A conversation takes place inside a transparent glass.
In a tall crystal glass stand oil and water. The oil is above, golden and thick, shining in the light like a contemplative mind. The water rests below, clear and simple, moving calmly like a believing heart.
Oil(in a soft voice, trying to rise): "Why do you refuse to mix with me? Are we not together in this glass? Are we not partners in life?"
Water(calmly and confidently): "Indeed, we share the same vessel, but we do not mix. That is the first truth you must understand."
A Clash Between Reason and Myth
Water: "But I am the foundation of life. It is written, 'We made from water every living thing.'"
Oil(mocking, confident, and defiant): "That is your first logical fallacy: overgeneralization. Some organisms can live without liquid water and rely on moisture in their food. Science says that most living things depend on water, not all of them. You love exaggeration because you want to feel important."
Water(rippling uneasily): "But I offer comfort. When a person is thirsty, I am their refuge. When a believer performs ablution, I make them pure."
Oil(proudly): "And I offer light. When the lamps of science shine, darkness disappears. You, by contrast, prefer people to remain in the darkness of faith so they will not see the gaps and flaws in your stories."
Myths Under the Microscope
Water(astonished): "These are divine miracles, not mere stories. You belittle them and deliberately try to diminish their value. I carry the tales of prophets, the miracles of gods, and the promises of paradise!"
Oil: "Stories borrowed from the myths of Babylon and Sumer. Let me remind you what your beliefs are without their embellishments and patchwork explanations:
- The flood story appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh a thousand years before the Torah.
- The creation of Adam from clay resembles an ancient Egyptian myth.
- The idea of seven heavens echoes a Babylonian conception of cosmic layers.
"You have nothing original of your own. You are merely a distorted transmitter. You openly contradict science, so blatantly that even a blind person could almost see it. Your problem, dear water, is that you boast of proving something for which you have no evidence—not even evidence of a possibility. You speak of it with absolute certainty and threaten those who deny it, as though you saw it with your own eyes, without the slightest effort at research or learning.
"Could there be greater arrogance and stupidity? Your beliefs have become so brazen that you curse, insult, threaten, and intimidate anyone who refuses to believe or submit to them, without offering any attempt at analysis or logical thought. You forbid inquiry and forbid investigation. With insolent stupidity, you declare that whoever uses reason falls into heresy, threatening them with eternal Hell and suffering, while possessing not the smallest proof of the punishment you promise—or of the bliss and rewards you offer in exchange for their humiliation, servitude, submission, and abandonment of independent thought.
"Is that not shamelessness? You praise anyone who follows your sacred texts without thinking, as though they were livestock, animals, or donkeys wearing a bridle that must never kick or resist. How arrogant and tyrannical you are!"
Water(angrily): "But my book says, 'The sun runs toward its resting place.' That is a scientific miracle!"
Oil(mocking, astonished): "And that is your second fallacy: selective interpretation. You choose one verse and interpret it however you like, while ignoring another statement in the Qur'an: 'The earth We spread out'—language that suggests a flattened surface rather than a globe. Science tells us that the Sun is relatively stable while Earth revolves around it. You pick the cherry, as the saying goes: you take the sweet fruit and leave the rest. That is another fallacy added to your long list of evasions, repairs, and contradictions."
The Battle of Reason
Water: "But many scholars bring you and me together. They are famous people, whom you know even if I need not name them. They are symbols of the very science and reason you praise, yet they are believers who support scientific claims with verses from sacred scriptures of all religions. They appear constantly on screens, channels, and social media, surrounded by admirers, followers, and flatterers."
Oil(with disgust): "That is the greatest disaster of all. When something spreads and everyone agrees with it, be certain that there may be a serious error—or even a grave danger—at its heart. That is herd mentality. When quantity overwhelms quality, you are in danger. Matters should be judged by quality, as I do, not by numbers, patchwork, and deception as you do.
"The names foolish people in your environment boast about are often tools for fraud, the ruler's right-hand men. It is the filthy partnership between religion and politics, the same old distraction game—indeed, the game of illusion and deceit. These hypocrites are not scientists; they are patchers. They are like someone trying to mix oil and water by force. They cite the Big Bang to confirm 'Be, and it is,' while ignoring that the theory itself says nothing about a creator; it describes a physical process. This is the straw-man fallacy: they construct an imaginary theory, then attack it."
