What meaning does your existence have for you? Is your life actually diminished by no longer having to conform to somebody else's expectations?

Our bodies and our brains, through sensory and emotional feelings, are capable of feeling "good" things. The goal is to find ways for the good things to outnumber the bad things while balancing it out with responsible actions.
Do what makes you happy (as long as it doesn't make others unnecessarily unhappy) and don't worry about whether or not you are part of something greater.
Now, that's not to say that you should do things that have the potential to mess up other or future creatures lives, but I think you get what I mean.
I'm a librarian. I like helping people find information. It makes me happy. Was I put on Earth to do this? No, it just happens that something that makes me happy is helpful for other people. I also like collecting baseball cards. Surely that isn't my purpose either, but it makes me happy.

Whether the meaning of your existence comes from some external god, or comes from yourself; you are responsible for the meaning of existence. No one else. If you can't find beauty, humor, and other qualities that make life meaningful, you need to start looking around.

There is a quote that say : " there is no explanation for live, there are feelings".. but that's only a quote.
A meaning should be, to develop yourself and be useful for community..

I think meaning is something we have to give ourselves... and that's not easy. In fact, it's downright hard. It's at times like this I love to watch toddlers. They explore everything. They're curious about everything (yes that could get them in trouble), and they never question their right to sit in mom's lap or get dad to carry them (or to NOT take the lap). Life comes along and beats the snot out of us and we lose a lot of that, but I think we can get it back.

One observation I've been making is how much people need each other. As I watch us isolate ourselves behind keyboards, I'm seeing more and more content coming out about how our 'loneliness' is killing us. We're herd animals, and with a few exceptions, we don't do well without our herd, or pack, or murder, or flock, or school... whichever we choose to belong to.

You'll have to find your own meaning if that is important to you love. It's liberating and terrifying to be free. I find solace in nature and natural laws/science. (Philosophy is not my forte but I'm sure there are others out there who could offer up some reading material.) Having said that, if you haven't seen the new Cosmos hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson I recommend watching it.

Here it comes.... you ready....
OK..... everything lives off everything..... Right?..... Thats how we survive. We humans are an advanced mold. So is everything else. We started out as some kind of accidental organism that came from the sea. Like everything else did. We advanced and developed a conscious that gave us the ability to think and reason things out. If it wasnt for the asteroids hitting us and wiping out the dinosaurs we probly would of been good food everything else. At the beginning the oceans were acid now they're a base. Over time things changed. Good example is how did the pyramids get built. How did they move those heavy stones....????

I do not understand your feeling that life must have a meaning. I have always been content with the concept that we are as flowers of the field...we are born, live for awhile and then die away, such as with all living things. To think we have "meaning" beyond that of all other living things no matter how humble (one-celled animals, insects), strikes me as arrogant. There is no evidence that life has any meaning...just as there is no evidence that God exists.

We are free from the bs religion which brings meaning to our lives. That is what I believe at least.

The reward for living a good life is........Living a good life.

Do YOU feel, think or believe that you have no meaning in your life? Why would you allow anyone else to tell you if YOUR life has meaning or not? You can live your life one of two ways, the way YOU want to live it or the way someone else wants you to live it.

The answer that works for me is to understand there isn't one, other than as a life form being part of the pool to keep the species going. Even then, it is really a collective challenge (in this case for humans) and individually I don't matter.

While a consequence of atheism is that there is no discernible objective meaning to one’s life, that doesn’t prevent one from finding a meaning to their existence. I like to think of my life as a blank canvas: I can paint whatever I want to paint. If I finish with a painting I can always paint another picture, but I’d better be sure I’m enjoying what I’m painting otherwise I’ll be miserable. Basically, you have to find what you’re “meant” to do. I put meant in quotes because it’s not some higher power that assigned you a purpose: it’s something you have to discover. For me that was physics. I absolutely love physics and I also have several hobbies I enjoy like programming, electronics, tutoring, and gaming to name a few. All of these pursuits bring fulfillment to my life without the need for some overarching grand plan that some entity came up with for me.

Talking about "meaning of existence" generally means there is something outside of and bigger than your own life which gives it purpose. What would be the point of knowing such a thing? If the idea is that it would enrich our understanding or fulfill us, then that would only be pandering to our own narrow little existence again.

Why would you say "atheist do not have meaning of existance"? That may be the case for some but there are many other possibilities. Meaning of existance is a personal journey, regardless of the belief's system. You need to find yours.

Meaning is necessarily inferred but not necessarily implied unless it is explicit.

I don't just mean that existence doesn't need a meaning any more than it needs a creator... I mostly mean that meaningfulness is personal and not semantically ubiquitous.

Look, just because you are a skeptic of sorts doesn't mean that you can't have any beliefs that require just a sprinkle of faith in your life. Faith in yourself, your friends, your principals, the worthiness of your goals...

