Modern investigators indulging in inquires concerning the significance of existence, purpose of life and the meaning of the universe, will not be surprised at being exposed to a monumental ideological repository as these questions have a long history of intense philosophical and scientific speculation. These questions and answers have emerged in a variety of cultural and ideological backgrounds, resulting in their variegated engagement of the problem.

The museum of such spirited speculation shows that the approaches to the problem can be chronologically arranged in three distinct periods, corresponding to the three stages of development of human knowledge. From the fictitious to the abstract, and ultimately to positive knowledge. Theological and philosophical pursuits constitute the first two periods, and the rational, scientific method constitutes the current period.

As complex as all this may sound, but these concepts regarding life, the universe and everything, seem to be adequately expressed by regular individuals through other questions, such as Why we are here? What is the meaning of it all? and How should we act?

Theological approaches:

The theological discourse relies on a transcendental perspective and is based on religious notions of ethics, soul, afterlife and God. The religious perspectives are those which explain life in terms of an implicit purpose not defined by humans. Advantages of such an approach is finality and simplicity of the solution, transcendence of reason and strong peer support. Whereas the fatal fault in such approaches is that they fail the simplest of rational analysis.

• Christianity: Life’s purpose is to seek divine salvation through the grace of God and intercession of Christ.
• Islam: Man’s ultimate objective is to serve Allah by abiding by the Divine guidelines revealed in the Qur’an and the Tradition of the Prophet. Earthly life is merely a test, determining one’s afterlife, either in Jannat or in Jahannum.
• Hinduism: The meaning of life is tied up in the concepts of karma, samsara, and moksha. Existence is conceived as the progression of the atman across numerous lives, and its ultimate progression towards liberation from karma.
• Buddhism: The ultimate goal is liberation from suffering, according to the Four Noble Truths. This is attained in the achievement of Nirvana, or Unbinding which takes place when one realizes the emptiness of the self and everything else.

Philosophical approaches:

The philosophical pursuit relies on an anthropocentric ideals and abstractions and is based on the philosophical notions of meaning, consciousness, happiness, ethics and metaphysics. This has a clear advantage. The answers coming from this domain are straight forward. They convey meaning which we can understand directly as they answer questions which seem like the ones we would have asked, if we too were serious about the meaning of life, the universe and everything. The deficiency of such approaches is that they are abstract, hypothetical and idealist.

• Platonism: The meaning of life is in attaining the highest form of knowledge, which is the Idea of the Good, from which all good and just things derive utility and value.
• Aristotelianism: The supreme purpose of human existence involves achieving eudaemonia, meaning “happiness”, “well-being”, “flourishing”, and “excellence”.
• Cynicism: The Cynic philosophers have said that the purpose of life is rejecting conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame, and to be free of the possessions acquired in pursuing the conventional.
• Epicureanism: The purpose of life is in seeking modest pleasures, to attain tranquility and freedom from fear or ataraxia, via knowledge, friendship, and virtuous, temperate living.
• Stoicism: Living according to reason and virtue is to be in harmony with the universe’s divine order, entailed by one’s recognition of the universal logos, an essential value of all people. The meaning of life is freedom from suffering through apatheia, that is, being objective and having “clear judgement”. Contrary to popular perception, the stoic answer to life does not consist of indifference.
• Utilitarianism:  Doing the good that brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people is the ultimate purpose of human life.
• Nihilism: Life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.
• Existentialism: Each person creates their own purpose of life; life is only limited by oneself, one is terribly free.
• Absurdism: Man has a desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life, but the universe is indifferent and meaningless; the Absurd arises out of this conflict.

Scientific approaches:

The scientific approach is unique in the sense that it is based on the idea of objectivity, which necessarily means that it doesn’t have a perspective. Science does not inquire in the normative domain, or about how things ought to be. Instead it asks questions in the tone of how can it be. This has interesting consequences. Science and the scientific community agrees that it has no role to play in telling us what the meaning of life is, as it is not capable of that. Still the most important contributions to the inquiries about the ultimate questions have come from this domain. This is due to the fact that though science can not tell us how to ideally lead our lives, several other questions that it has answered about our origin and nature and that of the universe sets the rational standard for all intellectual inquiries. Hence science provides the context and sets the parameters for conversations on related topics. Thus the following approaches are rational ideas, based on scientific facts.

• Secular Humanism: The nature of the universe is what people discern it to be. Values and realities are determined by means of intelligent inquiry and are derived from human needs and interests as tested by experience, that is, by critical intelligence. The total personality is a function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context.
  The question of the meaning of life could also be reinterpreted as “What is the meaning of my life?” Instead of becoming bogged down in cosmic or religious question about overarching purpose, this approach suggests that the question is intensely personal. There are many therapeutic responses to this question, ”Dereflection” for example, which largely translates as ceasing to endlessly reflect on the self, instead of engaging in life. On the whole, the therapeutic response is that the question of meaning of life evaporates if one is fully engaged in life. The question then morphs into more specific worries such as “What delusions am I under?” and “What is blocking my ability to enjoy things?”. Post-humanism and Transhumanism are philosophical sub-genres of secular humanism.
• Logical Positivism: The people and events in the life of a person can have meaning or importance as parts of a whole, but a discrete meaning of the life, itself, aside from those people or events, cannot be discerned. A person’s life has meaning only for himself and others as the life events resulting from his achievements, legacy, family, et cetera, but to say that life, itself, has meaning, is a misuse of language, since any note of significance, or of consequence, is relevant only in life to the living, so rendering the question erroneous. Bertrand Russell wrote that although he found that his distaste for torture was not like his distaste for broccoli, he found no satisfactory, empirical method of proving this.
• Post-modernism: Seeks to understand meaning by looking at the underlying structures that create or impose meaning, rather than the epiphenomenal appearances of meaning in the world.