What I’d say to people trying to witness to me.'

Witnessing to me about God will never work upon me. First, even if submission to God would make me feel better, what is the benefit exactly? How does my selfish worry over my own soul (if I have one) make life better for the next generation of people who inherit the planet after me? Even if I must be so selfish that my religion should be all about what is in it for me, no amount of threats or promises will move me. I control my beliefs using my intelligence and rationality, not my fears or fantasies. Either there is an afterlife or there isn't. If it turns out that there is no afterlife, then I have lived one life in the truth without surrendering to fear. If there is an afterlife and a God is displeased with me, then I would tell that God that I couldn’t respect any God that can’t respect intelligence. I owe nothing to a Creator who doesn't expect me to be faithful to my own mind. Who is more selfish here—a God who tyrannically demands everyone's submission, or a person who only asks for control over their own mind?

Why does religion obsess over death, instead of life? Billions of people over many thousands of years have held a vast number of wildly different convictions about what will happen after death. Humanity is truly a creatively imaginative species—the only thing surprising about this circus spectacle is the way that religious people are so arrogant to suppose that they somehow know the genuine truth.

People scared to death about death due to mythical tales they shouldn't accept in the first place don’t impress me. I could not possibly care at all about your fantasies even if you think they comfort you or you think that you actually deserve eternal happiness for praying to the 'right' God. Religion poisons people with terrible fears about hells or missing out on heavens, and only then offers the psychological antidote of relief, for the single price of surrendering intelligence at the church door. I can easily see why religious people are willing and able to do anything, like hating other people too different from themselves, perpetuating genocidal religious wars, or killing as many innocent unbelievers as they can. If people believe God exists, then anything gets permitted—that is the true lesson of religion's history. —John R Shook