The Benefits Of Meaning To Life

How Is religion a distinctive response to the human search for the meaning of life.

Christianity is one of the dominant religions on the planet, and Christian Theism has played a major role in shaping the development of Western culture. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Christian missionaries, Christian doctrine has even influenced the views of non-Christians. Nevertheless, the contemporary world is a pluralistic and diverse one, and postmodern perspectives have arisen to challenge the wide-ranging influence of Christian Theism. The purpose of this paper is to show how a belief in Christian Theism can help one understand the nature and meaning of life, and this paper will show evidence that this belief brings both uniformity and order to everything.

According to my own critical analysis of ‘’Religious gives meaning to Life’’ Chapter 3 by Louis PoJman; The following are the eight claims of theism (If true) and why they can supply a sense of meaning to humans:

For some, the soul symbolising purity and all qualities just, is strongly associated with the concept of religion and a God. Religion for theists is crucial and forms a focal point of their beliefs. For atheists, religion and a God in particular, are not worthwhile and are considered a waste of time. (Blackburn, 1999) Hence, the concept of God and whether God exists has been argued and questioned over thousands of years. Countless disputes and contradictory statements have occurred with no such ultimate conclusion finalised.

The progression of humanity has inevitably been motivated by a desire to find meaning in life, and grasp a greater understanding of powerful concepts, which has underpinned religious and non religious world views throughout history. These concepts in both religious and non-religious belief systems require the close examination of various new religious expressions, as well as an equal understanding of the religious dimension in human history. Atheist philosopher Alain de Botton, explores how humans find meaning in life through individual fulfilment and monotheistic religious concepts; as appose to theologist John Stackhouse, who in contrast, looks at the human search for meaning throughout theistic views.

The Greek Alexander Romance describes the life of Alexander the Great, focusing primarily on his great military feats as a leader of Greece and highlighting why people remember him as a great Greco-Roman leader. Similarly, the Gospel of Matthew explains the life of Jesus Christ through his teachings and miracles, which underlines why people know him as the greatest figure from Judeo-Christian culture. Alexander and Jesus are similar in that they died in their early thirties, were kings, and underwent numerous triumphs on earth. Alexander sought to build his empire and essentially rule the world through victories on the battlefield by conquering neighboring countries. Jesus sought to destroy evil on earth by establishing God’s Kingdom and teachings in the hearts of all. Comparing the lives of these great Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian leaders highlights the differences in cultural opinion on the highest good in life, how one obtains that good, and what that means in connection to an afterlife. Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman perspectives on elements of a meaningful life contrast in that Judeo-Christians are motivated by the desire for everlasting life in heaven to pursue the elements of a meaningful life, while Greco-Romans are motivated by the desire for perpetual fame on earth after one dies.

And in this paper, I will argue that this argument about atheism is wrong about questioning the existence of God. I will prove and defend that God does really exists.

Apart from the mystery of the origin of life itself, there has been nothing more mysterious, more confusing, and more shocking than religion. The world is composed of people from various backgrounds and cultures, practicing different religious beliefs. Each culture has got its religious belief system and hence it’s own Supreme Being, to whom they place their absolute trust and faith in the Supreme Being. The only bottom-line similarity among all these religious beliefs is the concept of salvation. Everyone related salvation to something that they are eventually given a good deed that one does throughout his or her life on earth. The central question that usually arises out of religion and the existence of God is why evil still conquers if there is a Supreme Being that indeed cares for his creation. This is what in turn brings theodicy.

In “The Meaning of Lives,” Wolf asserts that the question “What is the Meaning of Life?” is inherently unintelligible because it is uncertain what the question is asking. In other words it is too general because it has no specified context. Wolf then acknowledges, however, that there is value in examining the meaningfulness of a life. This is because she observes people wanting meaning as an unchangeable fact. While there is no grand reason for meaning, she suggests that we can create value through what we do in our life. In her work, Wolf constructs a framework on how to obtain meaning in one’s life. I will examine her view, then critically discuss the positive attributes and the shortcomings. Wolf does a sufficient job to outline a possible way to achieve meaning. However, I will argue that a definition for the meaningful life that does not include morality and happiness is not sufficient. Lastly, I will express the subjective and objective tension that weakens her stance.

Buddhism can be regarded as a strong response of Wolf’s view. The book ‘The Meaning of Life: Buddhist Perspectives on Cause and Effect’ by The Fourteenth Dalai Lama offers a perspective which approaches the problem from a religious point of view. However, he does not focus on the question of the ultimate meaning of human life, rather he gazes at the question of how people seek and maintain meaningful lives. The word ’meaning’ is itself vague, and it has various meanings: motive, intention, indication, cause, effect, explanation, purpose, significance. The Buddhist view admits ‘purpose’ or ‘significance’ as the meaning of meaning. Thus, we can turn the question ‘what is the meaning of life?’ into either the question ‘what is the purpose of life?’ or the question ‘what is the significance of life?’ This meaning poses another question whose purpose it has served. For many religious believers, it is God. The meaning of life is what God intended to signify. However, the Dalai Lama has argued that the purpose of life is to be happy, or in other words happiness is the predominant objective of life. It is an uncontroversial fact that everyone wants happiness and does not want suffering. But the contention lies how one can achieve happiness and avoid suffering. It’s important to discover what will bring happiness because we, the human beings, are simply desire contentment.

Over the years, philosophers have been preoccupied with finding an answer to the meaning of life. I shall focus on three major philosophical views in my essay – Metaphysic, Ethics and Social justice. I will also discuss my personal opinions on the meaning of life. I believe the meaning of life is to give life an importance. All through recently in my life, I have pondered what the meaning is. Why am I and everyone else even on this planet?

Throughout history people wonder about the meaning of life. Religion has been created and intertwined with culture to all areas of the world. How to determined what should we do and what happens after we die? Without religion, we cannot answer to these confusing questions. Most of the religions starting point is good, both Harriet Jacobs and William Black are given an idea of obedient to god and doing good thing will have good return in the future. Unfortunately, religion become a weapon for some people to oppressed the others. We realized religion have positive aspects, negative aspects and still play very important role in the today’s

The following hypothesis is proposed; ‘A Buddhists purpose of life is to live in accordance

In the Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” For millenniums, people sought the meaning of life; devising ideologies and doctrines one after the other, some diametrically opposite to each other, to find the ultimate and absolute purpose of human existence, trying to answer the question of all times: who in the world are human beings? Nonetheless, any possible response goes beyond human understanding; there is still no supreme destination that could be explained in any way but that of faith, hence a way neither provable nor refutable. Once assimilating the complexity of the matter, we’d better stop waiting for the unified solution and focus on setting personal goals and fill their lives with meaning, which would gradually take us to the answer.

We all have a purpose in life. Or we seem to think that we do, but what is our purpose? Who are we, and why are we here? These two questions interrupt our lives often while we question our existence and the deeper meaning of life. We have discovered that religion answers these disconcerting questions. From worldly tradition, we have learned that religion fills those empty gaps in places that we cannot answer our own questions. It creates hope and gives people a meaning and feeling of belonging. Carl Marx describes, “Religion is the opiate of the people.” It makes people forget about inequality and oppression. It is more than a practice or a belief. It is a way of life. Individuals dedicate their entire lives to that of what they focus and put their “faith” in. Religion can be defined, but I do not believe there is an accurate definition that lives up to what religion really means. It can be learned and described, but for one to know religion, they must practice it. Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam are similar and diverse in many aspects, and each of these religions answer the questions “Who am I? Why am I here?” in their own ways.