Monday Meme Madness - Nothingness Edition

Welcome to another edition of Meme Madness! Today we are looking at atheist memes. Let's dig right in!

Meme #1: So in the beginning there was nothing... And then it exploded?

People have a lot of trouble with the origins of the universe. Christian creationists also confuse the Biblical creation story with what science says. In Genesis, a god created the universe and the world out of nothing and everything we know about came about in a period of one week. They really need to learn what the Big Bang, or inflation, is and what it means.

This meme does not represent what atheists believe. Atheists just don't believe in god. That's all. They don't have to accept the Big Bang.

But for those who do, our best understanding is that there was a singularity that expanded. There wasn't an explosion in the way we understand explosions. This means that it's not that nothing exploded, and you need to do some research.

Meme #2: Variation on meme 1 adds what Christianity believes: In the beginning there was an ultimate being. Which created everything.

Syntax aside, I guess the point is that Christianity makes more sense. There is totes this ultimate being and that just is more logical than there was nothing.

First off, can you show this ultimate being? How do you know such a being exists? Where does it exist?

As we said above, our best understanding of the beginning of the universe is that all matter and energy was compressed in a singularity. We are still looking for ways to understand what happened at the start of expansion. Maybe there is a multiverse. We don't know. Science does not propose that nothing exploded. That's the main thing. And there are natural explanations for the expansion.

I'm not an expert on the science. I have a very basic layman's understanding of the Big Bang. I find it interesting, but it doesn't matter much to my life. Saying "I don't know how the universe started" changes nothing about my life.

And how many times can we say atheism is just about not believing in gods. You don't have to care about science at all. For Christianity, the beginning is part of the mythos and the story connects to why we need saving. For us, before you can say this makes sense, you have to demonstrate your deity.

Once you do that, we'll talk.