Water: "But the theory itself says there must be a first cause! Perhaps it is energy, perhaps a force science will discover as it pursues the truth and investigates facts. Scientists may labor for hundreds of years to make sure their research is rigorous and honest, rather than relying on myths and stories as you do."
Water(with certainty): "That cause science has not yet discovered is God."
Oil(mocking): "The fallacy of the chain! 'Droppings prove the camel; footprints prove the traveler'—what a naïve and crooked way to reason. If I ask you, 'Who created God?' you say, 'God is eternal.' Then why could the universe not be eternal? Why do you need a mythical intermediary to explain what you do not understand?"
"And let me add something else you may deny, have forgotten, or deliberately ignore."
Water(tense and worried): "What are you getting at?"
Oil(standing tall, with the pride of a crowned king): "I am proud to say that I remove bacteria and dirt produced by living bodies, especially the human body we are discussing. Human skin produces bacteria, fungi, and sweat, leaving effects worse than bad odor alone. If they remain on the body instead of being properly cleaned, they can cause skin and environmental health problems. Oily substances—especially oils—absorb and remove dirt from the skin and throughout the body. They work like magnets, collecting grime deeply and leaving behind the pleasant fragrance of genuine cleanliness, which science has demonstrated.
"You poor thing, however often people try to clean themselves with you or with other non-oily, non-greasy tools, you will not remove dirt as deeply as I do. You have no color and no smell, and you cannot cleanse grime with my thoroughness. Because you have no scent, unpleasant odors can remain on the body if people rely on you alone.
"The disaster is that naïve believers venerate you excessively, preferring you over everything else. Even if bacteria remain on the body and bad smells spread, they do not care: the ritual requires you, and nothing else matters. A foolish believer can stand before his god, performing rituals while the smell of dirt clings to him and bacteria burrow into his body like woodworm. As long as he has used water, he believes all is well.
"What if a believer abandoned you completely and used only me? I would leave him clean, free of clinging bacteria and dirt, pleasantly scented—and he could do without you altogether."
Water(interrupting angrily): "No! His prayers and rites would not be accepted without me. I am the symbol of purity. Without me, his worship is invalid. Even the finest oils in the world, no matter how expensive, cannot help him if he does not use me. I symbolize purity, life, and sanctification."
Oil(sarcastically): "And that is the calamity, the contradiction itself. How astonishing you believers are! For you, it is nothing more than blind veneration and rituals performed without awareness, science, or reason. If you seek cleanliness and care about purity, why reject my ability to remove dirt deeply from your bodies and insist on water, which merely leaves the dirt where it is? If purity is the goal, which is cleaner: a believer who performs his rites clean, fragrant, and free of bacteria and grime without water, or someone who soaks every part of the body in water and then stands like a fool to pray while covered with bacteria, dirt, and unpleasant smells—yet whose worship is supposedly accepted and correct? The odor does not matter, nor do bacteria and grime. Only you matter, water. They even refuse to perfume you. What stupidity!
"They are not seeking genuine cleanliness. They seek imaginary commands and rituals, which they perform by sanctifying you alone. They are merely foolish, humiliated slaves. It is the height of superficiality and contradiction, the logic of illogic: purity without cleanliness."
Rich and Poor
Water(with emotion): "I am accessible to everyone. The poor drink me, and the needy perform ablution with me. You, however, are available only to the wealthy and privileged."
Oil: "And here lies the point. You flourish where ignorance, poverty, and disease flourish. In the poorest villages, temples and mosques are crowded. In the most scientifically advanced, technologically developed, civilized, and wealthy countries, religious institutions decline and shrink. You are merely consolation for the poor in their poverty and for the ignorant in their ignorance—the illusion that the needy will receive what they desire and more, but not now, in another world. You are an easy-to-reach, deceptive mirage. You are the opium of the people, as Marx said: you numb them to their real demands by promising paradise."
Water: "I give them hope!"
Oil: "No. You steal their real hope. You tell the worker to be patient because paradise awaits, while ignoring the factory owner who exploits him. You tell the oppressed woman that her suffering is God's decree, ignoring the injustice of laws made by people like you."
The Problem of Many Gods
Water(proudly): "But I call for one God!"
Oil: "Which God? The jealous God of the Jews who commands the killing of children? The incarnate God of Christians who dies on the cross? The God of Muslims who promises seventy-two houris to the martyr? Every religion depicts a different god, and each claims to possess the truth. This is the 'god application form' game I mentioned, as though God fills out a different form for every religion.
