From the religious perspective everything will be okay . There is life after death . There is reunion with loved ones . There will be no evil . It ' s a fairy tale . Believing what is untrue is not real happiness . It ' s bottled happiness , no different than that fix . Oh , if you overdose , you might die without a care in the world . Does that mean you died happy ? To the atheist eternal darkness and silence awaits you . Studies show this has a huge impact on attitude and happiness . This is due to a flaw in perspective among atheists . Remember the darkness and silence before you were born ? No ? There is no darkness or silence in nonexistence , because those are things you need consciousness to experience . Nabokov saidThe cradle rocks above an abyss , and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness . Although the two are identical twins , man , as a rule , views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is headed for . This is the perspective we all need . We don ' t need to fear death , any more than we need to fear our lack of existence before we were born . Just treasure the life that we have now . Not to mention , many religious practices such as community , meditation , volunteerism , all lead to decreased rates of suicide , isolation , and depression . THIS is true . Religion itself is without benefit , but there are trappings around religion that certainly do have benefits , and this is one of them . But religion isn ' t necessary for those things . We do , however , need to see the importance of replacing what we lose in religion with some other community with a purpose . How many of us actually join secular humanist groups and provide time for charity ?