General meaning of life

This is my opinion to what the general meaning of life is.
First, let me state that I do not think this is the meaning of life for all beings on the planet. I am just saying that if we are sent here for a reason, this is the one we have in common.

The reason we live life is to answer the reasons of "Why". There are many questions that can not be answered scientifically. These questions are like 'why should I care for them if I get nothing in return?', 'Why is it wrong to kill some one when they will die anyways?', or like 'why should I try?'.

These questions are not answered by explanation alone, but by experience. Love is the great example. Why should we love people? Why do you long for a person? Some say it is a sexual instinct. But those people have long since forgotten fairytales and stories. Romance is a real thing, and it is something that people haven't expereinced enough.
Life is a way to answer the questions that we can not understand as spirits who stand merely in the bands of mind and soul in the universe. We need a heart, and the heart needs to be trained. This training comes from the struggles, the trials in life. The way you take it is what you will be leaving with after life. The heart is the way to answer the questions that ask what is anything worth?

A family is also an example to the love factor. Being a parent, when sane, is understanding that you will sacrifice for your children knowing you might not get nothing in return. Having a spouse that you are devoted to and kids that you have to give up your life for.
That is to one of the answers to life. Love.

Although I agree, its still possible to explain love, its not as mystical as it made out to be.

The meaning of life is to be happy; when you love someone and they love you back; well its hard to be happier.

In my opinion, the meaning of life is survival and reproduction, as with other beings. Of course, with our intelligence we have made many advancements etc. which make it quite easy to survive (I'm talking about myself here, I realize there are people everywhere for whom it is damn hard to survive, and with good reasons), and so our priorities have shifted as living beings to what DumbTeen suggested: happiness.

As survival and reproduction become difficult to fail at, we focus on living well instead of living at all.

This is just my thinking on the meaning/purpose of life.

Of course, if you really mean what our purpose as residents of the universe is, our intended effect on the universe, I don't know what to say.

Your meaning of life is not about love but to learn the unexplainable things. You are just using an example of love. For me, a good example is the military. It is a way of life that is not written down and cannot be taught in school, to learn it, you have to experience it. There are many such things in life. That's when your mom or your dad say, "because I said so," because they don't think they can explain it to you but know that someday you will understand.

I have to agree, the meaning of life is about learning. Learning the things that cannot be written down.

Well, that may be the purpose of my or your life, but ofcourse, we can never answer the purpose of life altogather. Why is the universe in existence etc.
Anyway, for us, our pupose is a life of purpose.
Maybe if the purpose of our life is to understand life, then the pupose of life(warning, about to get religoius!) must be to go on to the next level, like Heaven or something, otherwise, why bother to understand life in the first place.

Of course it would be religious, it is the General Meaning of Life. In a sense, this is an agreement about what most religions have in common about why we are alive.

And also, there should be an afterlife if there is any meaning to life.

I believe that this life is a spec in our own lives in the universe. We are only here to understand hearts. Emotions and consciences. This will carry with us into the next life so that we can figure out the next step of questions, such as why the universe exists.

Why must there be a meaning of life? Why must there be an answer?
People always look too deeply into things which can, most often, be answered logically without an arduous soul search.

If there was to be a meaning of life, I would say it is simply to "live". Just to "be" is enough. If everyone who lives "is", then everyone has a meaning. Nothing is useless in the scheme of things.

But then again, we like our soul searches, don't we?

Or, the meaning of life is God. man created God for there to be a meaning to life, that is why Gods exist. That is the meaning of life.

Yes, it is in mans nature to worship something, be it God or be it a tree.it can be said man intorduced God into their lives, though that doesn't mean that He doesn't exist.
Don't see how that could be the meaning of life though, doesn't make sense

Yes, perhaps our puropse in life is to llive, as I said, the purpose of life is a life of purpose. But thats not true in the broader context

In the beginning, there was no God (for arguments sake, not to start any MORE debates)
Thus, there was no meaning of life.
Man created God for life to have a meaning.
That is how God can be the meaning of life.
For those who don't believe, life is simply existence.
Kind of dull, huh.

But then you could say that there always was a God to destroy what you think the meaning of life is.
God created life for man to have meaning.

"Why must there be a meaning of life? Why must there be an answer? "
There must be a meaning because it does exist. As there is a cause and effect, to each effect, there is a cause. There is a reason why the universe exists.

"People always look too deeply into things which can, most often, be answered logically without an arduous soul search."

"If there was to be a meaning of life, I would say it is simply to "live"."

That is what I mean. It should not matter what lies beyond death or in the depths of the truths in the universe. Life is here to be lived. We are supposed to go through life doing the best we can in our own minds. We have to understand that it should not matter that we do things for a purpose outside of life itself. We need to do what is right, because we believe that is what we should do. That is life.

I've no idea what the meaning of life is, you would definately need a super intelligent interpreter for that.

''It should not matter what lies beyond death or in the depths of the truths in the universe.''
Well, if the depths of truth in the universe don't matter, it means ignorance.

Ok, are we discussing the meaning of life or the purpose of life?Because I thought both were the same thing. How could God be the purpose of life? It's not even proper english

Exactly right, Angel.
Life is ignorance. That is why we are supposed to be living it. A whole container of potential that you are supposed to fill up with your own answers. The meaning of life is to be able to match your answers with the actual right ones.
We are not supposed to know what happens after death. If we did, we would be working for the wrong purposes. We have to try and do what we believe is right without anyone telling us what it is.

Well, if Aristole and Kant had had this attitude, I don't think that they would have made any difference. Sure, some things like purpose of life, after death may be near impossible to answer, but but that doesn't mean that you stop questioning them.
Whats the purpose of captain cynic? I mean, i don't think we'll come up with any scientififc breakthroughs here.
You should question everything, as through questioning the incomprehensible, you gain insights into the comprehensible.