I Wish Russell Simmons Were an Atheist

Russell Simmons confuses me. He’s one of the finest examples we have of an American kid from the most difficult circumstances imaginable hustling and struggling and pulling himself up by his own bootstraps to create a life for himself that is, in a word, extraordinary. Yet instead of inspiring other poor African American kids who are in the position he once was with his story of hard work and perseverance, Simmons spreads religious silliness and tells those kids to put their hope in government. And last week, he did both at the same time. I wish Simmons were an atheist.

As many of you who frequent this blog know (and often condemn me for), I believe there is no god. That’s quite different from saying “I don’t believe in God.” When I say I believe there is no god, I mean that in this vast universe (or maybe multiverse) I don’t choose to not believe in a god, but that there is no god to not believe in. There’s a distinction, and I’m very certain where I stand. It’s deeply personal to me, and I don’t really begrudge those who choose to believe that an invisible man lives in the sky. Sometimes people need to believe in something more, I suppose, even if it’s not real. And while I recognize I’m in the minority, and I’m happy to argue religion and god with you, I won’t push my thoughts on you unless you ask. But I wish that Russell Simmons could put aside the idea of God or Allah for a while. It would be more honest and it would certainly help a lot more people.

Simmons, who has said that Allah, working through the Nation of Islam has helped young criminals change their lives for the better, implied last week that God was going to punish America if we didn’t do what President Obama wants us to do. He said that we were under indictment, apparently by an invisible father figure who really likes socialism and doesn’t want anyone to achieve Simmons’ level of success. God, according to Simmons’ ideology, apparently wants us all to be equally miserable. (God actually wants us all dead, given that until we invented science and started figuring out how to extend our lives, we died in our twenties. But that’s another article.) Simmons actually believes that his god, who created all of existence and (as most believers tell me when we discuss the matter) created the whole of the good in the universe, will hurt us if we don’t do what one man in one tiny little whisper of time (cosmically speaking) tells us to do. As someone who thinks religion is mostly primitive superstition and performance theater, I can’t help but be afraid.

If Russell Simmons could put aside what he learned from his “second father” Louis Farrakhan and his nutty superstitions, including a 6 a.m. prayer and meditating in the “zen room” he showed off on “MTV Cribs,” he could really transform peoples’ lives. If he could stop believing that Allah or God or Jesus (Simmons doesn’t publicly define himself by any religion) handed him his beautiful life and recognize that it came from his own hard work, understanding of and ability to cross cultural barriers, tremendous foresight, and perfecting the hustle he developed as a street kid before transforming it into slick, successful and legitimate business practices, he might be able to inspire others to aspire to create the same for themselves. He might also recognize that Allah hasn’t ever helped a single young criminals turn his life around, but rather it was the desire within those young men to aspire to more, to clean up and work hard.

It is only the will of people to make the world better that ever actually makes the world better. It’s not Jesus who sends those checks to the kids Sally Struthers used to parade around on late night TV, it’s you. Moses hasn’t fed anyone in Bangladesh in a long, long time. The Buddha never helped anyone with AIDS, but Penn and Teller have. And it’s not Allah who gives clean water and sanitation to third-world nations, it’s Matt Damon. Batman and Superman aren’t going to save the world and God isn’t going to destroy it. We’ll have to do all of that. And for the most part, we try to do good things for people we love, and sometimes for people we don’t even know, as someone did for me this past week.

Simmons’ apocalyptic statement last week really scares me. It scares me because it discounts mankind as a whole, and places our collective destiny in the non-existent hands of an invisible man who lives in the sky. It scares me even more, however, because it uses and abuses the irrational fear many people have of punishment at the hands of whatever god to push a political agenda that directly contradicts Simmons own life experience and the foundation of a country that gave him the chance to achieve success most of us can’t even imagine. But try to imagine it for a moment: Imagine being able to buy anything in the world you want. Or give as much money as you want to any cause or charity or individual you want. Or to be able to take your children anywhere in the world you want at a moment’s notice. That’s Russell Simmons’ life.

Now imagine you have created all of that through your own hard work and intelligence and you tell people they must believe in an invisible man or face destruction. And then you use the power you have built from less-than-nothing to encourage people to follow a man whose policies would have kept you from achieving what you have worked so hard for and that would condemn those people who you could otherwise inspire to a life where hard work no longer means anything and excellence is a distant memory. Like I said, Russell Simmons confuses me.