People believe in what ever makes them happy.
In my opinion, people who do good in life and are nice people want there to be a heaven and hell after life.
People who don't, for example, steal, kill, whatever don't want there to be.
People believe in what benefits them, and helps them sleep at night.
Some people never come to a conclusion and search their entire lives for the meaning of life.
Wasting their entire life, trying to find a meaning.
Not realizing that the meaning of life is living life the best possible way you can.
To achieve, to climb, to conquer. To reach your maximal potential.
Some people just waste their life away despite the amazing opportunities they get;
Others may not have those oppurtunities but make their fate, take the opportunities they do get and make the best of them.
Some men become victims of life, while others grap life by the throat and get everything they can from it.
You're right and I agree with you. I know this is long, but this is the way I see it if you're interested (I am the author):
The meaning of life is to contribute to the progressive accumulation of energy, which manifests all things.
See, energy itself is intertwined and encompasses all things. That includes us and all that we perceive to be reality. The point is to increase this energy contained within and therefore the power and expression of all energy. Therefore one consequence would be to empower ourselves yet in turn all else that is contained within what we consider to be real, because all that is contained within is only a by-product of energy itself, and therefore is energy itself. Oneself and all things is energy. To empower this is the meaning.
This is why everything changes in time as it does. Nothing will ever be the same thing and never could be.
All things are energy. All things. That includes us, all that we percieve, and all that we don't. Since we are a part of the energy and it endlessly interacts, all things are essentially all things because they determine the overall makeup. It's not as simple as batteries or being dead or alive. We are more "alive" than we were ever even capable of being, constantly contributing to this "pool" of energy that is all things. What TechnoViking said here is right. What he calls "positive" energy possesses a higher frequency than a "negative" would, therefore would contribute to a greater magnitude, and therefore would empower all things contained within the entire energy "pool" we consider all things to be.
The energy you spread will also manifest in yourself. Send to other people and cause other people the same energy you desire yourself to possess. This is crucial in determining the quality of the experience of one's own life.
Yes.
Happiness in a temporary sense means temporary satisfaction.
Happiness in a general sense means accumulated satisfaction.
The catch here is, what is truly, not illusory, "satisfaction." The real need we have and need to fulfill is an energy need. Everything else is consequential. Many things can satisfy us, most of them are not in our awareness, they often statisfy in ways we can't consciously detect, and those are often even more valuable than that we are aware of.
What we think is "satisfaction" is often an illusion of satisfaction, meaning we usually trick ourselves into thinking something satisfies us when what it really is is relief brought on by the knowledge that we are attempting to make ourselves happy. "I'm proud of myself for trying to make myself happy; I deserve what I'm doing for myself." This is illusion and our actual concern should be actual happiness, which is that which yields a permanent satisfaction, an enhanced and permanent experience of life itself. The goal should be a progressive evolution of one's own energy throughout the course of life.
As for the meaning of life itself, it applies to all things living and not. In a sense all things are "living." It is the same thing; it is the same energy, it intertwines and interacts endlessly. The "meaning of life" pertains to energy itself and I've covered that already in this thread.
Truth. Do what you love and what you are good at. The rest will follow.
(“How will metaphysics help you define meaning?”) It will make you realize that this is not a "fail" universe, but rather an astronomically mysterious one in which our influences stretch far beyond we can imagine, literally.
At the most minute level, everything is made of energy, which is so dynamic we are mostly unable to detect or measure it's mechanisms. We can't even figure it out because we're influencing reality and the makeup of reality as we try to figure it out. Things are never the same and never will be. Everything is not constant. It is all endlessly dynamic, always moving, always changing, never the same as it was, is, or ever will be.
Only by realizing this, taking a few macro steps back from everyday life, and using the knowledge we do have of our influence on everything can we then determine what we are doing. We are influencing the overall energetic makeup of everything, and it is accumulating in time. This, in turn, empowers the energetic makeup of everything that exists, all that we perceive and can't perceive. We are accomplishing more than anything that ever existed before simply by existing. We can each individually influence this effect, this "empowerment" of everything to a maximum degree by accumulating maximum positive energy throughout our lives. Therefore, we each contribute to the empowerment of everything that exists, but the degree to which each of us contribute is determined by each of ourselves.
(The point being survival itself is true in a very, very material sense. It does not touch on the meaning, however. But when we're talking about the actual "meaning," it has more to do with a macro ("bigger-picture") view of our influence on all that exists, not our narrow, every day lives, or role in an ancient, hunter-gatherer society. That is too narrow to even be in the vacinity of actual meaning.)
(“So, if it has a meaning, what makes that matter, then?”)
We don't know exactly yet, but what we do know is astonishing...
What we do know at this point is that at any point in time we have and are accomplishing something larger than the form of everything, as it ever was before that point in time, that we are constantly influencing it and the degree of that influence is under our control. It is accumulating endlessly. We also know that the energetic makeup of everything is then consequentially empowered, meaning the potential power of EVERYTHING increases. Yes, everything, including our little selves, is becoming more and more and more powerful. We have a part in this, a large, major part.
How does this effect us in life, to narrow in a bit?
Well, for one the experience of consciousness is progressively enhanced in time.
That is profound.
