The Meaning Of Life--All down through the centuries
people have pondered the question, Does life have any
meaning? The universe is so big, we are so small; eternity is so long, our life
is so short. How could our lives have any meaning? But the fact the questions
haunt mankind reveals the need to feel our lives are meaningful
Subheading Contents
3 3w.htm DOES
3 3w.htm Does Life Have
Any Meaning? This Is The Negatives --------The
Others are Positives
4 4w.htm THE NEED FOR MEANING
6 6w.htm
MAKING LIVES MEANINGFUL
8 8w.htm THE ULTIMATE SOURCE OF MEANING
Plus the Simple Bible Truths On--The PURPOSE
of Life Today
PROSKUNEO.htm is
Worshiping God with Truth and Spirit--in Ssbt’s.Jn-4-24-PLUS
Does Life Have Any Meaning?
Negatives --------The others are Positives
A man in his
80’s thinks: ‘My life is nearly over. It’s gone so fast. So
little is left. Where did it all go? What did it mean? It’s all behind,
nothing’s ahead. Except the grave. And oblivion. How pointless it all was! No
wonder the cynic says, “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”’
But is
this all there is?
LONG
ago a man undergoing a painful ordeal without knowing why cried out in despair
about the human condition: “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and
full of trouble. He comes forth like a flower, and withers; he flees like a
shadow, and continues not.”—Job 14:1, 2, Revised Standard Version.
Is
this all there is? Does life have any meaning? These questions have been asked over
and over again, by generations of people down through the ages. Especially as
they grow old. They look back on life and wonder what it meant.
At
the funeral of an old man some will say: ‘Well, he lived a full life.’
Supposedly this means death is now acceptable. But does a full life that is
past make dying easier to accept? Or does it make it harder? Would it not be
easier to leave an empty life than a full one? No one says, “I’m so happy I’m
going to kill myself!” It’s the miserable that resort to suicide. Yesterday’s
full stomach doesn’t comfort today’s empty one. And what seemed meaningful
during life often doesn’t seem so important as death
draws near.
Life
has lost its meaning for many. The world scene is bleak. Life is cheap. It’s
frustrating for many. The young are neglected, the old shunted off into dreary
nursing homes. Stress builds up until hearts fail or violence erupts. Political
corruption spreads and credibility gaps widen. Concerned individuals who try to
improve conditions have about as much impact as a flea pouncing on an elephant.
Disillusionment sets in and people submerge themselves in meaningless
preoccupations with self. On this trend, a United States best-seller, The
Culture of Narcissism, says: “Having no hope of improving
their lives in any of the ways that matter, people have convinced themselves
that what matters is psychic self-improvement: getting in touch with their
feelings, eating health food, taking lessons in ballet or belly-dancing,
immersing themselves in the wisdom of the East, jogging, learning how to
‘relate,’ . . . They cultivate more vivid experiences, seek to beat
sluggish flesh to life, attempt to revive jaded appetites. . . . mental health means the overthrow of inhibitions and the
immediate gratification of every impulse.”—Pp. 29, 39, 40, 43.
When
people pursue this course, their meaningless lives become more meaningless,
and, in more desperate efforts to escape, they plunge into sexual orgies and
perversions, go on sprees of vandalism and senseless violence, take drugs and
even opt for the ultimate escape—suicide. All because they feel their life has
no meaning.
Here
for a few short years, then into the grave and oblivion. How can it have
meaning? What makes a man more important than an ant or a grasshopper? In the
vastness of universal space, he feels like nothing, irrelevant, of no
consequence, here for a moment and gone for eternity. Life seems like an
exercise in futility.
“How
could my life have meaning?” a person wonders. ‘When I’m gone who will miss me,
and for how long? And if some do, how will it help me? I’m just one among
thousands of millions. Who notices, who cares, who remembers?’
