Why aren atheists desperate and hopeless?
It could be because most of us have found giving up religious beliefs to be a very liberating experience. Yes, we lost the promise of eternal life. But look what we gained. It frees you up to see the world as it really is, and it allows you to say “I don’t know” instead of having to give answers to questions that would sound silly to the average 9 year-old. It lets you do and experience things you otherwise might not be able to. Don’t take that to mean that atheists think they can “just do whatever we want”. We still live in a society with rules and laws and behavioral norms, and we all understand this and the reasons why. (See the section on “Do atheists have morals” if you don’t understand it.) But we are free of arbitrary guilt; we do not fear a possible eternity in hell for finite transgressions. We see endless opportunities for new knowledge to be gained, for advances to made.
