Not a good answer. I believe like Cicero and Epicurus we should live to make the world a better place for future generations. That gives our lives some meaning. The concept of individual souls living after we die is wishful thinking.

As I see it the only reasonable reaction to the staggering implications of existence is abject confusion and bewilderment.>>>

Try studying evolution a little better. Nothing confusing or bewildering about it. I suggest reading Hitch-ens and Dawkins. Crazy religious beliefs have gummed up the works.

@Aristippus If you are not confused and bewildered you are wearing blinders. Try reading some modern physics. I suggest Reality is not What it Seems by Carlo Rovelli.

Rovelli, by the way, is a very pronounced atheist. The works are not gummed up—things are in perfect order.

@WilliamFleming I question you logic here, William. Wearing blinders would make us more confused and bewildered. Not the opposite.

I disagree with you on this point. Belief in nonsense has divorced us from nature. We wouldn't be so cruel to the animals and the beautiful world if it weren't for this god nonsense. We realize how connected we are.

@Aristippus I agree with what you understood perhaps from my lack of clarity. I was commenting only on the existance of a God not the dogma or moralities associated with the god concept. Thank you to help me to clarify!

@DavidLaDeau Religion has damaged humanity in many ways people don"t even think of. How about deterring or stultifying human progress for one. Great scientists were tortured or burned at the stake, Giordano Bruno for one. Galileo was put under house arrest for providing absolute scientific proof that the Earth is not the center of the universe.
How about early alchemists that discovered anesthesia? Humans had to endure terrible pain needlessly for centuries because religious morons thought it would interfere with God's will.