Meme Madness Monday - End of July Edition

So much fail in this meme, so little time

Today is Monday, so it's time for Meme Madness! Release the Memes!

"Atheism: The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs. Makes perfect sense."

Today's meme has been around a long time and is about as stupid as it gets. It wanders beyond strawman into strawcolony in a strawfield with strawcrows territory.

Atheists have to keep repeating the most basic idea: atheism is simply one position on one question: does a god exist? We say no. That's it. There's no requirement you hold any beliefs on anything else.

But there are philosophies that construct all kinds of structures around that absence of belief in a deity. Buddhists are often atheists, yet they often have a belief in enlightenment, reincarnation and other supernatural aspects of the universe. Then there are Raëlians, who think life was created by extraterrestrials. Long story short, there are all kinds of things you can believe about the universe and the origin of life without believing in god, so this meme just falls into fail right off the bat.

For those of us for whom atheism is an outgrowth of skepticism, the meme literally trips over itself with its fail. A main issue is that religion, Christianity in particular, is an attempt to co-opt every aspect of life and micromanage every detail of belief, leaving an individual with very little to question. For the believer, all things come from their god, and often no other explanations are necessary. Saying goddidit isn't really an explanation. It's an answer that stops inquiry. For believers, why seems more important than how anyway, and they want to deride those that don't have or need a "why."  Believers probably think an "explanation" will become clear (that is, how goddidit) after death when they join with him in spirit.

But for those of us living in reality, things appear different. So, when a believer inevitably skips from "you don't believe in god" to "so where did the universe come from?" an atheist might just shrug and say "I don't know." Yeah, it's not very satisfying if you think that pinpointing an answer is a requirement for something. The thing is, while the question of origins is infinitely fascinating, it really doesn't impact our day-to-day life. We can still lead meaningful, happy lives with "I don't know" dangling out there. The coffee I drank this morning was still as good, and the day is still just as beautiful, out there full of things to do and experience, whether I can explain why it's there at all. Not knowing should not be some dirty little secret causing shame.

The issue is not reality; it's mythology. It's having some pat answer that can shut up those voices in your head worrying about stuff. Yeah, it's satisfying having an answer, but does it matter to you if it's correct?

But returning to the meme, those of us who interested in an answer to the origins or our universe might turn to experts to understand what answers have been found to our questions. We might turn to science and the consensus for the best theories to how our universe, galaxy and world formed, and while there may be flaws in them, they still have evidence behind the mechanics of it all.

And here, the meme is still a bucket of fail. Our current understanding is not that there was nothing. Right now, the thinking is that there always was a cosmos and that our local presentation of the universe formed from a singularity - which, I might point out, is still something. And it is not that "nothing magically exploded for no reason." First off, the singularity expanded. "Big bang" is something of a misnomer, and did anyone note that this all happened "magically"? Sounds a bit like a god to me...

No nothing happened "magically." Not knowing why it happened does not mean that there was magic involved. Interesting enough, magically is used twice in this meme, so from now on, I'm just going to think that "we don't know why" = "magic" to this meme maker. Maybe he thinks Zeus is still hurling lightening from Mount Olympus. That is truly magical that I can see his lightening here in New Jersey.

The other "interesting" aspect of this meme is the compaction of time, as if this all happened in a six-day period. Nothing exploded which created everything. It all happened so quick! Then "a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever." The thing is, it wasn't "a bunch of everything" and it didn't happen in a nanosecond. First off, after the expansion of the big bang, we are talking millions of years of stars and dust and galaxies forming before our little rock forms out of the accretion disk of our dear sol. This is not the Genesis account, people! It's a long time of stuff going on - chemicals and physical laws - without our world even being a thing that exists. And then, finally, when our little rock forms, we start getting proteins and self-replicating molecules. I'm not going to go into detail because I'm not a scientist, so I'll get the details wrong. My main point is it's not like there was the Big Bang and poof our world was there and a day later there were dinosaurs. Again, this isn't Genesis.

So sure, the sarcastic "makes perfect sense" at the end is appropriate. None of this meme makes any sense, and it's not what anyone believes. It's what some Christian creationists think science says, but then, this is probably the same person who needs to see a crocodile turn into a cat to believe in evolution. We can't take people like this seriously.

But at the bottom of it all, this is a pure projection. The creationist thinks a deity brought forth the world, the universe and all the life from something close to nothing on a whim or a need to demonstrate his power to himself? I don't know, why did god need to create all this? And then he magically rearranged dust into self-replicating bits that became humans and animals. And it all happened in the span of six days after which a talking snake tempted a woman to eat a magic apple causing the fall. Makes perfect sense.