Replacing Religion

How are we to frame our existence if religion as we know it (at least the Abrahamic religions) is bunk?  What are we to do?  How should we live?  As a recently converted agnostic, I have experienced the incredibly horrifying (but temporary) feeling of vulnerability that comes with such a conversion:  feeling scared, lost, and somehow untethered, as if floating in space when I was once anchored to sure-footing.  Nevertheless, I had to embrace reality.  What other option is there except insanity or delusion?

So I studied, searched, examined, and reexamined.  Luckily, I was directed toward the ever interesting Ayn Rand who, although certainly flawed, founded a philosophy of life that is truly fulfilling.  One need only to read her works to find direction toward realizing that a person is individually worth as much as the next, and that the purpose of one's life should be the achievement of one's own rational happiness.

What the hell does this mean?  Read Rand's works.  I sure as hell cannot explain it as competently as she.  But the idea is that Man is the highest value, not the lowest.  That he is innately valuable, and that his life should be focused on his own rational fulfillment.  Life is a positive thing, and Man should enjoy it.  He is not born condemned as he is under the Abrahamic religions.  There is no such thing as Original Sin.  Man is his own end.

Man finds himself alive.  He finds that life can be fulfilling, so he seeks to achieve fulfillment.  And he needs no sanction to validate his life.  The fact that he lives is his own validation.  

"I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being.  I am the warrant and the sanction." - Ayn Rand