There Is No God

National Public Radio ^ | 11/21/05 | Penn Jillette

[machman]

Morning Edition, November 21, 2005 ·

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond Atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The Atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-o and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

[Jack Black]

Yes, true. But at least we will have a transcendent system whereby to say, "this is wrong, this is unjust, this is evil" not just because I say so but because the One who created the world says so. We have the means to resist popular or tyrannical will because we know the will of the One who created all things.

But of course religion, even Christianity, has just as often been used as part of a control system to keep people down and justify evil. It has just as often, or prehaps more frequently in the case of Christianity been used as an ideology to resist tyrany.

And, in a similar vein there have been many non-religious systems that have provided the means to resist tyranny. Marxism, for instance, is often used by the oppressed as a framework for resisting oppression. (Despite the fact that if they studdied it a bit more than would see it is unlikely to result in something better than what they are resisting.)

[garbanzo]

Of course, without God, it is all the same whether I smash your face in or decide to sit nicely with you and discuss reality.

Belief in God is no bar to smashing someone's face in - in fact many theists have no problem with, say, hijacking a plane and smashing it into a tall building.

Without God no one can tell me that your precious family should live, or not.

See a variety of places around the world and throughout history where theists have done exactly that. You don't worship our God, you and your family don't get to live here or at all.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

And they hide their misery, bigotry, and arrogance behind a New Age smile of pseudo-enlightenment.

George W. has done a wonderful job in tearing the pasty mask off the face of liberals in this country, exposing the rotting cadaver-scream of pure hatred beneath.

[Trampled by Lambs]

"I believe that God has infinite understanding, patience and compassion, and that He loves us all, no matter how arrogant we may be"

Then why can't he forgive me for not believing in him?

[Caramelgal]

“People need to stop equating religion with conservatism.” - Amen

I am feeling quite brave this morning but have donned the flame retardant suit in any case.

I am a libertarian Republican and quite conservative on many issues and have been an Agnostic for as long as I can remember and recently came to believe that there is no God as defined by any particular religion. I am not anti-Christian or anti-religious and recognize that many people of faith are good people.

My father often did work for a doctor from Sri Lanka who was a Hindu. The doctor was one of the kindest and caring persons I’ve ever known. She treated many of her patients for free including my parents and me at one point because we had no insurance for a time.

The doctor’s mother came to the US to visit often. She was also an extremely kind and caring person. She was killed a few years back in a terrorist bombing in Sri Lanka – religious extremism the cause.

As a child I once asked our priest – what about a person who is Hindu or Buddhist who follows a path in life of sacrifice to their fellows and who has never done anything unkind to anyone or a baby born who then dies young without the opportunity to make any choice on religion, and then there is the Catholic Mafia Don who goes to church each Sunday, makes confession, makes acts of contrition and penance but still lives a life unholy – who has a better chance of getting into heaven? The priest and my parents told me that the person who believed in Christ and made a final act of contrition would enter Heaven and the person who didn’t believe in Christ no matter how good and kind would not, only because they did not believe in Christ. I rejected this concept then and I reject it now.

While I don’t dismiss altogether the concept of some benevolent power in this world I believe this power comes from within our selves just as evil is a product of our equal potential for greed and avarice. We all make choices – let us choose wisely. I choose Freewill and the desire to treat my fellows as I’d like to be treated - a concept of most of the world’s religions and I believe the concept is very human in nature as goodness benefits the continuation of our species and I reject it is the dictate of some Supreme Being. Extremism and the absence of Reason give us both 9/11 and abortion clinic bombings – both acts of terrorism. Let the flaming begin.

“You can choose a ready guide
in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear-
I will choose free will” - Rush, Freewill, Album: Permanent Waves (1980)

[Seamoth]

I liked the show at first but then he changed gears & I now believe he simply finds pleasure in offending everyone. He's proof that although you can't please everyone, you sure can displease everyone. Also, some of his shows are awfully weak... I was looking forward to the creationism show but it disappointingly didn't do much actual debunking.

