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Posted by: schrodingerscat ( )
Date: May 22, 2020 06:33PM

NPR has a radio project called, "This I Believe" that was originally started back in 1951 and was revived back in 2001 in response to 9-11. It's generally uplifting content that are personal stories that are supposed to be read out loud on the radio, but they made a book out of them and I was reading the book and came across this one I thought was great and thought a lot of you might appreciate here.

https://www.npr.org/2005/11/21/5015557/there-is-no-god

"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."

Penn Jilllette

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Posted by: anybody ( )
Date: May 22, 2020 08:08PM

And I think that was the subject of the very first original episode as well.

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Posted by: thedesertrat1 ( )
Date: May 23, 2020 03:52PM

There have been times in my life when I have needed to pretend to believe in order to preserve any semblance of stability. I have usually regretted doing this because it usually came back to bite me you know where!
However it taught me one thing. If you say what they want to hear most people will accept and believe it.
I have preached whole sermons on subjects that I did not believe and by proper research and presentation recieved compliments on them.
EVLAUATE WHAT YOU HEAR BEFORE YOU BELIEVE IT!!!!!

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