Becoming an atheist isn’t about switching from one team to another: Team Atheism. It’s not about one’s identity, but one’s epistemology. The intellectually honest truth-lover would be perfectly happy to convert to, say, Christianity if there were genuinely good arguments for virgin births and bodily resurrections. When it comes to deciding which beliefs to accept, what matters isn’t WHAT a given belief says about reality, but the reasons WHY one should accept it. After all, science is full of crazy claims about the universe, such as that matter is 99.9% empty space. Yet scientists accept them because there are genuinely good reasons for doing so — where “good reasons” here refers to the best available evidence considered as a whole.

By turning the discussion to epistemology, one has a good shot at changing the identity of others. Why? Because insofar as people are rational, their beliefs will tend to converge over time, as the growing pool of evidence pushes one’s belief system towards better approximations of the truth. On this model, beliefs are always the DESTINATIONS of the great quest for knowledge, and never the POINTS-OF-DEPARTURE. This is, in fact, precisely how science approaches reality: it begins with ignorance and, by following the evidence wherever it might lead, ends up at knowledge — like a heat-seeking missile homing in on its target. In contrast, the world’s religious begin with a collection of “truths” that they insist must never change, even as humanity learns more and more about this strange universe in which we find ourselves.

The point is that there’s no guarantee that society would be better if everyone were to identify as an atheist. This is an important point. But there’s no doubt that it would improve immensely if everyone were to base their beliefs on the evidence. I’m an atheist not for ideological reasons, but because my commitment to epistemology has made me one. —Phil Torres