[narby]

Three of the most evil people I've ever had to deal with in my life were hard-core "Christians".

One was my ex-father-in-law, a Southern Baptist music minister, who excused the child molester that married my ex because "the child made him do it". Yeah, right.

The second was an ex-boss (big man in church in So.Cal.), who gave me shares in a company about 15 years ago. When confronted with some fraudulent activity, he ran down to the bank, beating our lawyer carrying a request to put a hold on the company account, and he withdrew all the companies money.

When we sued him, we won, but he hid all the stolen assets and we never collected a dime, having spent thousands on lawyers ourselves. We got screwed twice.

The third is the SOB I'm working under now. He's a Kansas Christian, no doubt supporter of the current evolution fight in that state. He's stated his most important thing in life is his church. But his work is being a "professional @sshole". He gets ahead by shear intimidation and yelling. The most unprofessional guy I've ever worked for. I must admit, his tactics would work well running a welding shop, which is what he most recently did. But operating a software development project just isn't the place for such a bull-in-a-china-shop. I'm sure he knows he's "forgiven", so being an @sshole doesn't cost him any sleep.

I'll probably be leaving that job, that I've held for 10 years, because of this "Christian" SOB.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

The endorsement of an anti-religion breaks the separation of church and state these libs constantly cry about.
Yank the funding to NPR or allow some ministers to preach the Word for equal time.

[Junior]

A selective reading of history may tell you that. You failed to address the fact that other, non-Judeo-Christian societies have come up with similar rules for living together. You have become wedded to a particular false view of history.

[Casloy]

He does a great job knocking down every kind of snake oil salesman and groups like PETA. I just wish he could seperate matters of science from matters of faith. I don't recall people who believe in God claiming they could prove scientifically he exists, so exactly who is he arguing with?

[BigCinBigD]

She missed one.
"Believing there is no God means I really really like the smell of brimstone."

[BenLurkin]

Bingo!

[LibertarianInExile]

Quoting the Bible to prove God is like quoting the Vedas to prove Hinduism or the Koran to prove Islam. And I'm pretty sure there are far more believing Hindus and Muslims than those who affiliate themselves with your chosen denomination.

One problem with your analogy is that daddies don't get a lot of say over why kids should have an inoculation--they didn't have anything to do with contagious illnesses--while God, as an omnipotent, omniscient being, could eliminate the need for inoculations. Certainly, humanity may have its destiny in God's plan, but saying that doesn't do away with the reality that, if He made the plan, God's plan included killing innocents with His natural disasters as part of it. It's difficult to overcome what we'd consider a great evil if done by Man with an anti-solipsistic 'it's part of His plan' when we DO know some of the details of that plan are what we'd consider evil were it not by the hand of God.

[Junior]

You gave up one addiction for another. Not necessarily a bad thing at all.

[narby]

Is Penn Gillette somebody famous?

I believe he's Penn, of Penn and Teller. Famous magician in Vegas.

I also believe he's come out as conservative on many issues. Not a lefty, by any means.

[mad_as_he$$]

You pick! That's free will, isn't it? Between the two I don't know the Greeks were pretty cranky and the Hindu's are just don't fit my idea of gods. However, the reincarnation thing is interesting from a philosophy point of view.

[Junior]

What evidence is there for God?

[Jack Black]

If you don't understand the difference between asserting the existence of an all powerful invisible being with specific powers and requirements set on humanity and believing in such and merely not asserting anything in particular about things we can't see or measure then you are the one who needs to study logic futher. Just because you say "Atheism is an act of faith" does not make it so. Of course most of the great religious philosophers have spent a great deal of time explaining "Why they believe". For instance C.S. Lewis, Thomas Acquinas. Many, perhaps the majority of non-believing philosophers have simply noted that and moved on to write and think about other areas, like truth, beauty, power, language and economics.

[Trampled by Lambs]

"We consider a rattlesnake dangerous but not evil."

Exactly. But I will still kill one if I find it in my back yard thus my belief and support in the death penalty.