"Why don't you believe in God?"
"The reason for not believing. The why," she spoke out loud although the thoughts were really ones she meant to keep inside. She thought on this issue. "Well, if my life is good-and I guess it is. I'm healthy, well-educated, have food in my stomach and a roof over my head."
"And Adagio…your baby, Nathaniel"
"Him too," she sighed. "And my friendliness with you." It was often a stretch to even say "friendliness" in association to the Rita/Lily person but she did not know what else to call their association. "Well, if I am a happy solipsistic person I might well believe in God and appreciate my dizzying blessings but in doing this I'd be guilty of saying that this god cared about me but didn't care for those he allowed to starve or be eaten by a cannibal or forced into a predicament of having to jump out of a burning building-whatever. I suppose he could care about some of us and not others, but wouldn't that lower him to human levels? If I really believed in God, then this is the only god there is; and yet to be such a god it is quite obvious that he or she is no different than you or me…and I don't know about you, but I certainly can't create the Earth and the universe no matter how hard I try, and believe me I try." The baby began to scream. It pierced all the air of the bus. "I'll be lucky if I make it to 90 and don't have to wear diapers. There is a chance he, she, or it exists as a being that is not sympathetic about me or anyone else. If he is this, he is so large and so eternal, with no sense of human time, that a human life and its brief series of short-lived motions on one obscure planet would be inconsequential. If so, he doesn't think about me any more than you think about that last second you picked your nose. Yes, I'm watching." The Rita/Lily giggled manically despite her depression. "Also, he isn't one I can grasp so there isn't much sense in considering him. I'm just a fire ant stinging anything that threatens me, cognizant of nothing least of all the man that is there to squash me because of my sting. An ant might know about being threatened but he knows nothing about the being that threatens him. So it is with us and such a God." She could tell that the Rita/Lily person was not understanding much of the conversation but her eyes seemed to register that she was in a godless universe for fear had dilated her pupils.
Gabriele thought about this subject or quasi-subject of philosophy. She wasn't even a philosopher and yet in a minute and a half she had formulated a treatise and had proven it as much as was possible. She hadn't exactly proven that there wasn't a god. She assumed that would take an additional three minutes. But she had proven that it was not a worthwhile pursuit for humans to undertake. Smoking marijuana from morning until wee hours of the night seemed a more constructive use of one's faculties. She wondered how it was that Socrates could lose himself for hours in a question that perplexed him when really all he needed was just a few minutes.
"What did you eat today, Rita?"
"Lily."
"Whatever."
"I ate well."
"What?"