The Meaning of Life is to enjoy life regardless of contributions to society.

My contentions: 1) Helping others is pointless unless it benefits you. 2) The most logical way to achieve a meaningful life, is to make yourself happy. As opposed to having a meaningful life by helping others and society. Opponents contentions (from my understanding): 1) Helping Society is important to happiness 2) The meaning of life cannot be determined as it is different for everyone. 3) Happiness cannot be achieved if conflict is involved. I understand that this debate is rather difficult as it is mostly based on opinions and beliefs. What I am arguing is what I believe to be the most logical view of achieving meaning in a meaningless world. Meaningless, essentially pertaining to a world with no real objectives other than ones we create, as far as we know there is no universal goal to achieve. 1)The opponent says that a band playing for a fund raising event is beneficial to the audience it entertains (including me), as well as the cause it is playing for. My argument still stands that there is no need for the band to play for a cause to make anyone happy, no charity need be involved. The audience would only provide enjoyment because of social interaction, not because we care for each individual that is present. In fact I would go as far to say that it is impossible to care for each attendee, and for someone to say that they do, is hard to believe. We would find it enjoyable to simply listen to the music and move to the beat. "I have volunteered at other schools and it makes me happy to see that I am also making the teacher happy with all the paperwork I did and the students who need help with their work or need someone to play with during recess." I would like to ask the opponent as to why helping teachers and students, gives her joy. If it is because she feels that society will treat her with more respect and that she might get something in return, then she is agreeing with me. 2) I agree with parts of this contention. I would question as to what makes life universally valuable other than the fact that most of us enjoy living. From an omniscient point of view, I would have to assume that the value of life is comparable to the following... One kid gets a skateboard for Christmas, skateboarding is his or her favorite activity, thus they value it very highly. The kid's sibling receives the same gift. They, however, were never good at skateboarding and could care less about their present. The first sibling insists that they go outside to try out their new gifts. The children spend a good hour messing around on their skateboards. They are eventually called for lunch and run inside (forgetting all about the skateboards and leaving them in the street.) After lunch they go outside again only to find that a car has demolished their presents. The child that loved skateboarding is heartbroken and remains solemn the rest of the day. The other child isn't phased much by the event and hopes that his parents might get him a bike in place of his demolished present. The difference being, of course, that in life there is no second gift. Or is there? If you look at it from the opponents point of view I suppose life isn't as valuable as they seem to think it is. Please correct me if I am wrong Speechee111807, but you seem to believe that society is important because it unites us as a collective being, in a sense. If this is true than individual lives are not that important as long as they are contributing to society so that everyone benefits. If everyone is considered of equal value, than I guess we are kind of like an endless supply of Christmas gifts. Each generation is like a new gift that is hopefully more socially desirable and contributory than the last. I am baffled how there could be a balance between individuality and unity if you want so badly for everyone to benefit for the sake of benefiting. If you want everyone to benefit because it helps you, then you agree with my contention again. 3) This section is kind of relative. Some people might be fine with conflict if it ends well for them. Personally, I don't think conflict can provide a better benefit for myself than resolving the problem. You mention emotional satisfaction, you say happiness creates it. Agreed, mental happiness creates emotional satisfaction. This can be achieved by many things, depending on the person. It really depends on whether the person enjoys, mental, emotional, or physical satisfaction, but only two of those make logical sense. Closing comment: You say that my stance is that one should only help themselves and not help others. This is true, but when you help yourself it can lead, incidentally, to helping others.