Atheism
You probably have had many conversations with men and women of Faith in which the believer has mistakenly told you, "well, I guess you just need to have Faith, and that's it."
But God's existence is knowable by reason alone, and attaining this knowledge requires only the intellectual courage to follow the evidence wherever it leads, as far as it leads.
You need not await the gift of Faith; a firm desire to uncover the truth will always suffice.
There are many ways of coming to know God's existence; seeing mere-chance-precluding design in nature, recognizing the universe's need for a transcendent cause, acknowledging the impossibility of any individual existences without a self-existing Being, etc.; however instead of considering these cases with your reason, it is even better to consider the Truth with your heart; for the heart also can find truth.
No doubt you have loved - looking into the eyes of a spouse. Embracing a child. Forgiving and seeking forgiveness. Do you believe that was nothing but chemical reactions? True atheists do. Surely you have enjoyed true beauty- a symphony beyond description. A movie that leaves you speechless. A landscape that took your breath away. Do you believe that was no more than the triggering of a certain part of your brain via sensory input? True atheists do. There must have been many times when you helped another person and felt God's presence in you with a happy conscience - a time when you rejected selfishness and gave something you had a right to for a friend. When you cared for someone who was suffering. When you gave without expecting anything in return. Do you believe that was nothing but the evolutionary herd-instinct? True atheists do.
So much of the effort required to remain in the truth is contained in refusing to forget those moments when we knew we were closest to it; when we were at the heights of reason. Whoever you are, you have had times when you knew that God exists. The only reason you do not even now believe is because you have permitted yourself to forget those moments like a bride forgetting her wedding vows. When we permit ourselves to forget, mindless and irrational drifting dictates the direction in which we travel, and when we wake up after a time of doing this we far too often scramble to justify our position instead of coming back home. If you review your life, you will find this is true. You did not simply sit down one day to rationally conclude there is no God, and then go about living a life free from the chains of His non-existent tyranny.
On the contrary, one day you found yourself living a life without God, and then sought to convince yourself it was OK, because He does not exist.
Consider this an invitation to be governed by reason instead of drifting.
