A-Theism and Belief

This is what I get for wandering into online chat rooms. One of the threads I was reading started out innocently enough: somebody (presumably Christian) asks in a not-so-subtle way "Hey atheists, why don't you believe what I do?" (Well, it was more subtle than that, but not by much) and he actually got some good answers.

Some people thought, for example, that science would eventually explain everything, since it has been widening our knowledge about the universe for many years now. Other people decided that the evidence for God was shaky at best, and that the counterweighing evidence of evil in the world was more than enough proof against God's existence.

One post suggested taking a week to live in the shoes of an atheist--to try to figure out why they would believe what they would believe, and where they would find meaning in their lives. I have a hard time even imagining how to do this. Which I think brings me to a question about belief. Just as I am stymied (and a little nervous) in the face of taking on atheist beliefs, I can imagine that someone who really doesn't believe in God's existence would have a very hard time suddenly choosing to accept God's active work in the world as a certainty.

But belief is a funny thing. Coming from my own framework, I would call it a gift from God. It's not something we can choose. It's more something that develops as we evaluate our own experiences and the experiences of others. The development of belief is not a one-time shot, but an ongoing process. Religion gives us a framework for understanding the more mystical of our experiences, but it's not like I can decide today to trade in one framework for another. Belief is something more to be discerned than decided on, and one of my favorite questions will continue to be: What do I really believe?