"He is like an international con artist, skilled at changing disguises and colors so no one can uncover him. He hides completely, then demands that people submit, plead, kneel, bow, and worship him in countless ways that contradict one another. He threatens eternal woe and torment for those who refuse, punishments they have never seen and cannot even imagine. What tyranny! What narcissism and vileness! Then, after all this, he describes himself as self-sufficient and praiseworthy. Where is this self-sufficiency when he desperately needs people to grovel, submit, bow, kill, and be killed for him?
"To my mind, this is the height of poverty, need, and want. He is less mature than a spoiled child who needs to be pampered—or perhaps a psychologically wounded being who suffered deficiency, humiliation, rejection, and contempt, and now tries to compensate for that deprivation through humans. He claims that he created them only to satisfy his sick desires and narcissistic ego.
"And he did not stop there. Like a chameleon, he changed shape and color within the minds of those who invented him, appearing differently in every religion and ritual, contradicting each version with another. Each group runs after its own belief, convinced it has the correct version of this god, who surpasses even a flirtatious woman in his games of concealment. It is as though he enjoys their confusion, differences, and quarrels. How naïve the believers are!
"Then, according to their own claims, he creates a devil to be his enemy and evil by definition, against that creature's will, merely so he can cast himself as good. He permits this devil to tempt people, roam the earth, and strut about as he pleases, then claims to be angry with the devil and those who follow him—as though it all happened against his will. Does he not claim to be all-powerful and all-knowing? What contradiction! What violation of logic and science—and what evil! Does this being deserve your reverence, respect, or bowed head? Astonishing!"
Water: "Faith gives the weary soul comfort and tranquility. Trusting in God means that He manages one's affairs and grants energy, relief, and hope. Faith gives inner peace!"
Oil: "And it also brings external war! How many wars have been waged in your name? How much blood has been spilled under the slogan 'God is greatest'? Science builds hospitals while faith blesses soldiers, holy war, humiliation, submission, and the abandonment of thought, inquiry, doubt, and questioning. You call for obedience and surrender. I call for questions, logical analysis, scientific research, hard work, and investigation. I doubt, therefore I exist. Doubt opens a gate to imagination and inquiry; behind it lie truths waiting to be uncovered. It is a gate that calls for research and science, the sharp edge that puts the dots over the letters. Without me, the weapon of progress and civilization, the universe cannot be set right, no matter how hard you try, or how hard your beliefs and gods try."
The Inevitable End
Water(in a despairing voice): "But people need me."
Oil: "To give them hope in their miserable lives, while death lurks inside them at every moment? Meaning does not come from fleeing into superstition. Human beings build meaning themselves, through their choices, creativity, and love for one another. Why do you think life needs heavenly promises in order to have value?"
Water: "Because death is a separation..."
Oil: "Death is final separation. There is no paradise or fire—only our atoms returning to the universe from which they came. That makes life very precious, because it is a single opportunity, not a trial run for paradise as you and your beliefs claim. Life's value lies in succeeding, developing oneself, learning to enjoy each moment, and respecting honor, ethics, and law. These principles are for the sake of ethics themselves, not false principles that make people wait for a reward in exchange for obedience and fear of punishment."
Final Scene: The Clear Separation
The oil remained on top and the water below. From a distance, a viewer might think the glass contained one liquid. But anyone who looked carefully could see the dividing line clearly: the golden color stood wholly apart from the clear water—or what seemed clear to the naked eye. It was the line between myth and truth, between illusion and reality.
Oil(confidently, from above): "This is our fate. We may occupy the same vessel, but we do not mix. Science refuses to become a foolish servant of faith, and truth refuses to submit to myth."
Water(finally calming): "So... we will remain separate forever?"
Oil: "Yes, because mixing is impossible. Yet a day may come when all the water evaporates and the oil remains pure—a day when people no longer need gods and are content with their own humanity."
Sunlight entered through the window and played across the oil's surface, forming tiny rainbows: pure physical beauty that needed no mythical explanation. The glass remained a witness: some truths do not mix, no matter how much people wish they would.
Conclusion: In the end, the discerning observer understands that oil is above and water below. Attempts to mix them are like trying to hold fire and ice in the same palm.
