Turning your question, Poirot, into a chiasmus sums it up for me…

There is no meaning to life, but without life, there is no meaning.

WmTrevor,

I like that : )

Is There A Meaning To Life?
Not if Labor stays in Power.

Secularism is winning out with many. No wonder suicide rates are so high. If people were not so filled with silly pride and humbled themselves before their Maker maybe they would come to a commonsense conclusion. As long as they believe in the evolution fantasy life will always be meaningless to many as that is the only conclusion one can draw from such an idiotic theory.

Thanks for the link, Yabby.

Funnily enough, I recalled that amongst my eclectic topsy-turvy collection of books, that I had one by Osho titled "The Mustard Seed" (The Gnostic Teachings of Jesus the Mystic - no less!)....so I'm sending it post haste to Houellie in the hope that it helps to fulfill his promise : )

Just a little expansion on my previous.

The meaning of life, for us just as for lichen, is to pass on our genetic material to a new generation. The question of "why" is simply not at issue, since the imperative is itself genetically encoded. It's a part of the extended phenotype that species which survive and prosper must possess, since if they do not, there can be no propagation of the species.

That's not to say that everybody has a strong urge to reproduce. As Dawkins showed so well, the extended phenotype may include the drive to nurture the offspring of close relatives, thus improving the chances of some of ones own genes being passed along.

Beyond that? I'd say, as it seems others agree, that our drive is to minimise our discontent. That drive is what creates everything that we regard as "human". It's not a uniquely human drive: every organism does it to some extent, whether it's a bacterium repelled from a salty droplet, or a plant extending its roots blindly in order to find food and water, or a dog scratching in the dirt to make a comfortable hole to lie in. In the human case it has lead to the several attempts at "civilisation", as well as art, engineering, science and economics among other things.

Isn't that good enough? What more "meaning" is needed?