What is your purpose in life? What is the rationale behind our life? Why do we live in this life? These questions frequently intrigue people who try to find accurate answers.

People provide different answers to these questions. Some people believe the purpose of life is to accumulate wealth. But one may wonder: What is the purpose of life after one has collected colossal amounts of money? What then? What will the purpose be once money is gathered? If the purpose of life is to gain money, there will be no purpose after becoming wealthy. And in fact, here lies the problem of some disbelievers or misbelievers at some stage of their life, when collecting money is the target of their life. When they have collected the money they dreamt of, their life loses its purpose. They suffer from the panic of nothingness and they live in tension and restlessness.



We often hear of a millionaire committing suicide, sometimes, not the millionaire himself but his wife, son, or daughter. The question that poses itself is: Can wealth bring happiness to one’s life? In most cases the answer is NO. Is the purpose of collecting wealth a standing purpose? As we know, the five-year old child does not look for wealth: a toy for him is equal to a million dollars. The eighteen-year old adolescent does not dream of wealth because he is busy with more important things. The ninety-year old man does not care about money; he is worried more about his health. This proves that wealth cannot be a standing purpose in all the stages of the individual's life.

Wealth can do little to bring happiness to a disbeliever, because he/she is not sure about his fate. A disbeliever does not know the purpose of life. And if he has a purpose, this purpose is doomed to be temporary or self destructive.

What is the use of wealth to a disbeliever if he feels scared of the end and skeptical of everything. A disbeliever may gain a lot of money, but will surely lose himself.



On the contrary, faith in Allah gives the believer the purpose of life that he needs. In Islam, the purpose of life is to worship Allah. The term "Worship" covers all acts of obedience to Allah.

The Islamic purpose of life is a standing purpose. The true Muslim sticks to this purpose throughout all the stages of his life, whether he is a child, adolescent, adult, or an old man.

Worshipping Allah makes life purposeful and meaningful, especially within the framework of Islam. According to Islam this worldly life is just a short stage of our life. Then there is the other life. The boundary between the first and second life is the death stage, which is a transitory stage to the second life. The type of life in the second stage a person deserves depends on his deeds in the first life. At the end of the death stage comes the day of judgment. On this day, Allah rewards or punishes people according to their deeds in the first life.

The First Life as an Examination

So, Islam looks at the first life as an examination of man. The death stage is similar to a rest period after the test, i. e. after the first life. The Day of Judgment is similar to the day of announcing the results of the examinees. The second life is the time when each examinee enjoys or suffers from the outcome of his behavior during the test period.

In Islam, the line of life is clear, simple, and logical: the first life, death, the Day of Judgment, and then the second life. With this clear line of life, the Muslim has a clear purpose in life. The Muslim knows he is created by Allah. Muslims know they are going to spend some years in this first life, during which they have to obey God, because God will question them and hold them responsible for their public or private deeds, because Allah knows about all the deeds of all people. The Muslim knows that his deeds in the first life will determine the type of second life they will live in. The Muslim knows that this first life is a very short one, one hundred years, more or less, whereas the second life is an eternal one.



The concept of the eternity of the second life has a tremendous effect on a Muslims during their first life, because Muslims believe that their first life determines the shape of their second life. In addition, this determines the shape of their second life and this determination will be through the Judgment of Allah, the All just and Almighty.

With this belief in the second life and the Day of Judgment, the Muslim's life becomes purposeful and meaningful. Moreover, the Muslim's standing purpose is to go to Paradise in the second life.

In other words, the Muslim's permanent purpose is to obey Allah, to submit to Allah, to carry out His orders, and to keep in continues contact with Him through prayers (five times a day), through fasting (one month a year), through charity (as often as possible), and through pilgrimage (once in one's life).

The Need for a Permanent Purpose

Disbelievers have purposes in their lives such as collecting money and property, indulging in sex, eating, and dancing. But all these purposes are transient and passing ones. All these purposes come and go, go up and down. Money comes and goes. Health comes and goes. Sexual activities cannot continue forever. All these lusts for money, food and sex cannot answer the individual's questions: so what? Then What?

However, Islam saves Muslims from the trouble of asking the question, because Islam makes it clear, from the very beginning, that the permanent purpose of the Muslim in this life is to obey Allah in order to go to Paradise in the second life.

We should know that the only way for our salvation in this life and in the hereafter is to know our Lord who created us, believe in Him, and worship Him alone.

We should also know our Prophet whom Allah had sent to all mankind, believe in Him and follow Him. We should, know the religion of truth which our Lord has commanded us to believe in, and practice it …

So explain how murder of unbelievers is ok? How murder of women raped is ok? About all that love and understanding Islam has for other religions? How murder of those that leave Islam is ok? Explain why it is ok to mistreat the Bible even though Islam considers it a holy book as well? Or how it is ok to deny other religions the right to worship in their faith? How it is acceptable to treat all those that are not Muslim as second or third class citizens?

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

Bona Fide informs us:


In my opinion , this doesn't really answer the question: What is the purpose of life?.

It merely puts it off the question by suggesting that one will spend eternity asking oneself what the purpose of one's SECOND LIFE is.

Hey if that works for people, fine.

But Christian heaven or Moslem heaven, the question remains unanswered.

What's my take on this question:


The question is a mistake. In fact it is arrogant for us to even ask such a question. It is not for us to KNOW such things.

