Humanity Is Not Born Atheist

I've heard time and again atheists make the argument that everyone is born an atheist, that no one comes into life with any knowledge or realization of divinity, and this is just not the case.

The argument is, no one is born with the knowledge of God.

I would first like to point out that no one is born with the knowledge of anything, other than basic instincts, and no one knows where those come from in the first place. But humans are also not born with the knowledge of science, math, architecture, mechanics, computers, or even how to go to the bathroom. So just because something is taught to you, does not necessarily mean that it's false or invalid to your humanity. Now as far as the argument itself, humans are not born with the knowledge of any particular deity or doctrine, but it's absolutely not true that humans are born atheists, and I'll tell you why.

When we first came into being, there were no churches, priests, books, schools, or even established religions or spirituality. Yet we felt the belief in higher powers within ourselves. This was a belief that developed as part of our mental and physical makeup, not something that was forced into us from the outside because there were no outside forces to push it. We felt spiritual ourselves, and we developed our own belief systems and established our own religious practices. If humans were born atheists, we would have evolved as atheists. We would have never felt or thought of any such thing as deity, spirituality or religion, certainly not by majority. It simply would not have existed to us. But human beings are naturally spiritual and religious creatures.

Secondly, the human brain develops something called schema. This is the organizational system of the brain for external information, and we are born with this ability which enables us to recognize and interpret patterns in the universe and make conclusions based on those patterns. Patterns = larger intelligence. We are born looking for larger meanings, things bigger than ourselves, and are therefore born looking for divinity and deity. 

Point being, such a construct or mindset is there by the very nature of being human, and it's extremely hard to change or even to convince yourself of something outside of it, which is why human beings have not accepted Atheism by and large throughout their existence as a species. Now, I'm not suggesting that someone does not have the right to believe or not believe whatever they want, and each person is as human as another. Personally, I could not care less what someone believes. It does me no harm at all for someone to say they don't believe in any deity or divinity. But the simple fact of the matter is that Atheism has never been the consensus of the human mind. Atheism simply ignores the larger meanings, patterns and intelligence.

In the Goodness of the Gods,

Chris.