The very fact that life is finite is the very thing that makes life meaningful. If we had eternal life, then what would be the point of it? We strive and work hard in life because life is short and so we feel an urgency to live our lives with passion . . . By taking death out of the equation, religious believers also take the passion out of our existence.
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Always Question Authority
One of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority. ~ Hitchens
Always Question Authority 
Most of the great philosphers contemplated death and what that means for life. I remember a painting in the Louvre of an intelligent man looking at a skull on his desk illuminated by a candle. Although I like your post and the point of view is very appealing to me, over time I have come to think about this issue in a different light. My current thought is that the human being should view human existence as a marathon, not a sprint. Each generation lays the foundation for the next as opposed to each generation sucking the nector so dry that the next generation has nothing to drink. Progress takes vision, sacrafice, and time.