“You’ve Convinced Me That The God, That You Don’t Believe In, Doesn’t Exist”

Svoid, in his comment to ‘White-Out”, drew my attention to a very well written article, produced by a man who believes that God doesn’t exist. (There Is No God, by Penn Jillette.) I quite agree with a lot of what he wrote: he has totally convinced me that the God that he doesn’t believe in, doesn’t exist!

However, that’s not the God I believe in. I suspect that the God I believe in, actually shares a lot of Jillette’s concerns. Jillette suggests that if he believed in God, he wouldn’t have as much appreciation for life’s bounty because he’d only be looking forward to ‘heaven’ rather than enjoying the here and now, would tend to blame God for the world’s suffering rather than work to alleviate it, and wouldn’t have to try so hard to be nice, because he could just be forgiven by ‘believing’. I agree that all those things – and more – are often excused in the name of religion, but that is man’s error and not God’s.

If you consider yourself an Atheist, perhaps your current disbelief comes from your gut feeling that, what you think God is supposed to be, doesn’t make sense. And maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s not really God himself, that you’re fighting, but your erroneous understanding of Him. :)



[If you’re an Atheist and you’re really at peace with that, there’s no reason to go any further. However, if you consider yourself to be open-minded and you sincerely love truth and logic, I suggest you study the Bible and the Book of Mormon to find out more about who God really is. The whole truth (as opposed to parts of it, garnished with man’s imagination) will appeal to your sense of logic.]