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| I cannot speak for all atheists. Atheism is not a religion, so not all atheists share the same beliefs. The one belief that every atheist shares is disbelief in all gods. As far as the origin of life is concerned, I see evolution as the best explanation that anyone has yet put forward. (Notice I say "yet put forward," because I never know what will be discovered in the future.) However, I differ from most people in that I believe that evolution occurred by chance and no divine being controls or started evolution. The odds might seem staggering, but the evidence to support my belief is how many extinct species that evolution has produced. Also, note that animals (and people) have features that are no longer necessary, such as a human tail bone, the useless appendix formerly for digesting raw meat, and hints of ancient gills in the back of the mouth. If God controls evolution, and God knows everything, wouldn't God just not give people these things that they no longer need? People often ask me why I am an atheist. Sometimes I have the chance to explain that I am an atheist not because I know there is not a god, but because I do not believe there is. If someone insisted that their pet fish could talk, I really couldn't say I knew it didn't, especially if I could not go and see for myself, but it would still be fair for me to say that there are no talking fish. The relevance of this is that I do not believe God exists any more than I believe fish can talk. Certainly, I have not examined all species of fish, nor every single fish for that matter, nor could I ever accomplish such a feat, but the claim that they exist is so contrary to my own personal experience and reliable facts that I simply will not believe it unless very definitive proof is provided. Of course, if I visit someone's pet fish and it talks to me, I am still wiser to test the possibilities of trickery or insanity before believing it can really talk. But if I found many fish that talked, trustworthy people confirmed it, scientists published carefully researched papers about them, and newspaper headlines read "INCREDIBLE DISCOVERY: TALKING FISH!" then it would be more than reasonable to believe that they existed. No one really disputes such common sense, until it is applied to religion. I have never seen or talked to a god, nor seen a god do anything unmistakably godlike. People insist that they know one exists, but most of them really say they only feel it, and do not offer any other proof. Indeed, it is odd that even the believers brand those few who honestly offer the more genuine proof of actually hearing god talk insane, Believers are probably right about that, but their own "feeling" that a god exists isn't any more persuading to me. Anyone might "feel" that fish could talk, but that wouldn't mean it were so, nor would that be a very reliable way to know it was true even if it was. People still say there are billions of witnesses to God's existence, but since the vast majority of them only "feel" that god exists, even trillions of witnesses would not count for much. I am astonished how many people think that if the Earth stopped rotating we would all fall off into space--they just "feel" intuitively that this is true, even though the exact opposite would happen. (People at the equator would actually gain a few pounds.) I agree that billions of people "feel" god exists, but feelings are only evidence of what lies in our hearts and dreams. Feelings do not tell us much about reality outside of ourselves. Furthermore, many people believing something does not make it true. In the Middle Ages, there was a widespread belief that bloodletting cured sickness. All of these people were not just wrong, but horribly wrong, because, in fact, bloodletting made people sicker. Clearly, the popularity of an idea is no guarantee that it is correct. Why do I think this way? It seems almost silly to ask such a question. Does it really make sense to base your beliefs on things for which you have no good evidence? "Faith in God" is not the same as belief in science or friends or even everyday assumptions like "a fish did not write this essay." Having faith that you believe in something astoundingly incredible that is both unproved and unprovable is true. That is simply not reasonable to me. I maybe never base my beliefs on such stretches of imagination, because it so easily leads to error and self-deception. Though my heart may tell me many useful things about me, only my mind has anything useful to say about the outside world. Moreover, it tells me that God, like talking fish, is the grandest of fictions. Since I have always lived my life with meaning and joy, without needing a belief in God or an afterlife, I know that such beliefs are unnecessary. And I have also personally encountered hundreds of other people who find ample meaning in life without needing to believe in God or Heaven, so I know I am not just a fluke of nature. So when anyone asks me why I am a freethinker, I usually start off with the short answer: it is not necessary or reasonable to think any other way. As a freethinker, if any believer tries to argue that you cannot prove a god does not exist, simply ask them to prove this was not written by a fish. Maybe then they will begin to understand. I hope that you don't think that I'm trying to force you into believing as I believe. It is quite the contrary, actually. I am just explaining what I believe and why I believe it. |
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