The work of the creator has been a sorry tale.

If creationism is true the history of life on earth is a litany of failures. 99% of all the creatures that have inhabited the Earth since it became liveable are extinct. God seems to have created a lot of life forms that were hopelessly inept at avoiding extinction, an unending string of experiments in living things that crashed and burned.

Maybe there is a “life force” that created the chemicals, vapours and the general environment where life could emerge. But the personal sort of god described by the major religions is a useful psychological prop for many, but not worth the bloodshed and wars, the deaths, torture and divisiveness that have accompanied them.

Epicurus believed in the science of the day: that man is a bundle of atoms and that you have eternal life only in so far as your atoms are recycled forever in a myriad of forms. Today science tells us we are descended from fish who used their flippers to get up on terra firma to avoid predators. I’m content with that explanation. Are you?