 This he asserts, in turn, gives people the feeling that their lives have meaning, a purpose, and are significant in the grand scheme of things.Another theme running throughout the book is that humanity's traditional "hero-systems", such as religion, are no longer convincing in the age of reason.Science attempts to serve as an immortality project, something that Becker believes it can never do, because it is unable to provide agreeable, absolute meanings to human life.