Believing in good, just not in God

I just found out about a new billboard in downtown Chicago that reads: "Are you good without God? Millions are." The billboard is sponsored by the Chicago Coalition for Reason.

I'm happy to see this positive and affirming message because I'm a non-theist, and much of my life I have seen how nonreligious people have been unfairly labeled as immoral and unpatriotic.

What many people do not understand is that we are ordinary people who are good, moral and upstanding citizens, and recent surveys show that 15 percent of the United States population (or 45 million people) is nonreligious.

I pay my taxes supporting the schools, police and fire departments, which serve us all - believer and nonbeliever alike. I donate money to charity to help feed and clothe the hungry. I donate my blood to the Red Cross. I help my neighbors when they are in need. And I proudly fly the American flag on Memorial Day, July Fourth, 9/11, Veterans Day and Pearl Harbor Day, honoring the country that provides me with the liberty to believe, or not believe, as I see fit.

Are these not good works?

Yet I do not go to church, nor do I pray to anyone's god. And for this, some will blame people like me for the woes of the world. How silly.

I think we should all learn the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson's words written in his Notes on Virginia in 1782: "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

I can say "Amen" to that.

Matthew Lowry

Vernon Hills