Absence of the God

Today's USA Today has a series of articles (in the "Life" section, of all places) about the evolution v. "intelligent design" controversy. Among the interesting bits to me is this quote, from an article called "If You Don't Have God at the Beginning . . . The Creationists:"

No creator God means no redeemer God, hence no need for Jesus to die for humankind on the cross. For evangelist Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of evangelist Billy Graham, who titled one of her many books Just Give Me Jesus, that would be the starkest tragedy imaginable.

'If you believe you evolved, you say your life is an accident, maybe even a mistake. You have come from nowhere. You are going nowhere, and your life has no eternal purpose. You don't belong to anyone, and you have no accounting to give to anyone.'

I've never quite grasped this argument. Believes certainly think that life is given meaning by God, doing Her will, and, hopefully, receiving Her gift of eternal life after death. But why does an absence of all that leave a life without meaning? I don't believe in any of that stuff, but find my life to be very meaningful. In fact, the thought that there is nothing beyond this life makes me value my time on the Earth all the more because that's all there is. If you only get one chance at life, you're more concerned with getting it "right" the first time, I think.