Kristin Chenoweth Responds to Ricky Gervais

Actress (and Christian) Kristin Chenoweth, in a response to Ricky Gervais‘s article on Easter, says she understands where atheists are coming from:

Believe me, when I hear myself talk about Jesus Christ being “risen from the dead,” I can almost hear myself laughing.

Another whackadoo notion is the idea of the second coming, or the Rapture, as many Christians call it.

I get it when atheists look at us like we have three heads when we describe what will happen: “Yes, we’ll just be sitting here and I will disappear….Yes, planes will fall from the sky, cars will crash, pets will disappear too….”

Kookoo!! Ridiculous!! Laughable!! And, yet…

“And, yet” nothing. She goes off on why she still believes all those “whackadoo” things. Because, somehow, her faith trumps any sense of logic and sanity.

I don’t judge those who don’t believe. After all, we’ve been told our whole lives… that scientists can now prove we come from apes…or fish…or a spark…all of that could be true. Maybe I didn’t come from Adam’s rib… but then who made the ape, the fish or the spark?

Again, it’s my choice to believe there is something way greater than me. That there is a Lord above who loves us all, even if we choose not to believe in Him.

…

When I die, I will be in heaven celebrating with my loved ones, in a place so wonderful I can’t fathom it now. Is it wrong that I can’t wait? Is it bad that I want to walk on streets of gold and sing with my grandma again?

I’m sure that tugs at someone’s heartstrings — not mine — but there’s no evidence to believe in any of it. No reason to believe you’re going to heaven. No reason to believe you’ll see grandma again. That may sound pessimistic but it’s true. We may not know exactly how life originated, but there’s no reason to go from “I don’t know” to “Must be Jesus.”

Here’s the problem with what the Wall Street Journal is doing.

They ask Gervais to write an article and they get something funny and intelligent.

They ask Chenoweth to write a response — She’s another celebrity! She’s Christian! She’ll bring hits to our site! — and they get something nonsensical and full of platitudes.

This is why you shouldn’t ask people to write articles on subjects they know little about.

At one point, Chenoweth quotes a line from a movie to stick it to atheists:

“Just because you don’t believe in something, doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

She ought to take her own advice when it comes to reason.

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Silent Service

I love the inability of most Christians to comprehend the idea that something can just happen. It doesn’t have to have a causal agent. She asks the silly question yet misses the obvious;

…but then who made the ape, the fish or the spark?

Well Kristin, who made God? If God doesn’t need a maker, why does the spark need one. I won’t bother to explain who made the ape or the fish; nobody on the board wants me to describe wild monkey sex for them and the reproductive activity of fish is kind of boring after wild monkey sex.
Alex

“When I die, I will be in heaven celebrating with my loved ones, in a place so wonderful I can’t fathom it now. Is it wrong that I can’t wait? Is it bad that I want to walk on streets of gold and sing with my grandma again? ”

“Is it wrong that I can’t wait?”!!! Well, YES! Isn’t that the point?
BrianE

I think the opposite of her final statement makes a lot more sense:

Just because you believe in something, doesn’t mean it’s true.
Erin

I re-read the piece by Ricky just now and in the comments was this – “Love your comedy Ricky, but you are no theologian. Who ever said it was about being good?”

WTF? So you can be horrible to people as long as you believe in god? it’s total crap!
Stephen Redman

I liked her piece.

It was humble. She all but concedes that atheism (or really naturalism) could well be true but that she wants to believe things that she admits sound a bit absurd. I’m okay with that sort of “leap of faith” so long as it’s not a cudgel to strip people of their rights or affect what is taught in schools.
Bill

Not as cute as the atheist woman from Mythbusters…
migrainegirl

I don’t know, Hemant, I found it funny!
SeanL

just because you don’t believe in invisible spaghetti monsters doesn’t mean its not true.

And I would like to believe I’m the hottest piece of ass on the planet. But just because something sounds good doesn’t mean its true. Ignorance is bliss.
jonezart

The article by Lee Strobel is funny, too. In a ‘Yeah, yeah we believe your “I used to be an atheist until I found teh evidence”, schtick, Lee Strobel’ kind of way
SecuLuv

I hate for my first post on this site to be angry, but this one boiled my buttons. “Read the Bible like you eat fish: take the meat that serves you well, but don’t choke on a bone.”

