Coming out to Play

I blame my sister for this post. Rachel commanded it, so I must do it.

I am an atheist. I do not believe in any gods.

You may believe I am completely misguided, and you are welcome to your belief. But understand that your experience, point of view, and mode of thinking differ from mine, and therefore you come to different conclusions than I do. I am not writing this post to convince anyone of anything. I'm writing simply to share my experience, and to explain the origin of my conclusions.

Likewise, this post is not a request for your convincing argument for the existence of your deity. I attended church for many years, I am reasonably well-versed in the Bible (ha! pun intended!), and I have come across nearly every argument for the existence of god and found them all insufficient.

I have not believed in any higher powers since I was quite young, although I did not admit it aloud until I was 18. As Rachel quite accurately expressed, in our family, belief in a deity was not optional. The particulars of said deity were negotiable, but belief in a god was mandatory if we expected to be a fulfilled individual. (Looking back, I realize that our family put the "fun" in "dysfunctional," and no member of our family, believer or otherwise, was fulfilled.)

I tried really hard to believe, but I found that I could not. Just like some people feel compelled to believe, I feel compelled to disbelieve. It is not a choice. I say with complete honesty that I do not and cannot believe in the existence of any gods.

In every other way, I am just like the majority of Americans. I feel love. I enjoy life. I want to feel accepted. I get angry sometimes. I obey the law (most of the time). I feel no compulsion to murder, cheat, or steal. I don't have horns or a tail. I try to be a responsible citizen of the world. The only difference is that I believe in one fewer god.

I am a scientist by nature, so I find myself questioning everything. Even as a child, I did not always believe what my elders told me. When things did not make sense, I was quick to notice.

One of the first things I noticed was that there are many religions that purport to be the One True Way. They can't all be the One True Way, since they are mutually contradictory. But how is one to know which one is true? After all, there are well-meaning, honest adherents of each religion. So it's not obvious that one way is truer than another.

But maybe all that means is that there is not One True Way. So why do I reject all religions? They don't make sense to me; they don't adequately explain life's mysteries and inconsistencies.

Social justice has always been important to me. One time when I was a pre-schooler, they had to call my mother out of the church service to calm me down. Why? Because we were playing Musical Chairs in Sunday School, and I thought the game was unfair, because there weren't enough chairs for everyone. So I threw a tantrum and refused to participate. My sense of justice has been refined since then, but fairness is still very important to me. I see all the suffering in the world, and it makes me angry.

No religion provides a convincing explanation for the existence of suffering. Why do children in impoverished countries starve to death? The best (and most just) explanation is that there is no omniscient, all-powerful, all-benevolent god. If there is no god, then the inequities in life are a product of chance. Chance is equally unfair to everyone, and I can handle that. I can't stand the idea that some people are somehow more deserving than others, or that some are made to suffer in order to learn some lesson. How morally perverse is it to believe that some people don't deserve food as much as others? And what kind of lesson does a child learn by starving to death? No, that innocent child is starving to death because chance placed her into that situation.

The fact that a given person suffers by chance does not absolve the rest of us of responsibility, however. While it is true that any given person's suffering is due to chance, the existence of suffering people is decidedly non-random. The inequitable situation leading to the child's death by starvation exists because of human activity. Since there is no higher power, it is up to us to right wrongs.

People often wonder why I should care about the other inhabitants of the earth. Is God the only reason that you care about others? I seriously doubt that most people would go on a killing spree if the existence of their deity were once and for all disproved, because love is part of what makes us human. Ultimately, love is a product of the chemicals in our brains, and its existence can be explained from an evolutionary perspective, but I don't think that the existence of a scientific explanation makes it any less powerful.

I find that a world unconstrained by higher powers instills me with hope. We are not pawns of a higher power. Real human beings can work together to find solutions to some of the world's most difficult problems. It frees us to think creatively, and use our diverse perspectives to everyone's advantage.