"Science does not need religion, but religion always needs science to justify its existence. Humanity is divided into two kinds: those who see the dividing line and accept it, and those who close their eyes and imagine that things which can never combine have somehow become one."
End of reflection
THE HONORABLE ONESScene: An Imaginary Day of Judgment
The sky was not golden, as believers had imagined, but grey, like a philosopher's mind. There was no throne and no river of wine—only an immense hall, where God sat on a simple chair, reading from a transparent tablet.
Believers from every religion stood in rows: Muslims in white robes, Christians bearing crosses, Jews carrying their books. Off to one side stood the atheists: scientists in laboratory coats, philosophers with tired eyes, and ordinary people whose faces were calm.
The Dialogue: The Shock
God(his voice echoing like a sound inside a cave): "I deliberately hid myself to test your faith, to prove that you believed in the unseen."
The Believers(speaking in one confident voice): "We trusted You and Your existence with hearts filled with Your divine light! We never needed any tangible, material evidence, or logical or scientific arguments. We found You within our believing souls, in our hearts, prayers, fasting, and worship. We felt Your mercy surrounding us in every circumstance. We called to You and pleaded with You. Your presence in our hearts was the greatest proof of Your existence. Faith alone was a blazing sun that overwhelmed everything beneath it with its brightness. We needed nothing more to see and hear You as though You stood before our very eyes. You are God; all You need is a pure believing heart, filled with prayer, worship, bowing, and prostration."
God(with disgust): "No. You are liars and hypocrites. You did not choose me, nor were you convinced of my existence for the reasons you have just offered."
The believers gasped. "What? You always called for faith! How can You say this now?"
God: "I called for honesty and inquiry. I am not what you imagined; otherwise, I would not deserve to be God. I never wanted hearts that simply surrender and obey, you cowards. Not for one day—not even one hour—did you love me. I watched you all the time, deceiving me with honeyed words in your prayers and supplications, trying to fool me with the crocodile tears you shed constantly.
"You fell in love with humiliation. Your wretched souls found comfort in degradation. Fear was your only motive, the strongest force that drove you to invoke me and plead with me. Not one day did you perform a prayer or ritual in any of those accursed religions out of love for me or conviction in me. You did it out of fear and greed. You miserable, humiliated slaves feared the torment and threats of an eternal fire that would scorch your faces and crush your skin forever. You coveted houris, food you had never tasted, comfort and bliss without prayer or toil—an eternal paradise of eating and drinking, a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and happiness. You longed for rivers of honey, wine, and milk. The carrot lured you, and the stick drove you to run: you fled the imagined blows and chased the treat dangling before your eyes, like donkeys—or less than donkeys. The donkeys I created refuse to sink to your level. They do not worship a god they cannot see and know nothing about; they crave no paradise or houris, and fear no torment. In my eyes, they are purer and higher than you."
The believers' mouths hung open in astonishment, as though lightning had struck them.
"What a calamity! What are we hearing? Were You not the God who deliberately concealed Himself? Were You not the One who said that faith meant surrendering and obeying divine religion and sacred texts, without questions, investigation, or inquiry? Were You not the One who said that the heart was the seat of faith and thought, while the mind was only an instrument? Did You not glorify blind faith? Did You not threaten us with fire and eternal punishment if we did not believe in You, while insisting that we must not demand to see You? Did You not say that we could not bear Your appearance and that You had hidden Yourself to test our hearts and the strength of the faith rooted in them? Did Your books not promise us green gardens, fruit, and beautiful companions because we deserved them by never questioning You, since You are not to be questioned about what You do? Did You not say, 'Eat and drink in happiness for what you used to do'? Have You changed Your principles after deceiving us for all the years we spent imagining that we were pleasing You? Now You call us cowards and greedy people. Did You not encourage us to become exactly that? Was it not Your choice and command?"
God(interrupting, his face darkening): "I never deceived you. You deceived yourselves. As for your foolish questions, I have answered them. I told you that I deliberately concealed myself so I could distinguish the genuine from the false, the coward from the brave, the person of courage, dignity, and pride from the contemptible, servile soul that moves only at the lash and is driven only by deferred desires and appetites promised for the great Day.
