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To be a thinking, sincere atheist, of course you have to know what the 'Theo' or 'Deus' is, that the 'a-theist' is saying doesn't exist. Otherwise you might just as well be saying that the platypus or sea-horse don't exist - easy to say, but wrong.
Can't say? Then let's establish what 'Theo' or 'Deus' or 'God' isn't? Super, now we're getting somewhere.
Then here is a butterfly. Obviously, you would say that isn't God. - What a stupid idea!
Any higher lifeforms? Manmmals? Humans? Some were 'Emperors and gods', we and they were told by enigmatic, shadowy king- and emperor-makers. So, let's say the most prominant today, today's versions of Emperors and gods - George Bush, Cheney and Co? - Well, obviously not! Though they evidently think they are simply divine, he and the rabble of political 'movers and shakers' are much more the other end of any spectrum.
Right, then planet Earth - No, not God, though many previous civilizations swore various elements of it were, and burned each other to prove it.
The sun? - No, though once again many thought so.
Well, how about the galaxy - Now, that's much more expansive, containing anything from one to three hundred thousand million such suns as 'ours'. But just one of so many such inanimate products of masses of hydrogen, and 'totally unconscious of us', apparently knowledgeable scientists say.
Then, better, how about the Universe, which contains a hundred thousand million observable such galaxies, all interconnected via its consequent binding energies and weak atomic repulsive forces, gravity, electro-magnetics and galactic- or space-repulsion.
Well, that's much more like it. After all, the single ingredient of space has formed the Universe which has formed the hundred thousand million galaxies, and via it 'our' solar system and 'our' planet Earth, and us, and incidentally everything else.
Without it we would not be, but because of it, we are. The Universe in its single action generates us within itself and so creates us 'within its image' and then totally sustains us.
And it would seem that Universe is as undeniable as the butterfly or you yourself.
What in itself is the Universe? - Well, equally, what in itself is a grain of sand? Oh, we can say 'sand' or 'silicon', but we don't know what even a grain of sand is.
Is Universe conscious of itself and of us? Well, when you think of computers, it would be surprising if consciousness of some kind, possibly even acute awareness, did not result somewhere among all those interconnecting forces.
So, tell you what. If you can prove to your own complete satisfaction - rather than just saying it - that the Universe and everything in, including the butterfly and yourself, is not what we might conceive of as a creative entity such as 'God' or 'Deus' or 'Theo', (or alternatively prove that such an all-encompassing, sustaining entity as the Universe doesn't exist, nor therefore the resulting butterfly nor you), then you'll be well on your way to being a genuine, thinking, sincere atheist, won't you?
Good luck.
Look, I'm sorry if the subject is not more complicated than this, and that thus a million atheists perhaps have to concede the existence of some form of creation, and that the piety industry also collapses with a billion pious smiles fading, particularly of those who claim to have an armlock on God and therefore on Universe, but there it is.
Then what is good and evil in this Universe? Good - that of Universe which is good for us: our simple necessities that the sun and planet provide. And evil? - that which is bad for us, together with those who intend others and the planet ill.
Erm . . . What say we responsible adult humans clean this planet of evil, starting now?
