The decline of religion in the West has come at the expense of community values, certainty over personal morals and a reduction in the harmony our shared ideology. Worse, this vacuum has allowed a diverse but irrational and unproductive list of values to take hold in society. This is causing down-stream political problems and confusing in-group / out-group behaviors.
Religion has always been a tool, used both to accomplish good and bad outcomes. Built into religion are essentially a pre-formed set of morals and values. These are inferior to ones derived from intentional derivation from philosophical arguments. This is most easily shown by their inability, in most religions to be re-assessed over time. Side note - this is not to underplay the renaissance and modernization of Western Christianity over the last few hundred years to give this exact, sorely needed evolution of its values.
The study and product of philosophy (in the academic and Greco-Roman period sense) is precisely to produce morals and values that are logically deduced and able to be adapted to fit the world around you, including changing them over time as required.
The idea presented by anti-theist philosophers like Nietzsche was to replace religion with intentional, logical philosophy discovery, not to simply discard it. What has actually happened to most of the atheist community in the West is a reduction in the introspection and intentional creation of moral codes and values. Instead, narcissism, ego, vapid pop-culture emulation and nihilism stemming from the post-modern school of thought has coalesced to produce new generations that are unable to think critically about philosophy or appreciate the history that has produced the Western world.
The promotion of philosophy and logic are foremost in the fight back to re-energise and re-empower the collective consciousness of the West. This can take place in academia, where social studies should not take primacy over formal, classical philosophy; and in everyday life, by people taking more time to critically evaluate their morals and values and pick up a philosophy book once in a while.
In the meantime, we must remember that while often outdated, the values that underpin Christianity are indeed what has guided the Western world (which is the best society we have ever created, by the way, despite its flaws). We should consider these values' relevance today, even if we personally are agnostic / atheist - and realize that we are more philosophically alike our Christian fellows, than not.
