Happy Birthday: Vincent van Gogh.
Dutch Post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853. In addition to enriching the world with his many exquisite works of art he worked briefly as a teacher and as a missionary worker. Despite some quotes attributed to him, van Gogh likely wasn’t an atheist or even an agnostic as some believe though he may have experienced some doubts as many do. Nonetheless the world is a much more beautiful place for his having been here. So here is to Vincent van Gogh.
I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.
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— be 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.
