There is no all seeing, all loving God who keeps us free from harm. Atheism is not a recipe for despair. I think the opposite. By disclaiming the idea of the next life we can take more excitement in this one. The here and now is not something to be endured before eternal bliss or damnation. The here and now is all we have, an inspiration to make the most of it. So atheism is life affirming in a way that religion can never be. 
Look around you, nature demands our attention. It begs us to explore, to question. Religion can only provide only fascile, ulimately unsatisfying answers. Science, in constantly seeking real explanations reveals the [bad word] magesty of our world in all [bad word]  
People sometimes say, there must be more than just this world, than just this life, but how much more do you want? We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because theyre never going to be born. The number of people that could be here in my place outnumber the sand grains of sahara. If you think about all the different ways our genes could be permuted you and i are quite grotesquely lucky to be here, the number of events that had to happen in order for you to exist, in order for me to exist. We are privilaged to be alive and we should make the most of our time on this world.