When someone believes in Jesus and the Bible, a sense of hope is given. Hope for life after death, hope that Christ will win the battle in the end time, hope that there is a great plan and we have a purpose in this life to fulfill the part of the plan that God has for us. When someone does not not believe in Christ, where does your sense of hope come from?
Atheists have only one thing in common - they do not believe in a theistic god. So I certainly can’t speak for all atheists, but I can tell you how I feel and how most of the people I have encountered, read, watched, interacted with, etc., feel.
For an atheist, life is incredibly precious. We are utterly insignificant in terms of the size of our known universe, but the fact that we are even alive at all is extraordinary. Think of it this way… for me to be born, my parents had to be born, and their parents, and theirs, going back billions of years all the way through the evolutionary chain to simple cells. Religious or not, that fact is breathtaking.
Since we have only this one short time to be alive, every interaction and choice become more poignant. There is no “purpose” and there are no eternal consequences… but that’s why the majority of atheists are also humanists. We want life, for everyone, to be good RIGHT NOW. We want ridiculous religious sect wars to stop. We want million-dollar churches sold to provide food and shelter for those that have none. We want people to stop quoting obscure passages out of a 3000 year old book as an excuse for bigotry, racism and homophobia.
One of my favorite quotes, from Sam Harris, is, “Where faith really pays its dividends, however, is in the conviction that the future will be better than the past, or at least not worse.” Atheists don’t believe our personal future will be better… we’ll be dead. But we do hope the future will be better for our children; for those that our lives impact; for the world as a whole. ~JJ
