I don’t believe that God exists, but I did for a while. We weren’t overly religious when I was growing up, but I knew then that God existed. Leaving behind all supreme beings was a conscious decision, the rational end result of intellectual consideration of the matter. God does not exist.

But sometimes I forget that I don’t believe in God, and I’ll catch myself starting to ask a question or throwing a request up to the omnipresent, kindly, guiding, father figure of my youth*. Then I stop and remember…oh yeah. And for a moment it makes me sad that the God I once looked up to isn’t there.

But then I remember all of the bad shit that the idea of God is responsible for and I’m relieved that there isn’t one. Because as atheists like to say: s/he would have some serious explaining to do.

I remember God the way I remember cigarettes. They were enjoyable and a comfort for a while, they were hard to put down**, and even though both are a blight on this earth, every so often I find myself craving one or the other.

…

God isn’t welcome at my deathbed, but I sure hope I get a few last puffs off of a cigarette before I go.

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*I blame fucking C.S. Lewis’s Aslan for my mental image of God. His fictional character helped solidify the way I thought of the imaginary character I was raised to believe in. Jerk.

**Smoking was a lot harder to quit than God. Quitting smoking affected me physically, emotionally, behaviorally, and socially. For me, quitting God was only a matter of quitting a thought pattern.