Life without God
What is Life Without God? This is the logical and last question with which Loftus deals. His answer is brief and to the point: Life, without God can be happy and meaningful because “while there may be no ultimate reasons for being a good person [apart from God]. .., there are plenty of non–ultimate reasons for being good” (272). Reminiscent of the atheist Ayn Rand, Loftus contends that “the values of tolerance, family, and friendship in a political democracy under democratic capitalism provide a society with the best chance to avoid pain for most people in it” (272). He adds, “You don’t need an ‘ultimate’ anything to live life in this world. There just aren’t any ultimacies” (273). Strangely, just two sentences later he says, “So it makes what I do here what ultimately matters–it’s all there is.. .” (273). Then he adds, “And while life is ultimately meaningless, I am living life to the hilt everyday. I’m living without the guilt that Christianity threw on me, too! Life is good–very good! I feel better about it now than I ever have!” (273). One can only wonder how someone can feel better about things when they are really so bad. There is no real purpose for life; the world is absurd, and there is nothing after this–nothing! It would appear that this is a good example of what Freud defined as an illusion, namely, something one wishes to be true, even if there is no rational ground for believing it is.
