Does belief in god(s) gives "our" life meaning? According to Oxford Dictionary The definitive record of the English language, meaning is defined as the significance, purpose, underlying truth, etc., of something, etymologically it means to intend. I understand how the idea of an objective force which create something implies a purpose or intention. However, if we don't know what this purpose is, does it give us meaning? Or is it a purpose to the one who created it and not necessarily to what was created? I have heard god at least Jehovah, created us for a variety of reasons from caprice to having dominion over his other creation. However, as Thomas Paine once wrote unless this was revealed to me too, this is hearsay and nothing more and thus it does not give my life a meaning. Also, how does an afterlife give this life a purpose? Some argue that this life is a precursor or a reward/punishment for the next, however how does a two year old who died when he was killed by his 12 year old brother or a four-year old girl with down syndrome who was stabbed to death by her mother life has a purpose or a meaning in the next one? ( these are two examples that I found when I searched the internet with a simple phrase "two year old murdered by..." and these two incidents where some among many that the Google search found) In other words, how does a very short life span demonstrate that life has a purpose? For even if life has a purpose of what Schopenhauer called the will to live, then everything would live at least long enough to procreate? However, my examples clearly shows everyone doesn't live long enough to reproduce. Is there a purpose to life? If there isn't does this mean, that life is meaningless? I know that I don't know.
