I'm convinced, there is no God...

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” ~Epicurus

The fact that I am alive right now is proof that there is either no God, or if there is he hasn't the slightest idea what the word mercy means.

I've had so many of my prayers unanswered. I wanted to give religion a try, but it's pointless, every time I pray to God, my prayers go unanswered. It all started when my parents wanted to move out of our house in St. Charles. I prayed to God that I wouldn't be taken from what I felt like, and what I still feel is, my home. All that happened was I was let down.

And then, I met Liz. I'd been crushing on her for a long time and we were supposed to move in together. I was going to find a job so I could help her keep her apartment. But every time something would get in my way. Sometimes it was even my family and friends. I knew that she was suicidal, and that's why I prayed that God would protect her and keep her safe. As usual, I was let down. And apparently her ex Reade followed suit, too, he was just as depressed as I am, if not more.

Finally, I just got fed up with everything. I prayed to God to put me out of my misery. So far, my prayer has gone unanswered. Yes, the fact that I am still alive means that my prayer has been unanswered, which brings me to the quote at the beginning of this post. I once watched a program about the teachings of Epicurus. Basically, he was a hedonist, but with the bad rap hedonism has, I should clarify... He wasn't evil, at least in my definition of what "evil" is. Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure, but Epicurus mused that the pursuit of pleasure is the only intrinsic good, and he found that in simple things like friends, knowledge, and virtue. He was also an ascetic. His school of thought is known as Epicureanism. I follow it to an extent; I'm not an ascetic and generally find bodily pleasure to be a good thing, possibly even sacred. But those 3 things, friends, knowledge, and virtue, are also things that I hold dear, and to lose one of my friends to social injustice makes me mad as Hell. But where was God when I needed him? Was he even there? If he was, why didn't he intervene? All I know is that I'm less afraid of death than I was before. I lost Liz, and when you lose someone like her, you've got nothing else to lose. Where were you, God? How could you let her die like that? Or am I speaking to a being which never existed? Perhaps Richard Dawkins was right when he wrote The God Delusion. The 2 television adaptations of it really shed light on what religion does to societies.

Part 1
Part 2