I've been a member of the Atheist Network off and on for over a decade, but since that site is dead, and the second Atheist Network is dead in all but name, I figured I'd give this site a shot. I'm not the militant atheist I once was, and don't engage in nearly as much debate as I used to, but I still find the subject interesting.
I've been an atheist all my life, without ever really having any serious thought to being anything else. I had the good fortune of being raised by a mother who never pushed any of her beliefs of me, and only ever said anything on the subject when asked, and then only to answer specific questions. I consider myself a strong atheist, not just due to a lack of evidence, but because my interpretation of humankind's tendency towards personifying and/or seeing agency in almost anything -- from seeing faces on the moon to quasi-believing that video games actively work against the player as if they have sentience -- leads me to conclude that this instinct is sufficient evidence that the idea of a deity is a man-made construct, even if it is circumstantial.
That said, so long as religion doesn't negatively affect me or the rest of the world, I could care less about its existence. If there is no afterlife, then being an atheist is not going to benefit me when I'm dead, so I see no inherent value in being right. If religion comforts you enough to get through the eighty or so years of your life in a world with rape, genocide, and Nickelback, then more power to you. I'm not going to take that away from you just for my own personal satisfaction.
I think that's about it.
I've been an atheist all my life, without ever really having any serious thought to being anything else. I had the good fortune of being raised by a mother who never pushed any of her beliefs of me, and only ever said anything on the subject when asked, and then only to answer specific questions. I consider myself a strong atheist, not just due to a lack of evidence, but because my interpretation of humankind's tendency towards personifying and/or seeing agency in almost anything -- from seeing faces on the moon to quasi-believing that video games actively work against the player as if they have sentience -- leads me to conclude that this instinct is sufficient evidence that the idea of a deity is a man-made construct, even if it is circumstantial.
That said, so long as religion doesn't negatively affect me or the rest of the world, I could care less about its existence. If there is no afterlife, then being an atheist is not going to benefit me when I'm dead, so I see no inherent value in being right. If religion comforts you enough to get through the eighty or so years of your life in a world with rape, genocide, and Nickelback, then more power to you. I'm not going to take that away from you just for my own personal satisfaction.
I think that's about it.
