To declare one’s self an atheist requires a great deal of courage or of ignorance.
Either one is a fool, as the Scriptures say to declare there is no God anywhere or having discovered some philosophy of negation has the courage of his convictions to privately and publicly proclaim it.
If there was no God, what is this place in which we live, what are the heavens and the earth. The Seas and all they contain? What is this great coliseum on whose base we tread?
What is all this grand wonderful scenery and mechanism? What are these actors that make their entrances play their parts and make their exits? What is this grand theater we call the universe, the panorama we dominate the world, the solidity we call earth, the fluid we name sea, the vapor we term air, the expanse we denote the heavens?
What are these laws we call gravitation and conservation and evolution? What are these forces we know by the words light, heat, magnetism?
What do we mean by molecules and atoms? What are thought, reason, love and hate?
Who will tell us what we mean by music, art, literature, harmony and discord, peace and war?
What are destiny and free will?