‘I can’t believe in a god who…’

A recent conversation I had has gotten me thinking about Jackie Gleason, who died in 1987. Although I was only in my early teens, something he said really struck me as not quite right. As best as I can remember (I can’t find the quote online), he said in one of his last interviews, knowing he was dying of cancer, something to the effect of “I can’t believe in a God who would send me to hell.” Whether or not that was his exact quote, that’s a common sentiment these days, and is just as wrong now as was back then.

To simplify the discussion, let’s ignore the question of “does God exist?” In fact, for this discussion, that answer really doesn’t matter, as the crux of the matter here is truth. Simply put, it really doesn’t matter what you believe or how you feel about something, if it’s true, it’s true. These days, post-modern man likes to think that truth is relative, and that we make our own reality, more or less, based on what we think is true. While it may be true that somethings are true sometimes and not others (“the sky is blue”), some truths are always true, regardless of our personal preferences.

Let me put it this way. Just over a year ago, as some of you may know, my dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Of all the things I wanted to hear, that was at the very bottom of the list. I was stunned. I could have simply said, “I can’t believe a doctor who would say my dad may be dying,” but that would have in no way affected the tragic outcome just a few months later. The truth was that my Dad was dying of cancer, and no amount of my wishing changed that fact.

Turning back to the discussion at hand, it may very well be that there is no god (though, for the record, I stand firmly convinced that there is), but your personal preference on some edict “god” has declared doesn’t affect the truth of the edict, or of his existence. If there is a god, whether that God is Yahweh, Allah, Rama, etc., his existence is not predicated on your preferences, so any choice to disbelieve in him should not either.