I have been asked, “Why are you an atheist?” This question has not been asked in a rude or aggressive manner, it has been (I think) an honest request for information. The short answer is, “I see nothing in the universe which cannot be explained naturally.” Fine. But how did I arrive at that idea?

The first source for this idea is my father (who (I think) is a deist and an active member of a Unitarian Church (he was even a church elder for a year (and has given a couple of ‘sermons’))). After a stretch in the Marines (between Korea and Vietnam (smart man)), he used his GI Bill to study geology at Tufts University. Then he joined the National Park Service and became an interpreter (same job I have).

One of the perks of growing up in the park service was, well, growing up in the park service. I lived at Death Valley for three years, and Grand Canyon for five (both places are heaven for a geologist). We were also able to travel widely throughout the southwest and every vacation (at least once per trip, usually once per day) he launched into ‘lecture mode’ (I do this to my family, too). His running commentary (whether driving or backpacking) on the geology immersed me at an early age in the idea that, even if the explanation is hidden, there is a logical explanation for natural phenomena.

I, like most kids, went through a dinosaur stage. Unfortunately, this was back in the days when the library books still focused on the ‘failures’ of dinosaurs — big, slow, dumb, lethargic, etc. I switched to history, but I still read extensively in palaeontology and evolutionary biology. The books that I read have reinforced the same lessons that my father taught me: natural events have natural explanations.

Even though I went from theist, to deist, to universal deist over a period of some 40 years, I never doubted the idea of natural explanations. I have, over the years, had many, many, many run-ins with theists who were (are) neck-deep in the shit of belief.

At Grand Canyon, we had an assembly at the school. A story-teller came in and was brilliant. The last story that he told was a very beautiful (well, I was in fourth (?) grade at the time and I still remember the story fondly) retelling of Genesis. His imagery, his timing, his vocabulary, was perfect. After the show, as we walked back to class, I mentioned that the last story was a fun myth. Oops, I stepped in the shit of belief (first time I can remember getting my feet dirty in that particular type of shit). He told me that that is what actually happened; that’s how the earth was created. I laughed and lost a friend. Of course, he laughed his ass off when one of the Hopi students explained his creation myth. Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot.

In Maryland, in middle school (Marylandese for Junior High), one of our biology units focused on biology. There was a neat demonstration of ‘survival of the fittest’ (and I know that survival of the fittest is a very limited description of evolution) using red, yellow, blue and green toothpicks. We were to scattered them on the ground and then the other three people in the group would, in a short time, pick up the toothpicks one at a time. The idea was that the yellow and red toothpicks would be picked up quickly (a detrimental mutation), and the green and blue would be harder to find. One of the girls in my group said, “We get to be God. Let’s make the red ones survive ’cause I like that colour.” I tried to explain that evolution does not work that way. I got shouted down by my group (and the three around us). It was a good lesson for me, on more than one level.

Then there was the biology teacher who stated, at the beginning of class, “The state says I have to cover evolution. It’s in chapter XX in your textbook. I know evolution is a lie to destroy humanity. If you want to risk your soul and read about it you may, but it will not be talked about again in my classroom. There. I covered evolution.” There were only three of us in the class who, within a week, had read that chapter.

There was a very aggressive Christian on my paper route and he tried, every time I collected money, to convert me. When he found out I ‘believed’ in evolution, he laughed and said that it was all based on a pig tooth found in Nebraska. I was unprepared at the time (I was, like, 13?) to argue that the case of Niobrara man actually shows how well science works: one man made a mistake, other palaeontologists and anthropologists found the error, and it was corrected. In the 1920s.

These are just three of the many, many run-ins I have had with theists (oddly, they have all been Christians (must be a coincidence)). Every run in has only reinforced the lessons of my father.

I am an atheist because I trust in the natural error correction mechanisms of the scientific method. I am an atheist because the natural explanation, being the only explanation which is in any way provable, is the most logical (not necessarily the simplest). I am an atheist because, thanks in large part to my childhood experiences, I see nothing in the natural world, solar system, galaxy or universe which cannot be explained through natural processes.

So I am a naturalistic atheist, not a philosophical atheist, right? Well, that brings up the second reason I became an atheist: my study of history (well, I guess history is philosophy, right?).