But
wait! Some do notice. Some do care. Some will remember. Life does have meaning,
if you want it to, if you make it so. The articles that follow show that to be
true
4w---The Need for Meaning
Who needs
it? Not the earthworm or the eagle, the chipmunk or the whale. It is man alone
of all earth’s creatures that raises the question,
Does life have any meaning? Every generation has pondered it. If the need for
meaning were not inherent in man, the question would not have haunted him
through the centuries
EARTH
seems big to man, but it’s a small planet orbiting a medium-sized star we call
the sun. Our sun’s 864,000-mile diameter sounds impressive until we learn that
some red supergiants have a diameter of 2,000,000,000
miles. It takes light, traveling 186,000 miles a second, eight minutes to reach
earth, but it needs 100,000 years to cross our Milky Way galaxy containing some
100,000,000,000 stars.
Some
astronomers estimate that there are as many galaxies in space as there are
stars in the Milky Way. Radio telescopes have detected light coming from
10,000,000,000 light-years away. Even so, these staggering figures do not give
us the size of the universe.
The
unknown vast reaches of space are of no concern to the rabbit or the cockroach
or the chimpanzee, or to any other animal. But man is awed by its immensity.
Long ago King David of Israel saw only two or three thousand stars in the
heavens, and just this tiny fraction of universal space caused him to cry out
to Jehovah God: “When I see your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon
and the stars that you have prepared, what is mortal man that you keep him in
mind, and the son of earthling man that you take care of him?”—Ps. 8:3, 4.
David
felt dwarfed by a few thousand stars. With our knowledge of untold millions of
galaxies, we should feel microscopic! If the earth is a mere speck of dust in
the universe, of what consequence are individuals living on this speck?
It
is not only our smallness in a big universe but also our brief existence in the
eons of time that makes it difficult for us to believe our life means
something. Just as animals have no comprehension of universal space, so they
have no concept of time, but “God has planted eternity in the hearts of men,”
“he has given men a sense of time past and future.” (Eccl. 3:11, The Living Bible and The New
English Bible) Although knowing that time is eternal, man is also
told that his life is very brief.
The
psalmist says: “As for mortal man, his days are like those of green grass; like
a blossom of the field is the way he blossoms forth. For a mere wind has to
pass over it, and it is no more; and its place will acknowledge it no further.”
“Man himself bears resemblance to a mere exhalation; his days are like a
passing shadow.” The Christian Bible writer James concurs: “You are a mist
appearing for a little while and then disappearing.”—Ps. 103:15, 16; 144:4;
Jas. 4:14.
If
life is so fleeting and followed by a future of oblivion, how could it have
meaning? But the need for meaning and permanence is so great that doctrines of
immortal souls and reincarnations are seized upon. Many feel the need to make
this present life memorable by leaving something of themselves behind—a book, a
painting, a musical composition, an endowment, a foundation, anything to give
some kind of tangible evidence of their having been here. It seems to help them
to feel that there was some meaning to their existence. Even those who made a
name for themselves fade from memory as they are eclipsed by prominent ones now
living. Of efforts to change this fact of life, the verdict is: “Look! everything was vanity and a striving after wind.”—Eccl.
1:14.
In
spite of man’s tininess in universal space, however,
and his fleeting appearance in the stream of time, he still needs to feel his
life is meaningful. This springs from the way he was
created. It is an inborn need. Viktor Frankl, the
psychiatrist who originated the psychiatric school of logotherapy,
which he defines as meaning-therapy, says: “The striving to find a meaning in
one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.”
How
can the need for meaning in our life be met? The following article gives some
of the requirements.
[Footnotes]
1
mile = 1.6 kilometers.
1
light-year = approximately 6 trillion miles.
[Blurb on page 5]
If the earth is a mere speck of dust
in the universe, of what consequence are individuals living on this speck?
[Blurb on page 5]
“The striving to find a meaning in
one’s life is the primary motivational force in man.”
6w--MAKING LIVES MEANINGFUL
BY
SETTING GOALS
“Hitch
your wagon to a star,” advises the old saying. Goals of high purpose give
meaningful direction to our life, keep us from
drifting, floundering or stagnating. Human creatures are goal-oriented. Setting
goals aids progress and strengthens purpose. Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, in “Man’s Search for Meaning,” writes of the
importance of goals even in Nazi concentration camps: “Any attempt to restore a
man’s inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some
future goal.”
He
tells of two men in camp who had decided to commit suicide—what did they have
to live for? But when one realized his adored child was waiting for him, and
the other had a series of scientific books to finish, both chose to live.
