This is Why I Don’t Believe in God

BY SOFO ARCHON

One of the most frequent questions I receive is whether I believe in God.

Watch this video to hear my answer.

Transcript

People often ask me if I believe in God.

My answer changes depending on what each person means by “God.” But generally speaking, what those people mean by that word is: someone who is somewhere in space, who we cannot see but who can see us, and who is constantly observing us every single moment of our lives, trying to see if we are following his orders, if we are living according to how he wants us to live, so that he can eventually judge us and send us to heaven as a reward if we were good people, or punish us in hell if we were bad people.

To those people, I say, “No, I do not believe in this kind of God. Why should I? There is no proof that such a God exists. There is absolutely no evidence. I don’t have any personal experience that such a God exists. So why would I?”

And then they tell me, “Well, because it is written in this or that scripture. It is written in the Bible. Read that scripture and you will see why.”

And I say, “How do you know that the Bible is the Word of God?”

Then they tell me, “Well, because God says so,” which is circular logic. It’s crazy if you think about it. But most people believe such things. Most people think this way because they have been indoctrinated from a very young age to do so.

So, no—I don’t want to believe in something I don’t know, that there’s no evidence for, or that I haven’t somehow experienced in my own life. And I’m not going to believe it—to fill myself with shame, guilt, and fear— just because someone said the Bible is the Word of God, or because tradition passed those beliefs down to me. I’m not going to accept it. I’m going to question it—and not just personally, but publicly.

So if I sometimes speak against the world’s religions, it’s because I’m against dogmatic, close-minded thinking. I think it’s doing so much harm. It’s keeping us ignorant. It’s creating conflict between people. It is, partly, the cause of war. And I want people to see through that.

But I’m not fully against religion. I think that religion, at its core, is great. The spiritual core of religion is about connection, love, compassion. It’s about good things. Most of the world’s religions have tremendous insights to share—great, profound truths and wisdom that can help us live more joyfully, peacefully, and harmoniously.

But religions also contain so much bullshit that we need to identify. We need to question it—not just personally, but publicly—so that people start waking up, so that we can eventually start really following and embodying the spiritual core that pretty much every major religion teaches.