happen, because humans are no where near perfect. We must try to lead a good life according to the will of God. All religions, not just Judism.
The Drug User
A lot of drug users tend to get a little bit mystical on you if you begin pressing them for their views on life meaning! However, not that surprising really, many of their views are quite similar to that of the forfront religions. i.e. be nice to people, try to live in a peaceful enviroment and dont nick stuff from others, unless there Bideford in which the all do skag anyways. The fact that so many drugs types get fully into the meaning of life leads me to the following theroy: Jesus et all got badly on old skool Roman drugs and span out loads, thus creating the random gibb sesh that is the bible! Discuss!
Theres more to come, but i aint done it yet, aight?
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