Why I Am an Atheist

I am an atheist, and therefore believe that Man created God, not vice-versa. I believe that Man created God out of powerlessness and despair, to give meaning to an existence which has seemed to be thrust upon him. God was created out of the fear of living and dying, for living can be very difficult and dying is a sorrowful mystery which early man needed comfort accepting.

God gives us hope, and religion deludes us into feeling that we, spinning on a little blue planet amongst the billions and billions of stars that make up our lifeless universe, are somehow protected by that universes creator. Man has always desired power over his own existence, and, although we may be able control and transform many of our natural surroundings now, throughout most of history man has been at the mercy of the elements. But by creating an entity that controls nature, and one that can be appeased through prayer and offerings, we gain some sense of power over nature, which can be a great psychological boost when facing disaster.

By giving humanity the decision to be faithful or unfaithful we are granting ourselves power. It would be most discomforting for primitive man to assume that he had no control over natural disasters or plagues or war. But if he was able to have some marginal control over these occurrences by pleasing or displeasing a supernatural power, then he would be given some solace. If my son is taken by smallpox, it was God's will, if the rains do not come and my crops will not grow then it must because I am not praying enough, if there is a tidal wave or a typhoon, it must be some deity showing his displeasure. Our suffering is not simply the occurrence of natural events that, at the time, we could not hope to understand or control, but some fault of our own that we will be able to rectify and therefore never again repeat.

God is also able to attenuate the great mysteries of the universe that are brought before us. Humanity has always been a species endowed with a natural curiosity, and if we do not have the tools to properly answer the questions life throws in our faces, then we will invent some. The unknown is a great fear to mankind, and we would gladly live blindly than see the shadows which cloud our unanswerable inquiries to the nature of existence.

Millennia ago when lightning struck, we searched for an explanation, and when none readily appeared we would assume that a great deity must be hurling lightning bolts toward our realm, or when there was an earthquake we assumed that some being must be displeased with us. Today science can answer many of the questions once prescribed to the domain of the supernatural, and so modern theologians must look to questions science has not been able to answer in order to fit God into the modern mindset.

Today, because we do not know exactly what caused the Big Bang, because we do not fully understand some aspects of evolution, because there are still some questions on the formation of human intelligence, because we cannot be sure about what comes after death, religion has found its niche within the intellectual community. Religion gives us hope, and so we will do anything and make any explanation to keep it in existence.

But just because we cannot explain certain aspects of how the world works or where we came from does not prove the existence of a deity. Just as natural occurrences were unexplainable before, these questions which puzzle our most astute scientists can eventually be solved through the use of reason and logic. By saying the God is somehow the cause of these phenomena sells ourselves short and takes the easy and road out when dealing with life's most difficult questions.

But the greatest source of my atheism derives itself from the nature of the world, and the nature of life. To survive, life must consume and make war on other life. For me to further my own existence I must end the life of other plants and animals, I must incorporate their own life force into my own. A lion must kill and eat a gazelle, a cow must kill and eat grass, moss covers and consumes trees. We fight to survive, and the law of nature is kill or be killed.

Now, I have no qualms about eating other creatures, but what kind of God would create a reality where life must destroy other life to continue its existence? If He had complete control of how the world would work and how life would survive, why would He create the types of natural laws which we are bound to? Why would he stick us here on this hunk of rock in the middle of space, without revealing himself to us, or, if he has, to only a chosen few?

Why would He leave us to untangle His true religion from the hundreds of others which have promulgated themselves over the centuries, to fight and quarrel amongst ourselves, die for what, His amusement? This is a brutal, harsh, and unforgiving universe in which we reside, and could not be the creation of a loving deity.