I have always been interested in religious beliefs because they all try to address probably the most important questions of our lives, such as what is the purpose of life? Or how can we live a happy life?

However, all of them rely on certain dogmas that are unquestionable and thus unsatisfying to some people (me included). So how can I reconcile an interest in religions without accepting the solutions they provide?

I believe it was Camus who said something along the lines that he was an atheist but believed that the world without religions would be a bad or a dull place (I can't remember what). After all, a world without some spiritual guidance might turn into an objectivist heaven, and I do not like objectivism because I believe empathy is one of our most valuable human characteristics.

Therefore it was interesting what I found in this site today:

Nietzsche wanted people to throw of the shackles of our misguided Christian morality and become supermen - free and titanic.

However, without God he felt that the future of man might spiral into a society of nihilism, devoid of any meaning; his aim was for man to realise the lack of divine purpose and create his own values.

The core of Nietzsche's work, including Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-92), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), The Birth of Tragedy (1872) was to find a meaning and morality in the absence of God.

So what are our own values? Are these universal?