Non-belief

During the last 7-8 years I've had the pleasure of being friends with some really interesting and intelligent people. I have mentioned time and again how much I have appreciated learning from them and how much of an imprint I see of their influence in what I am today. I scarcely doubt the sharpness of their minds but sometimes I'm just amazed at some of the logical inconsistencies that even the sharpest of them display. I find it incomprehensible how some of these people who have grown up within the confines of critical thought can justify their beliefs in supernatural phenomenon of all sorts. Of course I never bring these things up in personal discussions because I already know all the superficial arguments which will be made, both on their side and from mine. These arguments don't mean much because people hardly ever say what they really feel. Moreover, I'm not out to put anyone down for what they believe in. I'm merely curious as to how it can all fit together in one mind which had been trained to evaluate the world around it based upon evidence.

I know I am sounding suspiciously like a 16 year old atheist who spends his time arguing on the ridiculous atheist forums of reddit but that's not who I mean to appear like. It is an obnoxious religion,  atheism really. In many aspects worse than other forms of religion because of the incredible smugness involved. Most of the people who call themselves atheists are merely following another inviolable prophet in the name of Richard Dawkins and seem to lack the courage and the intelligence to answer the next logical questions which present themselves when you remove a God. Questions about morality, altruism, ethics, and the stability of society never seem to get asked in their circles. I personally don't doubt the non existence of God but I've always found myself getting lost in the subtlety of the arguments whenever I start thinking about these things. It's not that I don't get anywhere but often where I do end up being is always some sort of a compromise zone where it doesn't make sense to be too militant in my views - the golden mean of all our ideas and beliefs. At those moments I wonder about truth and practicality, about reality and happiness, about steadfast loyalty to certain ideas and the simple desire of not being a massive ass to people who are almost always really really nice despite all our philosophical differences. I find this simple courtesy missing in a lot of atheists, therefore, I'd be damned to be taken as one of them.

This still leaves that one question with which I started this post. How can people, and only certain people to whom I have alluded earlier (they know who they are! ), keep it all coherent in their minds? There was a book that I read several years ago which I remember completely changing my life from there on. U G Krishnamurthy's mind is a myth. I did not learn anything concrete from that book except one thing which was not to take authority seriously, not to believe in the given word. Since then I've seen many of my beliefs crumble around me and I've felt relived every time that has happened. In short, I've replaced shoddy and suspect explanations with uncertainties and crumbling bricks and have felt quite okay about it all - perhaps because the earlier structure was all too garish and incoherent and badly patched up together even though it was complete. I quite like the fallen walls now because they're at least mine. Like other things in life like failures and successes, happiness and sorrows, and actions, I feel relieved to take complete responsibility for my confused structure of non-beliefs.