A world view is a set of guidelines that provide ideas and directions on how a person should live their life, what their priorities should be, and often provides answers or theories to answer many of life's more complicated questions.

For example, Christianity is a world view. It suggests not only guidelines for how one should live their life (i.e. in service to "God") but it seeks to answer many currently unanswerable questions such as why and how was man created? Religious philosophies provide explanations as to humans' meaning and purpose in life, as well as specific instructions on how they might live day-to-day and what is and is not appropriate and morality behavior.

In contrast, Atheism is not a world view. It does not seek to define complex questions such as, "What is the meaning of life?" or "How were we created?" It merely is a position on a particular issue. A lack of belief in any particular unproven claim of a supernatural entity.

There are atheistic world views however, such as humanism.