"Those are your own traits. You imagined that I knew every unseen thing, but I needed to see the results for myself. This was no trick; it was the real test, the one that exposes the imitation and reveals the original, the liar and the honest person. I needed to discover who would search, think, and weigh matters consciously; who would respect science and logic, and spend years searching for me—not because they wanted my paradise, food, or drink, nor because they feared their skin and body might burn forever or be eaten by worms in a lake of sulphur, but because they wanted to know me and communicate with me.
"I wanted to be approached, discussed, questioned, and loved—not my paradise or bliss. I hid to learn who truly wished to love me, rather than those who feared me and approached me only to avoid my sting, as though I were a poisonous scorpion or snake. You pleaded, trembled, and begged for forgiveness, hoping to secure bliss and escape my supposed anger and revenge. I hid to see who wanted the truth and genuine contact, rather than paradise, wine, food, and drink, or protection from punishment.
"Do you call this love, believers? Is this what you understood from my concealment through all these centuries and billions of years? How limited your understanding, how excessive your greed and cowardice! Answer honestly: did you ever search for me? Did any of you wonder why I was absent? Did any of you exhaust your mind and brain in even the smallest attempt to look for me, or to discover where the universe around you came from? Never. You never tried. You closed your minds and thoughts until rust covered them and they died. You buried them in the cemetery of faith, obedience, and submission, without effort or hardship.
"You were born into families who followed a religion, so you followed it without discussion. Then you convinced yourselves that you had thought it through and decided that the religion inherited from your parents must be correct. You argued and shouted at believers of other religions, who were no less lazy, foolish, or naïve than you, claiming that you alone were right and knew me as I truly was. Followers of each religion and sect fought one another—not out of a genuine desire to find me, but out of fear of the torment I supposedly threatened you with and greed for the bliss I supposedly offered. I did not truly want these things from you. I wanted to expose you as you were, to discover what lay inside your souls and intentions. The truth poured out before me like a raging flood.
"Your tears came cascading the moment I threatened punishment for those who worshipped me without seeing me, and the moment I told you to worship me as though you could see me—even though you had never found me before you. Was fear of me your greatest motive? Was greed for promised bliss the force that stirred your ambitions?"
God(deeply moved, his voice filled with sorrow): "You never wanted me for myself, not for a single day. You never exerted yourselves to seek me. You feared me and coveted the riches of my bliss, like someone trying to inherit a relative's fortune: they flatter and beg, show him excessive care, and draw close in the hope that he will leave them as much of his property as possible. Sadly, in your eyes I was nothing but a terrifying, narcissistic, wrathful, vengeful being who thought only of himself and loved only those who grovelled and submitted to him, rewarding them to satisfy his childish vanity."
The Believers(stammering in confusion): "But You encouraged us to do this. You tempted us with bliss and taught us fear. We admit that we feared You, and we confess that we never tried to investigate Your existence. We inherited religion and belief in You from our families, our countries, and those around us. We feared changing what our fathers had followed, lest Your curse pursue us and Your anger descend upon us, depriving us of the pleasures You promised if we worshipped You as our parents had done.
"Even those among us who dared to change their inherited religion did so because they believed they had found the true faith. They still surrendered to You without proper questioning or inquiry. We heard of You in more than a thousand forms and faces. We heard about Your punishment, wrath, vengeance, and bliss in a thousand shapes in every religion, all contradicting one another. We admit that we never sought You for Your own sake. We sought You because You tempted us with rewards."
God(angrily): "And now you admit it openly. You never searched for me or made any effort. You spared your brains and thoughts and searched only for the pleasures and desires you hoped I would grant you. You sought yourselves and your own satisfaction. You sought protection from torment and indulgence in bliss. How much you love yourselves, cowards!
"I now declare openly to all of you, believers of every religion, sect, community, and god: yes, I tempted you, made promises to you, and frightened you—not so that you might surrender to greed and ignorance, beg, submit, and abase yourselves. Not so that you might seek to satisfy yourselves by dreaming of paradise, houris, and pleasure, or fear that your sensitive skin would be branded, burned, or charred eternally in a lake of sulphur. How selfish, cowardly, and degraded you are! You love yourselves, contemptible slaves. Nothing moves you except the whip and the stick.
"You performed the foolish rituals of every religion, in every form and color, only because you loved yourselves, feared for yourselves, and postponed your desires until that promised day. You have now rushed to me not to meet or speak with me, but to receive prizes of comfort and indulgence. You beautified the ugliness and absurdity of life just to obtain those rewards—not for my sake. You arrived in terror lest I grow angry and punish you for your sins. Each of you remembers his good deeds, charity, and kindness to the poor, hoping I will be pleased and overlook his offenses. He smiles slyly, imagining the bliss he has always desired.
