For me it is belief that spiritual development is an eternal process and that in the afterlife you go to a place and have things to do that are appropriate for your level of development. So life on the earth is about developing yourself so that your can progress in the afterlife and go to new places and have new things to do. This means learning to be a better person, being more loving, tolerant, forgiving, less selfish, less egotistical because those qualities are what make you fit for a higher level.
During a period in my life when I was an atheist I read that if you treat others badly, if you act like an @#$%^^&*, then you will think of yourself as an @#$%^&*, so to have self respect you should treat others honorably. This had a big influence on me and I still consider it a valuable lesson that I could not have learned without being a materialist. So I think there can be a spiritual purpose in being a materialist. But ultimately that lesson was based on self interest not on concern for others.
Now I find that my
knowledge of the afterlife makes a huge difference and it is not really comparable to being a materialist.
When you believe the universe is benevolent, that you are loved by God and your spirit friends, that they are rooting for you and helping and guiding you to meet life's challenges, life means something different than if you are just trying to be a good person until you die at which point everything is over. You know there is an eternity in which you can have fun and be happy together with your loved ones so any sacrifices, losses, or unpleasantness in this life are mere bumps in the road, lessons to learn from. Suffering teaches you compassion for others who are suffering. Doing wrong teaches you forgiveness for those who may wrong you. These lessons have value to you throughout eternity. When you are a materialist, every second that is not pleasant is a second you are cheated out of from your short life. When you are a materialist any character development that occurs because of hardship is useless after you die. As a believer in the afterlife, you want do what is right because you understand we are all in this together, some are less advanced some more, you want to help others to be part of the system that brings help to you. You know you will have to live with the knowledge your decisions for eternity. There is also the prospect of a life review where you will experience how you influenced people from their perspective.
My experience is just one data point. However empirical research shows that belief in religion and spirituality do make life more meaningful:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/video-lecture-by-john-lennox-explains.html
Belief in religion and spirituality is beneficial.
Andrew Sims
Andrew Sims, past president of Royal College of Psychiatrists, has said: "The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land (from Is Faith Delusion)."
more
In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks.
Here are some other examples of how religion transforms lives:
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/threa...er-reincarnation-claim.2093/page-8#post-63440
2. How can life have any meaning if we live in a meaningless universe?
...
I've never heard of an anyone saying that materialism, or "scientific ethics" or humanism, transformed their life. But many people who convert to religion do say that it transformed their life for the better. So it seems to me that all the talk about rational ethics is just talk. But when you come to believe God, that is something completely different. It is not theoretical it is something practical that changes your life for the better.
Many people (examples below) find that while believing in materialism and atheism life is bleak, lacks love, and is ultimately selfish. When they come to believe in God life is about love and caring for others not about yourself and that makes people happier. Logically an atheist could believe in unselfishness and love, but it seems that for practical reasons there is something about belief in God that makes it work where mere philosophy doesn't do it.
This is not just a psychological phenomenon. It is evidence that God exists. John Lennox pointed out that it would be strange if beings on a planet without water became thirsty, similarly it would be strange if there was no God for people to be drawn to God.
I never heard of atheism helping anyone to turn their life around the way religion has done for many people.
Neither of professional musician Dan Conway's parents were religious and he was an atheist until he felt his life was going in the wrong direction...
The relevant part of the video starts at 9:38
"In some way's I guess things were going well. As you said I got to perform on Australia's Got Talent. ... I'm no stranger to the music business so ... I had a record deal when I was 16 with Sony and another one sometime later I think with EMI. So I was no stranger to all that. But, I was actually really unhappy. And I was only growing more unhappy. And I wasn't living well. The more time went on the more I was hurting myself and others. It wasn't pretty. I came to a place where I just want to think ... maybe there's something to this God thing and maybe I missed it. So I thought, I want to know. I want to know I don't really want to be into what feels good or what suits me I actaully want to know what's the truth."
This was an from an atheist from birth, born to atheist parents being skeptical about atheism: "I don't really want to be into what feels good or what suits me. I actually want to know what's the truth".
"And so I committed I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to commit to following the evidence wherever it leads. I became a regular debate viewer on line and read books on God and his existence. When I got real radical I'd listen to a sermon or two. All as an atheist. But the most crucial part of that was really when I examined my own heart and did that the very last. But when I saw what was in there and when I considered who Jesus might be that led me to believe in God. Everything changed at that point. I guess I had a really a change of being. Somewhere deep I don't even know where. And that changed my thinking my desires, my outlook, so I guess it was natural that my music changed with it."
"I was actually really unhappy. And I was only growing more unhappy. And I wasn't living well. The more time went on the more I was hurting myself and others. It wasn't pretty."
...
When he came to "...believe in God. Everything changed at that point. I guess I had a really a change of being. Somewhere deep I don't even know where. And that changed my thinking my desires, my outlook"
I've heard and read a lot of stories like this and it is one of the reasons I have a generally favorable opinion of religion. This type of evidence shows that there is something good in religion and rather than rejecting all religion because some of it is bad, we should try to understand what is good in it and figure out how to use that in a practical way to improve people's well being.
"Organized religion: Is it all bad?"
It seems to have helped Lee Strobel.
Strobel is a journalist and his research into the authenticity of the Gospels transformed his life. He started out as an atheist skeptic but when he used his credentials as a reporter to get access to the worlds leading historians, the results of his research made a believer out of him.
"... [believing] began a transformational process for me where over time my philosophy and my attitudes, relationships, parenting, world-view, all of that began to change over time for good. Really for good."
"When Lee became a Christian his whole life started to change to the extent that our five year old daughter who also saw those changes went to her Sunday school teacher and told her that she wanted Jesus to do in her life what He had done in her Daddy's life."
"... [believing] began a transformational process for me where over time my philosophy and my attitudes, relationships, parenting, world-view, all of that began to change over time for good. Really for good."
"When Lee became a Christian his whole life started to change to the extent that our five year old daughter who also saw those changes went to her Sunday school teacher and told her that she wanted Jesus to do in her life what He had done in her Daddy's life."
http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/goto/post?id=63451#post-63451
I think the difference is like the difference between book learning and experience. You can't really internalize spiritual love without feeling that the universe is ultimately benevolent and that you are loved. The atheists can say what they like about meaning but unless they've had the experience they don't know what they are missing. Giving up a bad religion and becoming an atheist is not equivalent to finding a good religion and giving up atheism. And religion doesn't necessarily guarantee this experience. Some people go through the motions of religion out of habit but it doesn't mean much to them in daily life. It's a sad fact that bad religion drives many people to atheism. But some people do have an experience, either by learning about religion or from a personal experience like an NDE, where
they recognize that God exists, loves us even though we may be flawed, and God is for us not against us, and they live with that understanding every day and that seems to be central to this type of transformation. If we are made in God's image or if
the stuff of our soul is the stuff of God, then if you don't love God you don't love yourself.
Recognizing that God loves us releases something inside us, it helps to rid one of feelings of fear, self-hate, anger, and guilt. It's like having a great weight lifted off your shoulders, it is liberating. The truth sets you free, free to be happy and loving. You don't get that from ethical humanism. This is why organized religion, done right, can be beneficial - besides teaching about God, being able to go to the right kind of church once a week, being surrounded by like minded people, helps a person to maintain this understanding in the face of the many messages we are bombarded with many times a day encouraging us to be selfish. I know many people get this from some Christian churches, I know from my own experience you can also get this from some Spiritualist churches.