*facepalm!*

Seriously? Her grandmother told her to ignore the parts of the Bible that didn’t suit her, and she’s spouting it as if it’s good advice? Even after hearing this kind of stupidity a thousand times, I still despise cherry-pickers.
Ben

“Sometimes people want to debate or try and change me. I just giggle because I know I won’t be changing the fundamentals of my faith to fit my lifestyle. It’s a relief when you get to the place in your life when you kind of don’t care WHAT people think anymore. I’ve graduated from giving a crap! Yay!!!!”

“She always said, “read the Bible like you eat fish: take the meat that serves you well, but don’t choke on a bone.””

So… I don’t alter my faith to fit my lifestyle, but if something in the Bible doesn’t suit me, I’m free to ignore it? Ah I see, this is one of those cafeteria Christians. Kind of sad that she doesn’t even realize it, she actually thinks she has principles!
MIDVALCRE

It doesnt hurt the WSJ that she is so stunningly beautiful either. I notice they didnt get someone a bit more knowledgable on the subject but perhaps not as easy on the eyes.
derek

Gervais’ article pwns this one. I don’t know how people can admit to not knowing that their beliefs are true and then get away with chastising a belief system founded in what is actually known about the universe (atheism/ agnosticism).
L.Long

She was not funny but sad and a liar as she said…Is it wrong that I can’t wait?
But she does wait! If she can’t wait then drive fast, no seat belt and someone will run into you and off you go! But why does she wear a seat belt? Because she is more then happy to wait for as long as possible.
Jeebus

Faith is believing in something you know ain’t true. – Samuel Clemens
thegiggle

I really don’t like the ‘I will be in heaven celebrating with my loved ones’ idea. If there is a heaven, and my mother gets in because she’s a good Christian, and you need to be a good Christian to get in, she will never see me there. She won’t be celebrating with all her loved ones, unless one doesn’t need to be a good Christian to get in, and then what’s the point?
Jared

Are her eyes and toes demonic-looking on purpose as a joke? I don’t think there is a square inch on that person that wasn’t primped or painted for that photo. She looks embalmed.

That criticism aside, she didn’t seem to touch on WHY she should believe. She didn’t claim morals, advances in knowledge, riches, better family life. .. SO do you think she would ever admit that she perpetuates the crap simply out of fear of death or being ostricized by family?
Kari

I’m not going to lie. I have a huge crush on Kristin Chenoweth. I got to be on the same set as her when she was filming in Michigan and I got to meet her. She was such a sweetheart as I blurted out that I loved her in Wicked and Glee and gushed that she was an awesome actress.
I like that she points out that it is her choice to believe in ridiculous ideas. To me, it was insinuating that she doesn’t really believe, but she has faith “just in case.”
Miles

“Just because you don’t believe in something, doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

This is equivalent to “just because something is true, that doesn’t mean you believe in it.” Which is an uber-rational way of saying people are irrational. Her defense amounts to “Leave me alone, I can be irrational if I want to.”

I think the accusations of cherry-picking and cafeteria Christianity are true but irrelevant. She knows what she believes isn’t rational, and she doesn’t care. She even says she doesn’t give a crap anymore. I just wonder if she realizes that’s the same thing as believing regardless of the truth.

Who am I kidding? She probably believes that there are other ways of knowing, that reason isn’t the only path to truth.
Bargain

@Silent Service

You said:

I love the inability of most Christians to comprehend the idea that something can just happen. It doesn’t have to have a causal agent. She asks the silly question yet misses the obvious…

Well Kristin, who made God? If God doesn’t need a maker, why does the spark need one. I won’t bother to explain who made the ape or the fish; nobody on the board wants me to describe wild monkey sex for them and the reproductive activity of fish is kind of boring after wild monkey sex.

I bet you think you made a good point, but the atheist position depends 100% on science, which needs a cause. So when you threw out the need for a cause in trying to make Chenoweth look silly, you just voided your own argument. You still scientifically and philosophically have the problem of the uncaused cause. Do you have any “proof” for your understanding of how we got here, or just faith in it?

It seems that atheists need a lot more faith than Christians do.
chicago dyke

i have no idea who she is; another pretty celebrity i suppose. why they chose her to defend faith has to do mostly with her hair, smile and tits, i suppose. but she’s no scholar of religion, that’s for sure.

Because she is more then happy to wait for as long as possible.

let’s be blunt: she doesn’t off herself to go walk with granny on streets of gold because in truth, she has real and significant doubt about the tenants and claims of her “faith.” just like the rest of us, some part of her is pretty sure the xtian mythology is bunk. they all have that doubt, believers. the Game for them is spending a lifetime pretending they don’t, mostly because they are sheeple who don’t want to stand out in a crowd.
AxeGrrl

Bargain wrote:

It seems that atheists need a lot more faith than Christians do

You do realize that nothing you wrote in your post before this comment substantiates or supports this assertion, yes?

