Feeling a little cocky - so here goes! …

Occasionally, I am confronted, regarding my atheism, by folks who are not bent on winning me to their beliefs. And it is with these that I have the most interesting discussions and actually walk away with insights, about myself and others.

Normally, the position I take, the only honest one in my opinion, is that, while I have few answers to the 'big' mysteries of life, I have a mechanism to explore them and to grow in knowledge and insight and to shed erroneous notions when they appear outdated and are dysfunctional.

No honest person can claim any valid notion of absolute certainty without presenting credible or testable evidence. And, unless one can do so, one must be open to revision and correction. By definition every faith system fails this test because all faith is built on, ultimately, subjective perceptions whether they be personal or communal.

And lest I be confronted with the sophistry that I've just made an absolute statement and thus contradicted myself, be it known that I make this statement provisionally, knowing that in the long history of human experience it has never been shown to be inaccurate. I am a betting man and I am comfortable with odds like that.

So my position is simple. Human subjective experience is unreliable and there is no reason to posit anything outside of nature which transcends this subjective hurdle.

My atheism is simply the result of this observation. My worldview is built upon that and, what I've found, is that it's this implication of my atheism and not my atheism itself which thinking people find to be unsettling.

Few of us feel comfortable with an uncertain universe: one devoid of inherent meaning or purpose. But our lack of comfort with it does not change it and, at least in my opinion, is not a moral reason to deny it.

I point out that the responsibility to create personal meaning is a tremendous privilege, one not granted us by intent but only contingently by the emergence of our unique cognitive abilities. Because it is contingent it is not guaranteed nor is it of indubitable necessity.

But those of us who have grown comfortable with such a universe, have availed ourselves of limitless possibilities for meaning and happiness and freedom to grow and prosper and to impart the fruits of that to whomever we come in contact with or to savor it for ourselves as we see fit.

No other perspective can be so healthy or liberating and, in my humble opinion, will pass the test of time and true utility.

So my case for atheism is one of potential and possibility and, while it cannot claim certainty of fact, it can claim confidence of procedure and it will make trivial any other perspective by its mere demonstrability - something no other 'ism' or creed has ever or could hope to ever do.