God, No! by Penn Jillette

Penn Jillette is a hilarious comedian, talented magician, lucid thinker, and noted libertarian.  He's also a proselytizing atheist, a hard-core atheist who feels like it's his duty to inform anyone who believes in God of the error of his ways.  God, No! continues his atheist proselytization, but I'm not sure how many converts he'll get.

If you don't know Jillette, you may recognize him as half of the comedy/magic team Penn and Teller (and a recent appearance on Dancing with the Stars, if you're into that sort of thing).  One thing you need to know before you pick up this book, or watch his T.V. show Bulls---, is that he has a filthy mouth.  He cusses and curses and uses crude sexual and scatological language more than anyone I've ever known.  So if that sort of thing turns you off, you'll want to avoid this book.  (I assume the Penn and Teller magic show in Vegas is a bit less profanity laced.)

Would  you buy a philosophy of life from this man?

God, No! is really for a the Penn Jillette fan.  Mostly it's a memoir, with loosely connected autobiographical stories intermixed with anecdotes from Penn's adventures in life and show business.  There are plenty of stories to make you laugh, like his account of his trip on the zero-g plane and his ill-fated use of a blow dryer in lieu of a towel after a shower.  He also tells plenty of stories that show his big heart, love for people in his life, and love of life itself.  This man loves life and makes the most of it.

The stories provide some relief from the stated purpose of the title and chapter titles: an attempt to deny the existence of God and to provide an alternative ethic for atheists, "one atheist's ten suggestions."  Penn says he's been an atheist all his life, in spite of his being brought up in church, but he refers frequently to some of the "new atheists," like Hitchens, Dawkins, and others.  Penn has done some reading.  God, No! is not an academic treatise or systematic defense of atheism, but Penn does make some good points.

The most damning argument for Christians revolves around proselytizing.  Penn thinks Christians are wrong about God, Jesus, and eternal life.  However, if someone really does believe that anyone who does not become a Christian is going to hell, he has an obligation to tell everyone he knows how to become a Christian.  Otherwise, Jillette doesn't want to hear anything from him:

If someone really believes in everlasting life . . . , then letting someone ---- up everlasting life is much worse than letting someone get hit by a train.  ----ing up everlasting life is being hit by a train forever . . . . This is like real no-kidding . . . forever, like dentist-drilling-into-your-teeth forever.  You have to do whatever you can, even if the heathens laugh in your face . . . .  You can't respect someone's right to not believe in something that's going to give him or her eternal life.  That's not real respect, that's callous disregard.  That's negligent eternal homicide. . . . If you believe in everlasting life and don't annoy me about it, if you're polite and let me believe what I want, even thought I'm going to spend eternity in real break-is-over-back-to-the-handstands-in-the-river-of----- hell, what kind of scumbag are you?  Get away from me!  How much do you have to hate someone to let the everlasting train of lost eternal life squash someone's heathen ---?

 Wow.  As a Christian who believes that Jesus is the only way to heaven and eternal life, this passage convicts me.  In the same way, Rob Bell and Francis Chan, in their books about hell, assert that a belief in hell should inform one's evangelistic choices.  Surely if I believe in God and hell, my lifestyle should demonstrate a regard for others which demands that I share the gospel at every opportunity.

A video Jillette posted on his blog about proselytizing made rounds in some church circles recently, leading some groups to target him with prayers for his salvation.  I'll join those prayers, specifically praying that, in spite of the many phonies in the American church, Jillette will meet some Christians who demonstrate the love of Christ in such a way that he will see both the hope we have in Jesus as well as the reasonableness of believing in him and following him.  Miracles do happen.