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The Rationale for Atheism
Atheists sometimes get a bad name. I’ve been an atheist for more than 50 years. It’s not that weird.
I consider myself an atheist, a freethinker, a scientist, a skeptic, and a secularist. As an atheist, I do not believe in the existence of any gods. I don’t know for certain whether there is a god, and neither does anyone else. Perhaps we all find out some day; perhaps we do not.
People may choose to believe in the existence of one or more gods because it gives them solace in difficult times, a feeling of purpose in life, a sense of community, comfort through the rituals of their church, a hope of eternal existence in some form, or an explanation for the universe. Many, I suspect, believe in god simply because that’s what they were taught as small children and they have always accepted it as truth without any evidence, investigation, or thought on their own.
I have never felt the need for a god for any of these purposes. I’ve never felt anything was missing in my life because I didn’t believe in, or feel the presence of, god. It’s not important to me whether I exist in some form after my natural death. This is the only life that I know for certain that I have (yes, even if we’re living in a computer simulation), so I will live it as well as I can instead of hoping for a fabulous but most likely nonexistent afterlife. Would I like to have my own eternal existence in my personal concept of heaven? Sure; who wouldn’t want all the wine they could drink and chocolate they could eat without consequence? But it doesn’t exist.
Skepticism
As a scientist and a skeptic, I trust in evidence and rational thought over faith and belief. Faith simply is not a part of my psychological makeup. I have never seen any evidence for the existence of god. There is precisely as much reliable evidence for the existence of god as there is for Santa Claus, unicorns, tree spirits, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster: zero.
While there’s a great deal that people don’t understand yet about ourselves, life, and the universe, I do not feel a need to invoke a supernatural explanation for any of it. It is possible that ultimately there will be some limit to natural knowledge and that certain aspects of existence must…
