I dreamed that Ingrid and I were hanging out with God. God looked pretty much exactly like the Western cliche of the Christian god: Caucasian, white hair and beard, golden light radiating from his head. The only thing that was different was he was sitting in an armchair. Some other people were hanging out with us, too, although I don’t remember exactly who: some friends of ours, and I think also some characters from “Parks and Recreation.” (I actually had this dream a couple of days ago, and didn’t write it down right away, so some of the details have faded.) It was very clear, in that dream-logic way, that this was not a hallucination or any kind of illusion: it was clear that this was a real interaction with the real Christian God, because dream-reasons.
I was really embarrassed at having been so certain that God didn’t exist, and at first was very apologetic to him about it. But he was cool with it. In fact, he insisted very firmly that even though he existed, it was important that I remain an atheist — and not just an atheist but an atheist activist. It wasn’t at all clear why, though. Dream-reasons.
I woke up at first still feeling embarrassed about how wrong I’d been, and feeling very confused about why God wanted me to be an atheist. Once I started realizing it was a dream, I was mostly baffled at my dream-logic, and was still trying to figure out why my dream-God wanted me to be an atheist.
Greta Christina is author of four books: Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God, Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why, Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, and Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More.