I just sent the below note to a religious friend of mine. It turned out to be pretty articulate, which is rare for me, so I thought I would post it here for the world to see.
Here's the one short story that I was looking for earlier. I'm not saying that it should be believed, I'm just giving an example that there are many ways to believe that there's something beyond this life without resorting to religion.
The universe is beautiful and awesome and may well be part of something far greater and beyond our comprehension, but that does not mean that ancient myths are correct. We know that Thor, Zeus, Ra, and Yahweh don't exist. Neither do fairies, spirits, leprechauns, ghosts, trolls, unicorns, dragons, angels, demons, or flying spaghetti monsters. We know that because we are capable of observation and analysis.
Yet this fact does not make the universe any less awesome. Sure, we don't have dragons, but look what we do have: Rhinos, Elephants, Peacocks - there are some pretty sweet animals around. The fact that they are real doesn't make them any less cool. If dragons or unicorns were real, people would find them mundane.
The myths of the Greeks, the Romans, the Norse, the Egyptians, the Muslims, the Christians, and the Jews all happen to be wrong. We know that, just like we know that dragons don't exist. That doesn't make what we do have (consciousness, happiness, friendship, love) any less wonderful.
The ancient myths are wrong, but that doesn't mean that there's not something else. There's probably more beyond the universe. Much more. And it's our duty to find out what it is.
We won't ever figure out all of the right answers, but we do ourselves an injustice by holding on to answers that we know are wrong.
We don't know what to believe yet. But that doesn't mean that we should hold on to ancient religions. It means that we should start looking.
Being an atheist doesn't mean that there's not more than what we see. It just means that we don't know what it is yet.
If anybody is interested in more material along the same lines as The Egg, drop me a comment and I'll follow up.
I'm not a fan of atheism, since it seems to me that defining yourself in terms of what you don't believe is silly. I don't define myself as "anti-easter-bunny", but if one is truly an atheist, then defining yourself in those terms is equally odd. My personal feeling is that self-proclaimed atheists are not a neutral group, but rather overtly anti-religious for whatever reason. Many claim that they believe religion to be a major source of the world's ills (and superficially it might appear that way), but if one has any insight into human nature, you'll find that even in the absence of religion, humanity will find a way to justify the abhorrent things we do.
I don't believe in God, but I do appreciate a sense of tradition and culture, and religion has these in droves. I suspect that much of the comfort people take in their religions come down to the sense of community and tradition that religion and its rituals bring.
In any case, as an atheist (who must therefore also believe in evolution), let me you ask this: if natural selection tends to do away with traits that are not beneficial (or at least not overtly harmful) to a species survival, and religion is as widespread as it currently is, is it not perhaps reasonable to assume that there is some boon to our species inherent in maintaining religious belief (or that, at the very least, it isn't terribly harmful)? If this is true, then what is your motivation to convince others that their religion is based on myth?