What Is The Meaning Of Life?

August 21, 2019 Gene Curl

In Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Deep Thought, after 7.5 Million years of thought, says that the meaning to life is 42.

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What is the Meaning of Life? Gene Curl

I am not sure how many times per year people search the internet for the answer to the question, “what is the meaning of life?” I just know that it is a lot, and it is one of the most important and most asked questions, both today and in throughout all human history. I think it would be a fair statement to say that the vast majority of philosophy is aimed at answering the question of the meaning of life, and there are as many supposed answers to that question as there are philosophers. Actually, I think most philosophers were, and are, a lot more interested in questions than they are in answers, and even when an answer is readily available they pretend that there is not an answer, especially if it has religious implications.

The question of the meaning of life has also been the subject of numerous artistic works, and I know a lot of you are going to think I am a massive nerd for having read the book, and even more so for doing so more than once, but in the book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy one of the sub plots in the story is about a super computer named Deep Thought that was created for the sole purpose of answering the ultimate question, “What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?” Deep Thought told those who asked the question to return in exactly seven and a half million years for the answer. when the allotted time Deep Thought had given for coalescing was completed a massive crowd of epic proportions gathered together to hear the answer.

When the officials approached Deep Thought at the allotted time and asked if it had the answer to the ultimate question the super computer said, “Yes, but you’re not going to like it.” After the officials said they absolutely must know and demanded the answer Deep Thought said, “The answer to life, the universe and everything is,” and at this point the computer paused to allow the crowd to stew in suspenseful anguish, and the crowd was absolutely cheering in anticipation of the answer, and then Deep Thought said, “42.”

When the crowd realized what the answer was they went deathly silent and the officials protested the answer, saying that it did not make any sense and therefore could not be the correct answer. “Yes,” Deep Thought replied, “I have thought it over quite thoroughly.”

One of the things I do quite often, and I am sure some people think it is one of my more annoying habits, is whenever someone asks a question, regardless of what the question is, I immediately answer with, “42.” Occasionally I get a laugh, but most of the time there is a little awkward silence and then the person says, “Uh, OK,” and then repeats the question. Of course, at this point I realize that the person I am talking to is not in on the joke and I give an answer that they will accept.

Before the internet, and even long before the printing press, people were asking what the meaning of life was, and there have always been someone who claimed to have an answer, and all belief systems, religious or otherwise, attempt to answer the question of the meaning of life. At this point some people may ask what makes Christianity different from all other forms of religion, and that will be the subject of a post at some later point, but for now let it suffice to say that Christianity is the only religion in the entire world where we are saved based on the merits and good favor of God and not by anything we ourselves can do.

Even for those who don’t believe in a higher power, or claim not to believe in a higher power, it is quite impossible, I think, to look at the majesty of the star studded night sky, the huge ocean, a mighty mountain, or even a beautiful sunset and think that there is nothing out there bigger than us, which causes the question of what is the meaning of this life. If there were no God than there would no meaning to life, and any intellectually honest atheist admits that. For life to have meaning than there, by necessity, has to be some cosmic power to assign meaning as a life that happened by happenstance is just there, and yet even the most staunch atheist feels as if his or her life should mean something and seeks for some sort of meaning.

The answer to life, the universe and everything is not, despite common belief, 42, unless 42 is translated to mean Jesus. We don’t need a super computer to answer the question of the meaning of life as God has already answered the question for us in his word, the Holy Bible, but because it is not popular or trendy to believe in the Bible, and because it always causes us to critically examine aspects of our lives and to make changes, it is largely ignored by the masses and they look for meaning elsewhere but never find it.

People try to find meaning in their lives in all sorts of ways from climbing the career ladder to family, but nothing in this world, regardless of how highly regarded by society, can bring fulfillment, and there is ample proof of that. Plutarch the Greek-Roman biographer wrote that when Alexander the Great saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer, and a lot of athletes, having reached the top of their fields, lamented that there was nothing left to strive for when they reached the top.

in a 2005 interview on 60 minutes football legend Tom Brady, who had achieved everything he has set out to achieve and had the praise of most of the world, said that he was unhappy and said that “there must be more to life than this” and when asked what more there could be he said, “I wish I knew.”

In the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, King Solomon, who was arguably the richest and wisest man who ever lived, despite having everything he could ever want readily at hand, wrote about how unhappy and unsatisfied he was with life and bemoaned how vain and utterly pointless life is, or at least that is how he started the book of Ecclesiastes. Just in case you have not read the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon does find an answer to the meaning of life, and it was not more stuff, more status, more sex, more alcohol, more money or more power, though he did initially try all of those things to find meaning in life and realized as all eventually do that they do not bring meaning to life.

The answer to everything and to life is God, and despite being raised by his father David, a man who was referred to as “a man after God’s own heart,” it took Solomon a long time to accept that truth that life only has meaning when God is part of our life. Solomon initially thought he could find happiness in riches and worldly pleasures, but ultimately it left him more empty than before.

I heard somewhere that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and since the beginning of man there have been those who looked for happiness and meaning in everything other than what they should have, every generation and every person thinking that he or she would be the exception and that they would be the one who would find fulfillment and happiness through fame, money, power and worldly pleasures. If fame money and worldly pleasures truly brought happiness there would not be so many famous people, especially rock stars, who are so lost they end their own lives.

One thing people usually get right, or at least they used to, is they realized to have meaning in their lives they must be part of something bigger than themselves, they just often get confused as to what that something is. In today’s culture being part of something bigger than yourself is no longer seen as a requirement for happiness, and as a result, people are more unhappy than at any other time in history, and the suicide rates continue to climb higher than ever. Religious belief is seeing a sharp decline, especially in Western societies, so it should be no surprise that more and more people are feeling unfulfilled, empty and lost.

In Christian circles it is often said that every human has a God shaped hole in his or her heart that only God can fill, and there is even reliable scientific evidence for that. Psychology Today did a study on religious belief and depression and found that religious people are happier than those without religion. The study even found that those who claim to be spiritual but not religious had a higher rate of depression than those who had more of a religious devotion so being spiritual but not religious does not cut it.

The reason everyone has a God shaped hole in their hearts is because we were made to have fellowship with God, and when sin entered the world it disrupted that fellowship, but Jesus, through his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, made it possible for man to be reconciled to God. As Solomon discovered, after wasting much of his life on everything other than God, the only thing that ultimately matters is our relationship with God. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” The reason we are not satisfied with things of the world is because God has set eternity in the human heart, and we all long to be with God, even if we have fooled ourselves into thinking otherwise.

Happiness and fulfillment is not achieved through status, wealth power, relationships or anything of this world. It is only through God and with God that our lives have meaning, and a relationship with God is the meaning of life and the entire purpose for which we were created.