I started college as a computer science/computer engineering/mathematics major. I was good at the math. I understood the math. I hated the math. I couldn’t picture what the numbers were saying. So I decided to switch to something I enjoy (I would worry about a career later) and became a history major.

In my study of history, I have noticed that no war has existed independent of the idea, “God is with US!!” Never mind that both sides make the same claim. Whether it is the “Gott mit unns!” of Gustav II Adolf, or “Jesu-Maria” of Tilly’s imperial troops at Breitenfeld, both sides professed that god had a personal interest in their victory (at least Gustav’s Finnish cavalry were honest about it: their battle cry was “Haakaa Paalle” — Hack them Down!). The Spanish Armada had god on their side (not to mention mediocre ships, few long range guns, no fresh water, and not enough ammunition).

Throughout history, priests (of every religion) have blessed the troops going off to battle and asked the god(s) for aid. The Athenians asked Athena for victory. The Romans asked for help from Mars. Young men going Viking got help from Odin. The Aztecs fought the flower wars to provide food for the gods. The list goes on, ad nauseum.

If the Spartans defeat Athens, does that mean Athena was weak? Or does it mean that the Athenian economic colonialism was a poor economic model? Were the German gods more powerful than the Roman ones in the forests of Germany? Did the Aztecs defeat the Spanish because their gods were so well fed? Or did the Spanish have the advantage because they ate their god?

Even the Communist states asked for help from their ‘god’ — the god of economic and social inevitability through the socialist dialectic (I view communism as a religion because it asks for its adherents to believe in impossibilities — the elimination of greed and government).

The more that I studied history, the more I realized that ‘god’ was just another tool used by the politico-military structure to give heart to the ordinary soldier. Whether the generals and kings believed that god was on their side or not is immaterial. It was still just another bunch of propaganda shoved down the throats to make the victims more willing to kill.

Natural philosophy (geology, palaeontology, evolution) convinced me that there is no evidence for god. The study of history has reinforced that conviction while also making me areligious. When I look at the religious wars of history (and even wars (such as the Hundred Years War) between peoples of the same religion (all Christians) becomes a religious war (you aren’t doing it right, so I kill you!)) I realize that, no matter why religion developed, it becomes yet another tool in the box to convince one set of peons to kill another set of peons.

So, Dr. Myers, you asked for a short piece titled “Why I Am an Atheist.” So I failed the short part, but this really is, to the best of my recollection, why I am an atheist.

Ogvorbis
United States

Growing up in Zimbabwe presented many challenges. Calling anyone “middle class” was a joke – you were either filthy rich, struggled to make ends meet or were so poor words could not begin to describe it. My family was part of that second group – we lived comfortably, but only just. I’m an ex-fourth generation Seventh-day Adventist, which, considering that Adventism has been in Zimbabwe for about four generations is really something. One thing I can truly thank my parents for is that they never compromised on my education. My brothers and I always went to private school, even if it meant we had to cut back on a few luxuries to do so. I was also always very inquisitive, very much a nerd and had a deep love for science that my mother encouraged. I read a lot of books, particularly about physics, astronomy and dinosaurs so questions were inevitable. I was an introspective child, though, so I tended to keep those questions to myself and try to figure things out on my own.

At twelve I was baptised into the church. I think this was the turning point at which I began to come to terms with reality, because it forced me to examine what I believed and why I believed it, where previously I could just drift along and pretend there was no conflict between my faith and my aspirations to be a scientist. It wasn’t an easy journey, but less than eight months later, I came to the conclusion that God as envisioned by any Earthly religion does not exist. I still thought a higher being of some kind was possible, and so became somewhat of an agnostic.

The biggest problem I had at this stage of my life was that I had nothing concrete to fill the gap my faith left behind. One practical upshot of my country and my family’s financial state was that I had no access to the solid facts I needed – I had no access to the internet and what little I did know came from the now too vague books I could access from the kids’ section of the library. I was growing ever more hungry for knowledge, and would gobble up any little morsel I could get, regardless of quality. In time, this led me to a brush with pseudoscience no better than the faith I had recently forsaken.

