Damon Linker

Existentialism differs from the greeting-card version of atheism so prevalent today, in taking its cue from the realization that life without God is hard.

It’s hard because human beings tend to be anxious animals, longing for someone or something to soothe us, to protect us from and relieve us of the worries wrapped up with our mortality. It’s hard because our lives and our loved ones matter to us more than we can possibly express — and the prospect of losing them for good in the annihilation of death is irrevocably terrifying. It’s hard because part of us wants to believe that we reside in a moral universe — that an immoral deed violates an intrinsic standard of right and wrong, even if the perpetrator eludes human punishment. And it’s hard, finally, because we crave good things for ourselves — many of which (fame, fortune, honor, glory) only the luckiest will ever acquire, and some of which (happiness unmixed with sorrow) no one will ever enjoy within the limits of our finite lives.