Atheism Q & A

Author note: From what I've gathered, a lot of people think of Atheists as criminals or people with no morals. I don't believe in God. But I'm just a regular guy, and I feel it is my responsibility to be vocal that I am an Atheist so that people can see that we aren't all murderers and rapists. We are scientists, accountants, graphic designers, that dude you see on the subway a few times a week. I write about Atheism not in an attempt to convince everyone there is no God, and not to say that you are stupid if you believe in something I don't (because I totally understand why over 90% of the people on the planet believe in some form of God), but to express an average guy's Atheist point of view.

Here are a couple of questions I tend to get once someone finds out I am an Atheist.

Q: Isn't it depressing?

A: Well, no. I think everyone thinks that if there is no God, that all of the meaning is taken out of life. Like this is all some big audition for heaven, and if you don't believe in God, that it means that this is all just a big waste of time. Well, firstly, I don't think the absence of God makes our time on Earth any less amazing. The odds that things would happen the way they did are pretty astounding. And once you stop believing in God, they become even more amazing. Once you accept that we weren't put here by a creator, the odds of human life evolving from almost nothing is totally mindblowing. We are all made of earth. We all tend to think of our bodies as some sort of special vessel, but no, we are made of the chemicals of earth. You know how you start as a baby, and then you grow? It isn't magic. All of the food you eat turns into human being. We are all composed of the same atoms that have always been here and always will be here. Another amazing thing is that there is no difference between an atom from a living being and any other atom. No part of us is made up of some special 'living material'. Atoms float around and join our bodies constantly, and other ones break off and become part of the air, and there is no difference between any of it. I could go on and on about how often my mind is blown by the basic science of life, but I won't. The point is: I think the fact that we are all here on earth is way more amazing when you take God out of the picture.

Q: But isn't it depressing not believing in heaven?

A: No. Not really. I guess it is kind of like finding out that at the end of your four years in college you found out that you weren't going to get a degree. You just got the education. It would be disappointing, but you still learned everything you were going to learn in college, you just don't have the piece of paper proving it. If you found during your freshman year of college that you weren't going to get a degree at the end, would you just want to drop out? Or would you go through with it all anyway, just for the education and experience?

I stopped believing in an afterlife a while ago, and while it can be disappointing at first, in the same way as when you finally accept that Santa Claus doesn't exist, once you accept it, knowing that there is no afterlife just forces you to appreciate the importance of your every day life. We aren't just killing time before a big party in the sky. This is it. So you'd better make sure you are satisfied with what you do here and how you spend your life. If you spend your life doing something you love and you surround yourself with people that make you happy, then it isn't depressing at all. Unfortunately, not everybody In that respect, it can be pretty heartbreaking for me to see how many poor people turn to God as their big hope. I can understand that if my life totally sucked, I would be comforted by the idea that this life sucks, but man, when I get to heaven, it's going to be kickass. But no, it really isn't. [A quick side note: When you think of those 9/11 hijackers, isn't it a good thing to believe there is no heaven? I think since we live in a country that is almost entirely Christian, everyone takes for granted that the terrorists aren't going to heaven, but pretend that Allah was the true God and that those bombings earned all of those guys 77 virgins. Wouldn't that be infuriating?] So stop praying to the image of the Virgin Mary in your grilled cheese, and start sleeping in on Sunday.

Q: If you don't believe in God, what stops you from just going out and killing everybody?

A: Okay, I have never actually been asked this, but it is a common question/attack that comes from the religious right, and I thought I would answer it myself: Are people really that cynical of human nature that they think that the threat of hell is the only thing keeping everyone from living in absolute lawlessness? Isn't that why people use the phrase "God-fearing" to reference 'good people'? Just because I'm not afraid of God doesn't mean I don't have a conscience. In fact, I think most atheists just live by the old golden rule. I don't want to negatively affect the lives of others, because again, if this is all there is, for me and for them, it would be even more cruel of me to go around caring only about myself. In fact, I think anyone who would ask this question is the one we should really be afraid of.