“There is nothing in the world, I venture to say,” Frankl wrote, “that would so effectively help one to
survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is a meaning in
one’s life.”
If
this is true in “the worst conditions,” how much more so would setting goals
and striving to reach them help people in their day-to-day living!
BY
DOING
Goals
in themselves, however, mean little. Only when they are accompanied by deeds do
they have real meaning. A farmer may have as a goal the harvesting of a certain
crop, but to attain that goal he must sow seed and do all the additional work
needed to produce and bring in the crop. He can’t be like the farmer described
at Ecclesiastes 11:4: “He that is watching the wind will not sow seed; and he
that is looking at the clouds will not reap.”
Work
accomplished reflects the qualities and abilities of the worker, shows what he
is, and when it is successful it gives him a sense of fulfillment. “A long life
without the feeling of fulfillment is very tedious,” says Dr. Hans Selye.
Even
children benefit from work. Professor Alice Rossi, a sociologist at the
BY
MINDING SPIRITUAL THINGS
Purpose
and meaning are based in the things of the spirit, not the flesh. Frankl wrote of the ability to resist the tortures of the
concentration camps because of spiritual strength: “The consciousness of one’s
inner value is anchored in higher, more spiritual things, and cannot be shaken
by camp life.” Why do successful executives, materially well off, change
careers in mid-life? Psychologist Levinson said that they begin to ask: “Is
this all there is? Was it worth all I had to give up along the way? Do I want
to go on like this for the rest of my life?”
It
is the awareness of a person’s spiritual need and the fulfilling of that that
brings happiness and meaning to his life. (Matt. 5:3) The apostle Paul wrote:
“The minding of the flesh means death, but the minding of the spirit means life
and peace [with God].” (Rom. 8:6) Study the Bible and come to know Jehovah God
and Christ Jesus, for ‘this means everlasting life, taking in knowledge of the
only true God, and of the one whom he sent forth, Jesus Christ.’—John 17:3.
BY
A RIGHT ATTITUDE
“According
to your faith,” Jesus told two blind men who asked for sight, “let it happen to
you.” It happened for them because they had a positive attitude and believed.
(Matt. 9:29) Do you work toward a goal with confidence and vigor, not doubting
or drifting willy-nilly? Think negative and get negative results; think
positive to get positive results. Doubts are traitors that make us lose what we
might win if we didn’t fear to try. Think on that which is good. (Phil. 4:8)
Why is this so vital? Because of the principle expressed at Proverbs 23:7: “As
he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”—Authorized
Version.
BY
SERVING OTHERS
We
feel useful when we help others. It shows we have something to offer, and as
Jesus said: “There is more happiness in giving than there is in receiving.”
(Acts
Serving
God does much more toward enabling us to view our life as meaningful, even
though we are small in a vast universe and exist only in a tiny fraction of the
stream of time.
BY
SUFFERING FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ SAKE
“Suffering
ceases to be suffering in some way at the moment it finds a meaning, such as
the meaning of a sacrifice,” writes Frankl. “Man is
even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a
meaning.” What greater meaning could it have than being for righteousness’
sake?
“Happy
are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake,” Jesus said. The
apostles experienced this joy: “They [the Jewish religious court of the
Sanhedrin] summoned the apostles, flogged them, and ordered them to stop
speaking upon the basis of Jesus’ name, and let them go. These, therefore, went
their way from before the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted
worthy to be dishonored in behalf of his name.” (Matt. 5:10-12; Acts 5:40, 41)
There is no merit in suffering for wrongdoing, but when you suffer for doing
good, this “is a thing agreeable with God.”—1 Pet. 2:20.
8w--THE ULTIMATE SOURCE OF
MEANING
“THE only adequate structure for morality is
that based upon the ultimate meaning of life.” That
is the claim made by a prominent psychiatrist, Rollo
May. He raises the question of where this structure and ultimate meaning of
life can be found, and answers: “The ultimate structure is the nature of God.
The principles of God are the principles which underlie life from the beginning
of creation to the end.”