Life needs no excuse.

Purpose in life is optional and entirely a matter for each individual to create for him or her self knowing full well, while they are making something their purpose for living, that their purpose is entirely artifical, a contrivence, a conceit they use to focus their actions upon.

The truly enlightened will therefore realize that someone else's purpose in life, while having no logic that they can intuit, is just as good as their own.

Many people satisfy themselves by accepting a faith in life after death, and one where we will be with God who will answer such deep questions for us.

And if that works for you, if it gives you peace of mind, if that gives you a reason to put you feet on the ground every day and do what needs doing, I say that is a good thing.

I believe that the living cannot know the true meaning of life for much the same reason that a fish cannot understand the sea.

We are too much a part of life, to see it in its entirety.

The purpose of life is to perfect your soul so you can become one with all things through God/Allah/Yaweh/Brahma/Tao/etc.

If we do not perfect ourselves enough or if we de-evolve...we are forced to return again in a lower life form or circumstance to atone for past sins.

See, even God believes in recycling.

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Luminous Beings Are We.

The purpose of life is to get on usmessageboards.com and have endless arguements for all eternity.

On a serious note. Its all a matter of personal beliefs. While I find all the religious theories beautiful and interesting, I myself believe the only way to know for sure about afterlife is to indeed die. So, while on earth our purpose is to just treat each other well, as well as the Earth....Now whether or not we actually fulfill this idea is obviously debatable, but I think the overall goal is to be happy and content while we are here.

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What was the best thing before sliced bread?
-George Carlin

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
-Gandhi

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
-Albert Einstein

No, that's the definition of hell.

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Poor Spot! He was tired of being thought of as stupid. "I'm gonna join Mensa," he said to myself, "and then I'll be legally permitted to wear the society's insignia--a tattoo of a little map pin pushed into my flesh--and then everyone'll know that I'm not dumb at all!"
Spot Joins Mensa
by James "Kibo" Parry

Actuallly once your body dies you either rot in the ground and spread nutrients to bugs and shit, or if you cremated the body willl burn having given energy to the fire. since the laws of conservation and mass say that energy can nither be created or destroyed, and your brain has more energy then a cmputer. so sientificly reincarnation is your best bet.

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hey hey hey
smoke weed
EVERYDAY

There's no "purpose" to life - it just is.

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Blowhards-R-Us

There are lower life forms that humans ?????

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"Some men eventually stumble over the truth but they usually pick themselves up and walk on as if nothing ever happened."
-Winston Churchill

"But though there is no difference in this respect between the best demagogue and the worst, both of them having to present their cases equally in terms of melodrama, there is all the difference in the world between the statesman who is humbugging the people into allowing him to do the will of God, in whatever disguise it may come to him, and one who is humbugging them into furthering his personal ambition and the commercial interests of the plutocrats who own the newspapers and support him on reciprocal terms."
-George Bernard Shaw

Striving for happiness and contentment is guartanteed to bring the opposite.

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"Some men eventually stumble over the truth but they usually pick themselves up and walk on as if nothing ever happened."
-Winston Churchill

"But though there is no difference in this respect between the best demagogue and the worst, both of them having to present their cases equally in terms of melodrama, there is all the difference in the world between the statesman who is humbugging the people into allowing him to do the will of God, in whatever disguise it may come to him, and one who is humbugging them into furthering his personal ambition and the commercial interests of the plutocrats who own the newspapers and support him on reciprocal terms."
-George Bernard Shaw

It's not striving for anything really, just accepting what you can't change and not focussing on material things. Just being good to everyone you meet and taking care of the earth. That shouldn't make anyone unhappy.

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What was the best thing before sliced bread?
-George Carlin

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
-Gandhi

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
-Albert Einstein

A question I like to ponder as a nonbeliever.

Who is the better man; the man who lives a good, moral life full of "good works" because he is looking forward to the promise of paradise or because he fears the retribution of a supreme being or the man who does not believe in god, the promise of paradise and eternal life but yet still lives a good moral life full of "good works" expecting nothing in return but the satisfaction that he was a good man?

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"If you want the government to give you puppies and rainbows, don't pout when you're picking up dog shit in the rain"
--Skull Pilot


...being permitted to vote for politicians who enact unjust, oppressive new laws magically converts the stripes on prison shirts into emblems of freedom.
--James Bovard

It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.
-- U.S. Supreme Court, in American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382,442

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
- Wendell Johnson

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
-- Thomas Carlyle

So you think a person should get into heaven by works alone, and faith makes a person less moral?

What a crock. Thereby, anyone who wanted to get into heaven could just buy their way in. Wouldn't that be a great place to be.....

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Poor Spot! He was tired of being thought of as stupid. "I'm gonna join Mensa," he said to myself, "and then I'll be legally permitted to wear the society's insignia--a tattoo of a little map pin pushed into my flesh--and then everyone'll know that I'm not dumb at all!"
Spot Joins Mensa
by James "Kibo" Parry

The latter for sure. Good question.

__________________
What was the best thing before sliced bread?
-George Carlin

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.
-Gandhi

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
-Albert Einstein

So true ,so true.

The only purpose is the one we give it.

Mine is to be happy and to allow the others arround me the same purpose.

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"The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment." -Bertrand Russell