I had my first experience as "coming out" as an Atheist. I say this lightly, as I have never been "in the closet" about being an Atheist. The topic came up at lunch, and somebody asked me what religion I was, and I simply said that I was an Atheist. I got a mix of reactions from the table, the worst being "An Atheist???" As though I just said I love torturing cute animals or something equally absurd. Keep in mind all my coworkers have science degrees and are several years into obtaining their PhD in chemistry. So they are scientifically trained. Anyways, this experience sent me into a spiral of thought again. And like always, I have far more questions than I do answers.
This confused me a little bit, because most of the people I am friends with range from non-religious to agnostic/atheist. To me, being an Atheist is the norm.
So I want to ask, why isn't everyone an Atheist? If the neutral position is pure Agnosticism (saying you simply don't know) and one can only choose Atheism or Theism after analyzing both arguments. Let me propose a hypothetical situation where somebody grew up and somehow remained perfectly ignorant of God and religion. They had just never pondered the idea of a supreme being and just accepted that they did not have explanations for how some things worked.
If we were to give that person an objective explanation of how things came to be from lets say, the 10 most popular religious explanations, and the most modern scientific theories (with the evidence and history of each story), how do you think that person would reject or accept each story? I think that person would value empiricism over myth any day. Why come up with a creation myth about God creating the world in 6 days when you have mountains of fossil and DNA evidence supporting evolution by natural selection sitting on your lap. There's just no need to create mythology when you have real world explanations based on evidence. It would be like somebody making up a myth today about how lightning works involving a godly pigg's butt when we already have a deep understanding of the physics behind electrostatic potentials and flow of electrons through ionized air, etc.
So, why isn't everyone an Atheist?
All this evidence and scientific information is available to every American citizen. There is no monopoly on this information, so why do people reject these explanations?
Is it because people don't value arguments based on analysis of empirical data? If so, why not? Why do they value arguments based not on empiricism? Do they have an emotional investment in the outcome? Often times emotional motivations lead to irrational behavior (I'm talking through experience on that one).
Is it simply ignorance? Not knowing that this information is available? Not caring about science? About explanations based on empiricism?
Is it our predisposition to give aspects of our experience meaning when there is no innate meaning in them? To humanize the non-human?
Is it the extreme gullibility that we are born with to accept what our elders say without question? And it just becomes so hard to break this mold as we age and reach the age of reason?
Is it fear of being rejected by our society? Afraid of being outcast by your friends and family for having different ideas?
Is not being part of a bigger, divine purpose just too depressing for some people to cope with? Is that narcissistic need for centrality to great of a force to accept that we are only different from monkeys by a couple million different DNA sequences in our genomes?
One argument or explanation that I've heard that makes me uneasy, because I don't understand it and have no experience of it is that "Believing in God isn't a choice for me, I live in the body of Christ and it enriches my experience". That explanation is so foreign and alien to me, that I am not sure how to approach it. So they are talking about achieving a mental state that is conductive to their overall well being. Even still, that mental state can be explained almost entirely by neuroscience through matter interaction. We have a good understanding of almost all of our brain functions on the chemical level except for consciousness.
God is a placebo, and people are emotionally invested in its application.
So to summarize, we don't need creation myths anymore. Yet we still have them, believe in them, and worship them. I ask why? not out of criticism, but out of sincere curiosity. If anybody knows the answer, I would love to hear it.
Science isn't perfect. Evolution will probably never be 100% truthful, and we may never know exactly how the big bang happened, or what happened before the big bang... but at least these explanations have some basis in reality. And that's infinitely better than just making things up and passing it along as truth.
Just remember... its okay to say "I don't know"
