Good questions, and I am no atheist, but these aren’t that hard to answer.
No thinking atheist will discount the effect of religion on human behavior, despite not sharing such beliefs. That can seem cynical and it probably is to a degree. As Voltaire said, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”
Some atheist answers inserted below just to indicate some directions of answers -
Where do your rights come from?
Tradition, the social contract, biology, enlightened self interest, etc.
Why do you wear clothes ?
Fashion, social acceptance, desire to avoid social friction, mating strategies, survival, comfort, etc.
Why are there seven days in a week?
A social convention, tradition.
How do you know what is good and what is evil?
There is no such things as good and evil, just biological optimums or the opposite, enlightened self-interest, etc.
If everything came from nothing out of nowhere,
if life is just a curious side effect of an unknowing and uncaring cosmos,
if when you die, you are just so much compost,
then why seek anything other than a life of self-gratification and a painless extinction?
Biological programming towards reproduction and the survival of progeny; biological programming towards the survival of the group, etc.
>> Where do your rights come from?
> Tradition, the social contract, biology, enlightened self
> interest, etc.
Then they are subject to the vicissitudes of the culture at large, and there is no reason for us to complain when they change. For example, why fight for “gun rights” if such things are a completely artificial construct?
>> Why do you wear clothes?
> Fashion, social acceptance, desire to avoid social
> friction, mating strategies, survival, comfort, etc.
I can see I should have qualified this question.
:)
If we are nothing more than mere animals, then why do we wear clothes? None of the animals do. When the weather is warm, what’s the point of being uncomfortable?
>> Why are there seven days in a week?
> A social convention, tradition.
All over the world? Even in “primitive” cultures?
>> How do you know what is good and what is evil?
> There is no such things as good and evil, just biological
> optimums or the opposite, enlightened self-interest, etc.
If there are no such things as good and evil, then why strive for justice? Who determines what kind of self-interest is “enlightened”? If only driven by biological drives, why don’t feral animals have the same moral sensibilities of obligation toward the weak and feeble members of their own species? How does helping the weak and feeble, the sick and elderly, advance our biological advantage? If anything, it compromises it.
> Biological programming towards reproduction and the
> survival of progeny; biological programming towards the
> survival of the group, etc.
I would submit that biology is very unlikely the only force driving sentient beings capable of abstract thought.