Belief.

Belief can exist only in the absence of logic and knowledge. Belief is only compatible with ignorance: ignorance of science; ignorance or morality; ignorance of logic.

Several weeks ago, I would've called myself an atheist. Whilst I do not believe that atheism is a form of religion - atheism deals with the rejection of religion, after all - I recognise that atheists make an unknowable claim about the universe: that there is no God.

An agnostic must live by the credo: knowledge is only knowledge if it can be demonstrated to be true - if it can be demonstrated to reflect something factual about the universe. (This popular definition of agnosticism as being something along the lines of wishy-washy and on-the-fence is false - after all, the word agnostic comes from the Greek gnosis, meaning to know.)

If you believe in sin, or Hell, or that the human body is dirty, or that people who follow different religions are heathen being tempted by Satan and must be saved, all I can say to you is this: the fault lies with the creator. This kind of work does not belong on the résumé of an all-powerful being; this is the kind of work expected from an office temp with a bad attitude. Sure there is beauty in the world, and the duality of good and evil exists, but those concepts do not exist because of God; they exist because people have free will.

Before the Big Bang, there was no universe; there was no matter, time or space (space-time). So, before the universe came into being, there was nothing. To create something, something must exist in time and space. Therefore, there can be no God. Also, if God dwells in the universe he can't be creator: he would be part of the creation, after all.

The image of God as a bearded, old, fearful, vengeful man was adopted from Greek and Roman statues of Zeus and Jupiter, and the story of Jesus has elements taken from it from stories which go back as far as 2,000 or 3,000 years before his birth - just google Isis and Horus/Osiris (Osiris was an Egyptian man who lived and died as Christ did, and was born to a virgin - Isis - on the 25th of December*). God is a patriarchal creation because men seek to control; and male gods are always depicted as being vengeful and dealing in destruction.

*December 25th plays a big role in world religions because it co-incides with the winter solstice - the point at which the Sun sinks to its lowest point and appears to be stationary for several days. The rising of the Sun after this period has been made symbolic within religions as the point at which prophets (i.e. the Sun) are born. December 25th has always been an important date in astrology.