I suppose technically, I am an atheist.
As religion is a purely human concept, and historically, used as a tool to keep the masses in line has also resulted in some of the most barbaric incidents in human history. I think it's the root of all evil and is often perverted by the corrupt and used as a hammer.
I believe it has no place in today's world. Especially since you don't need religion to have faith.
I do however, believe in a higher power of some description, not some watcher or guardian, but perhaps an advanced race that have mastered space and time and view us like we would view microbes.
I also believe in an afterlife of sorts, no ethereal paradise nonsense, but I do believe our energy, and perhaps conciesness continues somehow that science can't yet explain.
Some years ago I was shown something by an old spiritualist in my family which I simply cannot put into words.
If nothing else, proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's certainly something beyond what we understand as fact and reality.
It's one of those discussions that have no real conclusion or end. That can be debated for ever and ever with no proof to support either argument, just theories.
Like "do aliens exist?" I know some people that say "no, not possible!" as a blatant fact! And will not even entertain discussion on it! Whitch, mathematically is beyond absurd!
Theres about 300 billion stars in our galaxy alone, each one could have upto 30 celestial bodies around it, and we know of tens of thousands of galaxies, and estimates put the number of galaxies in the universe at at least 100 billion, to put that in perspective, thanks to Hubble, if you held a grain of sand at arms legnth at the night sky, it will be covering up about 10'000 galaxies.
With numbers that Incomprehensively large, the chances of there not being life out there are pretty much nothing.
In fact, I know I'm going a little off topic but I'm very fond of numbers, even sci fi writers can't really comprehend how big space is. Take star trek, 300 years in the future, they have mapped and surveyed 7% of our galaxy, in reality, if we had a fleet of 1000 starships that can instantly jump to another star system, each ship took 1 day to map a system before jumping to the next, the 1000 ships, doing 1000 star systems a day, couldn't map 1% of our galaxy in 1000 years!
Sorry, I will get my coat.