Do you have answer?
Er, 42?
EDIT: @Downvotes: Perhaps you're under the impression that I'm reciting a meme, or making a lame joke. Or perhaps you're simply not familiar with The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Let me explain: the situation described in the post above appears to be remarkably analogous to what happened in Hitchiker's, when a civilization built a supercomputer that was orders of orders of magnitude smarter than them, to answer the Ultimate Question for them, and sarcastically answered "42", then when pressed told them that it was exactly as stumped as they were.. I'll never forget that scene, it made quite an impact on me, and, honestly, I thought merely mentioning the answer would be explanation enough. But I suppose you've seen enough bad and inappropriate uses of it as a joke that a pertinent use such as mine would come as a surprise.
Although if you want me to mindlessly repeat a stupid joke you can have one here, or here (let us cultivate our garden). Which actually aren't so much stupid jokes as complete dismissals of the Question. Don't bother looking for a pre-set meaning for your existence, and don't bother making one as you go along either: just try to enjoy your short time here the best you can. If you feel angsty and worried, it just means you aren't busy enough and have too much free time on your hands. Finding a Grand Cause to work for is nice and all, but surviving day-to-day is perfectly okay too.
Gary Drescher's Good and Real quotes that bit of The Meaning of Life in the final chapter.
I've just been thinking (a dangerous pastime, I know) and remembering my religious days, and one of the things that made me so anxious back then, and made adopting atheism so gratifying, what the sheer drought of information. I had so many, so many questions, and there were no satisfying answers to be found.
How do souls work? When one dies, what does bodiless existence feel like? What happens in Resurrection Day, do cripples come back as such? Do transsexuals come in the body they identify with? Is it a matter of self-image?
How does God intervene in the gaps? What will Paradise be like? How will society be organized? Will there be further education? Will human nature be radically changed to accomodate eternity? What about Hell? How does it work? What's the point of it?
And what does that verse mean? And what does that other? And what if the letter of the law, once centuries have passed and context has changed, goes against its spirit? What would God actually want me to do? Why am I supposed to guess? Why is it so important that my faith in Him be groundless and unsubstantiated? Why has He stopped giving orders directly, why has he relied on fallibe intermediaries and easily-tampered-with books?
So, abundant questions, very few, very vague answers. Important questions, too, an eternity of one's afterlife depends on them! So, I was wondering: is it possible to come up with a fictional setting, resembling the Theist-Abrahamic vision of the world, but mundane (perhaps a game? a computer simulation? a F(?)AI run society?) in which this drought of information is actually justified?
As an example of what I'm going for, Warhammer 40K's Imperium of Man gives us an example of a textbook fascist society whose every single trait is perfectly justified by the setting's rules. (See the "actually has something consistent to say about utilitarianism" subsection).
In what kind of world would a Supreme Authority's information-management policies resemble God's, and make sense? I'm not saying "be good" or even "be fair", just "make sense". Even in a Kafka-ish, "nonsensical" way.