Many atheists that I’ve known, including myself, exhibited an interesting behavior during and after their transition from faith to non-faith. I call this behavior substitution.

Here’s how it works: the atheist, having spent so much of his life loving this underlying, structure-giving entity, finds himself in need of something similar upon becoming a non-believer. It’s as if an emptiness rushes in where God used to be, and our human fragility require us to fill it.

I find that most young atheists fill this emptiness with other grandiose and beautiful concepts; here are the main ones:

Romance: When the atheist places an extremely high value on “true love” and generally the whole Romeo and Juliet concept of love being more important than anything.

When the atheist places an extremely high value on “true love” and generally the whole Romeo and Juliet concept of love being more important than anything. Nature : An extreme reverence for the beauty and complexity of the universe.

: An extreme reverence for the beauty and complexity of the universe. Karma/Buddhism: A fairly direct substitution, but one that doesn’t involve a personal God.

A fairly direct substitution, but one that doesn’t involve a personal God. Logic/Reason/Science: Embracing the disciplines that uncovered the flaws in religion.

Embracing the disciplines that uncovered the flaws in religion. Order/Justice: A direct substitution for the most needed element — structure.

I think Einstein’s was the natural one, as was my own up until my late 20’s.

Mine started as romance, however. I remember thinking that romantic love was the ultimate thing when I lost God. I had illusions of soul mates and eternal bindings and such. It’s interesting to look back and realize that I was simply exchanging one drug for another — with the underlying problem being the inability to face reality in its true, raw, and rather cold form.

After talking to a young atheist for just a short amount of time, you can often surmise which type of substitution they’ve made. Which kind are you?