Atheist

I want to discuss atheists. Religious people like to ignore atheists, pray for them, or argue with them. Not that I consider myself religious, but I think these options kind of sucks. I think atheists/agnostics/skeptics/freethinkers are freakin' awesome. Honestly. I really appreciate the atheist perspective on life because I used to be there, and in many ways I still am. I never accept anything at face value. I am not a fan of just accepting "G-d's plan," and luckily for me, neither are Jews.

When I was around 15-16, I identified as agnostic. I explained to people that I believed there was probably something higher but there was no way of knowing. Much of this stemmed from the fact that I recognized that I didn't fit in with Christians. Because I am so math oriented, I tended to create little proofs in my head that eventually led to me finding that G-d does, in fact, exist. I always began with the premise that G-d did not exist and evaluated many of my experiences, things like my brother's military life, my aunt's sickness and ultimate survival, the wonder in my niece's eyes, and the beauty of the world. Every way I went, G-d not existing didn't allow for these things. After so long, I knew that the gut feeling I had was right and I had used a logical path to determining this. In mathematics, this is known as a proof by contradiction: start with the opposite of what you want to prove and produce a contradiction, showing that what you originally wanted must be true.

Atheists question everything, and I still find that to be very much a part of who I am. Atheists don't attempt to explain things (like earthquakes) by saying it's some message from G-d (like that the government needs to get a better budget, ehem, Michelle Bachmann). I don't attempt to do so either. I just accept that natural disasters and the weather occur because of various conditions that science can explain for us. I do believe G-d ultimately controls it, but I'm not going to get mad at an atheist for saying "no, He doesn't." What difference does it make? None of us can control it anyway.  I just cannot comprehend life without G-d, which is where atheists and I part ways.

I get the sense from some people - and yes, many of them are Christians - that you must believe in G-d to get His help. Well, that doesn't sound like an all-loving G-d to me. Unlike those people (some of them are my friends) I don't believe that G-d abandons people who don't believe in him. I believe that G-d helps people whether or not they acknowledge his presence. I mean, before Abraham figured out that G-d is G-d and those other gods are fakes, did no good things happen to people? No, G-d has always been there taking care of people, changing things, and creating things. The universe is billions of years old, so there's no way we can say G-d didn't care about  and love things until people started to worship Him 4,000 years ago. This is clearly demonstrated by all of the amazing atheist/skeptic thinkers out there making our world a better place. G-d didn't smite them or abandon because He still loves them and appreciates there work.

Sometimes I forget that not all Jews believe in G-d. But I am often reminded by one person or another and you know what? This is honestly one of the greatest things about Judaism. Even though some would disagree, there is still room for people who don't believe in G-d in this great, old tradition. It's very reassuring when I am struggling trying to figure out where I belong. Many Jews though do not find atheism a threat to Judaism since the Jewish tradition is based on questioning, fueled by doubt in many ways. One can take on an entire atheist mind set and be completely comfortable in the Jewish tradition.