Implacable Grandeur

At a talk this weekend, I was asked whether Humanists believed in an afterlife. To answer the question, I quoted Camus from his essay, “Summer in Algiers” “If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.” My answer was that I don’t know if there is an afterlife, though I suspect not. What I do know is that I am alive now for this one. That’s for sure. It would really be a shame to waste this life if it turns out you don’t get another one. So my advice is to embrace the implacable grandeur of life.