Brad Pitt: "I've Defined My Beliefs"

UPDATE - July 23, 2009

In an interview with a German magazine, Brad Pitt said the following:

BILD: Do you believe in God?
Brad Pitt: “No, no, no!”

BILD: Is your soul spiritual?
Brad Pitt: “No, no, no! I’m probably 20 per cent atheist and 80 per cent agnostic. I don’t think anyone really knows. You’ll either find out or not when you get there, until then there’s no point thinking about it.

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Actor Brad Pitt was recently interviewed for two articles (here, and here) in Parade magazine (Parade, by Dotson Rader, October 7, 2007). Some of the most noteworthy quotes for purposes of this blog post are as follows:

"I always had a lot of questions about the world, even in kindergarten. A big question to me was fairness. If I'd grown up in some other religion, would I get the same shot at Heaven as a Christian has?"

"When I got untethered from the comfort of religion, it wasn't a loss of faith for me, it was a discovery of self."

"Religion works," he goes on. "I know there's comfort there, a crash pad. It's something to explain the world and tell you there is something bigger than you, and it is going to be alright in the end. It works because it's comforting. I grew up believing in it, and it worked for me in whatever my little personal high school crisis was, but it didn't last for me. I didn't understand this idea of a God who says, 'You have to acknowledge me. You have to say that I'm the best, and then I'll give you eternal happiness. If you won't, then you don't get it!' It seemed to be about ego. I can't see God operating from ego, so it made no sense to me.

"What's important to me is that I've defined my beliefs and lived according to them and not betrayed them," he says. "One of those is my belief in family. I still have faith in that."

Question: What stands out to you from these quotes? If you were speaking to Brad about these statements, what would you say? What are Biblical responses to these statements/beliefs?