What is an Atheist?

I’ve read and listened with interest over the years to articles about religion.  As I age, I have become more skeptical about organized religion to where I believe it has a deleterious affect on our culture.

With this in mind, decided to start this blog.  I am one of the 20% of Americans who does not believe in a God or does not prescribe to a traditional religion.  I am your neighbor, co-worker and, trust me, fellow church member.  This first article will be focused on what I am and am not.  By me telling you this, I will admit I cannot speak for all Atheists, but there are some common threads in what we believe and how we came to this point in our lives.

First of all, we do not worship the Devil.  That would be odd, since we do not believe in the Devil.  While I am on this topic, you can wish me to go to Hell, burn in Hell, condemn me to Hell, hope all my extended family goes to Hell or wherever you wish to assign Atheists to a certain horrible eternity.  Again, we don’t believe in Hell.  These sentiments are not really an insult but simply a mindless opinion from primarily Christians who have accepted a theocratically limited outlook and imagination.  We do however believe in evil and evil people in the living form.  People are mean to each other and this pains me and other Atheists as much as it pains any fervent Church attendee.  The very recent events in Colorado and Wisconsin were ghastly and incomprehensibly cruel.  I am constantly amazed at how the human psyche can become so twisted as to perform such acts.  In the case of the Sikh murders, this is another example American racism and religious prejudice taken to a horrible extreme.

What do we believe in?  What finally did it for me was the fact that religion requires a belief in a supernatural being that is up there somewhere directing our lives.  In my five odd decades on this earth, I have never seen nor heard of a supernatural event that defied the laws of physics.  It simply has not happened.  As science has progressed, religion has seen fit to keep up and attempt to prove God’s worth in some new and creative way.  Evolution is one the most enduring scientific principles ever put forth.  Each passing year brings more evidence of how profound Darwin was.  In response, religion keeps reinventing the bible and God to describe new ways to wage cultural combat against the overwhelming evidence that Evolution is fact.  In my lifetime, the biblical age of the earth has gone from about 10,000 years to around 14 billion.  About 30 years ago, God was reported to have created everything essentially as it is today in a period of seven days.  Now what is it?  Just make your mind already.

Atheists look out into the universe and into the smallest dimensions with awe and no limitation.  We don’t come to the end of our knowledge and say something to the effect, “I don’t know so I’ll just believe God did it.”  We non-believers have made tremendous strides in the understanding of what we are and I know truth is in our favor and sensibility will continue to win out.  Do we have all the answers?  Absolutely not.  However, the big and most important difference is rather than stopping and saying, “God did it” we say, “I want to learn more.”  This breaks down barriers and makes life fascinating.