What DO you believe?

We atheists get that question a lot. Most people are incredulous that someone could not believe in God. Atheists are a tiny minority in the world, clutching reason as closely to our breasts as the faithful do God. I think maybe there is a gene that codes for faith or the need to worship, and some few of us are just born without it, like albinos, lacking the deity that allows us to walk in the crowd accepted and comforted.

What do I believe? I believe the unembellished, unambiguous truth is that we float through cold space, unique in the universe, short lived, in various states of denial of the irreducible fact that each of us, in our deaths, is alone.

While belief is as variable as individual human beings, human need is not, and staring at the flint-hard truth I just wrote, I know that what I need is pretty close to what all people, everywhere, have always needed: to feel that I am not alone, that I matter greatly to someone, that my life is not a flicker of candle light in a galaxy of suns.

I need stories that give me hope. A story that ends on a hopeless note is anathema to me, and to all but the most sneering and cynical critics. Hope cannot save anyone. But without it, why would we hang on long enough to see if someone might save us? Or that we can save ourselves.

And I need a warm hand to hold, a hand to squeeze mine when the winds of fate howl outside our door, a brush of lips on my ear and a whispered “everything will be all right.” A soft and lovely lie full of all the kindness and empathy of which we are capable in our best moments. And I will believe.