OH MY GOD

 This SNOWFLAKE has a dirty little secret: while he is now a committed Atheist, he used to be a doubting Atheist. 

I used to contemplate many things, like "what is the soul", why do we have a consciousness, and such.

I also used to ponder, is NOT believing in a God not a belief system in itself? Imagining no God and imagining life just came into being on Earth because of Abiogenesis might be seen as a religion too, since Abiogenesis is still just a theory.

Then there is the issue, as many of us have, between "belief" and religion. Religion has in fact done more damage in our trust in a God than it has done any good. My opinion, I should note.

Take religion away from personal belief, and the idea of a God might not be so divisive, we can let the believers believe and in turn maybe they can let us atheists believe what we believe.

BUT religion demands that we believe what they are selling, and I have from time to time mused about whether this had more to do with me turning atheist than anything else.

Mind you, in my mind, I can't "perceive" of a God. My imagination simply doesn't run in that direction. Maybe that is a fault in my thinking? Does God have to be a male figure sitting on a throne?

I have heard people in my lifetime try to explain God as something like a universal force, or an entity with no definable features, and it was early man who HAD TO give that force or entity a recognizable form, hence God became something we could relate to.

Of course, God means different things to different religions, some religions have more than one God, but the big ones believe in one God, who created life.

So, IS IT POSSIBLE, to separate the teachings and pressures of "The Church" from the possible existed of a God entity? Have we lost the capacity to imagine that a SOMETHING beyond our understanding does exist, a force of some sort that we simply have given the name God to? Are we, directly or indirectly, being influenced by such a force?

And when we die, do we become part of this universal "consciousness" (for the lack of a better term)? I am not talking Heaven or Hell here, that is definitely a human construct, I am talking about some sort of existence beyond this "mortal plain".

Finally, and this is for me a big question, as I have friends who are religious, who are not pushy or anti-vaxx or any of that other goofy stuff, but who simply believe in a God, so the question is: Is it fair for us to belittle, ridicule, mock, joke about, or dismiss a believer in a God just because - like me - we have learned to be disgusted with religion. Can we separate the two, and still respect a believer?

The obvious answer would be "depends" on their behavior. But what about OUR behavior? WE too suffer from a religion, a religion that says there is NO higher power and that those who believe in a higher power are just goofy people. So I ponder where our morality lies vs theirs.

AND even as an atheist, what if I am wrong?