The critic, raconteur, and religious iconoclast Christopher Hitchens once parried claims about the alleged meaninglessness of nonreligious life by writing: “A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called ‘meaningless’ except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so.”