Stringsinger wrote: "It does not mean however a rejection of the beauty of life or living things. It doesn't require a shallowness or lack of depth as some have stated. It can be a capacity for reverence
for the natural world and artistic appreciation as well. It can include compassion for people and animals and a social concern for the well-being of the world and its inhabitants."

I'd actually go a lot further. Belief in God restricts your understanding of the natural world in that it superimposes an utterly implausible explanation for it that is not only superfluous but which is intellectually-stunting. My dad (I can safely say as he don't do internet thingies) goes outside to look at the trees, the birds and the sky, waves his arms in the air and declares "Look at the beauty of all this! What more proof do you need!" Well, I think he's one hundred and eighty degrees wrong. The truth about the wonder and beauty of nature can best be realised by actually studying it closely, seeing how all the component parts (of organisms as well as communities, ecosystems and the whole planet) work together, form and function moving in beautiful synergy, the product (and never the end-product) of billions of years of evolution, and all in harmony with the laws of physics and all so wonderfully ordinary. The supernatural must be sitting up there somewhere in a big indignant sulk when he sees the ordinary loveliness of it all! A big sulk because he's actually utterly redundant and he always was. Some of us atheists are pretty good at being awe-struck by it all, but we see that we are of it and not special, because we have no higher power to make us special. We can feel really special because of our unspecialness. And hey, Jackieboy, I made up a word there!