I had a similar argument with a Benedictine nun once, who averred that even if there were no God she would act as she did, because "it's just a good way to live." That's as may be --- for her -- but for me, it makes no sense to live in voluntary poverty, chastity, and obedience for a lifetime if "you only come this way once" and therefore it's up to you to "grab all the gusto."
Our loves are as great as our hopes, and the thorough-going atheist has no hopes of anything other than a 100 mph crash into a solid brick wall. And in the long run --- if he cares to think of that which he will never see --- the long sigh of entropy in the heat-death of the Universe.
I beg to differ.
Tchaikovsky, the Hubble telescope, and the microchip provide things of such grandeur that it's hard for me to believe that people once got excited over a burning bush or parlor tricks with wine and water.
If heat death occurs before we've found a way to colonize outside of the universe, then I hope we will have left a good mark on history. I don't need a pedagogical fairy tale to give me hope.