by Elton Gahr

Created on: May 12, 2009

The problem with asking for reason for existence and meaning for being is that most of the answers must take for granted both of the questions. It is easy to say that we are here to help each other, or to say that we exist as a way for the universe to understand itself and while these are interesting answers to some questions without existence there would be no one to help and nothing to understand.

The second major problem in these two questions is the assumption that we exist for a reason and that being has a reason. This is of course something that humanity desperately wants to believe but what evidence is there for it? Is there some way to prove that we have any reason to exist that life is anything more than random chance that, thanks to entropy will eventually disappear completely from the universe?

This question really comes down to is there more to life than the physical and to answer this one must look at the only evidence we truly have, ourselves. We as a species have a built in sense of morality, a concept of good and evil. But, for good and evil to exist they must be measured by some standard. Why do we believe that a stronger group destroying a weaker group is immoral? In a purely physical world it is the correct decision. The world, assuming no other factors, will be stronger if we allow survival of the fittest to play out. Yet we do not believe this because there is a natural moral law we all adhere to. This moral law must exist outside of ourselves.

This takes us back to the universe as a whole. No answer can be given in science for the true beginning of the universe. The big bang theory may explain where our universe came from but not the beginning because the matter of the big bang had to come from someplace.

It is not inevitable because of this to believe in God but for a meaningful existence it is. Yet few of us truly examine what this answer really means to our present existence. If there is an eternal God then there is an eternity. If this God allows us to spend eternity with him then we cannot live our present non-eternal lives in any logical way that is not a preparation for eternity. If eternity exists then the billions of years since the big bang and the billions of years until the universe either collapses on itself or slowly freezes to death are but a single day, and our existence is so small as to be nearly immeasurable. Our only meaning for existence if eternity exists is to prepare for it. If it does not exist then our lives are meaningless and we should simply absorb as much fun as possible in the short time we have.

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