It was one of those jolly, peaceful mornings that make a chappie wish he’d got a soul or something…
— P.G. Wodehouse, “Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg”, Carry On, Jeeves
Religious people tend to insist that earnest belief in a Creator and afterlife is necessary to give life on Earth any meaning at all. Strangely, though, I’ve heard even self-proclaimed skeptics assent to the idea that belief in some sort of “transcendent purpose” is necessary (for other people, apparently, not for them) to keep society from degenerating into sociopathy. This, to me, places the cart of theory in front of the horse of reality. It confuses the map for the territory, the menu for the meal. Evolutionary thought, as far as I’m concerned, provides enough plausible reasons to assume that a social species like homo sapiens will always find a way to coexist in groups, regardless of the precise doctrinal content of their myths and narratives. Life is its own meaning, its own answer, its own justification. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra claimed that all joy wants eternity, but no. A jolly, peaceful morning is enough by itself. The very ephemerality of experience is what makes it valuable.