Humans are a restless species, subject to boredom, driven by curiosity and the desire to conquer both intellectually and physically. We climb mountains and go to the moon simply to prove we can. We categorize everything we find in nature and strive to understand it all down to the smallest perceivable elements. Our minds are adept at dissecting complex relationships; we look for cause and effect in everything we see.

Natural selection has made man this way. Imagine the life of a hypothetical predecessor, one who was less restless. That predecessor never bothered to climb the hill to find the fresh water stream on the other side or never bothered to crack open the coconut to discover its contents. Our restlessness is ultimately to our advantage, as our now extinct predecessor would testify to if he could.

Survival for the first humans often depended upon forces they could not control. There was little protection from the elements and every day was a new struggle to find food and water. Simple wounds could lead to a life-threatening infections, pregnancy was always a grave risk, and disease killed indiscriminately. All the while in the night sky the planets wandered, the stars circled serenely, and the seasons marched through their yearly cycles unaffected. These people no doubt sensed they were a part of something larger, that there were things in the universe more constant than themselves.

Man's curiosity, his need to understand everything, must have caused him to wonder about his place in this bigger picture. We are a selfish species. We only need to compare ourselves with the ants or the bees if we have any doubt. Our ego is an important part of our drive for self preservation. So, when man began to imagine what the big picture was about, he naturally concluded that it was all about himself. Anything else would be devastating to our ego. For example, man would never be a part of a religion where another creature, say dogs, were the focus and man was subsidiary. A faith where only dogs could achieve eternal life and all other creatures (including man) ended in death would be preposterous! We can reason. We have deduced with our big brains and big egos that we are better than every other form of life and therefore must be the center of all creation. The universe is for us alone.

Our egos tell us that our lives cannot end in death, we are much too important. Just as the seasons, the sun and the moon are constant cycles of death and rebirth, so man too will be reborn after death and live forever.

In Christianity, man is the prized creation of an omnipotent God and is created in this God's image. We are so important to this God that he is intimately involved in every minute detail of our lives. He monitors us and keeps records of our activities, including what food groups we eat on Fridays during lent and the manner in which we touch our genitals. Ultimately he will use all this information to judge whether we are the type of person he would like to spend eternity with.

The creation story in Genesis states that God spent five days creating the Earth and only one day creating every other star and planet in the universe.  These billions of galaxies and stars only exist to "give light onto the Earth" and "serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years," even the stars not visible to the naked eye. Genesis also says that every animal and plant on Earth was created only for man's exploitation.

Early man naturally assumed that all objects in the universe orbited the Earth.  Since he believed he was center of all creation it wouldn't make sense for the universe be oriented any other way.

Evolution is dangerous to the Christian world-view because it reveals that just as the stars do not orbit the Earth, life on Earth does not orbit around man.  It threatens their exclusive place at the center of creation. They maintain that something as ordinary as mutation and natural selection could never produce anything as wonderful as man, only a god could! When faced with the facts, some Christians will compromise, saying that God directed evolution with the intent of creating man. This way they can maintain their egotistical vision and still feel like the universe was created exclusively for them.

Our egos are also the reason humans exclude each other from groups. The Klu Klux Klan, for example, is a grand egotistical exercise. Not only do KKK members think humans are the best creatures on the Earth, a fairly common assumption, but they also think that white Christian people (which they happen to be) are the best kind of humans.

Christians think Hindus are worshipping the wrong gods, in fact they think that all of the other god's man has worshipped throughout history do not even exist. Only the god they have chosen to worship exists because they, of course, are the center of all creation. Ego motivated exclusion doesn't stop there, however. Some Christian groups think other Christians are worshipping the right God, but are doing so incorrectly. They believe God will take this very seriously when determining if he would like to spend eternity with them, because not only does he insist on being worshipped (our egos are so ingrained in us that we cannot imagine our God without one), but you have to worship him in very specific ways. The ways God likes to be worshipped are in the Bible, but apparently are a little vague because there are so many types of Christians, each believing only they are worshipping God correctly. This makes them feel very good about themselves, because while other groups believe they are the center of all creation, they know that in reality only they are the center of all creation and everybody else is wrong.

In the end, religion appears to be a by product of our egos, a result of our inability to accept that our lives end in death and that in the grand scope of the universe, we are insignificant. I often say that it is not easy to be an atheist. Atheists are people who can face the humbling truth and accept it.

Man is not the center of all creation.

The Closet Atheist