Rifling through some old books at my grandmother’s house, I found a bunch by a certain fellow called Erich von Daniken. They had the words “stars” and “space” in them , so reading was a no-brainer. What I read had me instantly hooked. Soon, I was proclaiming to all my friends how aliens had visited us in ages past and imparted us with intelligence. I was rattling off every single piece of “evidence” E vD presented – the Piri Reis map, the Ica stones, the Nasca lines, Puma Punku – with the utmost confidence that I’d finally found the truth. E vD did an excellent job of pretending to have that which I had been looking for all along – good, solid facts. His book “Miracles of the Gods” also fit in with the pseudo-mystical approach I had taken, and this led into a brief but retrospectively embarrassing flirtation with the Law of Attraction.

It was this phase, in which I wholeheartedly accepted such nonsense as is contained in “The Secret” and “What the Bleep Do We Know” that led to me taking another deep look at my beliefs. I noticed that all my “positive thinking” and meditating on the things I desired was getting me nowhere, and I started really thinking about how this actually worked. I realised that all this talk of “qantum-this” and “quantum-that” was simply a different term for the magic I used to believe in when I was still Christian. It did not take long for the rest of my belief in the supernatural to disappear, and eventually any concession of the possibility of the existence of a deity went down the drain as well.

I remember the first time I ever referred to myself as an atheist. I had just moved to a new school in Botswana. We were in a class Guidance and Counselling session and the counsellor asked me what religion I belonged to. Right there and then, I realised – much as I had once reviled those who were so “close-minded” as to outright deny the existence of a god, I had become one of them. With newfound conviction in my voice, I proudly answered, “I’m atheist.” This was early in 2009, and I was 16, going on 17.

Perhaps not very oddly enough, I still lent some credence to Erich von Daniken’s hypotheses. I would think to myself, “Okay, maybe he got the metaphysics wrong, but some of his facts must be right.” I was also very critical of vocal atheists, even once writing a letter bashing Richard Dawkins over his hope that creating a cross between a human and chimp would end religion to the South African edition of Popular Mechanics. The Internet changed both these things, however. The Skeptic’s Dictionary in particular demolished von Daniken’s hypotheses, while reading of all the abuses to freedom that religion continues to perpetrate underscored the importance of activism to me.

I take a pragmatic view of the circuitous route I took to becoming rational: if it weren’t for it I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t have experienced first hand how harmful and limiting believing in lies can be, and wouldn’t be so passionate about eliminating them. It’s not my lack of belief in gods that I count as my most important trait, though. I value being a rationalist because I choose to think, a skeptic because I choose to question, a humanist because I have compassion for my fellow man and have an unbridled love for the cosmos that drives me to achieve my dream of becoming an astrophysicist. It is from this dream that I draw the deepest meaning for my life: that of discovery, and questing to understand the universe we live in.

Jabu M
Botswana

Between making a couple videos on the Creation Museum following the 2009 trip to the Creation Museum with the SSA and running the largest atheism group on Facebook with 10,000 members, I believe I have question to answer: why I am an atheist.

I suppose it begins with nothing short of nature itself. I grew up in the hills of Kentucky. I shan’t hesitate to say that the hills of Kentucky are a lovely place – in stark contrast to everything else in Kentucky, which is pretty much the exact opposite of lovely. I spent plenty of time in the wilderness, observing the various forms of life, taking in the smells and the sounds, laying down and watching the sky. It was always regrettable when I had to put down the science books as a young child to attend the churches, which never felt quite right to me. Regardless of what I was told, something was critically wrong with the things they said. The loving Jesus message was nice, but the not-so-loving message of hell seemed a drastic affront to the idea of love.

The explanation that a loving Lord would punish people like me, who had done no other wrong than existing or doubting, seemed contrived, to say the least.

My parents were loyal southern Baptists and still are. One morning in my youth, prior to the age of ten, I was looking out our sliding doors, taking in the amazing sights of a Sunday morning. The birds could be heard loudly chirping, deer could be heard walking the hills, the sun was just about to break free from the hills and show itself to everyone. My admiration of nature’s overwhelming beauty was thoroughly broken when my father leaned a hand against the glass and mentioned some jazz about the beauty of god’s creation. Of course, something about the beauty of god’s creation seemed off. In my time, I had found dead birds, miscellaneous animal carcasses in the woods, and seen with my own eyes bugs fighting it out as a matter of life and death.

