Reality does not hinge on belief. I believe what I think to be true, not what I want to be true.

I don't need religion to give my life meaning.

I'm not sure you fully understand how I mean that. We can find lots of things to give our life meaning. These things have no objective value. By that, I mean I can't say why they are better than other things. I can just say why I believe they are better or more advantageous. This is the human condition. God and religion provide a foundation to understand human experience. The beliefs are no more provable than the atheists. But, faith allows the religious person to appeal to God's authority and know that certain things are true. A religious person can then understand their world with more certainty. They know some things do matter and some things are certain. They can build a worldview of those certainties. An atheist has no authority to make an appeal to. Science can't tell you what is right. It can show the how of things but it can't give you a why. Philosophy can can help. But, philosophy is still human. Worse, the philosophers disagree. This hinges on faith. I'm not claiming religious belief actually provides one with objectivity. It does let the religious person order their world in a way they know to be true. They can be objective about it, even though their beliefs are not literally objective. See what I mean? Without an appeal to some objective authority, we can only make subjective judgements about an actions relative values. We can't conclude much about the world and we can't find much of purpose or meaning to life(or if we find meanings we can't prove them or be sure of their importance.)

One can have faith without religion. Also, if you have a need to understand everything immediately, then you will​ often find yourself jumping to conclusions. Ignorance is better than assumption.

You can have faith that your ideas are correct and good but, by deciding that you are the judge of correct and good, you have to acknowledge that your views are ultimately limited by the extents of your human capacity. You have to acknowledge that you are fallible. Theists can found their beliefs on religious axioms they believe to be objective Truth. That's the real difference. Atheists can present an argument and show it's degree of plausibility. But, by virtue of being an atheist and recognizing certain key limitations to human knowledge, they cannot be certain. Theists can claim certainty because God said so. Atheists have no God to confirm their belief, so it must remain a belief(assuming the atheist is rational.). Once we start talking about faith in a belief, I think we're talking about religion. The gods just change.

As I said, ignorance is better than assumption.

I think that depends a lot more on your assumptions, no? For example, the Christian notion that all men are equal before God in their accountability and sin led to the notion that all men are essentially equal. The Abolitionist movement was largely driven by Christian influences. Perhaps the worst thing abolitionists did, in Southern ideas, was extend the argument that slavery was not a "necessary evil.". Slaveholders who were kind weren't benelovent overlords. (Like good Christian southerners would believe, " they were in the slaves best interests."). The Abolitionists would openly accuse their Southern Christian brothers of fundamentally violating Christian principles. Their belief forced them to make the claim that there was never a justification for slavery and that the practice was morally abhorrent. That slave owners weren't genteel Southerners or even good men. They were terrible and great sinners. [spoiler]what a tangent....it could keep going... It wasn't until after Southerners began being accused of moral evil that the racial superiority argument became popular. Prior to that, slavery was seen as a necessary evil too fundamental to Southern society and economic wellbeing to simply get did of[/spoiler]

I don't need religion to have empathy. I don't need religion to have purpose. I don't need religion to have clarity. And I don't need an absolute, indisputable foundation. In fact, quite the opposite. If I thought there existed a being which could not be surpassed in any way, what would be my reason for existing? Why partake in the interminable cycle of survival and procreation if there is nothing more for which to strive? Ignorance is purpose enough. That there are things I do not know​, limits I have yet to find, and answers I have yet to reach is what gives my life meaning. To believe in a god is to limit oneself, to create an image of perfection which you know you can never achieve. However, if you assume nothing and allow yourself to be uncertain, you can aspire to be that image of perfection and more.

Ok so there's a lot wrong with your post in my opinion but I'll focus on this; [i]reason tells us we cannot know whether God and the afterlife exists, why choose to believe the bleakest alternative?[/i] Firstly, what makes you think you get to [i]choose[/i] what you believe in? I would say that if you get to choose, you didn't believe it in the first place and are just claiming you really believe. And secondly, the most common atheist position is not disbelief, it is lack of belief. Lack of belief makes perfect sense if, as you say, we cannot tell one way or the other. This leads back to point 1 - I don't, or in fact [b]can't[/b] believe something unless there is sufficient evidence presented to persuade me of its veracity. It's not a choice thing, it's whether the evidence convinces me. It is not something I have control over. And since you acknowledge there isn't evidence, I am stuck not believing.