"Could a soul be more base, contemptible, or vile? You now confess everything, and I will answer confession with confession: I did all the things you have described, tempted you and threatened you, to see your responses and expose falsehood and deception for what they were."
God turned toward the atheists, looking at them with respect and appreciation, then addressed the believers.
"Look at them, you foolish slaves who love no one but yourselves and are moved only by fear. Ask your own consciences: why did they not covet what you coveted? Why did they not fear as you feared? Why did they seek me rather than my paradise? Why did they sacrifice themselves willingly, offering themselves as a perpetual offering to roaring fire—and even welcome it in the name of truth? What moved them, if neither fear nor greed? Why did they not inherit their parents' religions as you did? Why did they reject them and turn away from all religions? Why did my promises of pleasure not entice them? Why did they not fear my fire, Hell, or my worms? Why did they care only for truth, welcoming even the fire for its sake? Why are they ascetics in the face of reward and seekers of truth, while you are cowards, fearful and greedy?"
The Believers(astonished, their words frozen): "But they are unbelievers! They denied Your existence and challenged You. You yourself called them infidels and deniers of Your blessings. They rejected You. Will You praise them after they rejected You?"
God(mocking, yet confident): "They rejected humiliation and degradation. They rejected the seduction of houris, pleasures, rivers of milk and honey, gardens, and the kingdom of bliss. They rejected submission and abasement. You believers have no dignity or pride; you seek only yourselves and the satisfaction of your wretched egos. They are not as foolish as you. Do you know why? Because they did not believe without thinking. They searched for truth and reflected. They strained their minds not to beg for pleasure and bliss or to protect themselves from Hell, but to discover me for myself.
"They wanted real communication with me: dialogue and discussion for the good of the universe. They thought about the public good, the improvement of life, the spread of knowledge, and labored in scientific laboratories, developing medicine and treatments. They worked to improve life, technology, and science, educating researchers who advanced the world through their knowledge and civilization. They served humanity.
"When I deliberately concealed myself to see how they would respond, they remained steadfast. They did not covet pleasures or lusts their eyes had never seen and their ears had never heard, even though I tempted them with promises of delights beyond anything they could find in this life, no matter how far it advanced or how long it lasted. They kept searching. They spent their lives inventing, protecting people from diseases and epidemics. They did not weaken or give up; they did not desire what you fools desired. They devoted themselves to improving and protecting life, making discoveries and inventions, developing the world.
"When I saw how steadfast they remained, I tried to frighten them with Hell and fire, threatening them in the books I had led you to believe were true. Still they did not fear or weaken. They continued seeking me. When they did not find me, they turned to improving life, inventing things, and laboring through thought, analysis, and logic. They followed the honest scientific path built on evidence, not myths and fables, in order to develop and advance.
"Meanwhile, you stood like stagnant, stinking water, lazy, hesitant, and inactive, doing nothing to build, develop, study, or work. You claimed that life was fleeting and worth less than the wing of a mosquito. Then, when you began to crumble like an old building whose foundations had been eaten away by decay, you turned to them. You needed their inventions, medicines, and knowledge. You boasted of living in their countries, yet inwardly you wished them harm and shed their blood—or declared it lawful to shed—because they were infidels. You lived at their expense. They were the rescuers, while you contemptible people became mere consumers.
"While they searched, thought, questioned, reflected, and sought me earnestly and honestly—without fear or greed—you wept and supplicated, terrified for yourselves, coveting bliss and fearing punishment. You remained like stagnant water until you stank, idle and cowardly, moved only by fear and greed. While you trembled, they were searching, thinking, inventing. They never coveted paradise, food, or drink. They did not fear an eternal fire; they willingly offered themselves in the cause of truth and science, knowledge grounded in honest evidence, logic, and precision—not in myths and fables so absurd they blind the eye of the sun. Yet you followed those stories arrogantly and foolishly, patching them together and forcing them onto your religions in order to hide your embarrassment, conceal your religions' flaws, and cover your weakness and cowardice.
"When you were cowards, they were brave. Fear and punishment could not defeat them in their pursuit of truth, science, and reason. While you chased the pleasures of an afterlife, greed and desire drove you, and fear tormented you. What a vast difference between you and these courageous, determined people who renounced pleasures and lusts to seek truth and science, benefiting humanity and the world!
