In This Is All: Memory, Meaning, and the Self
laphamsquarterly.org
laphamsquarterly.org
I also think it's ridiculous to neglect God in a discussion of the quest for meaning, because I think it's obvious he's the only possible source of objective meaning and everything else is "let's make something up and muddle along". But it is not odd for writers to ignore that.
Can you explain? It's far from obvious to me. Quite the contrary in fact.
With God, we can consider the possibility that he has goals for us.
OK, there could be alternatives in between theism and naturalism, but they make even less sense to me and I don't know anyone who takes them seriously.
So either all meaning is subjective (i.e. we each individually find meaning in things) and intersubjective (we can understand what meaning others find in something), or there is a creator who can say "Well, I made you, and here is what I meant by it."
Which does mean it's still subjective, but God's meaning gets prioritised because they created us. (And Lucifer's fall was because they said "Hey, what if we don't have to listen to _your_ meaning, and can come up with our own instead?")
Well, sorry, that's not on offer. Your options are either Nietzsche or God, or ignoring the problem.