GL: Some might say the idea that you are just your brain makes life bleak, unforgiving and ultimately futile. How do you respond to that?
PC: It’s not at all bleak. I don’t see how the existence of a god or a soul confers any meaning on my life. How does that work, exactly? Nobody has ever given an adequate answer. My life is meaningful because I have family, meaningful work, because I love to play, I have dogs, I love to dig in the garden. That’s what makes my life meaningful, and I think that’s true for most people.
via The self as brain: Disturbing implications of neuroexistentialism..., emphasis mine.
Does only the existence of Superman confer any meaning on the work of police officers? Or, without Captain American, is the American military meaningless? I’ve never thought about those questions before. They’re obviously silly and wrong unless we use a ludicrous criteria for what it means for something to be meaningful. Does that mean the statement “Our short, impermanent lives have no real meaning without God” is just as silly and is based on criteria just as ludicrous?