God is not a happiness pill

I'm coming to see the problem with both religious and anti-religious people. They think that either God exists so they can get something (salvation, heaven, happiness, a quick parking space downtown) or they deny God because they fail to get that something or avoid something else they didn't want (cancer, boredom, pimples, parking fines). What if God's existence is not about you, for just a moment?

I never for a minute connected the truth or falsehood or even doubt about the existence of God to whether I was getting rewarded or punished suitably by The Big Guy. I never particularly thought God owed me anything.

You could have ten Holocausts, all of them directed against people whose name begins with a C, and whether God exists would be unaffected, as a matter of truth. God either is or isn't. It's got nothing to do with me.

I say (today) that God is. About a month ago I doubted so profoundly that God is, that for all practical purposes I believed God isn't. The change has nothing to do with feeling, nothing to do with thinking myself "saved," nothing to do with heaven and, frankly, I have had pretty good parking karma with and without belief in God.