Don't dare to miss
Ricky Gervais' reasons for being an atheist. I seriously wonder if this stuff is funny for believers, too.
But anyway, there I was happily drawing my hero when my big brother Bob asked, “Why do you believe in God?” Just a simple question. But my mum panicked. “Bob” she said in a tone that I knew meant, “Shut up.” Why was that a bad thing to ask? If there was a God and my faith was strong it didn’t matter what people said.
Oh … hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour, I was an atheist.
Wow. No God. If mum had lied to me about God, had she also lied to me about Santa? Yes, of course, but who cares? The gifts kept coming.
As for myself, I've always been an atheist. Even when I chose to be baptized at age ten. But as for Santa, I had a very specific reason never to believe him. In Copenhagen, chimneys are simply too narrow that anyone could get through them. I swear that was the reason.
Why don’t I believe in God? No, no no, why do YOU believe in God? Surely the burden of proof is on the believer. You started all this. If I came up to you and said, “Why don’t you believe I can fly?” You’d say, “Why would I?” I’d reply, “Because it’s a matter of faith”. If I then said, “Prove I can’t fly. Prove I can’t fly see, see, you can’t prove it can you?” You’d probably either walk away, call security or throw me out of the window and shout, ‘’F—ing fly then you lunatic.”
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The chimney was too narrow...that made me laugh :-))
ReplyDelete*Great* comment over at WEIT,too--"my flying doesn't work like that (it works in mysterious ways)!". Brilliant! Had to clap my hand over my mouth so's not to wake the kids... ;-))
My 6-yr old son doesn't believe that anyone could get round all the houses in one day. I asked him who delivers all the presents then, an he sad "someone else". He's a natural-born skeptic, I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteSo Tom, after reading all that literature on the subject, how do you lean in terms of people being born skeptics vs. learning it, and being born believers?
ReplyDeleteCoyne's post is here.