Recently, my good friend Phil Hunter asked (as he often does), "What is the point?" Meaning, what is the point of human existence.

In response to this question, I would suggest that, broadly speaking, the proper end of human existence is best understood as the achievement of a certain end upon earth--both among communities (and the One Community of humanity) and among and within individual men and women. This end is happiness, rightly understood.

I would not call happiness the meaning of life, since I think there is no such thing. There is, in all likelihood, no meaning of life (in the sense of being phoned in from somewhere else) despite innumerable partisan claims to the contrary.

So how do we find happiness? I think the answer is through finding not the meaning OF life but rather meaning IN life. Meaning-in-life is what we need, and it is, at its most basic, the sense that we have something to live for; that there are things around us and in us that make life worth living; that we have important things to do and learn and see and feel and be before we die. Thus, the sort of meaning-in-life that really works is one that brings true and lasting happiness. (obviously, there is no such thing as a perfect meaning-in-life) A meaning-in-life that eventually backfires or undercuts us is no good.

Religion is one way of finding meaning-in-life. That is, after all, its primary job, and it's why people are so passionate about it--because nobody wants to feel their meaning-in-life is either illusory or that therefore their experience of life can only be negative. And since people, when they find what seems a good basket, have a tendency to load it up, they will even defend their particular philosophy or sense of meaning-in-life to the death, which just goes to show how serious a business this really is.

Religion points us toward the big questions and answers relating to the nature of the universe and of mankind. Consequently, it also points us toward a profound consideration of the question of the best possible life, because having an idea of the first two topics inevitably leads us toward, and constrains or guides, our consideration of the third. This is an extremely valuable thing about religion because, as Phil notes, it is terribly easy to be distracted. We need all the help focusing on the most vital issues we can get.

I cannot agree with all of the answers religion gives us, but I do think it has a strong tendency toward highlighting certain universal values. Furthermore, I think it has this tendency precisely because these values are necessary to the enjoyment and preservation of a good life. (i.e. of a viable and productive meaning-in-life) Thus charity, forgiveness, self-control, justice, unselfishness, truthfulness, and, of course, love are all widely recognized as being essential to living a good life.

Often these qualities are expressed in the form of divinely attributed commandments. I personally think their value has nothing to do with anything so grandiose as divine injunctions, but rather everything to do with human nature, which is everywhere the same, which is why diverse traditions can come together in this way, and is what it is for more mundane reasons. Furthermore, these values are so important and vital that the deployment of the biggest guns imaginable--e.g. God, Heaven, Hell--often seem justified.

Many people at many times feel hopeless or depressed, both the religious and the non-religious. We all, I trust, have felt a hollowness in life profound enough to make the world seem meaningless. But this is a sinister kind of meaning-in-life--the kind we ALL, consciously or not, are fighting against--and my usage of the term, unless noted otherwise, is intended to be taken in its positive, life-affirming sense.

Strictly speaking, however, we cannot really think we ourselves or the world is meaningless. If so, we would not be so depressed at the thought. The problem, rather, is that there IS, at such times, a meaning that we perceive, but that meaning is negative; is a meaning-in-life that makes one wish one were dead, or causes one to question "the point" of going on. If we honestly believed, in the deepest way, that life was meaningless, we wouldn't give a damn about anything. If there is no meaning, then there's nothing to get upset about. (i.e. this sort of sentiment--"What? There's no such thing as good and bad? THAT'S TERRIBLE!!!!!"--is absurd)

The fact that we do--all of us--give a damn proves we are longing for something: and that something is what I am calling meaning-in-life. And we will rather die than be deprived of it or be forced to live without it--even through suicide, which is the judgment that the absence of life is preferable to a life of absence.

But, granting this, how do we find meaning-in-life? We find it, as I said, by finding things to live for. And whenever we find something that moves us toward life, that pulling force we experience we call love. Thus we live for our families, for our wives and husbands, for our children, for the sake of learning about the world, for friends, for beauty, for laughter, for suffering strangers whom we yet might help, for the profound and unfathomable experience of the ever-changing and mysterious unfolding of ourselves, of those around us, and of our world and universe through time.

In the end, we live for love, and if, as many believe, God is love, we all long for God, and wherever there is love there is God--God in the heart of everyone who loves--and therefore there can be no Hell, since the man who could reject love, which is meaning-in-life itself, in effect the accepted god of all, is the most unimaginable and, were he to exist, most pitiable and tortured of beings.

But fortunately this is not possible, for all human beings have the need and longing for love built into them, a gift and burden of nature, and are kept from truly expressing and experiencing it only against their will. And this is why the loveless are universally unhappy, and also why not one person who knew true love would trade places with them for anything, unless for the sake of something they deeply loved.

The spectacle of such beings deprived of love is horrific to behold, and is the saddest thing there is. Especially since it is just this kind of being who inflicts suffering on others--including his or her own children--thereby perpetuating and encouraging construction of the selfsame prison around them, all-too-often the least defenseless. For nothing cuts one off from loving like being cut off from love. Nothing breeds evil like evil. And many accursed children are baptized into lovelessness, just as, perhaps, many blessed children are baptized into the Church. Lucky/unlucky them.

Meaning-in-life can pursued either haphazardly, without much thought, or it can be pursued as if one's life and soul depended on the intensity and seriousness of one's quest. I'm for the latter, though I cannot claim to always live up to this great ideal. I pray we all will strive to do better. True community is doing this together, is helping each other forward.

But fortunately there are many ways to think about and pursue and experience meaning-in-life, though certain fundamental features will remain and are universal. Therefore no one, Christian or Muslim or atheist, is without hope. There are many mansions in this house, and dreams of The One Way will crumble, one and all, back into the earth that bred them merely as one means and not THE end, for the possible ends of life--of meanings-IN-life--are more subtle and vast than any religion or philosophy can conceive, and everything moves. Thus each must find his or her own way through the world--sorry!--winning what happiness they may, and hope for the best in both the ongoing trials and tribulations of daily life as well as the grander, more cosmic scheme, which, we pray, shows true malevolence toward no one, is merciful because knowing all, and would give its own life before letting the least of its children fall into the utter separation of ultimate despair.