I have a message for my believing friends, and it’s something that believers should really listen to and think about. As a realist who doesn’t believe in God. I am often challenged to open my heart and let Jesus in.

    I am reluctant to do so without any evidence God exists.

I am told that when one becomes a believer, they have a personal relationship with God and then God transforms you and you become one with the Lord. So from my point of view, I should be able to see the difference in the behavior of those who believe as compared to those who don’t believe. But I’m not seeing it.

Especially in the latest news coming out about the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church.

So let me be clear and direct about this, so you Catholics listen up. If there is an omnipotent God and a person or a religious group has a personal relationship with God then you wouldn’t be raping children — period. The Catholic Church would not be covering up for those priests who are raping children. Admittedly, this doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but it does prove that the Catholic Church does not have a personal relationship with an omnipotent God, because if they did this sort of thing simply would not occur.

As a member of the reality-based community I am dedicated to believing in anything that is real. If God is real then I will believe.

But how am I to determine if God is actually and truly real and which of the thousands of religions is the true one? Turning to your Bible, the standard is, “You will know them by their fruits.” Clearly the Catholics have failed the “fruit test” because of the pervasive raping of children and the cover-up by the Vatican.

As to the rest of religions and independent Christians, Muslims or other believers, you aren’t going to convert atheists unless you can show us God actually has transformed your life in a way that is observable to the reality-based world.

Even if God can’t be observed directly, if you claim God has changed your life, then those changes should be observable in your life and in your religious group as a whole.

And if these changes aren’t observable, then we in the reality-based community aren’t going to listen to what you have to say.

If you are going to convert atheists, you are going to have to pass your “fruit test” to get our attention.

Marc Perkel is the founder of the Church of Reality