My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was 6, and passed away just after I turned 9. At the funeral, someone told me that "God needed her more in heaven than she was needed down here."

My mother worked with special ed preschoolers, and continued doing so throughout the entirety of her illness. She also had two kids of her own, who had to watch her battle a disease that slowly killed her. Yet, that person had the gall to claim their "benevolent, loving God" would force two children to watch their mother waste away, and deprive thousands of others of the passion and patience of a teacher who wanted nothing more than to help them take the first steps into being normal kids.

I decided then and there that God was nothing more than a lie that people used to make themselves feel better.