And how does someone who doesn’t believe something because of lack of compelling evidence have “more faith” than someone who does believe in spite of lack of compelling evidence?
Steve

I bet you think you made a good point, but the atheist position depends 100% on science, which needs a cause.

No, it doesn’t necessarily. Evolution especially doesn’t concern itself about the origins of life. It’s about how life develops. Explaining where life came from on the first place is at most a niche issue in that specific field. See: abiogenesis

Same with cosmology. Yeah it would be nice if we could know the origins of the universe in every last detail, but we probably won’t. That doesn’t make our observations and current understanding about the early universe, its expansion or the creation of galaxies and the stars and less true.

The “first cause” argument is silly anyways. So what created god? Believers either say the he always existed, which is just silly, or totally evade the issue by trying to move it beyond human comprehension. Either way, they muck things up by saying something less complex came from something more complex when all the evidence out there contradicts that.
Stan

Of all the vocal Christian celebrities, KChen is one whose faith really doesn’t bother me. At all. It’s silly and mushy sometimes, but I love her too much to get angry at her religious belief. It’s almost endearing, in an odd sort of way.
pinkocommie

She has some mighty fancy toenails. That’s all I got.
Abby

I personally could care less if someone believes in god…I just don’t want them to try to convince me and I would offer them the same courtesy and not try to convince them not to believe in god.
J Myers

I bet you think you made a good point, but the atheist position depends 100% on science…. blah blah der duh derrrrr…..

Christians love to make public displays of stupidity, it would seem.
Anita

“Tenants” of her faith??

The word is “tenets”.
Alex Jones

Let’s not forget here that Chenoweth is a big player in gay and lesbian rights – I think GLAAD recently honoured her for it. To me, that makes here a nice person and her faith doesn’t really bother me.
AxeGrrl

Alex Jones wrote:

Let’s not forget here that Chenoweth is a big player in gay and lesbian rights – I think GLAAD recently honoured her for it. To me, that makes here a nice person and her faith doesn’t really bother me

Indeed.

Kristin Chenoweth Speaks Out on ‘Horrendously Homophobic’ Newsweek Article, Defends Sean Hayes

And she’s endured criticism from some on the religious right for it…..

which will probably flare up again if/when the Dusty Springfield biopic starring Chenoweth (as the uh ‘not straight’ singer) gets released! 🙂
Pseudonym

Duelling celebrities has got to be the dumbest of all pissing contests.
MamaGump

“Again, it’s my choice to believe there is something way greater than me.”

There is, indeed, something way greater than you, Kristin. It’s called “Bernadette Peters.”
jolly

My grandmother had dementia, so no I don’t want to meet her again, she wouldn’t know me and someone would have to taking care of her all the time.
Robert Vroom

Faith does not mean blindly accepting what you are told. The Bible talks of Jesus doing things to provide proofs, Paul talked about the Jewish congregation that compared his teachings to the Tanakh to verify his teaching as being better than those who accepted on blind faith. There are a number of excellent reasons to accept Jesus that are absolutely rational. Anyone who is interested can read the work of William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, Greg Koukl and a host of other bright, rational Christians.
Anna

I don’t want to pick on Kristin Chenowith, who, all things considered, seems like a nice person.

But I have to wonder about the title of that article:

In A World of Make-Believe, I Still Believe in Easter

Assuming that she selected the title, it seems supremely ironic that she didn’t realize the irony of that statement. For atheists, Easter is as “make-believe” as any other form of theater or pageantry.
Jacob

translation:

I know I sound delusional, but stop judging me!
Bargain

@AxeGrrl

And how does someone who doesn’t believe something because of lack of compelling evidence have “more faith” than someone who does believe in spite of lack of compelling evidence?

Maybe you haven’t thought about this, but atheism contains an amazingly large amount of belief, not a lack of belief. It is naive to think that atheists simply DON’T believe in things. Atheists DO believe that there is no God. That is a belief, and a pretty bold one at that. In believing this, they disagree with the vast majority of people who have ever walked the earth that believe there is at least some sort of higher power. Those who believe in a higher power do because they need an explanation for the unexplainable things.

Atheists, however, choose to believe in a concept that has no known cause except that it happened to happen. Chance. One in a billion. One in a trillion. One in an infinity number of possible combinations of events, and this one just so happened to be. Chaos somehow turned into an infinitely complex ordered system of life. ANY religion, however silly, is more likely than that. Talk to a statistician and they will tell you that an atheist perspective is not probable. Just because it is not probable doesn’t mean it’s not true, just less likely to be true. Even a staunch atheist has to agree with that. Atheists, then, choose to believe something that is not likely to be true, so they have “faith” that it is true.

