Why Atheists Won’t Sell Their Soul

For most of my life, I’ve teetered between being an atheist and agnostic. Like many other skeptics, I fancy myself a rational person who believes in science. But, 8 years ago when I got sober, I was basically given an ultimatum: believe in a higher power or die from your addiction. As a rational atheist, I put the pieces together and just realized that I had to understand that believing in something other than myself was one of the keys to sobriety, so I saw 12-step meetings, my support group and my sponsor as what some would call a “higher power”.

My beautiful girlfriend Tristin is also an atheist, and we have some interesting talks. Although atheists, we’re firm believers that if people are religious and aren’t hurting anyone, more power to them. Sometimes, we watch atheists on YouTube and see how they depict themselves. Often times, atheists talk down to believers from a pedestal of science and pure rationality.

But, for this piece on supernatural psychology, we’re going to ask the question if atheists would sell their soul.

I’ve been wanting to write this for a long time because through my research, I’ve found that many atheists won’t sell their soul, and it seems quite irrational.

In episode 74 of the Freakonomics Podcast, Stephen Dubner discussed a comment from Skeptic Magazine, which read: