Monday Meme Madness - End of August

Happy Monday, everyone! Monday on this blog means looking at stupid religious memes! Glad you're here to join in the fun.

There are some truly horrific Christian memes out there. Some are just bad jokes and plays on words, but the ones that try to logic their way to god are among the worst.

Meme #1: "You say God's not real because you can't see him? I don't think you saw evolution either."

The additional question marks on this meme symbolize the abject stupidity of the analogy being made here.

First off, let's just state yet again that evolution is not the opposite of god. It is also not the opposite of religion. Religion does not have to be anti-science. The Catholic church accepted evolution a long time ago. I know lots of Jews and Christians of various stripes who accept evolution. There may in fact be atheists who don't accept evolution. I don't know any and I'm not going to go out and look for such idiots. The point is these are completely different things. You can be religious and accept evolution; you can not believe in god and reject evolution.

Second, god is supposed to be some kind of entity, especially the Christian god. I mean, in the Bible, he supposedly walked on earth in Genesis and appeared to Moses, so there should be something we can, maybe not "see," but perceive if this is a being. Besides, there are plenty of people claiming god is working in their lives, so come on! Is he only visible when it's convenient?

Evolution, on the other hand, is not a being or entity or whatever it is Yahweh is. Evolution is a process, and it is a process that does not generally occur in some obvious way in our day-to-day lives. If we can do experiments on organisms that reproduce quickly (like bacteria), perhaps we can witness the change over time, but among most plants and animals, evolution is too slow to really produce outcomes over the course our life.

Instead, what we're really doing is comparing animals along a continuum, comparing genes, organs, and physical features and attributes. It isn't just looking at superficial similarities (which may actually be misleading). We can note vestigial organs or compare DNA (I always like to recommend reading about chromosome 2). And by the way, these are results that we can see even if we can't directly "see" evolution, whatever that would even mean.

And, just to be clear, atheists don't worship Darwin or evolution or any of that bullshit. It should go without saying, but I feel it needs to be said nonetheless.

Meme #2: "Oh, you say you don't believe in God? That will be an excellent icebreaker when you meet Him."

Ah, the Willy Wonka photo-cum-meme! An oldie but goodie! Let's take our love for a childhood movie to create an emotional appeal that will leave us more open to accepting the inanity of the text.

One of the things I love about this meme is that the creator seems to really think god exists. Belief is really required for the meme to make any sense. It's the meme equivalent of the fool says in his heart there is no god. Or whatever that bit of scripture says. That's the gist. I'm not gonna look it up because it's not an argument or in any way persuasive. I could just as easily write the fool says in his heart cilantro is the food of the god's and it would carry as much weight. I do like cilantro in my salsa and on salads...

I also like how you need an icebreaker with god. Like, here is this supposed all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving being, and he doesn't already know you don't believe?!? He might have done something to nudge you along (hello, all-lovingness!) and he didn't? And he doesn't know other topics to get the ball rolling.

Really, though, this meme seems like a threat, like god is going to be pissed when I get to heaven and he's going to rain down hellfire or something.

On a positive note, at least I get to meet the guy, if he's a guy. I'm not going directly to hell. And it strikes me that if I die and there is a god I'm... what? Standing in front of him? Does my soul have legs? Anyway, if I die, and there is a god, I can imagine folding my soul arms and tapping my soul foot and saying with my soul mouth, "Why didn't you do something I would know for sure was you? I was a believer for a long time. I prayed. I did all the sacraments. If I was doing the wrong thing, you could have nudged me along instead of having all those people around me telling me that these motions were the right ones. When I fell out of belief, you didn't do anything I could understand as pushing me back in. What gives?"

Now, that's an icebreaker.

Enjoy the last week of August, everyone!