This may be of interest, jambon 1.
It's an excellent article.
Reason and Reverence
http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/6558.shtml
Gratitude is most definitely not exclusive to theists.
Thanks for brining up this important topic.
Here is an excerpt from the article...
Religious humanism is a life stance that exults in being alive in this unimaginably vast and breathtakingly beautiful universe and that finds joy and satisfaction in contributing to human betterment. Without a creed but with an emphasis on reason, compassion, community, nature, and social responsibility, it is a way of living that answers the religious and spiritual needs of people today. A new humanism is emerging among Unitarian Universalists, a religious humanism informed by cultural developments and recent discoveries in the natural and human sciences and grounded in the larger context of religious naturalism, a religious humanism that offers depth, meaning, and purpose without sacrificing intellectual honesty or the spiritual dimension.
Religious naturalism is a perspective that finds religious meaning in the natural world and rejects the notion of a supernatural realm. In recent years, religious naturalism has been enjoying a resurgence. Most religious naturalists are theists who understand God as belonging to the natural universe rather than as a supernatural deity.
I espouse a nontheistic faith, a perspective that I call humanistic religious naturalism. Like traditional religious humanism, it rejects the supernatural and maintains that there is only one reality, the natural universe. Traditional humanism, however, has historically been too anthropocentric, whereas for humanistic religious naturalism it is nature rather than humankind that is ultimate. This lays the foundation for a strong environmental ethic, a necessity in a world threatened by environmental destruction. Further, integrating religious humanism with religious naturalism results in a greater spiritual depth and a language of reverence, both of which many find missing in traditional religious humanism. This emergent form of humanism also provides a meaningful story, the epic of evolution. The differences with traditional religious humanism may seem subtle, but they provide a foundation for a more open, less rationalistic, and more inclusive humanism that speaks to the heart and the soul, not just the intellect.