Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Penn Jillette and the Sincere Christian

Though the general rule of polite company is still to avoid politics and religion in normal conversation, the more you get to know someone -- or in the case of Penn Jillette, the more you get to know about someone -- the more likely it is that you will find out their basic viewpoint on those two controversial topics.

Today's "information age" hyper-connected world makes it even more likely that celebrities will end up representing their beliefs, whether they set out to do so or not. Of my Facebook friends, there are atheists and Christians. And in the group of celebrities who fascinate me, or who are admirable, there are also atheists and Christians. Penn Jillette and Adam Savage are probably the two most notable of the atheist group.

I had encountered this video a year or two ago, and really enjoyed it. But with the release of Jillette's new book, "God, No! (Signs You May Already Be An Atheist and Other Magical Tales)" it's not surprising it surfaced again.

If you're an atheist, I hope you can be as genuine and kind and thoughtful as Jillette is. And if you're  a Christian, I hope you can be as sincere and caring as the man he encountered before he recorded this message.

No comments: