Do atheists lack a sense of awe and wonder? (Doubt it.)

[Angrboda]

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I rarely have anything approaching "awe and wonder." Perhaps that reflects the Taoist and me, but my relationship to things is more like a warm friendship, than a rockets and flares romance. The world is just fine to me just being what it is.

I think all this "awe and wonder" language is nothing but a knee jerk relationship to theists implying that the atheist worldview has to be dull, mechanical, and dirty. It's like a mega-extravaganza "Battle of the Worldviews" in which the atheist says, "Well, if your worldview has awe and wonder, well mine does too — matter of fact, the awe and wonder in my worldview is better than the awe and wonder in your worldview, so there!"

Nonsense. Life doesn't need to be either of these extremes, awesome or dull and mechanical. It can just be what it is and still be very worthwhile.

There is a famous Taoist painting known as "The Vinegar Tasters." In the painting, three figures are standing around a vat of vinegar, each having just tasted the vinegar. The figures are Buddha, Confucius, and the Taoist Lao Tzu. The Buddha has an expression of sourness on his face, because according to him, all life is suffering, so he experiences the vinegar as unpleasant. Confucius has a bitter look on his face, as he feels that life and men are corrupt, and they can only be made good by strict observance of duties. Lao Tzu puts the vinegar to his lips and smiles, because the vinegar is just what the vinegar should be, it is just what it is, and that's good.

In the same way I feel you don't need to embrace either awe and wonder, or a mechanical emptiness; life as it is may not be as exciting or as pungent as either, but it doesn't have to be either; it's just what it is, and that's very worthwhile. So it's fine for the atheist not to be filled with awe and wonder, because that's not the measure of what makes life good.