Do you have the right to be an atheist?

[robvalue]

It is a tempting notion, the idea that we have a different understanding of things, a superior one that everyone else just can't grasp.

However, with experience comes humility. I remember when I came up with the idea of what I now call "determinism" on my own. I went through all the thought processes and came to my conclusions, and I wowed a few people who agreed with me that my logic was sound. It wasn't until years later I discovered this was already a well established philosophy, I just happened to have stumbled across it on my own.

New ideas will happen of course, things advance. But in general, people are going to have thought about whatever it is you come up with, and will have spent an awful lot of time doing so. Therefor it's important to "check in" with the work that has already been done before announcing yourself as some kind of completely original thinker; and also to help you correct any mistakes you may have made on your own.

Thinking on your own is fantastic and I encourage it, of course. I'm just warning about the dangers of becoming isolated from the general bank of knowledge in the hopes of being "different". It doesn't generally work out well. Of course you shouldn't assume all we have found out is true either; but neither should you discard things for no reason in your quest for originality.