You are familiar with Jon Stewart, right? He is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, and television host widely recognized for hosting the satirical news program The Daily Show on Comedy Central. While he is a big advocate for 9/11 first responders and survivors, and for veterans’ health and benefits, he is also well known as a far left political liberal, and describes himself as more of a socialist or independent. He particularly supports several core liberal or progressive positions, including single-payer healthcare, environmental regulations, and expanded economic opportunities through DEI initiatives.
Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz was born into a Jewish family in 1962 in New Jersey. While he identifies as culturally Jewish, he is pretty open about the fact that he is not a religious believer. In fact, he describes himself as a “bad Jew” who does not follow religious laws or the Talmud. In fact, in late 2025, he was given a “Secularist” award by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) Action Fund for his openness about his non-belief.
During an “After the Cut” special edition of “The Daily Show” that was posted to YouTube, an audience member asked Stewart whether faith had played a role in his life. In his reply, he made some very revealing comments.
- “I wish. I wish I could get there, I can’t. And Stephen [Colbert], by the way, is a faithful Catholic, but I’ve never been, like, a belief guy. I’ve always been this guy: ‘But if he’s all powerful, why do children die?'”
- “Religion has given the world a tremendous amount of comfort in a world torn apart by… religion, mostly. But the important thing, I just, I’m not a believer. I think that’s my biggest problem is, it’s like, I know that there’s probably a gap between, like, we are here by divine intervention, or we’re just like bathroom mold that got luckier than other bathroom mold. Like, I’m sure there’s probably a middle ground there.”
- “Because, if you were to say to me, ‘There’s a spirit in the universe, and it carries a thing,’ but it’s more like, ‘And he was 33 years old and a carpenter,’ and I’m like, all right,”
Here is Stewart’s problem: He knows what he doesn’t believe (or at least what he doesn’t want to believe), but doesn’t seem to know what he does believe. In order to truly know what one believes, it is necessary to actually process beliefs consciously.
Truth be told, very few people ever do that – even Christians. A person’s most basic beliefs are their worldview beliefs, and worldview beliefs are, for most people, completely unconscious. The reason they tend to be unconscious is that this particular set of beliefs define what a person believes to be reality vs. fantasy. That is important because very few people ever question what they consider to be real. What is real is just … real. Anything that contradicts that is considered fantasy, and the possibility that it could be real is not even considered.
A person’s religious beliefs fall into that category. People who believe in God don’t generally attempt to consciously analyze whether or not God exists, He just does. By the same token, those who believe God does not exist also don’t generally question it … He just doesn’t. And that is where Stewart is. He doesn’t know why he believes God doesn’t exist, he just doesn’t believe it. And with that as a beginning point, the idea that God exists just doesn’t come across as reality. His statements above clearly show that to be true for him. He knows that “there’s probably a gap between, like, we are here by divine intervention, or we’re just like bathroom mold that got luckier than other bathroom mold,” but he simply doesn’t know how to go about filling in that gap.
Christians need to be able to help people like Jon Stewart fill in that gap, and we do it by understanding worldview concepts and knowing how to explain them. We need to start by knowing what Naturalists like him believe about God, man, and salvation, and why their beliefs about these things are not true. Then, we need to know what the Bible teaches about those three things and why they are true. Finally, we need to have the ability to compare those points of view side by side. In doing that, we fill in the gap that Stewart laments he doesn’t understand. With that, he would be in a position to make an intelligent decision to receive Christ (or reject Him). As it stands, he hasn’t made an intelligent decision. He only has an unconscious default.
There are many people in the world like Stewart who don’t believe in God but wish they could get there. Well, they can, but they need a bridge. Christians have the bridge if they will only learn how to use it.