Why I am an atheist, and why you should be one too.

By Asa Montreaux

I have been an atheist all of my life, and I am going to tell you as much as I can about that now. I never did believe in God, but when I was a small child I sometimes went along with religious practices to make my family happy. My parents at that time were stoutly religious. Over the years they have not been as open about their faith. But they still take most of their morals and beliefs from Christianity. They definitely still are Christian, though they feel a backlash from the community due to how their beliefs influence their actions. I can tell you that the Universe definitely began with a Big Bang. There was an explosion of basic elements, which have always existed. Out of this explosion, the Universe was created, and since then it is expanding in size. It grew very vast, and it holds an innumerable amount of stars, and planets. One planet, Earth, has something on it called sentient life. There are beings on it that can think, feel, act, and make decisions on their own. The Universe is made up of these materials, the elements of the Universe. They are material things, and everything is material, including humans. Beneath these material things, is energy. At the most basic level, all material things are composed of energy. This energy is in the form of waves. All of the Universe is made up of energy waves. We can see much of this with strong microscopes. But there is more than the eye can see beneath these waves. There is even smaller waves, that are movements that make things happen in our Universe. Beneath the highly packed waves of solid, and the loosely packed waves of gases, is the same thing, energy. This does not mean that the Universe is controlled by randomness, but there is not predetermined meaning to life. And there is no predetermined narrative to life. What happens is what happens. The Universe is impartial to what happens. But it is a beautiful and complex Universe. The complexity of the Universe, and the level of sophisticated interactions that make up every event, are as meaningful as it would be if events were determined by a narrative, from a deity, or whoever. The sophistication, the intricacy, of the Universe, is so wondrous, there is a deep satisfaction in just thinking about it, if you really spend some time on it. So there isn’t a set of rules which govern life. There aren’t ten commandments. There is no God that gives you rules to govern your ethics. There absolutely is a place for ethic. I would argue without good ethics, humanity would cease to exist. We depend on one another for our shared existence, and whether any religion mentioned similar, or not, it doesn’t make their teachings true. Ethics, getting along, is part of what is called Utilitarianism. It is one hundred percent true that getting along better, and treating each other with dignity, will result in a better world for every person. This can be understood through reason, and philosophical theory, and it does not really involve God. So I would leave you to think more about why you should act with good ethic in your life when there is no God, for now. But I want to talk about why you would want to live your life, when there is no God. What is the meaning to life? In reality life has no explicit meaning. We are born, we live, and we die. For me, there is a significant amount of meaning in participating in the act of living. Each human, that has come before us, that lives now, and that will exist in the future, will go through this process. They’ll be born, they’ll live, they’ll die. Going through this process does not give you a direct connection to God, but it does give you a connection to all of humanity. The totality of humanity has experienced, experiences, and will experience exactly what you go through. Death is an inevitability. But sharing the experience of life and death on Earth with all of humanity brings, for me, that sense of deep connection that people normally thought they would get form connecting to God. When we die, the materials that we are made of return to the earth. We are form the earth, and we will return to the earth. These are all just the elements of the Universe. Experiencing life is experiencing ultimate reality. We are a part of the Universe, not just observers of it. We are a part of the Universe, and there is no reason for us to feel disconnected from it, when we ourselves are part of it. Another thing that religion suggests is that you will I’ve forever after you die in heaven. This is not correct. Our spirit is part of material being. We are already a whole being. We are the materials we are made of, and they are just the materials of the Universe. Those materials are made up of energy, and that is the same energy that brings all of the world to life. In reality, you have oneness with the world while you are alive. Someone trying to sell you that you are unhappy, and that you need to join to achieve later happiness, will try and tell you that you are not one with the Universe, but you are already. You need only remind yourself of this. The time when you are fully yourself, when you are essentially the energy inside you, your spirit, is when you are on earth. This energy, this spirit, has lived forever, and it will continue to live, after you have died, as part of the Universe. The first rule of physics is energy is neither created nor destroyed. It is only something that takes new forms. The energy that was in you will return to the earth, to the Universe, and you’ll always be part of the Universe. We all have eternal life, but life on earth is so sweet. This is the time when we can truly feel the beauty of life. Religion will trick you into missing this. And life is not something cheap or dirty. Experience the wonder of the Universe, does not mean losing yourself in the simple, cheap pleasure of sex and booze. It is necessary to life well to avoid these things, except in moderation. Science does not really say you need to have sex every day, and it definitely does say you have to drink every day. Sex, orgasm, tire you out. They will leave tired for days. It will take weeks for you to recover from alcohol, or from drugs. So avoid pop psychology. You don’t really need an orgasm every day. Besides, this is how one has kids! Your body will never need to release pressure from building sex fluids. It will only be once a month, or once every two months, that your body craves this. So have sex once a week, once a month, or less. If not, your body will just release the small amount of sex fluids every one to two months during your sleep. Life can be lived beautifully, and life itself is not a sexual thing. It is a complex and beautiful thing, and a life lived to the fullest would mirror this. It would not be a dirty or gaudy or hedonistic life, if life were lived the best. The last thing I want to say in Part 1, is that there is a solution for the kind of feeling of calm, and meaning, that religion seemed to offer, but doesn’t in a satisfactory way. It is called mindfulness. Mindfulness is a practice based on science, that takes influence from some of the practices of Eastern religions, and ancient Eastern philosophy. Mindfulness teaches us take time to forget all the things we are worrying about, and just experience, quiet, peace, and feel one with the Universe. So when we are being mindful, we sit or live down in a comfortable position, and we let our thoughts drift in and out of brain, and we do not worry about that. We listen to them, but decide not investigate while we practice mindfulness. You keep your mind quiet, and when you have a thought, you don’t worry about it, but let it pass. Instead of thinking of yourself, you let you mind rest, and simply experience things as they are. Science has shown that it has a profound positive effect to stop thinking about yourself, or your problems, for a little while, and just experience the world around you. It is proven to greatly reduce stress and anxiety levels. And it will help you feel more less isolated and more connected to people around you, and to the Universe. It is proven to create stronger feelings of belonging, acceptance, meaning, and peacefulness. Instead of wondering how to find peace, you can experience right away through mindfulness. Religion will make you feel you will never be whole, not even until you have literally died, and then gone to heaven, or whatever the afterlife is called in any religion. But through this scientific practice, mindfulness, you can immediately improve your situation, for free, and without going anywhere. Mindfulness has given great peace, and has improved my calmness in a way no one understands yet. Perhaps I don’t talk about it enough. Mindfulness is proven to also expand our consciousness, and create tons of neural integration. It has done this for me very much so. Although I love literature, poetry, film, and other things, and I find great peace and satisfaction from these, I wouldn’t be nearly as happy a person today without mindfulness. I am one hundred percent sure of this. Until later. Adieu.