GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Sam Simon, co-creator of The Simpsons and activist atheist, is dead

If you are a fan of The Simpsons like I am you will recognize the name Sam Simon as one of the co-creators and executive producers of the long-running animated sitcom. Simon was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2012 and given 3-6 months to live. He died at the age of 59 this week but used that time to give away his millions to causes he believed in, like American Atheists.

“I’m an atheist, but there’s a thing called tithing that a lot of religions do. Ten percent was the minimum you were supposed to give to charity every year. And I always outdid that,” Sam explains.…
“People say I’m trying to buy my way into heaven, which I don’t believe in. So that can’t be true,” Sam says. He paid for those atheist billboards that make news from time to time. Like the one by the Lincoln Tunnel, in New York, that read, IT’S A MYTH, on a picture of the stars over Bethlehem.

Yet another reason to like The Simpsons! And another example that one can be godless and still do good in the world.