Judah Ben-Hur: I must deal with Messala in my own way.
Balthasar: And your way is to kill him. I see this terrible thing in your eyes,
Judah Ben-Hur, but no matter what this man has done to you,
you have no right to take his life. He will be punished inevitably.
Judah Ben-Hur: I don't believe in miracles.
Balthasar: Your life is a miracle!
It's easy for the events of our lives to make us grumpy or anxious or angry. And it's easy for those of us who don't believe in an afterlife or in life having any ultimate purpose to get cynical about it, small-minded, and, seeing all the deaths, many of them horrible, to finally just shrug and say to hell with it all. But, really, it is a miracle. That out of a pile of molecules are born us beings with consciousness, who are able to think about how amazing is our time alive, our existence, even though it turns out to be so short.