So, in reality, atheists have even more faith than theists.
AxeGrrl

Bargain wrote:

It is naive to think that atheists simply DON’T believe in things. Atheists DO believe that there is no God. That is a belief, and a pretty bold one at that.

This is where you go very wrong. Atheism isn’t a belief, it’s a response to someone else’s assertion.

Simply saying “I don’t buy it” when someone makes a claim you see no evidence for isn’t a ‘belief’.
AxeGrrl

Bargain wrote:

they disagree with the vast majority of people who have ever walked the earth that believe there is at least some sort of higher power.

So what? you’re not seriously proferring the ‘argumentum ad populum’ here are you? there’s a reason it’s listed under ‘fallacies’

Those who believe in a higher power do because they need an explanation for the unexplainable things

Again, you’re not exactly helping your case here. Some of us feel no need to go beyond acknowledging that some things are (so far) ‘unexplainable’. Just because some people “need” an explanation doesn’t mean that the explanation they ‘like’ is true.

Atheists, however, choose to believe in a concept that has no known cause except that it happened to happen.

(sigh) I don’t mean to be unkind, but you seem to be very misinformed on the issue of what atheists ‘believe’.

Chaos somehow turned into an infinitely complex ordered system of life. ANY religion, however silly, is more likely than that.

I’m extremely curious as to where you’ve gotten your comic-book-esque ideas about cosmology/evolution/probabilties.

Just because it is not probable doesn’t mean it’s not true, just less likely to be true. Even a staunch atheist has to agree with that.

*gobsmacked* please tell me you’re a Poe, Bargain! pleeeeeease.

If you’re not, then please ponder this little nugget of wisdom:

“because you win the lottery does not mean the game is fixed”
Steve

Again, what created god? And why can a god have always existed, but it’s so improbable that some kind of uniform quantum state always existed that somehow developed into a singularity and expanded? Or maybe the singularity always existed. Same thing as with god, but it’s somehow less believable? Or what’s the difference between thinking of god as some kind of extra-dimensional entity and thinking that events in another universe may have led to the creation of ours?

It’s not improbable. Just incomprehensible. But that’s because our brains can’t really handle the concept of nothingness. Not the absence of something or emptiness, but literal nothingness.
ACN

There was so much nonsense in that post; thank you for chopping it up for us Axegrrl.

My money is on a Poe.
Brian-sama

@ Pseudonym

Duelling celebrities has got to be the dumbest of all pissing contests.

I would normally agree, but that’s not really what’s happening here. Chenoweth writes an emotion-driven article of feel-good nonsense that has nothing to do with the original piece by Gervais. Perhaps she intended to refute his claims, but if that’s the case, she clearly misunderstood his essay. Sure, Gervais has written and spoken many times before about the irrationality of religion, but his Easter piece is simply about the hypocrisy of people who claim the moral monopoly.

If this were an actual duel, Chenoweth would have shown up at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and unarmed.
Drew M.

@SecuLuv

Seriously? Her grandmother told her to ignore the parts of the Bible that didn’t suit her, and she’s spouting it as if it’s good advice? Even after hearing this kind of stupidity a thousand times, I still despise cherry-pickers.

I still don’t understand why a lot of atheists loathe cherry pickers. In my experience, the “good stuff” Christians are much, much better people than those who believe in the whole shebang.

Religion is never going to be completely replaced with reason, so I’d much rather have good theists than bible thumping fundies.
Dale Headley

Chenoweth is typical of most Christians in that they feel exempt from having to factor reason, evidence, or common sense into their beliefs. For Christians “faith” is everything. If I choose to believe an elephant is riding in the back seat of my car, nobody will believe me unless I prove it with evidence, reason, and/or common sense, since the claim is on its face, preposterous. But what if I have FAITH that the elephant is there? Don’t people have a duty to respect my faith and accept my elephant passenger as fact?
Chenowith pretty much acknowledges the preposterousness (wackadoness) of her beliefs, but she chooses faith as preeminent over all other ways of knowing the truth.
Bargain

@Axe grrl

You have sucessfully taken a simple statement by me and misinterpreted it. I sense this is something you do often, hence the reason you are an atheist.
ACN

Ahhh I see.

Misinterpret statement -> Atheism.

It’s all so clear now.

It certainly couldn’t have had anything to do with the fact your simple statement was in fact a pile of meaningless rigmarole.