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I read a comment today by someone who thinks "all self-named atheists actually believe in god," so I thought it would be fun to respond.
I'm 27 years old. I grew up in a Christian (Greek Orthodox) household with parents who believed but weren't nearly as into it as others. I asked the typical questions (why do bad things happen to good people, blah blah), and even remained faithful after my 13 year old cousin was killed by a drunk driver. It wasn't until several years later, while in college, after trying my best to defend my ever-weakening faith, that I had the brainstorm. Nobody convinced me - in fact, all of the arguments I'd heard against faith seemed silly to me. No, what convinced me was my own research into the workings of the universe and the history of god. In fact, the first book that really convinced me to stop believing wasn't even meant to do that.
It was The History Of God, by Karen Armstrong. She just plainly lays out the facts about where the story of the Judeo-Christian god came from, and it's very very very painfully clear when you see those facts that the god that modern Jews and Christians know and love is a conglomeration of pagan and pre-judaic gods sort of jumbled together. Not only that, but he's not even built very well. The holes and contradictions in the bible that people always notice but ignore actually exist because of how hastily this god was created. It's so blatantly obvious when you read the history that it's completely unbelievable that anyone would still believe he exists.
Now, we can contrast that with the idea of *a god* or *a supreme being*, which are kind of unnecessary to my worldview but are, as some have pointed out, completely unfalsifiable and therefore impossible to plainly say don't exist. I don't think they do; I don't see any reason to think they do. Most of the mysteries we attributed to miracles and gods, we can now explain. It's only a matter of time until that is the case for everything.
Some would say that takes the excitement out of existence, or that there's no point if we don't have a purpose, but to me, it's quite the opposite. If there's no supreme being, no rules that define conduct, no moral codes and ethics defined by some supernatural entity, then that means we've done this all on our own. The world isn't perfect, of course, but that's sort of the point, right? We have built our world, and we've made mistakes, and we've had triumphs and tribulations, but in the end, we're here. We are, in a sense, the universe becoming conscious. With a god causing all of that to happen, we wouldn't be able to attribute any of that to our ancestors working so hard and living through ice ages, predators, and who knows what else.
We've prevailed, and in my way of seeing things, we've done it on our own. I still, somehow, believe that we might even make it to some exciting future in which we don't even have to destroy the world to live on it, and we might even carry that ability to other worlds.
Basically, what I'm saying is: if you're a person of faith, don't dare to presume to know what it's like to feel the thrill of knowing your existence was a matter of happenstance, and that against all odds, your species made it to consciousness and love and science and philosophy without anyone's help. You couldn't possibly know what that's like, and I hope one day more people do. You're quite welcome to your faith, but leave me out of it, please.
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