I’ll never grow tired of old, conservative gas-bags going on about how atheism is either dead, on it’s way out, or, as this crusty old white dude said, “a joke”. Because he’s convinced only an invisible male patriarchal God is the proper explanation as to the existence of the Universe, columnist William Murchison believes the recent remarks of Stephen Hawking, claiming the Universe did not need a supernatural origin, displays a kind of cosmic ignorance. Yes, a Christian dogmatist is calling Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest scientific minds of the last century, a dolt.
Who is likely to grow mute in the face of a bald claim that the universe more or less invented itself? Was Hawking there with his camera? That would be the first question. Soon other questions would follow. The vast variety of life — that was spontaneous, too? The human organism — the brain, the eye, the ear, the digestive tract — just sort of, you know, happened? The sky, the seas, the seasons, not to mention human reproduction–those things just happened too? And the greatest minds of history failed to catch on, century after God-fearing century? That, or they practiced denial? Uhhhh … yeah.
So this idiot’s first question to Hawking would be, “dude, did you have a camera with you?” Yeah, sounds like an insanely brilliant question. Can the same burden of proof be placed in the hands of Christians who claim Jesus resurrected and was born of a virgin? I guess before the invention of the video camera, we couldn’t actually know anything.
As for the rest of his dimwitted statements, is he trying to suggest scientists are somehow in “denial” about the case for God? Our species wasn’t in denial regarding our understanding of the natural world; we were, unsurprisingly, simply ignorant and lacked the proper tools to unravel the mysteries of the Cosmos. That tool is science itself, and this marvelous methodology has spoken volumes on the evidence of the age of the Universe, the nature and history of life, and the evolution of things like eyes, ears, brains and digestive tracts. Denial is now a recent phenomenon as human beings, who should know better, still cling to the fanciful and infantile claims of religion. What’s your explanation, moron — that some bearded entity made it all appear in 6 days?
Wait, he’s just getting warmed up:
Many of them are technically intelligent, Hawking is routinely labeled “brilliant”, but they swallow with satisfied smiles the intellectual bilge called atheism.
Well, glad at least we measure high on this guy’s scale of “technically intelligent”. Perhaps if he actually bothered to research exactly WHY Hawking is considered brilliant, he might not be so self-satisfied with his own obviously dwindled mental capacities. Now, I know I might be accused of name calling, but it’s only a consequence of this guy’s incessant need to remind his readers we’re a bunch of unpleasant a-holes. He even throws in Robert Ingersol for good measure, suggesting this man was an unpleasant jerk. Take 5 minutes to educate yourself on this guy and you’ll quickly realize he was precisely the opposite of this. Of course we would all seem like a bunch of annoying douche-bags to him; we’re attempting to show the world what utter superstitious nonsense religion really is. Did you expect in the process a bunch of grumpy old white dudes wouldn’t get a little upset?
The one thing that continually grates me is how casually authors like William Murchison and his ilk do their best to besmirch us. They seem to be unaware that if their speeches were slightly altered, and the word “atheist” was replaced with any other minority, there wouldn’t be one single respectable media outlet that would allow them the opportunity to spew such ludicrous vitriol. Imagine for a moment if this same article had said “I imagine there have been, here and there, pleasant JEWS. If so, one rarely runs across them”. Then again, that does sound like something a Christian would have said a few decades ago, doesn’t it?