Life is a practical joke perpetrated on us by an evil laughing monster. It throws every kind of shit at you until you are worn down and die or get tired of playing its game and kill yourself.

^Man that guys optimistic^

Life is what you make of it. You are responsible for yourself, for your existance, for your choices.

You can not win or loose in less you choose to belive in those concepts. I am empethetic to the veiwpoint of religion but I don't need god. My existance is meaningless: I will die, I will be forgotten, the existance I know of will cease to be. All I can do is exist now. I have decided what I want, to exist for my own purpose; to take everything I can from this life. To have and posses the things I feel passionatly about. I am nothing but the sum of my actions, existing.

As far as I'm concerned, life is not a test. There is just way too much other stuff in the universe for it to have all been made by a divine being(s) for no other purpose than for us to be able to look up at night and say "Ooooh, Pretty!"

Of course I couldn't help but notice that the majority of the conversation in this thread has been around the Christian faith, with some karmic influence.
My first objection to the basis of the Christian reward system, You have to believe in Christ to get into paradise, so basically their saying that God would send the kindest, gentlest, most self-sacrificing, and law abiding person on the planet to hell for all eternity because he didn't believe in him. That kinda goes against my definition of a kind, loving, and forgiving God.

Of course no one has brought up Buddhism, where the ultimate reward for gaining enlightenment and living a good life is oblivion.

If life is a test, whose standards and morales and ideal outcomes are we judged upon?

Life's a watch. And the purpose of life varies where it's at. Here in this world the purpose is to be a thief. And it's something apart of a bigger sceme. Whether you believe it or not everyone here now is a thief.