From PZ's Place: Samyogita Hardikar, on Why I Am An Atheist:

Up till I was 19 I had been dwelling into the murky waters of faith, mainly switching between a haphazard belief in some sort of higher power if not god per se and agnosticism of the ‘If there had been a god, then surely he wouldn’t have allowed all this cruelty and suffering?’ persuasion. Now I really don’t think there is a god. The reasons are many and most of them are obvious to and shared by most other atheists: no real evidence for the existence of god/ gods, a respect for and inclination towards a humanitarian and human-centric idea of morality, too many vulgar disputes amongst the believers themselves about who exactly this ‘one true god’ person that they all keep banging on about might be, to name a few of the top ones. But I vividly remember the moment I started thinking of myself as an out-and-out atheist and it wasn’t any kind of anger or frustration or hardcore empirical analysis that made it happen. It happened when I heard Douglas Adams speculating about the origin of god.

He says that the idea of god probably came into existence because after looking about and seeing what a well oiled machine this world was, we humans made the foolish mistake of asking the most ridiculous, naive and treacherous question: ‘So who made this then?’ ‘This’ being the world, of course. ‘Someone must’ve made it, you know? Like we make stuff?’

And from there we just went on improvising and thinking that since we’re the only ones who ever actually make anything, it must’ve been someone very like us, much more sizable and capable than us, and much more invisible, obviously.

I completely buy that theory and it may seem trivial but if we are to move on from all this violence and disharmony that happens in the name of god, we have to see the whole notion for the triviality that it is. Let’s not- for a moment- try to answer that absurd question with the first thing that comes to your mind and we’ll be fine.

To put forth a simple if slightly cheap analogy, the idea of god is a bit like non-degradable plastic. It’s man-made. It’s not found in nature. It was created by throwing a whole bunch of random stuff together. It’s a relatively recent invention considering how long we’ve been around and even if it may look like it at first glance, our lives do not depend on it. It’s a quick, immediate gratification based solution for an eternal problem which is why it’s dangerous. It seemed like a very good idea at the beginning and most people still think it’s pretty handy but now that we have it, we don’t seem to be able to get rid of it and it’s all beginning to get a bit out of hand. And lastly, living things are suffering and dying horrible deaths because of it. Atheism on the other hand is way more ego-friendly.
Samyogita Hardikar
India

So exactly what does Adams posit? There is no first cause because Man Made It Up?

If [Man Made It Up], then [No first cause].
[Man Made It Up];
Therefore, [No first cause]

Now premise B, that Man Made It Up, was made up by Adams. It was not discovered forensically. It is not determinable using empirical, experimental, replicable, falsifiable science. In fact the statement itself is not falsifiable; it is an ecclesiastic statement regarding whether a first cause exists. So premise B can’t qualify as a grounded, provable assertion of a truth. Without a truth statement to validate the precedent of premise A, then premise A cannot be known to be valid and the argument is False.

From another point of view, the argument that “man making something up” automatically means that it is “not true” means that Adams’ made up argument is false due to internal contradiction:

Man made arguments are false;
This argument is man made.

This is a classic two-statement paradox, a violation of the Principle of Non-Contradiction, and is therefore false due to non-coherence.

The other arguments which Hardikar makes are secondary and derivative, espcially his attempt to analogize with "cheap plastic". For example, this statement requires some analysis:

” It’s a quick, immediate gratification based solution for an eternal problem which is why it’s dangerous.”

This is a new concept to me. An eternal problem (the existence of a first cause?) is given a “quick, immediate gratification based solution” (first cause exists?), and that makes it dangerous(?).

I see no possible way in which the conclusion can be drawn from the premises:

If [an eternal problem has quick, immediate gratification based solution]; then [it is dangerous].

This is an unwarranted conclusion without some serious argumentation to support it. Hardikar does not provide support, but makes the statement as if it were a self-evident first principle; but it is not in any manner self-evident. For example, it should be the mis-use of a wide spread solution that is problematic, not the solution itself.

Another statement:

”living things are suffering and dying horrible deaths because of it.

Hardikar is not talking about a first cause; he is apparently talking about Islam, or possibly the secular wars against Islam. But he is coy about his actual target, which seems to imply all religions as a single category, and that would be a Fallacy of Equivocation. On the other hand, maybe it is just a failure of the "cheap analogy" he chose.

His last statement is on target:

”Atheism on the other hand is way more ego-friendly.”

Because the Atheist recognizes no authority beyond himself, he is automatically the top intellect in the universe. He is able to derive new moralities for others to follow, and he is at liberty to change his own morality on-the-fly. By categorically denying absolutes, his logic is "free" from any annoying grounding. What could be more of an ego boost than to be such an awesome intellect and moral authority – all by merely denying any higher existence? This is the lock-in for the ego deprived. How can one deny that which elevates oneself so high so easily? Especially when the alternative requires the humility of being subject to external truths.

In his last sentence, Hardikar has nailed one of the primary attractions of Atheism. Even though he was making a word play on "eco-friendly". Congrats.