.....from the Guardian, September 15, 2001.

The internet is generally regarded as a good place to find answers to difficult general knowledge questions.  But when we were told to visit www.ecrp.co.uk/cofeq we realised that some of the bigger questions may be answered there too. The Church of the Eternal Question is trying, perhaps not entirely seriously, to come up with something a little better than 42 in answer to the toughest of all questions: Why are we here? Its latest effort is a top 10 of answers that includes "to plant trees", "to have orgasms", "to achieve non-mechanically assisted flight" and "still at number one after all this time: To develop human communication in order to refine and maintain the Common Understanding".  Goodness!

Luckily the Church emphasises that this is not the final decision. As its name suggests, its adherents believe the questioning is the point, rather than the answer.  Perhaps they say it better than we can: "In the Church of the Eternal Question, we reckon that using the human mind as a vehicle for unquestioning belief is roughly equivalent to using an intergalactic star ship as a doorstop. " Very neatly put.