There is recognition in some that opposition to something or even factors that are often associated with atheism (such as rationality, naturalism, science, criticism of religion) do not necessarily provide a deeper meaningfulness or purpose in life.
No, they do not, but that is not the value of reason. Knowing what is true by itself is of no immediate value. By itself, reason is empty of all things that make life worth living. The value of reason is in its application in helping us manage our feelings, emotions and deeper experiences. With nothing going on in consciousness except reasoning, life is as empty as some imagine it is for all atheists.
The mature, contemplative, self-actualized secular humanist has many more faculties and types of experiences at his disposal than just reason, including a faculty for experiencing a sense of mystery, awe, gratitude, and connectivity when contemplating reality, which are among the richest of experiences available to any human being. This is atheist spirituality. No gods involved.
The value of reason and a liberal education are to learn how to think critically, and to amass a useful data base of facts and values in order to navigate the world more effectively, and to have a greater experience living within one's head. By themselves, such ideas generate nothing worth living for.
For example, an understanding of what stars are, their distances, and their life cycles deeply enriches the experience of gazing up at the night sky. The following is an excerpt from an Internet video from an anonymous atheist that illustrates how reason and understanding can lead to an authentic spiritual experience in an atheist:
"When I looked at the galaxy that night, I knew the faintest twinkle of starlight was a real connection between my comprehending eye along a narrow beam of light to the surface of another sun. The photons my eyes detect (the light I see, the energy with which my nerves interact) came from that star. I thought I could never touch it, yet something from it crosses the void and touches me. I might never have known. My eyes saw only a tiny point of light, but my mind saw so much more.
"If God exists, God made this [photo of a galaxy]. Look at it. Face it. Accept it. Adjust to it, because this is ... how God works. God would probably want you to look at it. To learn about it. To try to understand it. But if you can’t look — if you won’t even try to understand — what does that say about your religion?"
[snip]
"To even partially comprehend the scale of a single galaxy is to almost disappear. And when you remember all the other galaxies, you shrink 100 billion times smaller still. But then you remember what you are. The same facts that made you feel so insignificant also tell you how you got here. It’s like you become more real, or maybe the universe becomes more real. You suddenly fit. You suddenly belong. You do not have to bow down. You do not have to look away. In such moments, all you have to do is remember to keep breathing."
[snip]
"The body of a newborn baby is as old as the cosmos. The form is new and unique, but the materials are 13.7 billion years old, processed by nuclear fusion in stars, fashioned by electromagnetism. Cold words for amazing processes. And that baby was you. Is you. You’re amazing. Not only alive, but with a mind ... When I compare what scientific knowledge has done for me and what religion tried to do to me, I sometimes literally shiver."
I assume that that kind of thing - atheistic spirituality - is foreign to most theists. It would be to the believers who depict atheists as empty, robotic reasoners.
We don't expect theists to understand or acknowledge these experiences. They tend to confuse spirituality with spirits like angels and gods, and then label unbelievers as empty vessels for not holding such beliefs.
I see it the other way around. I find nothing spiritual about choosing to believe in creatures not in evidence.
Instead, failing to produce a positive alternative for religion in combination with the aggressive rhetoric results in a bad reputation for atheism.
Atheism's bad reputation comes from theists demeaning atheists. As Christianity has receded in the West, so has the marginalization and demonization of atheists. In fact, with these changes, atheists have finally gotten a voice, and they are using it to contradict the theists, which is routinely called
militant atheism. Remarkably, we're asked to respect the beliefs of people who do this, people who never offered any respect for atheists, the same people who once made it difficult or impossible for atheists to teach, coach, adopt, serve on jury, or hold elected office because of the derogation of atheists as immoral and unfit for such activities.
Any "aggressive rhetoric" from atheists in reaction to that is just. We are mostly honest, hard-working, productive members of society trying to live our lives decently and constructively, and to leave the world a little better place than we found it. If somebody wants to make us out to be mindless, empty, spiritually dead automatons, they're going to see a rebuttal like this one.
And we have a positive alternative to religion. Secular humanism, which celebrates mankind even as Christianity tells us that we are all sinners that need to be cured of that sickness so as not to be punished forever, a cure man is incapable of providing for himself. You don't find anything that dark in secular humanism. It will tell you that human beings are born with the potential to become peaceful, kind, loving, industrious, honest, and the like on their own if nurtured and educated under the proper circumstances..What religion offers a more upbeat worldview than that?
Isn't anything that substitutes for religion and generates equal or higher quality people living equally or more happy lives better than religion? Sure, it's great that people with needs that can only be met with religions have those needs met by it, but that is not an envious position to be in. Better to have those needs met without religion, just as it's great that eyeglasses are available for people that can't see well without them, but isn't it better to not need them in the first place - to have clear vision without help?
I certainly agreed with this when I self-identified as an atheist. It is what led in no small part to me dropping the atheist designation, since "spirituality" was decried as "woo", mocked, deried, ridiculed, etc., equating all of it as magical casper the friendly ghost type beliefs. It showed me that it's claim to rationality, was not actually rational at all, but just another form of "I've got the real truth now",
I am proud to be an atheist and secular humanist. I have no need to mock the religious for being religious.
As for having the truth, the sine qua non of a correct idea is the ability of that idea to predict outcomes so that desirable ones can be maximized and undesirable ones minimized. The best ideas of modernity come out of the Enlightenment and the eventual replacement of faith-based systems of thought like astrology, creationism, and the divine right of kings. These are all sterile or oppressive ideas that slowed the progress of mankind. These were replaced with the modern, liberal, secular democratic state with guaranteed rights and freedoms for all improving the lives of former serfs and subjects subject to the whim of an autocrat. And astronomy replaced astrology, another rich and useful set of ideas replacing a sterile, faith-based system of thought.
By that reckoning, we atheists do have the truth, or are much closer to it than the religious, whose ideas, like creationism, can't be used for anything.
Top down, authoritarian-based atheist religion is just as bad as top down, authoritarian based theistic religions,
There is no such thing as atheist religion. There are no hierarchies in atheism, so there is no top to go down from, and nobody to give or take orders. People like Dawkins and Harris have no more authority than the persuasive power of their words.
