For atheists, this life is all there is. Some may offer themselves whimsical comfort by saying that before this slice of life happened, there was an infinite period when we didn’t exist and after we die, there is going to be another infinity when we wont either. Nevertheless since there is no evidence to the contrary we may find ourselves continuing in some kind of post-mortem existence, with no overtones of paradise, retribution or any kind of divine paraphernalia. Of course, this is an area that only fringe researchers explore, yet even some prestigious scientists, notably the impeccably credentialed Ian Stevenson, who was director of the Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia, have endorsed it. Among other things, he devoted the last 40 years of his life to the scientific documentation of past-life memories of children from all over the world. In the end, he had over 3, 000 cases on record in his files and many people, including sceptics and scholars, agree today that these offer the best evidence yet for life after death. But heres the twist: almost all non-spiritual atheists regard his work or the evidence he may have garnered over a lifetime as nonsense, while conveniently forgetting that Dr Stevenson was as much an atheist as any of them, if not more. Its just that some people believe in a far richer non-theistic experience than one that has only an arid landscape on the horizon with little other than chance and nothingness calling the shots.
For example, Karl Marx viewed religious belief as a reflection of humanity on itself and maintained that divinity was an idealised version of humans inkling of their potential. It was natural, therefore, for him to suggest that the correct way to propagate freedom was to present the truth to individuals and let them choose to accept or deny it. Contrary to popular belief, he never suggested prohibiting religion. Nevertheless, what he did say was, Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. Meaning, the abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is, in fact, the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up these illusions about their condition is to ask them to give up a condition requiring illusions.
The whole problem is that God is not well-presented by greedy religions that turned out to be human-rights violators.
Another problem is that there is no universally acceptable answer to the question: Why does not God stop human suffering? (which of course God did not start)