“Man
has a relationship to God,” May continues. “This is so fundamental in man that
it is attributed to his creation, where he was ‘made in the image of God.’” He
also observed that man’s ego and self-will cause him to stray from the godly image,
and this causes inner conflicts and tensions and guilt feelings. This reminds
us of the apostle Paul’s dilemma, as he expressed it:
“The good that I wish I do not do, but the bad that I do not wish is what I
practice. Miserable man that I am!” (Rom.
A
person feels dwarfed not only by space and time, as previously discussed, but
also by the teeming millions of human creatures on earth all around him. “The
bigger the crowd,” says C. G. Jung, “the more
negligible the individual becomes.” He feels “overwhelmed by the sense of his
own puniness and impotence” and that, as a result, “his life has lost its
meaning.”
But
the masses of humanity, so overwhelming to the individual, are as nothing when
compared to God. To him “the nations are as a drop from a bucket; and as the
film of dust on the scales . . . All the
nations are as something nonexistent in front of him.” (Isa.
40:15, 17) This was written more than 2,000 years before the modern schools of
psychology were established, the central figure of which is Sigmund Freud, born
in 1856 C.E.
For
our lives to have any real meaning, they need a connection to Jehovah God, the
Creator of the universe. Many today, however, have doubts that God even exists,
and they therefore find it difficult to relate to him. Nonetheless, evidence
for his existence abounds. Many look at the heavens and earth and agree with
the apostle Paul when he said: “His invisible qualities are clearly seen from
the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made.”
They also can repeat with the psalmist his recorded words: “The heavens are
declaring the glory of God; and of the work of his hands the expanse is
telling.”—Rom.
The
consensus among scientists now is that the universe had a beginning. The
Bible’s first verse also says this: “In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1) Robert Jastrow, in his
book God and the Astronomers, wrote:
“Now
we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of
the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical
and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to
man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of
light and energy. Some scientists are unhappy with the idea that the world
began in this way. . . . But the latest evidence makes it almost certain
that the Big Bang really did occur many millions of years ago.”
The
British theorist Edward Milne in a mathematical treatise on relativity
concluded: “As to the first cause of the Universe, in the context of expansion
[the Big Bang], that is left for the reader to insert, but our picture is
incomplete without Him.”
The Journal
of the American Medical Association,
“The
superb order and regulation in various manifestations of life and in the basic
processes at the cellular and molecular levels have strong influence on the
belief that a higher power exists.”
Now
this recognized great First Cause whose name is Jehovah had a purpose, or goal,
in making the earth: “He formed and made the earth—he made it firm and lasting.
He did not make it a desolate waste, but a place for people to live.” So, too,
when Adam was put in the garden it was for a purpose: “to cultivate it and
guard it.” To both Adam and Eve God said: “Have many children, so that your
descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control. I am
putting you in charge of the fish, the birds, and all the wild animals.” (Isa. 45:18; Gen. 2:15; 1:28, Today’s English Version)
“Everything Jehovah has made for his purpose,” this is his purpose for
humankind, and his purposes never fail.—Prov. 16:4; Isa. 46:11.
Today
people work toward goals that make them feel their life is meaningful, but is
there a lasting quality to these goals? Will the meaning survive in time and
universal space? The ultimate source of meaning is the doing of work willingly
that Jehovah God has ordained for humankind—caring for the earth, beautifying
it, lovingly exercising oversight of animal life, praising Jehovah as they
enjoy life under the kingdom of Christ Jesus. In this way no longer will they
be dwarfed by space or terminated by time. Each one will then harmonize with
and advance the purposes of God for the earth. Each life will then have
meaning, meaning to man and to God. And if your ultimate meaning in life is not
to be terminated by time then make as your goal the gaining of everlasting life
in the paradise earth under Christ’s kingdom.
There
is another aspect of a life dedicated to God that gives it a meaning of
universal importance. Remember the words of the man of long ago, Job, that were quoted in the opening article of this series?
Remember how those words bitterly lamented man’s fewness of days and their
fullness of trouble? Well, Job’s days were filled with trouble because of a
challenge raised thousands of years ago by Satan the Devil. That challenge was
that Jehovah could not have people on earth who would keep integrity to Him
under test.
