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Why I am an Atheist

Keep the Wonder, Lose the Faith

Why we are atheists

It lets you take the universe in the palm of your hand, and realise that you — a finite, fallible, weak human being — during your brief span as conscious entity on one tiny speck in a tiny solar system in one tiny, insignificant part of the cosmos, can comprehend at least part of an infinity of possibilities and beauties. Your mind can comprehend the gears and pulleys of the universe in all its wonder and splendour; you're like a cosmic engineer who's finally been given the keys to the boiler room of the totality of existence.

Awesome doesn't even come near that feeling.

OK, but suppose you're jaded? Suppose you're a cynic who's been fed on a daily diet of bland, meaningless pap until your senses have fallen to their knees and died, screaming?

Perhaps that last was a touch melodramatic, but the point remains; what's in it for you if you don't get that sense of cosmic awe?

Why should you choose to disbelieve if you're not so in love with the innate coolness of everything?

Because Atheism lets you be what you were born to be: a rational human being, capable of great joy, capable of making wonderful discoveries about the universe and everything in it. You can be a poet, a scientist, a writer or doctor — anything at all

You have the intellectual freedom to explore the inner workings of the world. As you start learning about the world around you, you'll probably find that you want to learn more and more. Freedom of any kind after a prolonged period of confinement creates a hunger, a desire to utilise that freedom any way you can.

People who have recently left prison frequently find a pleasure in the simplest things that the rest of us take for granted: eating when they want to, reading what they want to, being able to go out and get fresh air when they feel like it, sitting in the garden enjoying the sun.

People who have been in the prison of the intellect can only do one thing: learn. This is the mental equivalent of opening the front door and walking down the street to the crossroads — and walking wherever you want to go.

Religions discourage certain types of thought. That's a given. If the only way you know to understand the world is by saying "God did this," or "Evolution contradicts the Bible, and is false," or "The only way to salvation is through my religion," how can you let your mind develop to its fullest potential? You can't.

If your religion tells you that euthanasia, or abortion, or cloning, or birth control or reading certain books is wrong, how can you honestly say that you make any kind of decisions in your life? You can't; you didn't decide — you were told what to think, you were told what to be. Decisions involve thought. They may involve minimal thought, you may decide things on the spur of the moment, or on what your gut is telling you, but a least you have the option.

You may even reach the same conclusions as your church taught you. You may decide, after thinking about it, that abortion is wrong, that euthanasia amounts to murder, that cloning is dangerous, and that birth control denies the rights of future people to exist. That's fine — because you did it yourself. You used your brain and thought about it, and the brain is the only thing preventing us from being just another freaky species of ape.

Your ability to reason and think is what makes you special, they are what gives you value above everything else around you, they are what gives you value as a human being. Reasoning defines humanity, not the genes, or way we live or colour of our skin.

What else do you gain from Atheism?

You become personally responsible for your own deeds and actions — no god or devil made you do something. You did it yourself. This is tremendously empowering; the knowledge that you can change your world for the better is a heady and intoxicating brew. With this often comes a maturity; this isn't a given. No one is suggesting that all Theists are akin to children, blundering through the world with blinkers on. But when you finally realise that what you do is your own responsibility, that you can't pin the blame for it on some spiritual entity sitting on your shoulder, you begin to realise that your actions affect other people, for good or worse. This is the first step on the road to adulthood. Maturity isn't dependent upon getting older — it's dependent upon getting wiser.

No one is sitting up there judging you, either. No one is sitting on his throne and saying "Joe Bloggs masturbates! Off to Hell with him!" or "John ate pork and worked on the Sabbath! Satan, go and torment him for his sins!" before hurling a lightning bolt in a fit of pique.

You have freedom from unnecessary guilt, with Atheism; sin is a myth. The only crimes are hurting others or on the statute books. The invisible goblins of original sin or innate evil never existed; no man or woman is born evil, we can only become evil through our own choices.

Another commonly cited objection to Atheism is that it generally allows for no afterlife, that this life is all we have, that there is no hope for the future. This is a strength of Atheism rather than a weakness. As human beings, we live in the moment, and to hold out false hopes of some better place because of what we do during our lives on Earth is to deny that. We live in the moment, we enjoy life and feel so strongly because we only have one life. Death could come at any moment, life could cease. That is what makes life so precious: its fragility, the sense that it could end at any time. Instead of working towards some invisible reward after death, we can make the world better right now, in the moment we're living in. The world is a fantastic place, and to call it a mere waystation on the way to something else demeans and trivialises everything good and worthwhile within it. Religion tries to deny the reality of death, when the reality of death is, in effect, a way to make ourselves acknowledge that what we do and are is truly precious. Relegating life to a training ground for heaven cheapens it, and dehumanises everyone.

The only way heaven can be a real place is if we make it here on Earth, and the only way to do that is to recognise and salute the fact that we are mortal, fragile, ephemeral beings, and that we have a limited time here. Our span on Earth may be brief and fleeting, but we burn brighter because of it. A sunrise is only beautiful because it happens once a day; the same applies to a human life. We are beautiful and special creatures because we're not going to live forever. Atheism brings you to terms with your mortality, it allows you to embrace it as a fact and not be afraid. There is no final judgement, and no one spends an eternity suffering; the only judgement we receive is here, while we are alive. You only get one life, so you'd better make the best of it you can.

Atheism lets you become the best you be. All religions are aimed, directly or indirectly, at suppressing what it means to be a human being.

Only Atheism lets you have the freedom to be truly human — and what a wonderful thing that is.

By Mike, EvilTeuf. First published on The Atheism File

© 1999 - 2010 by Martin Willett.

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