God’s creation, while beautiful, also struck me at times as particularly brutal and outright dangerous, depending on what you are. As a human, you don’t have many problems – bears and snakes – but as an animal or insect, you had a great many problems day by day. The contrast of such striking beauty with suck striking brutality was not, and is not, lost on me. Quite the opposite: there was more brutality than beauty, and the beauty was often a superficial facade which seemed to protect us from the reality of the other creatures in god’s creation.

Increasing scientific knowledge did nothing to quell my views on god’s creation. Seeing as my favorite star was eight thousand light years away, knowing that a light year is how far light travels in a year, knowing that my favorite star was at least eight thousand years old – and most likely far, far older – only made this doubt of god’s creation grow. Especially in a world where creationists and fundamentalists, a great part of the United States population (40%, as late), tend to believe the world is six thousand years old. If my favorite star were eight thousand light years away, and the oldest known sources of light were over thirteen billion light years away, what was the rationale for believing that the world were six thousand years old?

Only a book written by bronze age goat herders.

Noah’s ark I viewed as especially unlikely. Knowing the vast amount of species that exist, knowing that there were many more than I could ever know about, one hundred plus year old man and his family were unlikely to collect them all, build a boat the size of the Titanic that could last forty days on the water or hold all of these animals, how likely was this event to have occurred? Not at all, I came to realize very quickly.

So by twelve, the seeds of doubt had been well sewn. Before too long, I was headfirst into scientific research on every major topic I could cover. I saw vast amount of evidence for the science, and with that, less and less for creationism. By thirteen, I was an atheist in every aspect but title. It took two additional years to come out of the closet, but in the six years since (I’m twenty one at present), I have learned much more than I could have dreamed about how the universe works. Much more than my peers, much more than my family. I grew to realize that creationism held one back from reality as it was, and I grew to loathe it more and more as I went. I suppose, though I leave people to themselves, generally, I have become a stern anti-theist. 9/11 and the hysteria surrounding it certainly didn’t help keep me on the so-called ‘righteous’ path, and I wouldn’t have life any other way. There is no amount of ignorance that could satisfy my sheer lust for knowledge, and ever more of it.

While I learned much about willful ignorance from the Creation Museum, I can’t help but wonder how this life, a life of unknowing, is satisfying for anyone who has a great lust for knowledge, information, science, and truth. I cannot look at creationists with a sense of hatred, dislike, or what have you, but I do look at them and their kind with a great feeling of sadness and pity. I pity creationists. They deserve it.

In addition, my whole life I’ve had one key struggle that was in drastic opposition to my faith and the faith of my parents. My whole life, I have been well aware that I didn’t feel like the other boys I knew. That when I looked in the mirror, I was different. That I was wrong. My body was wrong. Some of my greatest early Christianity struggles, going back as far as I can remember, took place as the result of my feelings that I should have been born as the opposite sex.

As a male to female transsexual, I always pondered how I were supposed to be a Christian and live a life directly opposed to the gospels. How was I supposed to live happily as a female if the Bible condemns something such as the simple act of wearing the opposite gender’s clothes? I wouldn’t think it far out in the least that a good bit of my Biblical skepticism came from knowing that the way I felt was condemned, yet I never made a choice, nor asked for anything like what I had received from my earliest memories on. It had always been there, known to me, accepted by me, yet condemned by the religion I was raised into and by the people I had grown to love.

I still struggle with transsexuality, though on the basis of my family’s beliefs being in direct contrast to it. I will not be stopped by the faith of my fathers, but the pain caused by them is indeed very considerable. I hold religion itself in contempt for marginalizing people like me. My growing sympathy with homosexuals didn’t help their case, either. I figured out that if I felt this way naturally, so did the homosexuals, who were so demonized and hated… and that is simply unforgivable.

So why am I an atheist?

Nature. Science. Reality. Skepticism. Transsexualism. Lust for knowledge. A critical mind. No satisfaction in ignorance.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Michael Baizley
United States