Exactly. They all seem to be of the order of “Just how many meatballs are there in the Great Sphagetti Monster?” How do you ask honest questions about something that may not exist at all, that there isn’t the slightest reason to believe in the first place?

So why do we believe in the first place? THe first reason is no one wants to die, and we all want reassurance that we need not do so.

The second is we feel the need for everything to make sense, to have meaning. The idea that the Universe, and us, serve no human purpose, that we really do not matter, is intolerable to us.

Reasons one and two can be dismissed as part of our our evolutionary programming. Intelligent organisms that have no urge to self-preservation, or that have no interest or curiosity about their surroundings, that do not seek out patterns in the universe about them, would be at a Darwinian disadvantage.

But there is a third reason, one that keeps this argument alive, and one that science or philosophy is poorly equipped to answer. The universe is an extremely complicated place, intricately constructed and remarkably self-consistent. Our experience tells us that systems like this are not random collections of phenomena, that there is usually an intelligence of some sort behind them.

The possibility that there is some intelligence responsible for the existence and organization of the cosmos simply cannot be ruled out. That’s not evidence that this intelligence necessarily exists, but it is a valid hypothesis, in my opinion. It is a working conjecture, and once we accept it, the next step is the Checklist.

There is a clue to this mystery. Our speculations about god are subconsciously influenced by cultural factors. Even militant atheists tend to debunk the Judeo-Christian concept of god, as if that were the only one that was conceivable. But it is not. Other religions, particularly Buddhism and Taoism, do not particularly see the world as a creation of a supreme being. Even if there is a god, that god is remote and indifferent to human affairs. In some cultures, there is a belief in gods who created the world, and who can be occasionally lobbied by worship, sacrifice or ritual to help us (or just leave us alone!), but who carry out their own existence without any particular plans for us.

As an atheist myself (actually, a very strong agnostic) I recognize that much of my “logic and reasoning” on these issues is colored by cultural or psychological factors. In other words, I’m perfectly willing to admit I may be overlooking something very important in my speculations. As you may have noticed about me, I’m not particularly confident about my own objectivity. I see others around me who seem totally unaware that they are making colossal errors of reasoning, and it would be foolish of me to convince myself I was immune from making those same errors.