Ask the Atheist

And from Carl Sagan...

Yes it is normal. When you live in an area thats heavily populated by theists, it's understandable that one would feel some social and psychological pressures from that community. This can lead to feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, isolation, and even embarrassment when one is feeling judged or ridiculed.
Which is exactly how they want you to feel.
You see, one of the things about theism is that it creates an attitude of fear and mistrust. It teaches you that those that don't believe the way you do should be shunned or proselytized . The embarrassment you are feeling is probably due to worrying about how others will perceive you, and consequently, whether or not they will accept you. Religion uses this to their advantage as a way of discouraging people from leaving the flock. It's a method of control.
To combat this, find ways to build up your self esteem about your atheism. Try finding atheist meeting in your area. Join atheist chat rooms or message boards. A great atheist message board is The Atheist Network Find others who have gone through what you have, and gain comfort from shared experiences. As much as you may feel like it right now, you are not alone. This will help to build up your confidence and allow you to feel less embarrassed about your lack of belief.
Once you've built up your confidence, this will allow you to deal with your family and friends in a healthy manner. Try to be kind and understanding towards them and when they aren't towards you, question them as to why. Show them that you being an atheist doesn't make you less of a person. Show them that you can be more moral, more honest, and more understanding then they can towards you. Make them aware of your feelings and ask them to be understanding even if they can't relate to your disbelief. They will find it much harder to judge you when they think that you hold yourself to a higher standard then they do themselves.
Remember, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. If you are a good person, then you are a good person no matter what your beliefs, or lack of beliefs are. Help them to focus on that aspect of yourself and do the same for them.
I hope that helps.

Jake www.afterfaith.com

For the sake of the discussion, did God cause himself to exist? Is that not absurd too? Has he reached heat death?

If the universe has existed forever, it's an isolated, closed system by definition (since there's nothing which is not within it) so it can break even. If it hasn't always existed, why can't something simpler than a god have brought it about? Why do you discount simpler matter or energy reactions, or a previous universe, and jump straight to a fully formed, sourceless intelligence? He's even harder to explain than the universe is.

In general, why don't you apply your questions on the origin of the universe to the origin of God? Is it just a no-go zone?

Jumping to evolution, it does represent a decrease in local entropy. So does building a tower out of Lego: There was no order to the blocks, and now there is some. Would you say it's impossible to build Lego structures, or indeed to build anything at all from unordered pieces? Of course not. You think God did just that.

The key word here is "local". Within a system, entropy can decrease in one area if it increases by at least that much elsewhere. In the case of the Lego, entropy increases in your body as food is dissolved and digested. This gives you the energy to move the blocks.

So a transfer of energy can decrease local entropy enough to create order and complexity. The ultimate energy source for evolution, like nearly all earthly processes, is the sun. Earth's isolated system must of course include the sun. Its explosive fusion reactions increase entropy far more than the natural process of evolution decreases it, so no laws of physics are broken.

Thermodynamics and evolution are perfectly compatible, or else evolution would have been struck down in Darwin's lifetime; research towards entropic principles began around 1803.

So that's why we've heard the Argument from Thermodynamics a lot and yet we're still atheists.

- LX

Greydon answers this question in a video, and more...