by Kevin Hamilton

Created on: March 05, 2010

It would be impossible to speak on behalf of every atheist regarding this question. After all, the word 'atheist' is such a general term, but since it is often misunderstood, there are many people who are a part of this group and don't even know it. I can, however, speak for myself. So here is one atheist's answer to the question, "What do atheists believe in?"

First of all, some atheists actually do believe in an afterlife. This is the group of atheists that often times aren't aware that they are in fact atheist. That's because most people look at the concept of life after death as a religious thing, when its actually not. I asked a friend of mine who said he was not an atheist to describe what he thought will happen when he dies. It was hard for him to put into words, but he described an afterlife in which his being or soul, sort of floats around space with other deceased beings. As boring as that sounds, this was his idea of what might happen to him when he dies. What makes him an atheist is the fact that he does not believe in a god.

A god is the only thing an atheist couldn't possibly believe in, everything else is fair game. Personally, I don't pretend to have any idea of what will happen to me when I die. My best guess is that I will simply go back to not existing, just as I was for billions of years before I was born. Its funny, the idea of going back to nothing is so hard for me to grasp, yet I spent almost all of history as nothing. You get just this microscopic taste of life and you don't want to let it go. That's why we have so many religions today. That promise that if we act a certain way, and follow a certain set of rules, we can live forever.

Because of religion, many people spend their entire lives preparing for death. I find this to be a colossal waste of time. That's because I believe in life. I believe that every second we have is precious and therefore should be spent as such. You've probably heard someone say, "Live like you're going to die tomorrow." An even better quote is, "Live like you're going to die." Because religious followers simply don't do this. They treat their lives as if it is a stepping stone to something else, something better.

Religious followers are like a kid at a birthday party. Paper plates holding cake are being passed around. The kid keeps passing the plates handed to him, hoping to get a bigger piece. Eventually all the pieces are gone, and he is left with nothing. I didn't make that mistake, I took the first plate I was handed. It might not have been the biggest piece, but I knew I might not get another one. So I grabbed a fork, and now I'm eating the damn thing.

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