If you're an Atheist, what comforts you?

[Crossless2.0]

I see. So the world as it is doesn't meet your requirements for significance or transcendence. Too bad for you -- not that the world gives a damn about your existential crisis.

Sure. Most of humanity doesn't find material pursuits and just living a normal life without any greater purpose fulfilling either. At least I'd wager that's the case. If I'm wrong, then at least I know there's something special about me that I yearn for some greater meaning than the ordinary, mundane life that 99.9% of humanity lives.

You say atheism is nothing but 'loss and more loss' and will result in a loss of identity and community? Yeah, religious communities are good at guilting others for 'unacceptable' thoughts and legitimate doubts. Fear of losing family and friends is a driver for the sort of conformity they require. For my part, I've never considered those who would shun me for not sharing their ideological commitments or their favorite character from an old book to be worth keeping in the first place.

It has nothing to do with being shunned. If I become an atheist I will take myself out of a range of meaningful activities voluntarily. I would have no further use for going to the mosque, engaging in intensive worship where at times I'm raptured into spiritual states transcending the material, no further use for the fulfilling socio-political narrative that I derive from religion. I would have lost more than anything I could potentially gain.

I say atheism is 'nothing but' a willingness to face reality and the limits of what we can know. You want to seek something greater than yourself? Great. Just understand that whatever you eventually find will oddly mirror what you bring to the table. 

As for the Alt-Right, I'd wager that a majority of them self-identify as theists. But go ahead and ride that hobby horse if it makes you feel better. You're a member of this community. Do you seriously think most of us atheists here subscribe to the Alt-Right, or communism, or fascism? Pay attention.

As I understand it, the majority of active atheists on this forum are from an older generation that is just content with being grandparents or having a beautiful garden and manicured lawn. They seem to have left behind the excitement a long time ago. I for one hope I never enter into such a condition even if I reach my 90s!

Sure, living lives of quiet desperation is our common lot, and we are all subject to moments of despair or ennui, but that's a part of life -- not a necessary result of atheism alone. Religious people, too, experience these things. You paint with too broad a brush. Would it surprise you to learn that even atheist grandparents with gardens can live passionately, grow, learn, and engage in meaningful pursuits? Meditation, to take one example, is not inherently religious and entails no particular belief in this or that book, but it results in exactly the sort of seemingly transcendent experience you mention. I say 'seemingly' because I am of the opinion that such practice results in changes in brain activity-- not breaking through to another spiritual realm. Nevertheless, believing that to be the case in no way reduces the intensity or personal significance of the experience. Such practice is meaningful in and of itself. I simply do not also require a belief that the experience I have be woven into the cosmos or engraved eternally in some god's notice. 

Your objection that we have left behind "the excitement" strikes me as puerile.