Atheists are not cynical or pessimistic. Nor do they believe in "nothing". They simply think its very unlikely that a god exists (any god/s from any world religion).
Many people interpret this as agnosticism. However this is wrong. If you care to examine the way science works you'll find that rarely are there definite answers and it takes a long time for a theory to be taken as a proven fact.
Many religious people highlight that evolution is just a "theory" ; there are no credible scientists who prescribe to the creationist view that the world is but 2000 years old. Some scientists are religious and i can only think that they compartmentalise the two.
Agnostics on the other hand are not sure if it is likely a god exists or not ( whereas atheists are as sure as they can be that no god exists).As Dawkins often states, the likelihood for a god is the same as the probability of fairies existing.
In the words of Christopher Hitchens, who advocates "antitheism", (essentially the notion that religion is perjorative) to wish for a god to exist is the same as wishing to be someone's slave. To have someone judging not only your actions but your innermost thoughts; nothing is private. Christians claim that God created freewill to avoid humans from becoming so called "puppets" however, ultimately they will still be judged by going to either heaven or hell (or purgatory in the Catholic tradition). Atheism grants you freedom, a kind of freedom that cannot be had from believing in god/gods.
Contrary to popular belief atheism is not depressing. It isn't a philosophy; it merely states that you do not believe it is at all likely that a god exists.
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