“You know what fishy?” she asked me. 

“what?

“He doesn’t come through for you,” Madelyn sobbed, tears shooting out of her eyes. “We always tell ourselves ‘God will come through for us. God knows best.... But its not true. Its so random... its all just so random. God lets us down all the time... sometimes we’re up and sometimes we’re down.” 

“I know...” I didn't know what to say. What can you say? She was right. 

“When something good happens to us we say thank you God. And then when something really bad happens to us, we ask God why? And we are supposed to believe that is God's will? Or what?! God just didn't pay attention and it happened because of some other reason? Is that it? and then he can’t help us and we’re just stuck out there on our own?! is that it?”

“I don't know. I can’t figure it out either Maddie. Who’s to say? I think we just have to depend on ourselves and just do the best we can for ourselves...” 

“It’s a myth. Isn't it? Its all just stuff we’re making up! And I hate it. I hate it!” she cried even more and beat the bed with her fists. “I'm sick of it. I'm sick of believing in things that aren't real. Why can’t we just have truuuuuuuuuttttthhhhh?!” she cried out. I just tried to be there for her, smiling, accepting, unconditional. 

“I know. I know,” I said. “God still loves you even if you don't love him,” I joked. She laughed.  

“I love my cats.” She grabbed her cat. “They would never lie to me. Would you kitty?” she said starting to cheer herself up. Man you don't forget someone like Madelyn O'Ryan. When Ferret says she is the kindest sweetest most good hearted person he has ever met, like an angel or something, he isn't kidding. Everyone feels this was about her. She is true blue. She is like an angel. I wish God was more there for her. I wish God was more there for all of us...

The question is, can we still be happy if we get to a point where we don't believe in a God? Mohdie doesn’t believe in a God. And he is one of the happiest people we know. Me and Maddie always have and we’re two of the most confused people out there. Sometimes I think its easier not to. because like woody Allen says, ‘things are just so bad on earth for so many centuries that if there really was a God we would all be filing class action suits against him.’ But regardless of how true that may be, it is hard to shake the idea of it if you were raised with it. Bertrand Russell (or was it BF Skinner?) had postulated a theory back in the sixties that its just all in the raising. That if we wanted to we could raise a person to believe without a shadow of a doubt that a pine cone was God if we just instilled it in them within their first three years of life. its just that initial brainwashing in the formative years. I think that's what's happened to a lot of us. The majority of us on earth, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Hindu. We’re raised to believe in these different gods. So even though we may grow up not seeing any proof of their existence, and in fact seeing a lot of proof that they don't exist, we still have some deeply embedded belief in them because of our brainwashing as little children. Not only does this lead us all to a lot of sadness and confusion, disillusion and disappointment as we become aware adults, but it also has led to a lot of hatred and bigotry and death and destruction and war for all of us over the centuries. 

I look forward to the day when we can just say to one of our enemies, “Hey I'll put down my God if you'll put down yours. I say we just put the whole God and religion thing behind us and just start asking ourselves how we can help each other.” One can see how beautiful that could be. Just two humans forgetting about all that other stuff. Those will be the days. And I hope I'm here to see it. We can erect churches and temples to ourselves instead of to gods. And we can have holidays that celebrate ourselves and our own accomplishments rather than all these different and sort of hard to prove mythical religious holidays that just end up confusing the shit out of everybody. Its easy to think about all this especially now because the world is in such chaos because of conflicting religious beliefs. 

Just recently some general from America said some really kooky religious stuff. Scary. People like that, hard to believe they are still around. I still believe in God. And I try to talk to him/her/it all the time. I just try not to attach any religion to It. I mean, if God wants to give us a religion he will. Its not going to be debatable and filled with loopholes and technicalities and half truths like it is now with all the religions of the earth. You don't need to have faith in things. Let other people believe that all they want if it helps them feel better about believing in things that they can’t see or prove. But to me God is bigger than all that. 

So for now the concept whether real or not seems just too big to attach anything to like a religion. Man I hope one day he/she/it does reveal himself to us. But lets say that he doesn’t. And then I die and find out nothing at all cause I'm just dead and there's nothing else. That will still be cool because I think I got a lot of strength and support from believing anyway. When I think of God it makes me feel good either way. The only problem is like what happened to Maddie when she had her spiritual breakdown, like when you start expecting God to come through for you and he doesn’t. That’s kind of frustrating. And that's happened to me a lot too. I am sure it’s happened to everyone. Millions of times a day all over the earth. But we keep creating God anyway because like I said it makes us feel good to have that belief. Better than not believing I guess...