Honestly, I don't think being an atheist is the 'bleakest alternative.' Sure, I don't believe that there's anything waiting for us after we die, but that doesn't mean life itself is any worse than it would be for a theist. If anything, I'd say we look for more to live for in life simply because we don't expect to find anything in death.

And, you're never hit with the existential doubts? This world isn't beautiful and isn't good. What is there to make the most of? Don't get me wrong, I can definitely see how someone could form an optimistic and positive outlook on life, without appealing to religion. But, how strong can that outlook actually be? As an atheist I can't believe the world is good without ignoring a large part of reality. I can't see beauty without looking away from all the ugliness. But, most of all, I can't shake the knowledge that everything I believe about my world is uncertain. That I don't actually know and can't really defend any of my value claims. The are all completely subjective and valuable only to myself. Their value is dependant on myself. I can't shake the fact that my view of the world is really just a story I tell myself about the world. It has no solid foundation outside of myself. To have a stronger view of the world I need to base my beliefs on Truths. I can't base my belief on Truths because I am incapable of discerning Truth. Religious belief allows me to take a leap of faith. It allows me to say these ideals are True (in that absolute/objective sense.). I can do this because God is Truth and God says these things are True. Now that I have a foundation of Truth, I can build an outlook that can rationalize the world I am in. I can now find meaning and purpose. If my foundations are not True, I can find no meaning and no purpose. Now, I completely understand that my "objective Truths" are only objective because I believe so. But, this belief is important. Without believing that I know certain things about the world, I cannot understand the world or my place in it.

What I said is what I think people would believe in in an ideal world. Those do not match my [i]personal[/i] outlook on life, however. I have a much darker view of life and existence than most people, so I can only assume (and hope) that others don't feel the same way. My worldview is down here (don't open if you're faint of heart or don't want to view opinions that may clash with your own): [spoiler]The way I see it, you're absolutely right. Since I do not believe in life after death, I feel that existence itself is completely pointless. However, I don't try to create hope or meaning by clinging to a vague idea that there's a whole other existence beyond this one. Living for an uncertain future seems pretty odd to me. Based on my understanding of the way consciousness, emotion, and the human mind work, I don't see any way that we can experience anything after death. The signals that we call thoughts will no longer be sent. Our consciousness would cease to exist. The way I think is classified as "existential nihilism" (if I remember correctly). Because there is no meaning to life, and nothing after it, there is no reason to live. I agree with that statement completely, and it shapes every decision in my life. The only reason I have yet to kill myself is because I know firsthand how much pain it is to lose someone to suicide. I'm not willing to cause that pain (again) for my mother, so I promised to wait for her to die. I don't try to create meaning in life, because I truly believe that there is none. I simply exist, just like everything else. We weren't born to enjoy ourselves or find purpose. Our only instincts are to survive and reproduce, just like every other animal. Humanity seems so obsessed with finding greater meaning, but it just seems to be more trouble than it's worth. If all of those people who lived their lives in god's name died, and it turned out that there truly is nothing after death, wouldn't that be soul crushing? I suppose not, because there would be nothing left. Anyways, I guess I'm just trying to say that I don't want to risk living for something that may end up being pointless. I'd rather not have hope because it's easier than having it ripped away from me in the end. They say it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, but I couldn't disagree more.[/spoiler]

