Special People

Just when the Christmas season is entering its comfort and joy stage, we can always count on a message to lift our spirits. This one is from Ricky Gervais in The Wall Street Journal.

Gervais was the creator and star of the British version of “The Office”, which is said to be superior to our version of “The Office”. I’ve never seen the British version. I enjoy the one on NBC though I do wonder what planet the people that make it live on. During the Christmas show, Good Guy Jim hit Dwight with a snowball in the office. I do not know of an office where Jim would not have been escorted out.

Mr. Gervais op-ed is titled,” Why I am an Atheist”. Just in time for Christmas.

In the past few years, atheism has become more evangelistic, if you don’t mind the term and in his own way, Mr. Gervais is sort of a Billy Sleep-in-on-Sunday.

Basically, the pitch for atheism is this: You are stupid to believe in God.

He begins his article by saying, “Why don’t you believe in God? I get that question all the time. I always try to give a sensitive, reasoned answer. This is usually awkward, time consuming and pointless. People who believe in God don’t need proof of his existence, and they certainly don’t want evidence to the contrary. They are happy with their belief. They even say things like “it’s true to me” and “it’s faith.” I still give my logical answer because I feel that not being honest would be patronizing and impolite. It is ironic therefore that “I don’t believe in God because there is absolutely no scientific evidence for his existence and from what I’ve heard the very definition is a logical impossibility in this known universe,” comes across as both patronizing and impolite.”

Of course, we folks of faith are always wondering about what Ricky Gervais believes and how as a comedian he obtained all scientific knowledge and reason. Funny, I’ve known several professors (with PhDs) that taught subjects like Biology and Chemistry at Whoop-de-do Universities and they believed in God. I guess they didn’t get the memo that said it was the very definition of logical impossibility.

He deals with the arrogance argument by stating that Science is humble. “It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know”. Ok. “It bases its conclusions and belief on hard evidence. It doesn’t hold on to medieval practices because they are tradition”. That Science is one fair dude, unlike all of you religious people and your medieval practices of throwing leaches down your trousers and prayer. He concludes this paragraph with ...”believing in something doesn’t make it true”. Fair enough, but not believing in something doesn’t make it false.

He throws us bone by admitting that belief in God “does no harm”. Thanks, Ricky. Usually we are treated to historical reviews of The Spanish Inquisition, (which nobody expected), The Crusades, and a million other events done in the name of religion. One of the online comments to this piece said, “Science flies you to the moon; Religion flies you into buildings”. Of course, it would be too much to add religion created orphanages, hospitals, and universities. It would be impolite and patronizing to mention that science gave us bombs and bullets.

One thing about Atheists that I’ve noticed that for all of the mention of Science and Reason, it always seems to come back to what we awful stupid Evangelicals say: experience. In their experience, there is always somebody or something that turns them off to religion. You get a three hour treatise on the impossibility of God and it turns out that they had an Aunt that would hit them with a wooden spoon to make them go to Mass.

Gervais has an experience. He is from a working class background and “mums” didn’t have hope that their kids would grow up to the doctors—they just hoped the kids didn’t become criminals. “So bring them up believing in God and they’ll be good and law abiding. It’s a perfect system”. Ah, the old opiate of the masses.

Gervais was eight, drawing a picture of the crucifixion when his 19 year old brother asked him why he believed in God. He says: “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.”

Gervais doesn’t reveal how his mother knew it “deep down”. He does not share how his brother had more of an insight into this matter than Martin Luther King, Jr, Mother Teresa, Augustine, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, Barack Obama or the million of others that were not blessed with the special skills of reasoning of this young man.

That is really the essence of the current popular atheistic arguments. Gervais apparently believes that every believer is weak and the idea of an entertainer being an atheist causes them to question their own belief. He says, “In a way they are asking “what makes you so special? “How come you weren’t brainwashed with the rest of us?” He is special because he created a TV show and has been in movies, which means he is, by definition, better than us.

Just as “The Office” had a creator, so must the world and the cosmos. Too bad in Gervais' quest for science and reason he didn't stop off in the Liberal Arts department and read John Updike's short story "Pigeon Feathers". Maybe he would be little more questioning and not as dogmatic.