Adam Carolla is a comedian and “personality,” whatever that means. Here’s his brilliant contribution to the atheist/theist debate:
“I am not agnostic. I am atheist. I don’t think there is no God; I know there’s no God. I know there’s no God the same way I know many other laws in our universe. I know there’s no God and I know most of the world knows that as well. They just won’t admit it because there’s another thing they know. They know they’re going to die and it freaks them out. So most people don’t have the courage to admit there’s no God and they know it. They feel it. They try to suppress it. And if you bring it up they get angry because it freaks them out.”
First of all, is there a law of the universe that Adam Carolla could actually name (and gravity doesn’t count)? Secondly, the comment above comes from the same genius who called all Hawaiians “stupid” and “retarded” and “in-bred” and managed to insult the entire country of the Philippines. Clearly Adam’s angry, and he likes to take it out on anything that occurs to him during his various bouts with Turrets.
Having established that important fact, let’s look at Carolla’s comment, which happens to be a common rejoinder one hears from the atheist community: religious people believe in the after-life because we’re afraid to die. First of all, the fear of death is something we inherited via evolution. Living things don’t like to die. I know, quirky. Call it the will to survive, the instinct to propagate… call it whatever you will. Fact is, we’re all born with it: Christians, Muslims, atheists, mollusks… and good thing, too. I want the captain of my airplane to be afraid of death. I want my taxi cab driver, and lawyer, and stock broker, and best friend, and children ~ I want all them to be afraid to die. Why? Because the fear of death has been shown to be a healthy instinct. It means a person loves life. When it gets down to it, I prefer to hang around people who prefer to hang around people.
In other words, the fear of death has nothing to do with a belief in God. Clearly Adam (ironic name) is an example of this. It’s an instinct we’re all born with. And if a belief in God was invented for the purpose of appeasing that fear, then why doesn’t it?
Obviously, a belief in God isn’t exactly a good coping mechanism for our primal fear. Mr. Carolla wants it both ways. He can’t have it. Which means that one’s belief in God must also be an instinct. But if so, then what’s the point of an instinct if it doesn’t have a correlate in reality? I mean, wouldn’t it suck if we could experience thirst but there was no such thing as liquid (see C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity)? Or an itch but there was no such thing as a scratch? I think Adam’s got it all reversed. I think everyone knows deep down that God exists ~ it just freaks some people out because they’d like to live as if he didn’t.
And how about this zinger from James Camerson (aka Mr. Titanic):
"I've sworn off agnosticism, which I now call cowardly atheism. I've come to the position that in the complete absence of any supporting data whatsoever for the persistence of the individual in some spiritual form, it is necessary to operate under the provisional conclusion that there is no afterlife and then be ready to amend that if I find out otherwise."
Wait, didn’t he just say agnosticism was cowardly? But what does he call “it is necessary to operate under the provisional conclusion that there is no afterlife and then be ready to amend that if I find out otherwise”?!? Doesn’t exactly sound like he’s taken a principled stand on the issue. And one would certainly hope Mr. Cameron would be “ready to amend” his views if he were to “find out otherwise.” Talk about making a safe bet.
And last but not least, you’ve got to at least admire the chutzpah of comedian George Carlin:
“In the Bullshit Department, a businessman can’t hold a candle to a clergyman. ‘Cause I gotta tell you the truth, folks. When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion.”
Given his take on religion, I can’t blame the guy for his rant:
“Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time!”
But given enough cynicism, one quickly realizes that anything can sound utterly ridiculous. Take naturalistic evolution, for instance, done below in my best George Carlin imitation:
“Science easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Science has actually convinced us of naturalistic evolution, that Everything came out of Nothing, and that Nothing can somehow make Everything. And this Nothing means that Everything means nothing since there’s nothing to give meaning to Anything except us. Which means that love, courage, humor, self-sacrifice, goodness –- all those fancy ideas we use every day -- are a complete illusion that we play on ourselves in order to keep us all acting nicely toward each other, all for the apparent purpose of… well… for this Something that came out of Nothing to go back to Nothing, which is a scenario we will repeat ’til the end of time!”
Atheism has got to be the lowest-hanging fruit in the World of Ideas. It’s so laughably absurd that you wonder what sort of trauma these poor folk have been through to actually believe in all its cockamamy ideas. And I don’t mean to necessarily sound glib. Likely it is some trauma that the church, or some knucklehead believers, have caused that has led many folks to atheism. Alas, we Christians are often our own worst enemy. But you’d think that in the end, at some crucial juncture in their play-acting little lives, these atheists would have an epiphany and realize that everything they hold dear, including the ability to hold everything dear, only makes sense in a world with God. Otherwise, everything is make-believe, quite literally, and their ranting that there is no god is as meaningless as those who rant that there is. I mean, what’s the point? Neither will ever prove their point.