"Fear shackled you, greed controlled you, and you lived among myths, ignorance, and superstition. You thought only of satisfying your appetites and desires by coveting bliss. The carrot tempted you and the stick frightened you. You feared that your bodies would burn, char, or be roasted forever, or be eaten by worms in a sulphur lake. So you begged, prayed, gave alms, and performed good deeds—not for my sake but as a business transaction of profit and loss. You never did good for goodness itself; you expected a wage that would bring you nearer to houris, pleasure, green gardens, and lustful delights. You wanted insurance against eternal fire and Hell, not a relationship with me.
"You never sought me as they did. You never loved me or wanted genuine contact as they did. You were greedy and afraid; they sought, learned, and advanced. They were not cowards chasing bliss, houris, food, and pleasures."
Everyone fell silent.
God then pointed to an atheist astronomer.
"This woman spent forty years studying the stars, searching for the order of the universe and asking whether a mind lay behind its beauty. She found no evidence, so she refused to believe without proof. Yet every night she looked up at the sky and respected its mystery."
The Atheist Astronomer(calmly and confidently): "I wanted to know You, not fear You."
God pointed to an atheist philosopher.
"This man wrote: 'If God existed, I would refuse to worship Him, because the evil in the world would make Him either powerless or evil.' He did not ask for paradise; he demanded justice."
The Philosopher(with respect and dignity): "I wanted a dialogue between equals, not flattery between a slave and a master."
The Great Shock
God(turning to the believers): "And you... tell me: why did you worship me?"
A Religious Believer(confidently): "Because You deserve worship, and because of paradise—"
God: "Stop at 'paradise.' Would you have worshipped me if there were no paradise?"
Silence.
A Christian Nun: "Because You are love..."
God: "Would you have loved me if your fate had been the fire, with no promise of salvation through Jesus?"
She did not answer.
God approached a young atheist child who had died early.
"This child asked his mother, 'Who created the universe?' She answered, 'God.' He asked, 'How do we know?' She could not answer, so he decided to investigate for himself. He died before finding an answer, but he refused to believe without understanding."
The Paradox: Who Is the True Slave?
"The believer worshipped me out of fear of Hell and greed for paradise. The relationship was a business deal: 'I worship You, and You give me paradise.' But the atheist rejected a narcissistic, psychologically diseased god who loved only himself and thought only of himself—a god who grew angry and took revenge, who claimed to be loving and saving while his actions and circumstances overflowed with contradiction.
"The atheist rejected a blind god who could neither see nor hear the universe's crimes: murder, rape, and the deaths of innocents; people dying by mistake, through coercion, injustice, and wrongful accusation; children sick, hungry, and tormented through no fault of their own. The atheist rejected a foolish god who claimed mercy, saying that his mercy encompassed all things, while being as far from mercy as one could be—a god who tortured eternally.
"The atheist rejected a god who accepts goodness only when it is done for his sake, rather than for goodness itself. He rejected a concealed, arrogant god who looked down on those he claimed to have created. He rejected a god who created human beings merely to satisfy his own mood, to enjoy watching them kneel and bow in humiliation or perform whatever rituals he desired.
"The atheist rejected a god who delighted in humanity's confusion, leaving people lost among countless versions of his true appearance, nature, and existence, across religions with a thousand sects and a thousand communities. This god sat back and watched them quarrel, each claiming to know his real face. The atheist rejected a con artist with a thousand faces and a thousand contradictory copies. He rejected the fraud of religious leaders, their alliance with rulers and sultans, their role as instruments of tyranny and corruption, and their use of religion to silence everyone beneath its accursed canopy.
"The atheist did good and acted ethically for goodness itself, knowing there was no reward waiting in another life. He upheld ethics and principles for honor and conscience, not for paradise, houris, heavenly kingdoms, or fear of grave torment and fire. He despised a god who postponed crimes, injustice, and corruption, closing his eyes and delaying judgment until an unknown day, as though shirking his own duties.
