 If you've ever heard your doorbell ringing, there wasn't anyone there when you opened the door. That was actually an Atheist Jehovah's Witness. Hey look, a video about faith on the internet. Stop it, chill out, be cool. Unlike many other videos on the internet, I'm not going to get up in anyone's face and tell them that they're stupid for what they believe or don't believe about any particular God or gods. In fact, that's kind of what I wanted to talk about. Many people are adamant that what somebody believes or doesn't believe about gods, which includes Christians like Descartes, Pantheists like Einstein, or Atheists like Schrodinger, makes them stupid or ignorant or bad people. That's simply not true. This might sound a little bit weird, but faith is something that's cultural, like language or taste in food. We generally talk about faith like it's a rational decision, like any reasonable person would reach a certain conclusion about what God or gods exist, as though there weren't more than 4,000 different religions on earth right now. But consider this. Our first knowledge of gods comes from our parents, or books, or media, that sort of stuff. Regardless of whether or not someone has a personal revelation once they hear those stories, or the seeming obviousness of that revelation in retrospect, it's always something that's taught first. Which set of gods people learn about is very much tied to their culture and history, and those are the gods that those people end up worshipping. It isn't surprising that there are more people in this area of the world who believe in Allah, more people in this area of the world who believe in Shiva and Vishnu, and more people in this area of the world who don't believe in any gods. People from England and regions that England colonized also tend to speak English, who would have guessed. But despite that fact, many still feel as though which particular gods one does or does not believe in is indicative of their intelligence or character, instead of when and where they were born. Like some people actually talk as though Newton, who was born into a culture with a state mandated Christian religion, should have been something other than Christian. I mean, I guess he did spend a large part of his life figuring out a uniquely heretical version of Christianity, so I guess that's something. Believing in something requires an amount of certainty brought on by a seeming balance of evidence. The only beliefs that we're really born with are that we should cry if we're uncomfortable and that boobies are good. Because we're not born knowing enough to believe in any gods, until our culture teaches us about those gods, we don't believe in any of them, and some of them we still don't. Even right now, you probably don't believe in Teshub, the Hurrian god of storms. You probably don't believe in Maniba, the hero goddess of the mountain. That's not because you've done exhaustive research to find evidence that they don't exist, and disbelieve fervently with every fiber of your being, you just hadn't heard about them until now. That's why missionaries and proselytizers work so hard to spread awareness of their deities. You can't believe in something you've never heard of, and until we were taught those stories, we didn't believe in them either. Faith is something that's part of our social and cultural indoctrination when we're growing up, along with things like language and values like individualism or nationalism. Yes, those parts of our psyche might change slowly with enough external influence, but nobody's going to wake up one morning after spending a lifetime as an unquestioning, devout Scientologist and spontaneously say, oh, I think I'm a pagan now. It was certainly a gradual thing for me. I was raised in a religion, and I've been very touched and very moved by many of the stories and philosophies involving gods. I even used to believe some of them when I was younger, but I'm not really convinced that they're true anymore. I am an atheist, but I'm not angry at any of the gods that I don't believe in. I'm not a sad, bitter person recovering from some incredible personal tragedy. I'm not an amoral scumbag who just wants to see people suffer, and I certainly don't want gods not to exist. I mean, have you heard of Athena, goddess of wisdom, civilization, law, justice, mathematics, and the arts? Walks around in a badass helmet with a spear? Holy crap, that would be so cool. Nonetheless, when I call myself an atheist, some people get really uncomfortable, like I've said that I'm a white supremacist or some other alien, really dangerous ideology. Which is weird, because it's really not that big of a leap from what anyone believes. Acromatic means without color, not anti-color. Anonymous means without a name, not anti-name. And atheism means without theism. That is, without faith in any sort of gods. Which, as we've just established, is something that we've all experienced at one time. Even so, if theism is a crucial part of how someone views the world now, it can be hard for them to imagine how an atheist might even function in that world without that belief. Of course, that's not unique to theism. I mean, I get a little bewildered when I run into somebody who doesn't like pizza. I mean, who doesn't like pizza? Pizza. But if you think about it, unless someone believes in all the gods, which are frequently embedded in belief systems which are mutually exclusive, for any individual, there are already a vast number of gods that they don't believe in. An atheist is just like that, they just don't believe in a few more gods, just like we all did when we were kids. They're not broken, they just remain unconvinced. But even that is largely a cultural thing. I happen to have been born into a time where we've discovered enough naturalistic explanation for phenomena that it's totally plausible that there aren't gods throwing thunderbolts from the heavens or pushing planets across the sky. I was born into a country which allows its citizens to believe or not believe anything that they want, into a part of that country where it's actually socially acceptable to not have faith. If any one of those things was different, who knows what I'd believe? I might be Amish, I might be Buddhist, I might be Zoroastrian, I might even not like pizza. Are you one of the overwhelming majority of people who just happen to be the same religion as their parents? What gods would you most like to believe in? Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Thank you very much for watching. Don't forget to blah blah subscribe, blush air, and I'll see you next week.