Those are the logical conclusions. But, why have you chosen to belief this over belief in a God? Is it simply easier? You've abdicated all responsibility and value. You no longer have any connection to to the world. Consider this. Is objective reality the only thing that matters? Your conclusions are drawn from objective truth. What you can prove with tangible evidence is what you believe. Why? We are not machines. We do not live objectively. Human experience is entirely subjective. Why do you choose to ignore all of your subjective experiences and deny that they contain any reliable truths? Nearly all my proofs for God come from my subjective experiences about reality. There is a feeling of God's presence many religious people will talk about. Naysayers will call it some sort of temporary manic insanity, but if you've felt it you know you've felt it. Denying experiences like these, the peaks of human joy, because I can't objectively describe them is foolish. [spoiler]I've been where you are. The Bible says seek and you will find. I don't think your beliefs are crazy or evil. But, you should not stop searching for other answers. Once you give up on the search and assume you now have all the True answers, you will have almost certainly guaranteed yourself to be wrong. All we can do is seek. I'm willing to bet that if you honestly open yourself to other possibilities and continue searching for Truth, you will find it or at least more of the Truth than you now have, its a slippery beast. [/spoiler]

When I look around, I don't see god's light. I see suffering, failure, and many, [i]many[/i] pointless attempts to cover it all up. I am not expressly against religion. I acknowledge that there are many things that we have yet to see, and many things that we most likely never will. The presence of a higher power is almost certainly among them, so the trick is choosing what you believe it is. I choose to believe in what I have seen and experienced. In all of humanity, all of [i]everything[/i], there is only one thing that [i]every part of the universe[/i] has in common: Existence. Every single thing either exists, has existed, has yet to exist, or will not exist. To me, the highest power of all is existence itself. It is all encompassing. You are either a part of existence or you aren't. Humans can't imagine non-existence because as for long as we have existed, we have never [i]not[/i] existed. We have never seen non-existence firsthand, or seen anything that [i]doesn't[/i] exist. Non-existence is this incomprehensible thing. It just doesn't compute. And so, existence is the only truth that I believe in. I accept that I may be wrong. Maybe I'll die, and I'll be face to face with god. Then I'll have to reassess my view of existence. Maybe it will be the Catholic God, or Allah, or The Great Atheisma, or some combination of all of the gods in various religions. Maybe the highest power is a goat named Steve. Who knows? Not me, and I'm fine with that. I've learned to accept that there are some things that humanity will never truly understand. [spoiler]Thank you for not being one of those "Everything you believe is wrong and I'M right" people. I've met many people on both sides of the fence, and I'm always more than happy to talk with the people who are accepting of other ideals.[/spoiler]

I also see pain and suffering and pointless evil, everywhere. But, I believe that is the result of humans and their corrupt nature. I see goodness too, though. Don't you know a few of those people who are just unbelievably kind and good natured to everyone they meet. I do. Those are the people I think of when I get to thinking its all rotten. There are still many good and beautiful things here. That's the nature of our reality. This huge tangled mess of love and hatred. We have a world of unspeakable evil and overwhelming goodness, mixed together. Sometimes they can even come out of the same person. I don't think the sum total of existence is dark, though. I think these extremes of human existence are what make life important and significant. We have to have valleys to have peaks. The more we experience of good and evil the more we actually grow as human beings. I express this idea often and usually meet resistance. Its a hard thing to say. But, bad actions often lead to good results and good actions can often lead to bad results. There is no cause and effect based solely on a person's intentions, not in nature. Evil has a purpose, in my mind. Without evil I would not know what is good. My experience of good and evil has allowed me to understand that I am also evil. That I have done and still do evil things. My experience leads me to want to be good and do good things. My faith confirms my experience and vice versa.

I can agree with most of that sentiment. After all, bad things happen to good people and vice versa. And evil is absolutely necessary because without it, everything would be the same. However, that's about the end of my agreement there. As far as I can see, the bad in life [i]greatly[/i] outweighs the good. It's not even a contest, honestly. The goodness in this world is merely a drop in an ocean of pain and suffering. And that's not an ocean that I'm willing to swim in. As far as a truly good natured person, not really. I've never met any personally. I've met some kind people that I'm all the better for knowing, but none of them are saints by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sure there are a few out there, but they don't come close to making up for humanity's inherent greed.