While many people still believe atheism, or the rejection of the belief in any sort of deities, is a sin, this is becoming an attractive option for many people. There are many reasons to embrace atheism and many things to keep in mind, which include:
1. Freedom to choose which beliefs and morals fit you personally.
Every person’s life is different; why buy into a packaged philosophy that tells you everything from ethics to metaphysics to etiquette if you’re not living the same life as the next person? Atheism gives you the freedom to decide what you personally think is a moral action and what isn’t (and why you think that way).
2. You can appreciate the world for how it is.
You don’t have to be thinking about how this is a vice and that is a vice and so, therefore, you should structure your life like this.
You can sit back and let things happen as they will, without worrying so much about whether or not it will get you damned for all eternity.
3. You don’t need proof to be an atheist.
And if gods exist and you’ve lost your faith in them, who is to blame but those very deities, for not being more upfront about their existence?
4. When things go wrong, you have to take responsibility for it, and when things go right, you get to take credit for it.
The latter is obviously pleasing to most people; the former helps people act like adults and work in the world, because if you don’t take responsibility for things in your life and are in the habit of blaming bad things on whims of some nebulous fate, you may have a difficult time getting ahead.
5. Being an atheist does not mean you’re immoral.
This is an important thing to keep in mind because many religious folks would say that atheism equates to a lack of morals. On the contrary, it doesn’t take any sort of deity to make a person want to be friendly with their neighbor or to help out people in need, and atheists doing so aren’t doing so only to earn brownie points in the afterlife.
6. You don’t need to feel guilty.
You can do things you want to do, things that fit with your own personal moral code, without being told that what you think or believe is wrong. You don’t have to worry that one more mark against you will have you writhing in agony for the rest of forever; everything you do is exactly what you need to do at that time.
7. Likewise, embracing atheism means one less lens to view the world through;
you don’t have to automatically think something is right or wrong because of what your religion says. Again, you are free to make your own judgments as you see fit, based on your own experiences, and you don’t have that added layer of religion telling you that you should like this and shouldn’t like this, etc.
8. You aren’t locked into a schedule by your religion.
If you’re feeling like you need to excise some guilt from your life, you don’t have to wait until it’s time to be repentant. If you don’t have time to go out of your way to rack up good deeds that day, you aren’t going to be judged on it.
9. Many great thinkers have been atheists;
if they thought there was a reason to be, being an atheist might be a logical decision, and if you’re looking for reasons, some of their works might be good places to start. Socrates, for example, drank hemlock for having been accused of being an atheist; while it isn’t clear whether or not he was, Aristotle certainly was an atheist, believing instead in a sort of “prime mover” who set the universe in motion but who is not any sort of god.
10. It isn’t so unusual to be an atheist
Why not? In these days, it isn’t so unusual to be an atheist, and you aren’t likely to be burnt at the stake or persecuted too heavily for believing thus; it’s no more logical to be a Christian or Buddhist or Jew or Muslim than it is to be an atheist.
