Personal Life
Jillette is married to Emily Zolten and has a daughter, named Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette, and a son, named Zolten Jillette.
He says he has never used recreational drugs or alcohol. He is, however, an advocate of the legalization of all drugs and discontinuing the War on Drugs.
Jillette is an atheist, libertarian (he has stated that he may consider himself to be an anarcho-capitalist), and skeptic, as well as an adherent to Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy, as stated on his Penn Says podcast. Jillette is a Fellow at the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, and has stated that he "always" votes Libertarian. In January 2007, Jillette took the "Blasphemy Challenge" offered by the Rational Response Squad and publicly denied the existence of a holy spirit. His cars' license plates read "atheist", "nogod", and "godless". "Strangely enough, they wouldn't give me 'Infidel,'" he says.
In 2005 he wrote and read an essay for National Public Radio claiming that he was "beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God ... I believe there is no God." His atheism, he has explained, has informed every aspect of his life and thoughts, and as such is as crucial to him as theistic beliefs are to the devout. Jillette welcomes and even encourages open discussion, debate, and proselytizing on the issue of God's existence, believing that the issue is too important for opinions about it to remain private. Jillette does not, however, dismiss all who do believe in God: A 2008 edition of his Penn Says podcast expresses his appreciation for a fan who brought him the gift of a pocket Gideon Bible after a performance because he realized that this individual sincerely cared enough about him to try to help him.
Jillette has stated that there is not enough information to make an informed decision on global warming, and that it is an emotion versus logic issue.
He has endorsed Gary Johnson for U.S. President in 2012.
Read more about this topic: Penn Jillette
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“Life is not an easy matter.... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth and I suppose for older people the love of youth in others.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)