A Tolerant Meaning

(Talking about the afterlife)
Gwen: So what's up there?
Suzie: Nothing. There's just nothing.
Gwen: But if there's nothing what's the point of it all?
Suzie: This is. Driving through the dark, all the stupid tiny stuff. We're just animals howling in the night because it's better than silence.
Gwen & Suzie in Torchwood

Last semester, I was in one of the best classes of my life. It blew my mind and opened it up to some very cool possibilities. The class was Philosophy.

Some people would hate that class. It might seem like it doesn't have as much relevance to today as, science or math. And maybe they're right. But God wired me to be a curious and over-analytical person. When someone says something, I will spend days (sometimes years) trying to decide on my opinion on the subject. So I loved that class.

The whole point of philosophy is to find the meaning of life. We spent a lot of in-class discussions on this subject. I was surprised by how many people thought there was no meaning to life other than preserving the human race to evolve to the next level. (I am not going into evolution at this time, sorry.)

The conclusion of our discussions was that the meaning of life is relative and varies from person to person.


I do not appreciate relativism.

The statement "You believe what you want and I'll believe what I want." feels like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. And perhaps you find that incredibly intolerant of me and that I am not allowing people free will.
And you can say that. I don't mind. That's your opinion. We can have the same facts and have different opinions on it. It's called disagreeing.

If I say "I disagree with you." You are not going to be hurt and you may start asking questions about why. We can talk about it and gain knowledge from each other.

If I say "Well, I believe this and you don't. And that's fine with me, I don't care. Believe what you want." While this may sound more tolerant, it shuts down any learning that could have happened and hurts you. This hurts you because I don't care. I don't care about why you believe this, because I will not have an open mind and see if maybe your belief has some truth to it.

If everyone has a different meaning of life, then I have to ask: "What is life?"

We all are inside this concept of life. We all wake up at the beginning of our day, eat something during the day, communicate with other people or animals, and go back to sleep at the end of the day. We all see the same beautiful nature and feel the same emotions. Sure, there are differences in how we live out our day, but we have a connection.

We are people. We are humans that desire love. We are a persistently curious race.

Why?

Why do we seek love and constantly question everything?

I think it's because we have a wonderfully beautiful God who wants us to keep asking questions until we find the biggest love there could ever be.

I think that God calls us to love Him and be loved by Him, and to love others like He loves us. I think that's the meaning of life.

And I think I'm right. I feel bad typing that out because my culture tells me that only arrogant closed-minded people say that. PLEASE know this: I think I am right about the meaning of life in general. The ways we love God and people is up for grabs.

I also know that you may have a different idea of what the meaning of life is. And if you disagree with me, please tell me. I am hungry fopr disagreement because I am hungry for knowledge. Be prepared for questions, because I am so very interested.

What is the meaning of life?
What's your story about how you understand the meaning of life? 
What facts do you believe show this in our culture? 
Do you have questions for me on something I wrote or left out?