If the God we imagine exists, a God who is as smart, as good, as powerful, as loving as we say, then this thought should give us astounding comfort and joy.

If no such God exists then two things are true. First, as a species we have had incredible fortune. What a pity there is no one to thank for our fortune. Second, our luck will run out and we are doomed to irrelevance to a degree that if fully faced should drive us to despair.

Here’s another version:

There is a little bit of logic I run through in my mind when I find myself getting anxious about such things and it goes like this. It seems a safe assumption that God is enormously smarter than we are, more moral than we are, is more just than we are, kinder than we are, more generous than we are and more understanding of all the nuances, complexities and conundrums than we are. All of those are nearly universally recognized as good qualities, and if we have them we got them from him and he has way more of them than we do. If this is true then my worries and doubts about the problems that I see, he understands all of it far better than I. This includes things like people born in places of different religions, people born into desperately poor contexts, etc. Why should I worry and fear about that which I can’t control and know I can only understand in a limited way when such a God, being so good, powerful and merciful sees and understands FAR better than I ever could? My fear is foolishness, plain and simple.

Now if in fact my supposition is NOT true, that God is less powerful, less knowledgeable, less smart, less understanding, less just, less moral, then I am in the kind of trouble that also makes my fear look foolish. If there is a fool or a monster at the switch of the universe then we are all screwed to a degree that our petty fears are also pointless and we ought to behave like existential looters, raping, stealing, blaspheming and profaning all we can in our one brief moment of flaming protest against such a tyrant.