The Meaning of Life

Man has for centuries searched for the meaning of life, of existence and of the universe. Throughout man's history these overarching themes habitually come about and indeed, has had a pivotal role in the shaping of religion, philosophy, history, civilization and science.

The search for meaning is best exemplified in the earliest periods of man's history through religion. Religion gave an explanation, at a time of uncertainly and difficulty, of the workings of the universe. Religion gave man hope as it showed that there is a higher being more powerful, more knowledgeable, more overarching than man could ever be. In the harsh reality of daily existence, religion served to connect man to the manifold mysteries of the universe. This religion has not always been as organized as it seems today. However, such became the fundamental basis of the eventual codification of the deeply held beliefs and practices.

As time moved on, man came to observe the organization of the things around him. He became more intrigued, more mesmerized, more inquisitive. He made it his goal to learn more and to discover more the workings of the universe. And so came the eventual birth of philosophy, indeed, the word comes from the Greek philein (love) and sophia (wisdom).  Philosophy then became an activity for wisdom sake. In other words, it was a search for meaning.

The history of man and his civilization clearly manifests the paramount role of religion and philosophy in his life. Entire civilizations rose around a religion and a philosophy. The raison d'etre of much if not all, of human civilizations was not just the mere agglutination of men for survival, it was also a journey into the mystical. That is why the Ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Mayans, Aztecs to name but a few build monuments, specifically pyramids, as a bridge to the afterlife.

The rise of Western Philosophy to its heights in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries failed to satisfy, undoubtedly, man's yearning for a coherent and encompassing understanding of the universe. And philosophy's inability to provide a more coherent and clearer picture of existence gave rise to the eventual dominance and preeminence of science, especially the hard sciences of biology, physics and astronomy, into the frontiers of man's unending quest for the search for life's meaning.

Science offered a more credible alternative than religion and philosophy because it was based on reality itself, on experimentation and on a rigorous standards of research and processes.

We are at an amazing and radical juncture in man's history as the power of science to ever more clearly explain life and its origin become ever more clear, albeit still incomplete and full of uncertainties, there, in its most perplexing revelations, science reveals, that the meaning of life is still undoubtedly, man's to make.