I mean, I used to be an atheist. Like, going to Richard Dawkins on campus, sneering at how stupid Christians were rolling my eyes at every little thing atheist. For a good ten to fifteen years. Then I realized it was terrible for my mental health and just got over myself and adopted more of a Pascal’s Wager outlook. Like, I frankly don’t give a damn about the truth or falsity of religion anymore. That’s not the point. It lets me act as if my life has meaning regardless of whether or not that’s true, which even when I directly reflect on it is a small amount of comfort insulating me from the yawning abyss of existential terror I felt throughout all of my 20s and half of my teens.
If pressed I guess I’ll say it’s unlikely to be true. But that’s not the point. I don’t even care to explain the point really. But both me and my wife ran Meetup groups about being atheist and eventually decided reading Christian philosophy and teachings was a better bet than the slow crushing millstone of the weight of the universe awaiting me behind the curtain of materialism.
There’s a lot of really bad stuff and I think Christianity needs reforming, but I still think it’s the better long term bet in terms of the wellbeing of me and my future generations.