“That constant childhood taunt of “you’re gonna get it!” ... that’s irritating... as I suspect it’s meant to be”
From my “fantasy” point of view as you might put it...My response would be...”You are going wide of the mark and are going to miss IT!”
I’m surprised you find anything “irritating” at all, after all pride is also one of those wasted emotions you should be doing away with and discarding like so much...fig leaf!
As for assigning values such as “wonderful” or “silly” or “good” or “evil”..an atheist can find herself in an incoherent world that while it might make sense for her, others who share a theistic frame of reference and know the philosophical ground on which they stand can only shake their heads at the incoherence they are witnessing. The atheist can’t speak authoritatively on subjects regarding truth, goodness, because her concepts are based on situational temporal reality and not on over arching spiritual eternal authority. The atheist can try to deny spiritual authority but she has no countering moral compass other than the brute force of the Godless state found in communism, socialism, or fascism.
Not at all. Your only frame of reference for goodness is God's Will. Unfortnately, none of you can agree on what is God's Will. For instance: in the Old Testament, God committed acts that we would generally consider Not Good. Wiping out whole communities, man, woman, and child, to give Canaan to the Israelites? Mass murder, even of children, in order to take their land, becomes "Good" if it was God's Will. Tsunamis and earthquakes and floods (oh, especially floods.) GOOD if it's God's will.
But then you get the theists arguing. Is cancer God's will? Some say yes. Some say no. Some say the Devil causes it, therefore it is bad. Others say "God takes us home" when he wants to, so it's wrong to even seek medical intervention. And of course, a whole range of thought in between. This is far shakier ground to stand on than anything I use to judge.
Really, if theism were so clear and comforting, you wouldn't have religious wars at all, especially between members of the same religion. I mean, people have been beheaded over transubstantiation. So theists may "know" what is right, but if one theist "knows" one thing and another theist "knows" another, you better hope neither of them has a weapon.