Of course. The argument I identify with goes like this: There is no god, and therefore no afterlife. Therefore nothing we do matters. But, since there is no afterlife, and this is all we get, the only thing that matters is this life, therefore the only thing that matters is what we do with it.

I don't know if that is the same as valuing life more or not, but I know that, personally, when I was a believer and thought I would be rewarded in an afterlife, I valued life less.

The argument above is the difference in my way of evaluating the intrinsic value of life now. Almost a complete 180° turnaround.

I don't know. As I have never believed in an afterlife I have no way of comparing.

All I know is that I make the most of the one and only life that I know I will have.

I don't believe my belief in or lack of belief in an afterlife has any real influence.

Actually, I tend to think "less" of it. There's a certain amount of suffering that can be dealt with and is expected. But at some point... if life is just suffering, as it is for many, than what's the point? I'm not going to "tough it out" on this capricious ball of rock just so I can die.

But it's not just that. No matter what I do, at the end of my life it's gone... over... and in a few billion years, our sun will swallow us up and there will have been no evidence that we were ever here. Meaning no Beethoven, no Stephen Hawking, no Bill Gates, or no Brad Pitt.

Knowing this makes it a lot harder for me to really get passionate about life.

Letting go of an eternal reward prompted me to begin working through my problems now. My belief system taught me to believe that if I just kept going to church then after this life I would be rewarded. It taught me that if I just stayed married I would get to be with my family after death. Everything changed when I realized one day that I didn't want to be with my ex-husband forevermore. He was a controlling asshole. I stopped believing that would suddenly change just because we died and I was motivated to make the changes I needed to now.

Anyone that pisses away their life because they think something better is coming is an idiot.

Who says I "value" life at all???
Saying that anyone values life, for any reason, is a pretty huge assumption.

No, because that displays the same level of superiority that I find when christians tell me I live a sad or meaningless life because I do not worship their saviour. But I do think that I value life more than those who spend their life mainly as proving point for their acceptability for that imagined after-life.

100% yes. The idea of an afterlife reduces life to nothing more than a puppet show.

Yes. You get one shot. Might as well try to make the best of it.

I would say yes, And I think I would feel that way than if i was a believer at one time.
But I've never been a believer all of my life, So I can't say for sure never having been in those shoes.

more than what? even when i believed in a god i never thought about an afterlife. it did not enter my thoughts once in all my 15 years, and then of course it still didn't after i realized there were no gods. so i value life the same as i ever did.

g

The Gov't powers can always get Christians to fight their wars with the lie that if they are killed they will go to Heaven.

Yes. Most religious doctrines proscribe death for various infractions against humanity and the spirit head(s). War is honored and killing is glorified in their writings. I feel all humans have right to life and taking the life of a viable human being is never right. Taking our own life is acceptable if it is the result of a sound mind and well reasoned. Risking one's own life to save another is an allowable choice. The state should never hold the power to take a human life.

I wouldn't say more, I grew up in a family that was not religious so I've never been exposed to religion actually until really recently as an adult

I think that the universe is far more than the most complicated thing going and a simple walk through a garden is far too nothing to even begin to explain anything that would make any sense. Life? You come and you go and that's about the size of it. The universe has been around for gazillions of years and if we are lucky (?) we may bite off 70/80 years? Whoop-de-damned-do!!! This is so very, very trivial.

Yes! This is my only shot! I'm not in to building up my reward for the next world. I'm in to squeezing every drop out of the only life I have! The only question is, will I die while there is still a pile of money in my retirement fund?