Atheists and Christians are more alike than different. Over the course of human history there have been many, many thousands of religions and the number of gods/deities humans have worshiped is estimated to be in the millions. The only difference between us is that I don't believe in 1 more of all those gods than you.
The following quote from Stephen F. Roberts sums up the situation very nicely:
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
The god you worship is typically not a matter of choice but of what country/culture/tribe etc that you were born into. If there really is one true god, that wants all of us to recognize and worship him/her/it, why didn't he/she/it make its presence known to all people all over the world all at the same time? Why give the word to only one chosen people,in one small region of the world and then rely on word of mouth, over many centuries, to spread the word? If you believe that it all started with Adam and Eve, why did some of their descendants keep the knowledge of one god while other descendants found the need to create thousands of other religions, some with as many as 1,000 deities? Why don't their histories contain stories of an Adam and an Eve? The only logical conclusion one can come to, after giving it any thought, is that man has created many gods over the years, most in man's own image, to help explain things that he couldn't yet understand and to establish order and control behavior.
of course atheists and christians & others are more alike than different. it's not something to concede, but to accept and to recognize as true. we all walk on the surface of a dense planet, and move around in the atmosphere. it's pretty plain to see for objective observers.
the best mankind can do at any point in the development of the human condition is to define god using the best possible understanding we possess at the time, as individuals. we are individuals afterall, moving forward as a population or group. kinda like a flock of blackbirds over a field that has just been harvested??
if i believed for a moment that we knew where we came from, i'd be shouting it from the house tops. but, i don't know and don't claim to either. "God" as a concept, is a kind of a catchall. better to have one to capture all the detritus and put in one place or container rather than allow it to float around polluting everything else.
humans on the earth are quite a challenge to fully understand, and define, aren't we? we moved from caveman, to sunlit structures, to the building of big cities, and now we're moving on to the moon, mars, and beyond. we can't define race, and we can't even define the basis of a human being. we don't have a clue.
