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Why I am an Atheist (updated)
Why Atheism?
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I have been thinking about this a lot recently, trying to remember how I thought before I was an atheist, did I really believe? I had taken Confirmation a couple of months earlier, I had become a full member of the Church of England. I had proclaimed my belief in God the father almighty, maker of heaven and Earth and his son Jesus Christ. I had said it. I had wanted to believe that I believed it. But I didn't. I honestly didn't, but I was trying hard. |
Children are born atheists. They are born without any belief in the afterlife and any supernatural forces; and without the knowledge that their country is the best country on Earth, and their race is the best race. Children are empty vessels which the parents and the rest of society proceeds to fill up with prejudices and unfounded beliefs.
As a child I never felt that I could talk to God when I said my prayers. I never felt that anybody was listening. I knew I was wasting my time. I did not know why the world around me existed but I was not convinced that it was all there in order to test my soul before I went to heaven. I stopped believing in religion first. It was such an obvious waste of time. I realized that I had no faith, in anything. I realized that faith was simply lying to yourself. Lying was wrong. I did believe in right and wrong, but not good and evil. I didn't like the idea of Hell, but I did not believe in it. How can you be scared of something you don't believe in? I did not want to die but I knew that death was just the end of self-awareness and the animation of the body. I knew that the question "what happens to you after you are dead?" was meaningless. It was a question that could be asked but the answer was not worth the effort of thinking about it.
I knew that the self that I am is just the product of my brain activity. Death is the ending of that activity and so therefore is the end of the self. Is that hard to grasp? I found it to be virtually self-evident. The idea of life after death was a non-starter. Death is the irreversible ending of mental processes, the self dies with the body. I knew my heart was just an organ and I knew the soul was just a mythical abstraction of the self. Maybe I could not have expressed it quite as clearly as I can now but that little boy you see in that picture knew all this.
I was born an atheist to a family of Christians. They got the upper hand for a brief time and convinced me that I wanted to believe in their God. I said the words, I hoped to believe, I tried to believe. Then a little later I saw sense. Lots of people tried to make me a Christian. Nobody tried to make me an atheist. I am very proud of my atheism, it is all my own work.
If there was one person I could thank for helping me become happy as an atheist it must be David Attenborough. The tremendous BBC television programs he made in the 1970s helped me to realize that the fundamental mystery at the heart of the human situation was no mystery at all. It was understandable. Evolution was the key. Now my strongest guiding light is Richard Dawkins, his rational view of the world is so refreshing and stimulating. I can honestly say that I have never looked back and regretted the decision I made. I have on a number of occasions noted how my lack of belief and faith has made things difficult for me but the strength I have gained has made it all worthwhile. I can face it all. I have something much more powerful than blind faith, I can take it all in at face value and check it through against my own world view and change my mind. I am free to be uncertain, free to be wrong, free to improve my thinking further.
What I do not have is the inner glow of "knowledge of God" that can distort my view of the world and make me happy against the grain of my experiences. That feeling is illusion. I prefer my reality straight, as unfiltered as I can mange. I had never been as certain of my Christian beliefs as I was of my new atheistic beliefs. Not that Christian dogmas were my beliefs, they were the beliefs I was told to have. "Suffer little children to come unto me..." I had suffered, I was taken and made to hear the message. I heard it, understood it fully (at least as well as 95% of any Church of England congregation member), and rejected it. I can never respect the views of any person who simply absorbs the culture they happen to be born into and then takes it on as their own, give me a convert any day. It would be a much more exciting dinner party with a Maoist from Arkansas and a Baptist from Beijing than vice versa.