Penn Jillette on Religion: "God, No!"
Penn Jillette has released his new book, God, No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales.
The book includes stories from Jillette’s life, and the accounts frame his reinterpretations of the Ten Commandments - the “Penn Commandments.”
Readers are taken on an exploration of skepticism, doubt, and wonder about religious wisdom, told through humorous events in the author’s life, and in it, he admits atheists do not have all the answers.
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The television host and frequent guest on many different shows, Jillette defines his atheistic view as simply someone who is kind and open to all ideas about the universe.
In an essay he wrote for CNN, Jillette explains, “What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist – I don’t know. If I don’t know, I don’t believe. I don’t know exactly how we got here, and I don’t think anyone else does, either.”
Despite the title of his book, Jillette is very fond of Christians, and says that people who follow Jesus have compassion.
When an Express Night Out reporter asked Jillette if he received hate mail from religious groups because of his outlook, Jillette said that the mail was quite the opposite. The letters Jillette received were “overwhelmingly kind and gentle and compassionate.”
During an interview with NPR Wednesday, Jillette said, “In my run-ins with Christians… I find that they are really good moral people. And we overlap on everything, and they don’t seem to be the kind of people that are waiting to hear voices to tell them what to do. So mostly I wrote this book… really appreciating religious people and how really good they are.”
The magician, comedian, and bassist, among other things, continued to share his assertions as an atheist as well as his political views: “It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns and give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral and self-righteous bullying laziness.”
Jillette appears on “Piers Morgan Tonight” Wednesday to answer more questions about atheism and religion. The interview will air at 9 P.M. EST on CNN.
