Dear God
I don't believe in you,
You might be surprised to know.
Does that shock you?
Probably not.

I am asked
told
ordered
commanded
to accept you, love you and devote my life
to you.

But this is a thing
that I cannot do.

You see...

You just don't make sense.

Belief in you inspires men and women
to create great works of art
to compose wonderful, uplifting music
perform acts of selfless charity and goodness
to travel to the darkest corners of the world spreading their good news.
Belief in you also causes great pain
the destruction of entire nations
the killing of innocents
the suppression of thought and word.
Religion becomes a prison,
both for believers and unbelievers.

Religion explains everything,
and in doing so
it explains less than nothing.

I am asked, told, ordered, commanded
to accept that
you know everything, but not some things
you love us all, but send us to hell
you are all-powerful, but cannot help us
you hear our prayers, but will not act on them.
you watch us suffer, but do nothing.

Innocents die, for a mysterious greater good.

Everything we are told about you
Fits the description of something that
does not
cannot
should not exist.
Your attributes cancel each other
out of existence.

People shout
Thou Shalt Not Kill
as they slaughter and burn in your name.

People scream
Thou Shalt Not Steal
as they plunder and pillage,
until your temples creak under the weight of gold.

People cry
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness
as they deceive to convert, and silence the voice of science.

They say
God Is Love
and tell us that our love is wrong
and list those that God hates.

Preaching tolerance
they tolerate only those who conform.

Christians tell us that You died on the cross
to wash away our sins,
and the seas filled with blood
as your followers gouged and slashed their way to heaven.

If Christ was a man, and no more, this makes
a strange sort of
sense.

But if he was a god, it makes a mockery of reason.

If I could believe in a God,
I would be ashamed to be associated with any earthly religion.

Faith asks me to accept
the nonsensical
the incoherent
the twisted logic
the hatred of difference
the demonstrably false
the inhuman
the unacceptable.

My mind tries to make it all
fit
mesh
coalesce.
The jigsaw pieces are all the wrong shapes.
The whole is less than the sum of its parts.
The rationalisations are too weak to form foundations.

My destiny is mine to control.
I can feel the Earth moving.
My genes are older than stars.
The world does make sense.
Every moment of life is full of joy and wonder.
And because of this I know that there is no god.

My mind is free.
My soul is my own.
I am an atheist.
I am human.