Atheism cannot reach our hearts. A rigorous atheist cannot console in a time of grief, cannot explain love, cannot sigh in happy wonder at life's endless surprises. He can only utter, "What is, is."

Striking to me is this hasty reservation of feelings only for theist. Why atheists are incapable to console in the time of grief? I think it is a load of crap. I have to say that as an atheist I know my feelings are genuine and coming from me. My feelings are not false just to satisfy some god or created just from the fear of wraht of any god. To feel is human, not divine.

Heh, and those life's endless surprises. If you truly believe in creation, well that is the ultimate killjoy by providing answer "it was just created that way" to every damn question. As an atheist, I really have to go beyond these surprises and see how they really work and are tangled together to form this beautiful endless system we call life.