Why I Am Not An Atheist

(For those of you who didn't recognize it, the title of the blog is an allusion to Bertrand Russel's "Why I Am Not A Christian". It's interesting, and riddled with fallacies. Go read it if you want a good exercise in countering the most feeble arguments that atheists throw at theists.)

It seems to me that atheism would just be rather depressing. It essentially amounts to the following:

1) You are born
2) A lot of things happen, most of which are irrelevant
3) You die
4) Nothing happens

It's just that the thought of life as one long death-crawl to the decaying oblivion of the grave is so depressing for me. What reason is there to do good in life if there is no life after death? What reason is there to even continue living, since we're all doomed to the same fate eventually anyway? Why not just off yourself now and save the annoyance of being around for another fifty or sixty or seventy years? It's not as though you're going to regret that decision after you've made it; you'll be dead and unconcious and oblivious. There really doesn't even seem to be a point in trying to leave a legacy of any sort; the people who remember it will all eventually die themselves, and your memory with them. It all seems so bleak.

It's just human nature to want to continue in some form after our physical time on Earth is over. Some people want to continue existing as spirits or souls in whatever form of the afterlife in which they prefer to believe. These are the theists, the spiritual people, the religous. Some people want to exist as a memory, a legacy, a physical manifestation of what they once were, leaving behind a world better than the one into which they were born. These people are the conquerors, the inventors, the peacemakers. Some people want to exist in any way possible; they're not particular as to which one, so long as they can blindly and desperately continue to cling to some form of existence.

Personally, it honestly terrifies me to think that my conscious mind will cease to exist after (hopefully) 80 or 90-odd years of living, thinking, experiencing. I want eternity! I want to be able to reflect on all that I did during that near-century of doing! And I want to watch others. I want to watch them make the same mistakes I made, and maybe help them learn from them better than I did. That's what keeps me rooted in the belief of souls and ghosts and even Heaven. That desire to continue existing forever. I just don't understand how anyone could not want that. Of course, there are a lot of things in this world that I don't understand, and I do not mean to say that I have a low level of intellegence; there are just many things that seem nonsensical in general. Starting with myself.

I've been throwing around a few ideas for New Year's Resolutions in my head lately. Typically I follow the traditional route: lose weight, save money, find a boyfriend, get better grades, land that promotion, yada yada yada. Lately, I've been considering a different one. Something alone the lines of just figuring myself out. It seems simple enough, but I know it would require some deep analyses...deeper than I've ever been brave enough to go. But I want to know why I do what I do, about everything I do. I think I've begun to scrape the surface, but I really want to be able to sit down and define myself and say, "This is who I am, this is what I believe, this is where I'm coming from, and this is why I do these things." I know I can't expect anyone to truly understand me until I can do so myself, and I think that after I figure all that out, everything else--the grades, the boys, the job, everything--will fall into place. I've spent my whole life being random and undefinable and off-the-walls; it is time for me to settle down and know where I've been, so I can figure out where I am going.

It starts right here, with why I am not an atheist. This is one reason behind one belief that I have. It's all a part of who I am.