This came across my Facebook stream just now, via Heather Cox Richardson’s Book Club page…

And yet…and yet…I have met, online and off, many religious people, Christian and otherwise, who also believe these things. I am an Atheist, but it’s not because I have a grudge against religion. It’s just that belief in an all powerful creator of the universe and all living things God just stopped making sense to me. It may be different for you and I am fine with that. Maybe someday I’ll find myself strolling along Newton’s beach and pick up one of those prettier seashells he spoke of and find God inside of it and think oh…there you were. But I don’t think so. I’ve been like this, entranced by the world as I see it, as science and curiosity has revealed it to me, as long as I can remember. It is an awesomely beautiful universe we live in.

But there are times, like as I’m reading the script on this…what is it, a bench, a monument of some sort…that I wonder if you can be a Christian even if you don’t believe in God. I think you can. I think the carpenter’s son would tell us that it’s better to build a hospital than a church. If you have to pick one or the other, build the hospital. I think the carpenter’s son would say it’s better to work for the good than just to pray for it and wait for God to do something about it. I think carpenter’s son would tell us to be the good the world needs, feed the poor, care for the infirm, treat the stranger with kindness, because they are your neighbor. Make peace, be peace. I don’t need to believe in an almighty god to know these are good things, necessary things, if we are to have civilization, if humanity is to have its tomorrows. 

But I know there are those who think tomorrow is much less important than eternity. I think this is why they’re willing to let children, who are our tomorrow, starve to death, die of completely preventable diseases, become war’s collateral damage. It was god’s will. But no, it was indifference. It was the belief that belief alone is all you need to be a good person. Belief excuses indifference, forgives bigotry. But no, it does not.

You hear a lot since the election about being willing to disagree and still be family. But details matter. What are we disagreeing about? Is it about God, or about deeds? There are those that say good deeds won’t get you into heaven. But belief does not make anything happen all by itself. Belief can just be an excuse for not doing what you didn’t want to do in the first place. If you want to help make the American dream of liberty and justice for all real, do the work of civilization, and make all our tomorrows happen, I will walk with you. I will be your neighbor. We can be family. We can disagree about god.