The idea of God pesters me and makes me think that maybe I'm not as devoted to my beliefs as I'd like to think I am and would like to be. Maybe I'm still subconsciously afraid of hell and want to go to heaven when I die. It's confusing and frustrating to feel the presence of something you don't believe in.

This is compounded by the fact that the God character most often shows up when I'm already frustrated.

"Why, God, why?" I ask myself when I've procrastinated before a deadline and am scrambling. When I experience mansplaining, I think, "I swear to God . . . " And I don't merely say these colloquially or as a joke. It's more a habit, from having spent so much of my life believing that I could expect answers to these questions. Even though now I know that nobody is "up there" to reply, I can't help but ask.

It's of some comfort to me, though, to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way. According to a Pew Research Center poll about religion and atheism last year, 8 percent of self-identified atheists believe in God or a "universal spirit." Not a huge proportion, but considering that an atheist is by definition a person who denies the existence of God, that 8 percent highlights something very curious about belief.