How do you define an atheist? An atheist is supposed to be a person who does not believe in God. If someone does not believe in God, he still holds a firm belief in non-existence of God. He is still a believer. Now doesn't that sound a bit awkward that an atheist is a believer?
Couple of years back, I met a person who called himself a die-hard atheist. During the conversation, he mentioned that he does not visit a temple nearby although the members of religious society insist him to. He had not visited the temple in last fifteen years since he became an atheist. I smiled and replied, "For me, you turn out to be more religious than the rest. For all these years, you have not visited the temple because you believed that it was a place of God and as an atheist, you should not. That sounds like you firmly believe that the place is the place of God. You have started believing in the existence of God more than us. If you were an atheist as you define it to be, you would have found no difference in the temple and a neighbor's house. I do not see a point in hating to visit the place, then!"
A true atheist would be the one for whom the existence and non-existence of God does not matter at all. A true atheist would be the one who does not hook up his independence of decision making and realization of self-existence to the mercy of anyone else, be there God or no God. But a human being can never remain a true atheist for ever because however independent one is, he always turns out to a savior during difficult times of life. It is not necessary that the savior be a founder of a religion, it can be your nearest friend or a good person you know. At various moments in life, we tend to surrender our independence in decision-making and the grace of realization of self-existence to someone else, and this is possible only if you put your trust into. Once we start realizing that it is time now when we do not need help from anyone else, the dependence of faith is revoked and one becomes independent in belief again.
Every person is born atheist, but the nature of survival makes a person hook up their faith to a supreme power. And it is necessary to accept a ruler, because fear and luck are two virtues of life that no being can claim itself safe from the grandeur of the nature. It is fear or greed that makes a person religious, but it is the nature of existence that makes a person theist.
Well that's true in a sense I am more religious than many of the members that go to the temple. But that just makes them atheist rather than me a believer. Why would I visit a temple when invited if the very temple was made to worship an imaginary being? What a waste of time that would be.
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