Listen up all atheists, theists, Cthulhu cultists, etc...I think I've finally cracked the problem of humanity's purpose, without appealing to God! It's simple, but imho, profound and difficult to refute:

The purpose of life is to reduce suffering and increase joy, for ourselves and for all sentient beings who live now and who will live after us.

Instead of another long-winded post, I'll just refer you to for more about how I came to this conclusion.

Epicurus came to a similar conclusion 2300 years ago.

The purpose of life is to survive...so I don't understand how is it to reduce suffering... one has to suffer for the survival of the other.. so the purpose of life to reduce suffering kind of makes no sense..

This. People who are always happy/content are living in a fairy tale and will not breed survival traits in their offspring.

1. The naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy.
2. Survival of the organism as a purpose isn't even a valid interpretation of evolution.

Sounds pretty selfish to me, thinking all about yourself and all.

What about others?

So, how do you increase joy and suffering?

Joy is an inside job, its not the same as being happy.

Also, Reducing suffering is kinda vague. How does that happen, are you talking about mental suffering and physical suffering?

Can you reduce suffering? How does that happen?

Why must there be a purpose of life?
"Purpose of life" sound like life is used to archieve some other goal.
There is no reason to think this, nor any evidence
to support it.

Oldnews bro, everyone knows that.

The purpose of life is to survive? That's almost a tautology isn't it? My answer was motivated by the question of what motivates the human enterprise; why do we build civilizations, pursue science, care about solving long term problems, etc.? If the purpose is not to reduce suffering and increase joy, why do we even bother? I consider it a religious impulse, but it doesn't require belief in a particular God. It just requires you that you find suffering and pain "bad", and pleasure and joy "good". I didn't think this would be controversial, but maybe I was wrong...

Its not about religion this time, the sentence is true. Religious or not, who cares. People keep developing for better lives. We have always survived so thats not the case...

Umm, what? What is selfish about wanting to reduce suffering for all sentient beings for all time? I mean all kinds of suffering, mental and physical. We can reduce suffering by trying to reduce the things that cause suffering. For example, by ensuring that people have enough food, by curing diseases, preventing wars, etc. Any other questions or concerns?

This is what I think, I didnt come up with this on my own.

In heaven there was a war between the angels and 1/3 of them along with their leader Lucifer lost the war and were cast out of heaven to the Earth. Instead of destroying them God came up with a test and if they could pass they could come home. First they had a choice if they even wanted to take the test and all the angels agreed except Lucifer. The test was to submit to being placed in animal bodies and overcome the desire of flesh and live perfectly according to the will of God. At the end of the testing period comes the Judgement Day. Since Lucifer declined the test he still has his angelic power and is trying to foil our return and have us banished into the lake of fire along with him.

A few more specifics are, when we die we get "schooled" on what we did right or wrong and then are reincarnated and try again. This process has been going on for about 6000 years and we might not have much time left. GL.

Why are you typing stuff that only religious people believe in? Thats not the point of the topic.

Right this is the "bad news" of Christianity. Man is a fallen being, whose natural instincts are "evil" and must be overcome. This story only works if people believe the whole myth. Buddhists have a similar myth, except they avoid the whole "sadistic God who is threatening to torture you in a lake of fire for eternity" thing. Personally I have a hard time respecting a God who behaves in this way. The Gnostics are the only Christians whose story makes any kind of sense to me, since they believe we're living in a prison ruled by an evil demiurge which we can escape by personal spiritual development. Unfortunately the Gnostic teachings were excised from the bible and we got stuck with the horrible version of Christianity which prevails to this day.

what does religion have to do with eliminating suffering and spreading joy? you got a very biased thinking...

Not as biased as yours.

how is mine biased? please explain... he makes a claim that giving joy and stopping suffering is a RELIGIOUS impulse.. yet these two have nothing to do with religion and can exist without it. One does not need to be religious to be be able to spread joy or to try to eliminate suffering.. On the other hand GOD somehow does not care to eliminate suffering, just look at how he designed(according to the religious people) this world we all know the problem of evil...

You made a BS post about angels, grinch described his point of view perfectly, you call him biased and make another nonsense post. I dont get it.

WTF you talking about, what angels?? you got me mixed up with someone else man.. yeah, sure he does, that is why many people here disagree with a lot of "points" he makes...

Please explain what "nonsense" did I say?

It all boils down to one thing.. survival.. we do all these things so that our genes survive and get passed on..(well that's my view, i might be wrong)

Yeah, I mixed you up with the other guy. Mistergrinch never said anything what you claimed. Well, not in the way you took it. I dont think its the point here. Im off for now. Have fun.

lol.. so where did i take the quote from? my ass?? lol are you MISTERGRINCH on account #2? cause you seem to defend him like he is your brother or something...

That's just a cause, not a purpose; evolution isn't purposeful.

Yes, Im his evil twin brother.

yes, evolution has no goal... but it's(life's) function is to survive by any means necessary, copying it's DNA and passing it on...