author: Vincent van Gogh content: "That God of the clergymen, He is for me as dead as a doornail. But am I\ \ an atheist for all that? The clergymen consider me as such\u2014be it so; but\ \ I love, and how could I feel love if I did not live, and if others did not live,\ \ and then, if we live, there is something mysterious in that. Now call that God,\ \ or human nature or whatever you like, but there is something which I cannot define\ \ systematically, though it is very much alive and very real, and see, that is God,\ \ or as good as God. To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not\ \ a dead one, or a stuffed one, but a living one, who with irresistible force urges\ \ us toward _aimer encore_; that is my opinion." id: 68d478b6-f379-4e7e-8cfa-7e3e8cbb619f