Doubtless
in reference to this issue previously raised, Jehovah on one occasion asked
Satan: “Have you set your heart upon my servant Job, that there is no one like
him in the earth, a man blameless and upright, fearing God and turning aside
from bad?” Satan’s retort was, ‘You’ve put a protective hedge around him! Let
me strip him of his possessions and he’ll curse you to your face!’ Satan was
allowed to do that, and, later, was even permitted to bring painful disease and
torment upon Job. The issue between God and Satan was a universal one, for it
was aired before angels in the heavenly court of Jehovah God.—Job 1:6 to 2:8.
Satan
was allowed to do all he could to Job to break his integrity to God, but he
failed. Job cried out: “Until I expire I shall not take away my integrity from
myself!” Later he declared, “God will get to know my integrity.” Job proved
Satan a liar and his challenge false. Further words of his constitute a cry of
hope for all mankind: “I myself well know that my redeemer is alive, and that,
coming after me, he will rise up over the dust. And after my skin, which they
have skinned off,—this! Yet reduced in my flesh I shall behold God, whom even I
shall behold for myself.”—Job 27:5; 31:6; 19:25-27.
Though
many others have failed, some people down through the centuries have kept
integrity to God and proved Satan’s challenge false, and to this extent they
have contributed to the vindication of Jehovah’s name. Surely, nothing could give
a life more meaning than this, to support the cause of the Creator of the
universe, to demonstrate to both men and angels that Satan lied
when he said he could turn all men away from God!
Throughout
the Bible book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon repeatedly referred to this life and
its secular works as vanity, and dismissed it as “this brief span of empty
existence through which he passes like a shadow.” (Eccl. 6:12, The New English Bible)
Nevertheless, he admonished young persons to remember their Creator and
concluded his writings with these words: “The conclusion of the matter,
everything having been heard, is: Fear the true God and keep his commandments.
For this is the whole obligation of man. For the true God himself
will bring every sort of work into the judgment in relation to every hidden
thing, as to whether it is good or bad.”—Eccl. 12:13, 14.
A
life lived in integrity to Jehovah God is not vanity, is not futile, is not
meaningless. Jehovah the Creator of the universe is the ultimate source of
meaning, and a life dedicated and devoted to him will last forever and will
have meaning forever.
[Blurb on page 11]
Jehovah the Creator of the universe
is the ultimate source of meaning, and a life devoted to him will last forever
and have meaning forever
[Box on page 10]
EVEN PROMINENT PSYCHIATRISTS
HAVE BEEN OBLIGED TO CONFIRM THE NEED
FOR BELIEF IN GOD
C. G. Jung:
The “idea of an all-powerful divine being is everywhere, if not
consciously recognized, then unconsciously accepted . . . Therefore I
consider it wiser to recognize the idea of God consciously; otherwise something
else becomes god, as a rule something quite inappropriate and stupid.”
“The individual who is not anchored in God can offer no resistance on
his own resources to the physical and moral blandishments of the world.”
“Religion, as the careful observation and taking account of certain
invisible and uncontrollable factors, is an instinctive attitude
peculiar to man, and its manifestations can be followed all through human
history.”
On his patients over 35: “There has not been one whose problem in the
last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.”
Rollo May:
On belief in God and His mercy: “Then the individual will have gained a
feeling of his own minuteness and insignificance in the face of the greatness
of the universe and God’s purposes therein. . . . He will recognize
that there are purposes which swing in arcs much greater than his little orb,
and he will aim to put himself in harmony with them. He will realize, without
sentimentality, his dependence on God.”
On atheism: “True religion, namely a fundamental affirmation of the
meaning of life, is something without which no human being can be healthy in
personality. . . . What happens to mental health when this meaning
which religion gives is absent? In other words, what is the effect of atheism
on personality? . . . I have been startled by the fact that
practically every genuine atheist with whom I have dealt has exhibited
unmistakable neurotic tendencies.”
[Picture on page 8, 9]
We may seem microscopic in this vast
universe, and we may be as a fleeting moment in the endless stream of time, but
our position on the earth is unique and our lives are involved in the most
meaningful issue in the whole universe