Topic > Jillette: Beyond Atheism - 1431

Penn Jillette is a well-known atheist and researcher at the Cato Institute and has lectured at Oxford and MIT. He also wrote an article titled “There is no God.” In this article, Jillette claims to be “beyond atheism.” He argues that everyone needs to take a step back and start without believing in God. Then we can all start looking for proof of God's existence. Even Jillette believes that whatever conclusion we come to, it must be "an act of faith that helps us see the picture general of life, some rules to live by". Jillette's conclusion is simply, "I believe this: I believe there is no God." In the rest of the article he goes on to explain that this decision influenced every moment of his life. He concludes his article by stating that believing there is no God gives him more room to believe in family, people, love, truth, and beauty. For Mr. Jillette, the question of God is fundamental. His response gives meaning to every other aspect of his life. What is interesting is that many Christians believe the same thing, but we have a different answer to the question about God. Therefore, Jillette's argument is not about the importance of the question. The main point Jillette is trying to make is that there is enough meaning and purpose in this world without God. He states, “It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is abundant to me. It just seems rude to ask for more to the invisible". The answer to the question of God literally means everything in the world to Jillette. The philosophical question in this case is not the importance of the question about God, but rather how our answer to this question affects the way we live. The arguments in Jillette's favor are that belief in God... center of paper ...enn Jillette is content with the assessment of God's existence that he has arrived at, which leads to disdain rather than engagement with faith as Christians we are called to constantly engage with people in what they believe in order to adapt the message to their structure of understanding. His final point within this relativism argument is that his disbelief in God allows him to be proven wrong by anyone who is wrong to be proven wrong if the belief is grossly superficial and pathetic. Within the Christian life and even life in general, there is a lot of ambiguity and freedom of argument. Philosophy is about finding how to prove everything we know is wrong and only rethinking it so that it is judged to be faulty again. This course and history show us that even philosophers who claim to have faith in God engage in this examination of beliefs and foundations.