Do you believe in Santa Claus? If not, why not? Don’t you want someone to come down the chimney, bringing gifts, fun, family traditions, love, and goodwill? Why on earth would someone choose NOT to believe in Santa Claus?
Even our cats believe in Santa Claus, the yellow, fur dude puts a fresh rat under the tree almost weekly, but only in December. Why would anyone holding kindness and generosity as high virtues deny the existence of Jolly ole St. Nick?
It would seem, sadly, there is a reason. It is the exact same reason that you do not believe in Thor, Jupiter, Venus, and Scientology or Mormonism. There is just too many silly and nonsensical factors that ask of you to suspend what your senses and human brain tell you. That is why atheism is not a choice.
Only by staying in denial of the immensity of the Universe, or if one prefers, Multi-verse, could one believe in a being powerful enough to be the prime mover. The top-down creation theory is not evident. A bottom-up, from the atom to cell, to the person to the planet is in evidence in every object upon which you can look at this very moment.
There are up to four hundred billion stars in the Milky way alone. And there are surely more planets than stars if Sol is any indicator. Those who argue, that a being powerful enough to create this is also intensely alert of what just one species of primates does sexually is an absurdity.
Those believers do not seem to have a logical, empirical, reproducible body of evidence.
They have Holy Books, and it is entirely possible to think that these texts have been, at the very least, influenced by human beings.
People, who are loved, die. When they do it is nearly impossible for the human psyche to accept. People really, truly do sometimes NEED faith, but there is no dictate, scriptural or otherwise, that says that the faith has to be in something silly or illogical. Seeing that all death is a natural outcome of all life, on a cosmological scale, and on a cellular scale, allows for people to grasp that life is extremely, rare precious and fascinating. It is entirely wondrous, without being ascribed to Santa or Thor.
Being spiritual is not at all the same as being religious.
Most humans have been both at some time in their lives. Despair and hatred, as well as alienation, are why there is religion in the twenty-first century. It may have begun as a way to describe how Erebus and Ether created heaven and earth’s light, but what religion is now is a thought nuke that people invoke to justify their wars, exploitation, hatred, and intolerance.
This intolerance and exploitation extend to the very Goddess, Gaia, or Gaea, which originally was a revered creation in ancient Greece. Favored status always leads to injustice and exploitation. Embracing otherness leads to understanding and comprehension of natural, cultural and psychological laws. It is a law of biology that biodiversity makes life possible, verdant and healthy.
Love that unites humanity to live as if life mattered is the humanistic idea that so many people of faith feel threatened to hear about. They do not want to know that there is no life beyond this one, that they will not see loved ones again. They are so afraid of this being true that they squander the short and amazing possibilities they have to flourish in the present life.
Yet, this is not necessary. Of course, no one wants to be an atheist if atheists are reviled, scorned, un-elected, and generally hated. But what if instead of hating someone who is agnostic, atheist, pagan, or other, people chose to LOVE everyone? Or it they are too petty to nurture love, they could at least nurture tolerance.
Look out, planet earth. Like homosexuals, formally ostracised, but now allowed to marry, atheists are the next big bigot block to topple down into position for a stronger foundation upon which is built a better society.
