I have to agree with these statements. Ultimately, whether there is a higher purpose to our existence, a grand design, some form of sentient-derived order to the universe is actually irrelevant to our daily lives because we currently have no information beyond our own genetic predispositions on what we should do to follow this purpose.

Where the danger lies is when certain people - for various reasons - come up with their own interpretations of this purpose. Essentially, religion is mankind's laughably simplistic attempt at understanding the universe and our place in it, and has caused far more harm than good. Any good that has come out of religion was already there before religion came along. People already knew and made basic codes of social conduct well before the Ten Commandments.

So while we may debate whether or not there is a higher power, a creator, or some sentient driving force to the universe, the imperative at the moment is to debunk and eventually remove the blight of religion. In that sense, what Hawking is doing is entirely beneficial.

If the scientific answer to this is: "Just because", and the religious answer to this question is: "It's God's will" then both answers are unsatisfactorily vague.

Therefore there is room for a middle ground which says that the answer to existence may be "for the sake of X, Y or Z". In other words, existence may be for a purpose, whatever that purpose may be. It is not proof of a purpose, but it is a plausible theory, a viable alternative.

Why continue to exist, indeed what is the purpose of existence?

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Look at it this way - it's your DNA that takes you for a walk, not vice versa.

Reproduction is the very definition of life itself.  The purpose of existence is to reproduce.  That's it.  Everything else is gravy.  We are traveling in the wake of a single molecule billions of years ago that started an insane pattern of reproducing itself, simply because by reproducing itself, it continued to exist.  We're like a fire that has burned for eons and burned through ice ages, a continuous chemical reaction that has never stopped since that moment.

 These paragraphs were written by Issac Asimov in 1976. I wonder if they were met with as much controversy. I suppose not, in the pre-internet age.

 "Genes, after having been originally formed purely by chance, are then selected by blind environmental forces into a better and better fit, until after three billion years, an organism as complex and versatile as Homo sapiens exists. Very likely, a species equally remarkable would have been molded by three billion years of natural selection no matter what genes had been formed in the beginning by the workings of sheer chance.

 Nowhere in the entire process can I see any point where the blind laws of nature definitely break down and where we are left with no alternative but to call upon God.

 Naturally, there is nothing in the argument to prove that there is no God, either. Even if we were to demonstrate that, as far as we know, God is unnecessary, we have not disproven God's existence. God may be necessary at some point that we haven't properly understood, or haven't even considered. For that matter, God may exist even if there is no necessity for that existence.

 However, it is a respected principle of argument that the burden of proof is upon the positive.

 Therefore, if asked whether I believe in God, I suppose, I must reply that as soon as incontrovertible evidence for God's existence is presented to me, I will accept it."

      -Isaac Asimov, The Planet that Wasn't 1976

Let me answer your question with a question Michael. Why do we human beings have the innate urge to reproduce? Why should we reproduce ourselves, why should we continue the species? Why continue to exist, indeed what is the purpose of existence?

Because we choose to. haha, anyone know that quote?

Instead, we must look at the beginning of the process, back when the earliest forms of life appeared in Earth's oceans. (Technically, not life at all. The first "reproducing" entity to appear was simple forms of DNA. Life came along later, as a kind of "biological armor" that DNA evolved to protect itself from the harsh environment.) Obviously, the forms that survived were the ones that reproduced themselves. No reproduction = no survival. Thus, life forms are "compelled" to reproduce because the ones that didn't did not pass this inclination on to any of their decendents -- they didn't have any!

It's like the old joke: Statistics show that if your parents didn't have any children, you won't either.

existence may be for a purpose.

There is no Grand Purpose to life--there is only the meaning which we give it. I read, I write, I go for bike rides, watch movies, study Taekwondo. Why does none of it have a "purpose" unless I bow down to an invisible tyrant in the sky?

Personally, I find it quite liberating!!