“Why are you an atheist?” is a question that has always confused me, mostly because it presupposes you can choose what you believe in, if only that were true.

I’ve been asked this by many different people, all with different understandings of what it is to be atheist. The general gist of what I think they mean is: “why have you chosen to have such an earthly existence when you could at least pretend heaven exists”. After all, isn’t that the basis of Pascal’s wager?

My answer is, that it’s not an easy choice, in fact, it’s not really been a choice at all. In fact, it’s been a slow questioning of everything I assumed to be true about the world, one block at a time, from my assumptions of morality, all the way to the assumption of a unified internal consciousness.

I think I should this start off with a quote from Sam Harris when asked what it was like to be an atheist.

“As Christians, you already know what it is like to be an Atheist, just as you are sure that the Greek gods need not be debated as to whether or not they belong to the mythology section, I also see Christianity the same way, just as you are sure that Islam is no more true than Hinduism, the only difference is that I have put one more god to the list of those in which I disbelieve”

– Sam Harris {paraphrase}

Given this, it’s scarcely surprising at my frustration and confusion being asked why I chose to be an atheist, those who ask that seem to think that belief is a choice. That I have chosen to abandon God, as though I have seen heaven and thrown myself away from his presence.

But this isn’t really something that most people think through. Nobody truly chooses what they believe. Nor do they realise it.

Of course we can choose to ignore evidence, or a lack thereof, but we can no more choose to believe that we are in fact made of pure gold than I can believe that there is an invisible god that I cannot sense, cannot measure, cannot know, guiding my every day interactions with no proof that they were caused by this god other than my feelings that it’s right – “faith”.

One of the issues with where I think faith in God is expected is how we are predisposed to see patterns where there are none, this isn’t to say that this is a glitch per se, but instead, it’s more of a feature that has some bad consequences in modern life.

You see, the fact that we live in a universe that has no inherent meaning (despite what some people would insist), means that we need to know how to interact in it. Our brains have evolved in order to work out how we can manipulate the world and do it using easily understood concepts, these ideas of the world might be wildly inaccurate, but because we get the expected outcome most of the time, our belief remains the same.

Another example of faith as an aspect of the functioning of our brains might be every time you step out of your front door, you expect that the floor will be solid, that the air won’t turn to water, we have faith that those around us won’t cheat, lie or steal from us, but this doesn’t mean that any of these things couldn’t happen, we just believe it to be so, and for the most part, with good reason

Another seemingly harmless glitch is how we only ever change our views when our assumptions about the world are violated,and to a sufficient extent. Sometimes however leading us to create ever more complicated (but equally incorrect) models of the world around us, every time something unexpected happens, each iteration becoming ever more complex to the point that so much mental gymnastics is required that it becomes obvious… but not always.

Religion to me is no more than a very complex and very successful mass hallucination, although I don’t mean this in the traditional sense, it should be noted too that those undergoing mania are fully convinced of their hallucinations, the difference is that those on the outside can easily separate their reality from that of the manic individual, with religion, it is ever so more subtle. Of course, it is no different really to how skinners pigeons made wild dances across their cages to get that treat they wanted, through repeated and random treats, it eventually creates a dance that it believes it must do in order to receive the treat, even though the intervals are random. I should add that while this may sound like I despise or pity the religious, I certainly don’t look down on those who believe in God, neither do I pity them. I just happen to have walked along a road that has lead me to no longer believe in the existence of a supernatural intelligence, while those who still believe have not, they have not had a great enough violation of their expectations, or a good enough replacement framework to move away from religion, for without an alternative framework, where does one step?

People assume much of our world to be self-evident, even the founding fathers of the USA did this with the opening line “we hold these truths to be self-evident”. Much of morality has since been shown to be reducible, but not self-evident, instead, it appears that morality is a structure that is guided by a number of factors; geography, available resources, internal biology (which has evolved to suit several different environments) and a goal. Without these constraints, there really isn’t anything of morality that we can assume to be correct or self-evident.

Even algebra, for example, can only be correct or incorrect if you assume the basic axioms of it. Something that many of us take for granted as simply being part of the fabric of reality. Only once these basic axioms are accepted, can a=a be correct. Even the axioms of algebra rely further on the axioms of maths to be properly utilised.

So too as we make assumptions about the nature of mathematics, we make assumptions which make it easier for us to live, Christians have made the assumption that the world was created, it fills a gap, explains many unexplainable things, and allows people who believe in this to assume their morals, way of life etc. to all be inherently true. As most Christians correctly point out “without God there is no meaning” there is no inherent meaning for sure, but this doesn’t mean that meaning itself cannot be internally generated.

So, given how complex the world is and how much we assume we know (when we really don’t) why do we do this?

Part of this comes down to utility. Would it be easier for you to look at a hammer and nail and think “oh look a hammer and a nail” or “oh look a long thin piece of material with a lump of harder and heavier material which seems sturdy enough to not break when I swing it and hit things and has a flat enough surface at one end to make it easy to aim one of the edges toward whatever I want to hit…” I could go on, I mean the thing is that the names and simplified concepts we attach to them are more mental strings which we pull on than they are actual concepts. Like a puppet master, we point to these strings and our unconscious works it’s magic and carries out the underlying processes necessary to complete the action we imagine.

Within this system there is certainly the possibility of errors, of attaching a concept to an object that doesn’t require a concept, or attaching intelligence to a system which has none, you see this is down very much to how we have evolved to process the world, how to survive, and how to survive efficiently – efficiency is the key here, while accuracy is certainly necessary, there’s a sweet spot between accuracy and efficiency that our mind is constantly battling with.

So why have we attached a consciousness to nature in the first place (God)? Attaching a consciousness to the force of nature seems to make it easier to be able to explain it and grasp it, rather than a formless void that makes little sense to the way we have evolved. Instead, much like how we may have a leader of a tribe or leader of a country, we also have the matriarchal or patriarchal figure that rules over us (partly why Jesus is referred to as the king of kings). This can also be attributed to the fact we are evolved to see hierarchies everywhere we go.

The issue with this idea is the fact that this idea began to take root as being an assumed truth, not, that it existed and people are now denying it. If anything more and more of our intuitive assumptions of the world are repeatedly being shown to be false.

Naturally, people presume that all the ideas that came with these assumptions of the natural world (that came to be known as Gods), are in fact real, and not assumptions or personifications. Part of the reason people don’t stop is a fear that a break with tradition could lead to catastrophic consequences (another evolved trait).

So when people say, why did you choose to become an atheist, one of the meanings of this is, “why haven’t you managed to ignore the lack of proof, if only you would ignore that and you would be happier”: faith is after all simply belief without evidence, which is then held up as some sort of virtue, as though ignorance of and adherence to it will save us. (When has ignoring your bank balance and spending when you want ever benefitted your savings?)

To me, this is what it amounts to, I mean sure we are evolved to see patterns, but our brains have also evolved in such a way as to ignore and hide potentially damaging ideas, or ones it simply perceives as damaging, just because our evolved systems assume something to be dangerous does not make it so. In hiding this information from the conscious “us” that is presented to the world we are often left in the dark when it comes to the true workings of our minds.

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

– Marcus Aurelius

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