My stance is that worship, and not belief, is the true delusion of theism. To give up belief but retain a form of secular worship is to simply replace one object of misplaced devotion with another. Or rather, it was always the same generic object, but in morphing from a god to a concept about the universe's elegance it has undergone a semantic shift. This is not an excuse for theism, of course, and I still don't see how Lion IRC regards it as an argument in favor of placing a particular god at the center of this web instead of some other value, if all are equally devoid of worth.
I should also note that all value, including that expressed by gratitude, is generated within the world in response to its lack of value. The gratitude some feel about the 'good fortune' to be born a male, which many Jews still recite each day in prayer, only makes sense against the backdrop of a world in which it is possible to be born in an 'unfortunate' way, either as female, as poor, as sick, as handicapped, as the wrong race, the wrong culture. This possibility, and the way it largely dictates one's experience throughout life, is part of why I reject cosmic gratitude (even as I may partake in terrestrial gratitude about my own relative luck). Some would say that just to be here is a blessing, but I say that can't be taken seriously when there is so much wrong about being here, so much that we can only avoid by the law of large numbers, some that we can't avoid because of the laws of physics, including the very negation of 'being here' itself; what kind of gift self-destructs?
All of this is separate from any disagreement about belief, as a matter of empirical observation and deduction. I can believe in some sort of creator and maintain that its existence adds no value to the universe, and I can believe in no creator while maintaining a secular appreciation for the universe. Neither one is quite right, but the first one is closer.
