Frances Farmer's 1931 essay from high school, "God Dies"

Film star Frances Farmer (1913-1970) was a senior at West Seattle High School in April 1931 when she wrote this essay, titled "God Dies." The essay won first place and a prize of $100 in a contest sponsored by The Scholastic, a magazine for high school students. Here is her essay, as published in The Scholastic on May 2, 1931.

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"God Dies"

No one ever came to me and said, "You're a fool. There isn't such a thing as God. Somebody's been stuffing you." It wasn't a murder. I think God just died of old age. And when I realized that he wasn't any more, it didn't shock me. It seemed natural and right.

Maybe it was because I was never properly impressed with a religion. I went to Sunday school and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn't believe them. The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true.

Religion was too vague. God was different. He was something real, something I could feel. But there were only certain times when I could feel it. I used to lie between cool, clean sheets at night after I'd had a bath, after I had washed my hair and scrubbed my knuckles and finger nails and teeth. Then I could lie quite still in the dark with my face to the window with the trees in it, and talk to God. "I am clean, now. I've never been as clean. I'll never be cleaner." And somehow, it was God. I wasn't sure that it was … just something cool and dark and clean.

That wasn't religion, though. There was too much of the physical about it. I couldn't get that same feeling during the day, with my hands in dirty dish water and the hard sun showing up the dirtiness on the roof-tops. And after a time, even at night, the feeling of God didn't last. I began to wonder what the minister meant when he said, "God, the father, sees even the smallest sparrow fall. He watches over all his children." That jumbled it all up for me. But I was sure of one thing. If God were a father, with children, that cleanliness I had been feeling wasn't God. So at night, when I went to bed, I would think, "I am clean. I am sleepy." And then I went to sleep. It didn't keep me from enjoying the cleanness any less. I just knew that God wasn't there. He was a man on a throne in Heaven, so he was easy to forget.

Sometimes I found he was useful to remember; especially when I lost things that were important. After slamming through the house, panicky and breathless from searching, I could stop in the middle of a room and shut my eyes. "Please God, let me find my red hat with the blue trimmings." It usually worked. God became a super-father that couldn't spank me. But if I wanted a thing badly enough, he arranged it.

That satisfied me until I began to figure that if God loved all his children equally, why did he bother about my red hat and let other people lose their fathers and mothers for always? I began to see that he didn't have much to do about hats, people dying or anything. They happened whether he wanted them to or not, and he stayed in heaven and pretended not to notice. I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was…nothingness.

I felt rather proud to think that I had found the truth myself, without help from any one. It puzzled me that other people hadn't found out, too. God was gone. We were younger. We had reached past him. Why couldn’t they see it? It still puzzles me.

If "God is good all the time", then God is really lousy

A friend keeps posting on her Facebook page:

God is good all the time... all the time God is Good! 

It makes me cringe. She posts it when something good has happened to her, when something has gone her way.

So, let me get this straight: God is good all the time... even as he:

• allows fathers to molest their daughters, 
• allows priests to molest children in their care, 
• allows parents to mutilate their children's genitals in the name of culture,
• allows children to harm their own parents and grandparents
• allows people, including children, to be killed by floods, falling trees, tornados and other natural occurrences, 
• allows children to contract the most horrible, painful diseases 

And on and on and on.

Because... those are good things? Because he's good, but has no control over these horrors? Because there's some whacked out reason to allow these horrors but he's not going to tell you what - you just have to trust it?

Can you imagine how reading God is good all the time... all the time God is Good! feels to her Facebook friends who are going through hell right now, who have lost their jobs and are about to lose their homes, who are experiencing severe pain because of illness, who have been left by a spouse, who are struggling with a child, etc.? I try to be positive on this blog, more than negative, but this statement is so incredibly hurtful to so many people.

If you are struggling with difficult times, here's my advice:

• Think of everything about this situation that is under your control, and what isn't. Focus as much as possible about what IS under your control, on what choices and actions you can make regarding this situation - maybe not to solve it, but to survive it, even just minute-to-minute, day-to-day. 
• Call your local mental health department - your county's health department should be able to help. Ask how they can help you connect with a counselor and/or self-help group that can help you in your situation. Self-help / support groups are free. Many therapists will give you a discount if your health insurance doesn't cover therapy and your situation is particularly dire. 
• Talk to your doctor if you are experiencing any physical pain or severe depression. 
• Walk every day, no matter what the weather, no matter how you look and feel. Even if it's only for 10 minutes, you need to walk EVERY day. 
• Go to the library and look for books about your particular situation - nonfiction and fiction. Reading how other people have handled the situation can really help. 
• Don't give up. If you are feeling like harming yourself is a good idea, please contact the Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
• Unfollow people on Facebook that are bringing you down with their posts. They will not know that you have unfollowed them, and you can always look at their pages if you need to catch up on what's going on, but unfollowing gets their posts out of your newsfeed. 
• Follow organizations on Facebook that lift you up: national parks, state parks, nonprofits doing great work, singers, actors, other artists, etc. 
• Follow The Greater Good Science Center on Facebook, and read what they post, including books they might recommend. 
• Remember this is an ongoing process. It can take years to get through something, but people do. They don't just survive - they thrive. You can too. 

Quit trying to convert me!

What people say to try to convert me to their religion.		My answer.
If you would read the Bible/Koran/whatever, you would see the light and come to God.		I've read the Bible - twice from cover-to-cover, and different parts and chapters over many years, from the time I could read until - well, now. I've also read the Koran, as well as various Haddith. I've even read some of the Book of Mormon. And... I'm still an Atheist. In fact, the more I've read the Bible or the Koran, the more obvious it is to me that religion is all superstition and, quite often, bigotry and hatred. No thank you!
If you would pray and open your heart to Jesus/God, you would see the light and come to God.		I prayed every day, probably twice a day, up until I was about 13. I felt nothing, my situation was never altered, but I kept doing it, because that's what everyone kept saying to do, and I was desperate for things to improve in my life. I would stand there in various church services and silently say, "Okay, Jesus! I'm ready! Come on down! I'm ready!" And nothing would happen. NOTHING. After I became a teen, I would pray just every now and again, hoping that maybe it would finally work and I'd feel the Magic Warm Feeling everyone said I would. Nothing happened. Once I stopped praying and, instead, started thinking strategically about how to address this or that problem, stopped looking for God and started looking and creating solutions, life became a LOT more manageable - even JOYFUL, something it never had been before.
Christianity / Islam / Whatever is the one, true religion.		That's what you all say! Do you realize you all use exactly the same rhetoric to tout your religion's legitimacy? Everything I've heard about current religions could be said of cults of Zeus!
I just KNOW that Christianity / Islam / Whatever is the right religion, and I just KNOW that God exists - I can just feel it!		Well, goody for you. Gut feelings are fascinating - and often wrong. I never had a gut feeling that God existed, FYI, so that made it a lot easier to stop the pursuit of a magical, invisible friend.
It's been God that's gotten me through the worst times of my life. He could do that for you, too, if you would just believe.		Really - he got you through knee surgery or that divorce or the death of your loved one, but to that 10 year old girl getting raped in Congo and begging for his help, he says, "Too bad!"? Give me a frakin' break.
Without God, you will have no moral compass.		Without God, I've still got values, ethics, a strong, passionate sense of what's right and wrong.
Without God, you will never know real joy or passion.		That statement, or something like it, is one that people like John Shore and Oprah Winfrey repeat again and again. The REALITY is that I've known FAR more joy once I accepted my Atheism than I did when I tried to be a Christian. The joy I've been able to access, joy that I never felt when I was trying to be a believer, cannot be denied, even by you.
What will you do when Jesus comes back to Earth and Final Judgement happens? (FYI, both Christians and Muslims believe in this)		That's like asking me what I will do when the aliens land their space ship on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Or what I will do when the zombies rise and attack. It's NOT going to happen! How can I have an answer to a situation that isn't going to happen?
You know I'm right. You just won't accept it.		Sigh... the arrogance of this statement drives me more crazy than any of the others. There's no way to answer that kind of blind self-righteousness.
Who created the Universe? It had to start - it had to be created. There's only one possible answer: God!		Who created God? He had to start - he had to be created. There's only one possible answer: Man!
God has to exist - how will we answer the question "Why are we here" without God?		When you have an answer about why he kills millions of people, and permanently injures and tortures millions more, in endless numbers of natural disasters - and allows men to kill and torture millions more - let me know.
You need to quit questioning. Just accept.		Bite me.

My responses sometimes get the statements to me to stop, sometimes not. I hope that they help some of my fellow Atheists out there respond to the ongoing efforts to convert them to whatever religion is being promoted. 

These efforts to convert you can be exhausting and insulting. They can leave you feeling attacked and drained. So when you need to recover from this nonsense thrown at you, I recommend 10 minutes at least on the I Fucking Love Science Facebook page. And wine.