How do atheists do life?

[Belacqua]

I find the church in my life indispensable.

I grew up in the same church..around  the same people, the same happy and joyful families.

The same families are there..and the boys and girls I grew up with now have a few little  boys and girls of their own.

Every sunday we congregate for fellowship, and faith. We have an identity. We are Christians.

We'll listen to Pastor Phillip get up on the altar and preach the word of God.

After service we will all go out and socialize. The men (that includes me and the fellas) will go to one corner and talk about sports, guns, whiskey, cigars politics (we all love the Trumpeter!). Obviously none of it fit talk for ladies.

The ladies..are a real show. Dressed in their sunday best, they go to another corner and talk about..oh  I don't know.... fashion, flowers, their children, their men...you know..typical girl talk

Then the boys and girls will be outside..the boys playing tag and touch football, and the girls skip a rope and ( he loves me.. he loves me not). Why just last Sunday I saw little Billy Turner get down one knee to Elizabeth Wilksley. He had a bouquet of dandelions, daffodils and wild honeysuckle as a gift to her. Two little charmers who don't know what trouble can come of love  .

See the thing is..there is a lot of life, love and growth in a faith community. How do you atheists have it?

Now I don't wanna tar all ungodly folk with the same brush but I've done a bit of online research and seen all the manner of trouble non believers can get into.

The male atheists Ive heard tend to drink up a storm and get in fights, acting like drunkards and fools. The young atheist women...well lets just say they aren't the kind of girl any man would want to take home to meet his mother.

I think the reason for atheist sadness/bummy behavior is that they can't cope with life without God. If life is sad..or life gets you down and you don't have God...seems the only solution for folks is to drink, smoke, despair or masturbate to pornography the whole live long day.

Please enlighten me.

Thanks y'all.

Speaking just for myself:

I'm a very different type of person from you. I live on the side of a mountain north of Hiroshima, and go into town once or twice a week to teach. Then I come home again. I don't have anything in my life like the social scene of your church. Nor do I miss it. It just isn't what I want. 

In the abstract I can appreciate that it appeals to you. My niece whom I follow closely on Facebook has a similar church community, and it's clear that she benefits from it. More power to her. It is more left-wing than your church, in that they don't insist on the traditional gender roles that your church has, nor do they agree with Trump's policies on most things. They actively work to welcome immigrants, for example. 

If I need a pep talk or a reminder of how to live morally, I have a bunch of books here for which I have a lot of respect. Though I am an atheist, these include theology books, including authors like Martin Buber.

Anyway, the things about your church you describe carry no appeal for me. I have a full life without that sort of thing.

And to tell you the truth, I have studied a great deal of church history and read the writings of the early church fathers, and I strongly suspect that the church community you describe is very far away from what they would want. To me, it sounds like an American social club, whereas the church was constructed to confront and overcome the customs of the world, including most importantly the sort of inward-looking socializing that doesn't devote itself first and foremost to helping the poor. 

I can't be a Christian, because Christ demanded that we give up all personal happiness in order to help others, and I am not strong enough to do that.