[[Image:Sartre1.gif|thumb|170px|right|[[Jean-Paul Sartre]]]]
Research and historical data indicate that a significant portion of atheists/agnostics often see the their lives and the world as being the product of design (see: [[Atheism and beliefs that the world is designed]]). <ref>*[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/opinion/sunday/does-everything-happen-for-a-reason.html ''Does everything happen for a reason?''],'' New York Times'', October 17, 2014*[http://creation.com/children-see-the-world-as-designed Children see the world as designed] by David Catchpoole, [[Creation Ministries International]], Published: 16 July 2009*Atheist [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] made the candid confession: "As for me, I don’t see myself as so much dust that has appeared in the world but as a being that was expected, prefigured, called forth. In short, as a being that could, it seems, come only from a creator; and this idea of a creating hand that created me refers me back to God. Naturally this is not a clear, exact idea that I set in motion every time I think of myself. It contradicts many of my other ideas; but it is there, floating vaguely. And when I think of myself I often think rather in this way, for wont of being able to think otherwise." Source: ''Escape from God: The Use of Religion and Philosophy to Evade Responsibility'' By Dean Turner, page 109*The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' declares: "In 1885, the Duke of Argyll recounted a conversation he had had with Charles Darwin the year before Darwin's death: In the course of that conversation I said to Mr. Darwin, with reference to some of his own remarkable works on the Fertilization of [[Orchid]]s, and upon The [[Earthworm]]s, and various other observations he made of the wonderful contrivances for certain purposes in nature — I said it was impossible to look at these without seeing that they were the effect and the expression of Mind. I shall never forget Mr. Darwin's answer. He looked at me very hard and said, 'Well, that often comes over me with overwhelming force; but at other times,' and he shook his head vaguely, adding, 'it seems to go away.'(Argyll 1885, 244)[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/notes.html Notes to Teleological Arguments for God's Existence]</ref>
In addition, notable professing [[Atheism|atheists]] have had the characteristic of variability and instability when it came to maintaining thoughts in accordance with atheism. For example, [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] was one of the leading proponents of atheism of the 20th Century.