The Most Religious of All?

"I would like to say a word about some people I know whom I would not classify as atheists, believers, or agnostics. They are people who have no thoughts about God at all. God simply doesn’t enter their world; they are totally unaware of either any presence or absence of God. One might be tempted to think of them as agnostics, but this doesn’t strike me as quite right: Agnosticism has somewhat the character of a philosophical position (it is unknown), but the people I am talking about are not philosophizing, they are just simply living. In some way that I cannot explain, these people strike me as the most religious of all!" Ray Smullyan [2003], p.9

Smullyan On Revealed Religion

"I agree that the difference between belief in God and nonbelief may be of some importance, but I can think of far more important differences. For one thing, I have always felt that the gap between atheism and belief in God is extremely small compared with the difference between a mere belief that there is a God and the belief that God wrote any of the existing holy books!

A mere belief in a creator God, without postulating any properties to this God, would hardly have much effect on how one would conduct one’s life, whereas any of the orthodox religions are chock full of moral regulations. Stated otherwise, the gap between atheism and natural religion is small compared to that between natural religion and revealed religion." Ray Smullyan [2003], p.3f 

Unfortunately for the world, these "revealed" books - like the Bible, the Torah and the Qur'an - are not only chock full of moral regulations but notably also of inhumane and cruel regulations and morally contemptible behavior of weird backwoodsmen. Though often unknown to the simple believer who contents himself with listening to preselected chapters of these "revelations" offered by knowing priests, these tribal society rules are still serving some people as moral standard ...
The gap between the belief in a mere creator God and a God who - in written form - requires his creatures to believe in and worship him is indeed huge. Think of a programmer who designs an advanced version of Conway's Game of Life filled with moving (near intelligent) creatures and then additionally requires these creatures to worship him as the creator God. C'mon! Get a life, nerd!

2 by Ray

"It has always puzzled me that so many people have taken it for granted that God favors those who believe in him. Isn't it possible that the actual God is a scientific God who has little patience with beliefs founded on faith rather than evidence?"

(Deutsch: "Es hat mich immer irritiert, daß es für so viele religiöse Leute als sicher gilt, daß Gott diejenigen begünstigt, die an ihn glauben. Ist es nicht möglich, daß der tatsächliche Gott Wissenschaftler ist, der mit Überzeugungen auf der Basis von Glauben anstatt auf der Basis von Gewißheit wenig Geduld hat?")

Raymond Smullyan

"Speaking of proofs of the existence of God, the funniest one I have ever seen was in a term paper handed in by a freshman. “God must exist because he wouldn't be so mean as to make me believe he exists if he really doesn't!” Is this argument really so much worse than the ontological proofs of the existence of God provided by Anselm and Descartes, among others?"

(Deutsch: "Wo ich gerade von Beweisen der Existenz Gottes spreche, fällt mir ein, daß der lustigste, der mir jemals untergekommen ist, in einer Semesterarbeit zu lesen war, die eine Studienanfängering eingereicht hatte. Sie schrieb: "Gott muß existieren, weil er nicht so gemein wäre, mich glauben zu machen, er existiere, wenn es in Wirklichkeit gar nicht der Fall ist!" Ist dieses Argument wirklich so viel schlechter als die ontologischen Beweise der Existenz Gottes, die unter anderen Anselm und Descartes liefern?")

Smullyan, Raymond

5000 B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1983
Simplicius und der Baum - Philosophische Phantasien, Paradoxe Scherzrätsel und eine historische Überraschung. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1989.