I don’t believe in God.
I occasionally wish I did, because it’d sure cut back on my worries. But I don’t. And that’s OK.
It all just seems too simplistic. Listen, and you go to heaven. Fail, and you go to hell. It also strikes me as absolutely bonkers. There is this higher being, and he sees into all of our hearts. He knows what we’re thinking; how we feel. And if we’re sincere in our love, we’ll spend eternity in a happy place. And if we’re insincere, we’ll burn alongside the devil.
I have been told, repeatedly, to count my blessings. But why should I? Really. Why should I be thankful to a higher being for all I have (and, indeed, I have a lot) when so many have so little? Am I supposed to be thankful to God for the meal on my table when I know there are millions who won’t eat as well? Am I supposed to be thrilled by my soft bed when I know others are lying beneath bridges? Earlier today the wife and I learned of the horrible passing of a 17-year old girl; the daughter of a friend of a friend. What have I done better than the parents of a deceased child? How is it fair that she’s gone and I’m still here? I know … I know—”You just have to have faith” and “Everything happens for a reason.” Well, I call bullshit. What am I supposed to have faith in? That God just wanted another angel close to Him? That, even though I can’t see it now, this child passed for a purpose? Am I supposed to blindly accept that this was merely the way it works? Seriously? Well, I don’t have to have faith. Truly, I don’t want to have faith. Faith, to me, is the easy way out. Faith in the afterlife; faith that I’ll see my grandparents again on a cloud; faith that all is OK and part of God’s plan.
No. No, no, no. There is no God’s plan, and I won’t be joining Grandma and Grandpa on a cloud. I won’t be floating in heaven or stewing in hell. I’ll simply be dead and gone, as the majority of the world’s all-time citizens are dead and gone. I don’t believe there’s en entity that sees into my heart. I don’t believe I’m being tested.
I don’t even see the point. Wouldn’t we all be better served appreciating the brevity of existence? If I know I’m going to heaven for eternity, what’s the rush to live passionately today? Why smell the flowers and taste the chocolate and fly to Paris? The promise of a blissful eternity is the elixir to the despair we all feel from time to time, wondering whether this is as good as it gets. But, in actuality, this is as good as it gets. We live, we die. There are highs, there are lows. But, truly, it is what it is.
I don’t believe in God.
I just don’t.