I'm not saying that you need to believe that you are a kite and take a long walk off a balcony (bad idea, metaphorically or not). I'm saying that you could have just a tiny little bit of self-assured delusion to lay over the cracks of doubt down by thoughts like 'doesn't matter, the sun will eventually explode like on that Dr Who episode'

Ah, religion... What is the meaning of existence? We have some notion of what existence is, or think we do. But what is the meaning of the actual word meaning. From the responses below, we see different interpretations of what meaning is to the respondents. What is the object of meaning? Are you seeking a principle by which to guide your actions? Or is it all the expression of what reality determines. Are we mechanisms, or do we have free will to influence our lives, in which case seeking guidance on behavior is pointless. Sam Harris gives a thumbs down to free will. It's true. Which of the billions of neurons is me. Do I even have an identity? I tend to have several identities. I certainly feel like a committee. We get in some heated arguments. Each has an opinion on meaning. In truth, a notion like meaning has many dimensions, and one can only make arguments about which one should prevail. It is the free will you don't really have that decides which dimension of meaning is best. And you take it from there.

In a way, a notion like meaning is like a fractal equation as when you have a concept, and it's the same concept at the surface or along the many deeper levels of magnification, but the recurring curve generates all these different zones and textures. These different textures might be the different dimensions of meaning, but they all transition into the other dimensions by moving or changing magnification. Meaning transitions to other dimensions of interpretation, but they're related by being the same curving pattern. What might start out as a simple concept, or equation, in expression, becomes a universe of nuance.

Maybe the whole purpose of being is just to make your own little corner of existence a tiny bit better than how you found it. To what end, who knows?.

Perhaps the meaning of our existence is to be witness to the universe. If there was no life in the universe what would be the point of it.

Think of dog, mans best friend, does this dog understand and or contemplate existence? Is this animal not happy, or sad, and sometimes deppressed. This is the nature of being Sentient, having depth of feeling and emotion. Whether or not we question our own existence and the meaning there of, the psychological nature of being is existential. We exist whether or not we feel emotion.

To seek to understand the meaning of purpose for our own being, is the corner stone of Philosophy. To be or not to be. To exist or not to exist. "Cogito Ergo Sum", I think therefore I am. I know that I exist because I have sensory perception. I have emotion. I have experience within said environment. Yet I have no understanding of what it all means. Why am I here?

Does the butterfly not flitter, patter, float through the "way", not seeking to find nor ask how are you this day. Does the ant not build its mound with purpose and meaning? Does the beaver not build the dam to alter the coarse of history? Does the spider not construct a web to catch its pray?

Everyone has to eat. Everyone must drink. Everyone must sleep. Surely the meaning of life is more than eating, drinking, and sleeping?

Maybe for some, and maybe for others who escape the confines of their own conscious awareness, they seek to understand that which it is that they do not know. Why? Why are we here? What is the meaning of all this?

Honestly I do not know. And to be even more Honest, I truly believe that no one person has the answer. But what I can tell you is this, if you assign meaning to something you give it purpose. Animate or Inanimate. Love, Hate, Melancholy are all emotions. We express these emotions from a state of being conscious. We did not create these emotions, we created the symbols we use to communicate these emotions. Human are sentient beings. Mamals are sentient beings.

I guess what I am trying to say is that our purpose is to Love, to Hate, to Sing, to dance, to leap tall buildings in a single bound, to question everything that we do not know, and to Love, did I already say that, yes the one emotion that envokes the Greatest feeling in the world..... Love, ....

Truly, if you wish to have purpose and meaning you will find it. You have already begun. You opened the door. You questioned the Great Oz.

If you choose not to find purpose and meaning, then Love. Love everything in your sensory perception. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And if you are "lucky", you might just find some one to Reflect You!!

I think we’re all trying to figure out why we’re here. Each individual life has its own journey and path. Life is what you make of it. I don’t think you need a book or a group of people to tell you how to be a good person. Have fun and don’t take life so serious

Meaning has to be created in existence, because meaning is external to existence. It is not always already there for people to claim that everyone's existence has meaning. That is a stupid belief.

We can be happy through moments and memories. We're only humans just like birds are birds. Since i already exist, i created my own reasons for choosing to continue to exist through various things that fulfill me. I've foind that most religious ppl stick with God because they have nothing else and tbh I don't come across many happy believers either

Meaning comes from understanding our past.

The challenge is to disregard a perceived meaning as it is an unnecessary construct. To tie oneself to a 'meaning' implies an, as yet, Unknown outcome which could well have an investment developed by your peers, your personal authorities and, most prominently, your previous experiences feeding into your expectations. 'Meaning' is obscure and can distract from leading a meaningful personal life.

All this gibberish about alleged deities morals meaning are simply cult traps ...conundrum delusions. ...leading questions presuming a false gibberish answer....our Atheism is about rationality not hallucinations. ...alleged vaginal virgins birthing alleged baby gawds in dirty donkey stables HAS NO MEANING nor utility in life decisions. ....nor does a temporary torture death that never happened one Palestinian weekend. ....drinking wine eating wafers is not a last supper IT IS A INSANE meaningless cult brainwashing story