Why am I on earth. What is the meaning of life, the point of our existence, the purpose of all sorrow. Religions provide an answer, but not convincingly. Man seems little more than a kind of useful ,bacterium, in the great universal body. Is maintaining an unknown phenomenon perhaps the only meaning of life for us too? A life for which we usually pay a sky-high price in the form of worries, pain, sadness, illness, misery and other misfortunes, with death as the finish line.
What is the meaning of life
The many religions do not provide a clear answer to this question. ,To serve God and get to heaven, is quite vague. It seems like an argument that was inspired by a lack of anything better. Yet, when viewed soberly, there is a reasonable explanation for the fact that we (and other animals) are here on earth and in this universe.
What are we here on earth for, the age-old question
A number of identified answers:
- to serve God/Allah and thereby enter heaven
- because we have committed a terrible sin, and this life is our chance to redeem ourselves
- to know, love and serve God and see Him in Paradise in the next life
- According to Buddhism, the ultimate goal is to attain Nirvana (which is the cessation of all misery, sorrow).
There are also some lighter explanations for the usefulness of existence
We are on earth:
- to make a good story out of it., (Willem Wilmink)
- to fool around and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.(Kurt Vonnegut)
- to become happy now and then (Brother Venantius)
- to serve our sentence. (Arnon Grunberg)
A more logical reasoning for why we are on earth
To do this, we must compare ourselves with the microorganisms that live in our bodies and that therefore do useful work for us:
- Humans are partly kept alive by the countless faecal bacteria in our intestines. If these microbes did not perform their useful digestive function, we would die instantly.
- Through breastfeeding, infants receive bacteria that stimulate the baby’s immune system.
Two random examples of how such a simple bacterium, without even realizing it, keeps a higher intelligence alive. Because the ,work, of that bacterium actually only consists of digesting our food, i.e. eating and defecating. The only other thing they do is reproduce. In doing so they keep us, intelligent and complicated beings, alive. It’s that simple!
Does man also maintain an invisible quantity?
Perhaps humans have exactly the same ,job description, as those bacterial cells and we too are in a higher form of life that we maintain. Just like the bacteria, we do not realize that we are part of a higher intelligence, a greater whole, a super creation.
Value for money
Eating, drinking, reproducing and just seeing what you can do about the rest, isn’t that the only assignment we actually have? It’s a pity that the return in the form of fun, humor, sex, love, tasty food and musical enjoyment often pales in comparison to all the misery, sadness and pain we have to endure. The price/quality ratio of life is usually poor, even though we never signed up to see the light of day. The saying ,all’s well that ends well, unfortunately does not seem to apply to our existence.
Is God good?
If you compare this question with: ,Is the farmer good for his cattle?, you immediately have the answer. Because if the dairy cow could think, she might come to the conclusion that the dairy farmer is good:
- because of the daily food supply,
- and the warm stable with regular fresh straw,
- the farmer is kind enough to relieve her of milk,
- maybe she will have a calf that she will enjoy.
While she is literally and figuratively a production machine that is milked her entire life and ends up on the slaughterhouse after being written off. The phenomenon of good or evil also seems to us humans to be more of a cunning, unscrupulous steering mechanism from ,a higher power, than it is for our own benefit.
Apparently, human life has as much meaning as that of bacteria and dairy cows. So we are indeed useful to this universe. Unfortunately, we don’t get any benefit from it ourselves. To ourselves, our existence is meaningless. But we are programmed in such a way that we often only find out about this when we are older.
So only after we have produced and raised offspring, and accomplished in many other areas, do we realize that we have been used in any way. Unless you are lucky enough to believe in the Quran, Torah or Bible.
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- Why be grateful to live in this miserable world?
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