On the meaning of life

Steven Jake had a post over at his blog The Christian Agnostic in which he quotes Thom Stark in an exchange with John Loftus on the nature of faith and the meaning of life. You can read the full post at Steven's blog , but my comment ended up being long enough that I thought I'd just repost it here. And, just to shamelessly plug myself a bit, I discussed these issues not long ago in a post On death and dying . —————————————————— Why is the alleviation of human suffering the right thing to do? If the universe is a cosmic accident (and it may very well be just that), I can’t figure out why human beings should have impetus to behave morally, other than when it helps us to preserve ourselves or our species or to make us happier in some way. When morality conflicts with self-preservation or self-gratification, I just don’t know why morality should win out. [Stark] I confess that even in my days as a Christian, this type of view (which is pretty standard boilerplate fo