What is good if there is no God? Atheists want to know. I’m serious. They’ll actually pay to find out, according to The Examiner.

In a world without God, good, it would seem to me, could only mean what you or a finite group of people consider good for a certain amount of time. The definition would be perennially up for debate and revotes.

But I’m pretty sure $1,000 would be pretty cool for anyone.

The United Coalition of Reason is delighted to announce an essay contest as part of our upcoming Good Without God campaign tied not only to a social movement but to a book that’s being published in the fall. Please forward this message as widely as possible and help us unite the millions of voices of reason across the country.

The contest is simple. Please tell us your personal story, in 500 words or less: what does it mean for you to be Good Without God? How do you live out your positive values as a Humanist, atheist, agnostic, secularist, or freethinker? Please write in the first person.

I love that last line. Please write in the first person. It seems to me that if you’re an atheist I don’t see why you’d bother in writing but anything but the first person. Not that I haven’t met good people who are agnostic if not atheist. I just see them as borrowing heavily from the Christian traditions without even knowing it.

I think if I had to write something like this the only thing I could think of that would be good without God would be the $1,000 they’re offering to the winner. In short, I would be a very bad atheist.