"He rejected a god who allowed life to overflow with every form of ruin, corruption, crime, treachery, and betrayal, even though that god falsely claimed to have honored human beings above plants and animals. If only humanity had matched animals in dignity and generosity! The atheist rejected a powerless god who stood with folded arms and allowed evil to flourish, claiming that an imaginary creature called Satan was his enemy—as though he were unable to destroy this devil, or perhaps was his accomplice, helping him tempt people and spread evil. The atheist was not frightened by threats and did not covet pleasures or bliss. He offered himself as a sacrifice to truth, searching along its winding, hidden paths with only the faint light of a candle to illuminate his way.
"The atheist studied, researched, invented, and developed. You believers needed his knowledge and inventions, and lived like rats dependent upon them—parasites living at the expense of other creatures. You were contemptible, cowardly, greedy, and base of soul. They, by contrast, were people of truth, science, effort, development, progress, and determination. Neither fear moved them nor greed tempted them. They were too noble to descend to your level, you humiliated, miserable slaves.
"I am no commodity in the marketplace of beliefs. It would be a disgrace for me, as God, to resemble the narcissistic, chameleon-like god you worshipped across religions and sects. If I were that kind of god, I would kill myself and end my life, for I would deserve no divinity. The traits you worshipped were not the traits of a god but of a cowardly, contemptible, narcissistic, evil, helpless, foolish, and stupid being.
"It would shame me to be the god with whom I deceived you, merely to discover who was honest and noble, who was searching for truth, and who was a coward seeking only self-protection from punishment and the satisfaction of his desires. That is all you wanted. These noble atheists, by contrast, sought me sincerely. They cared neither for enticement nor intimidation. They did not chase the carrot or fear the stick. They wanted me for myself and sought genuine contact with me, for the happiness, improvement, and advancement of the universe, and for the spread of knowledge—not terror, bloodshed, holy war, humiliation, servitude, bowing, kneeling, dependency, or laziness disguised as trust in God while supposedly making every effort."
A Believer(in a trembling voice): "But we believed in the unseen! That is a virtue!"
God: "Believing in the unseen without evidence is not virtue; it is surrender. Courage means searching in the darkness even if you stumble, not pretending that you can see the light."
The Turn: The Fire Is Not for These Noble Seekers
God(confidently): "Therefore, I have decided that the fire is the fate of cowardly, contemptible slaves. It is the destiny deserved by your base souls, which sold truth and bought myths and illusions out of fear, desire, and greed for everlasting bliss."
A cry of terror swept through the hall.
A Believer(in horror): "Why? We believed in You!"
God(contemptuously): "Because you worshipped yourselves. You worshipped your own comfort. You wanted to be saved; you did not want me. You were merchants in the marketplace of religion. As for the atheists..."
He gestured toward the fire.
"The fire you spent your lives worshipping me to avoid—the fire before which you bowed, pleaded, and prostrated yourselves out of fear alone—they accepted it as the price of honor. They declared with dignity and pride: 'If truth is fire, then let God burn us in it.' This fire will now burn your illusions, foolish slaves. It will destroy fear and greed, not human bodies."
Paradise: A Gift, Not a Reward
God smiled at the atheists.
"As for you, you never asked for paradise, so I give it to you—not as a reward, but as a gift born of love. You wanted me for myself, and so I offer you myself."
The atheists looked at one another, unable to believe it.
"But... we do not believe in paradise," said the astronomer.
God(smiling): "That is precisely what makes you worthy of it. Paradise is not a place for the obedient, but for noble seekers of truth. It is not for those who feared me, but for those who respected me even when they rejected me."
Final Scene: A Smile in the Face of the Storm
The atheists entered "paradise," which appeared as an infinite library, gardens devoted to scientific inquiry, and places for philosophical conversation. The believers entered "the fire," which appeared as a vast mirror in which they saw themselves: fearful, greedy, and trading in faith.
At the end, God stood alone in an almost empty hall and smiled sadly.
"For thousands of years, they thought I wanted slaves. And I... wanted friends."
The hall disappeared. Only the merciless truth and honor that does not die remained.
A Conclusion That Shakes Certainty
God had hidden not to test faith, but to test honor. The shock was that those who believed themselves closest to him were the farthest from his spirit, while those who imagined themselves his enemies were the only ones who understood him.
Perhaps the true God is not one who rewards obedience, but one who honors moral courage—even when that courage is directed against him.
The world is not divided into two camps, believers and atheists. It is divided between the contemptible liar and the honest, noble soul. The honest are those who seek truth, even if the fires of the world—or the fire of an evil, narcissistic god—should consume them.
End of reflection