On a rainy Saturday in March 2012, thousands of atheists, agnostics, secular humanists and other assorted non-believers gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC, for the “Reason Rally.” It was a celebration exalting the human mind and the supremacy of mankind, because for the faithful faithless, that’s pretty much all there is. No God. No heaven. No afterlife. Just the here and now, and nothing else. The late John Lennon would have felt right at home.

The event’s title says it all: human reason, not an all-knowing God, rules. It also suggests that non-believers know something believers don’t, as if atheists and agnostics have an intellectual advantage.

It might help to define atheism and agnosticism. Fundamentally, an atheist says “I know there is no God.”  That’s pretty nervy, because one would have to know everything about the material universe and even the invisible dimensions of reality before declaring with 100 percent certainly that there is no such thing as God. Ironically, you would have to be God (who by definition is all-knowing) to say that God doesn’t exist.

That’s why famous atheists like Dr. Richard Dawkins are modifying their classification from atheist to agnostic. The agnostic isn’t so arrogant in asserting that God doesn’t exist. He is intellectually honest by admitting that he isn’t sure if God exists, leaving open the possibility of a divine being.

This is the great cosmic gamble. If God doesn’t exist, then the atheists and agnostics were right and believers were wrong. But so what? Both believer and non-believer lose because they are doomed to the same fate. If God does exist, however, then non-believers made a bad bet.

Not believing in God is more irrational than reasonable. It’s like refusing to take a drug to cure a deadly disease because you don’t believe it will work. If you don’t take the drug, there is a 100 percent chance you will die. If you do take it, odds for survival are much higher. Why would any thinking person take such a chance with God when one’s eternal destiny is at stake?

There are numerous explanations why people don’t believe in God. Some cite a lack of evidence, such as Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who said he didn’t see God during his hour and a half tour of space in 1961. Others have given up on God because he didn’t answer their prayer or because of some traumatic, painful or unjust event. These are excuses, not reasons. Some people don’t believe in God and hate him. For such people I ask, “How can you hate someone who doesn’t exist?”

I have a simple theory about why people don’t believe in God: they want his job. This isn’t new revelation. God-envy has been going on since the beginning of time. Genesis records a conversation in which the devil tells Eve that she can be like God. It was a tempting proposition that Eve couldn’t resist. Today, men and women continue to be seduced into thinking that they can be gods of their world and captains of their fates. It’s no wonder that humanism – the idea that man, not God, determines truth and human destiny – is such an attractive world view.

Who doesn’t want to be in control? We’re all guilty of that. With a culture that increasingly encourages self-absorption, people can act like “little gods” all the time. We try to manipulate circumstances, redefine morality or avoid the inevitable. In the end, we must face reality: we are mere mortals who are limited, finite and powerless. We do a lousy job of playing God, and the sooner we realize this, the better.

King David best summed up the whole God vs. no god subject in Psalm 14:1, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Belief in God or the lack thereof isn’t ultimately an intellectual issue. The problem resides not in the brain, but in another vital organ – the heart. The proud, stubborn, willful heart will not easily acknowledge, honor or submit to any god but self.

So the main question is not “Does God exist?” but “Which god has the last word?” You can be sure John Lennon knows the correct answer now. Imagine.