Atheist(s) Don’t Exist… God Said So

Sorry guys. Pack it up. We are apparently a figment of someone’s imagination. Or exist in a snow globe like on that show I’m too young to have watched.

Blogger Ralph Barker just wrote an article entitled “Atheist Don’t Exist-God Said So”.

I don’t know about you guys, but that’s all the evidence Ineed to know that I don’t exist.

I’ve met some agnostics before, but I’ve only met one or two people who actually claimed to be an atheist. Most people who struggle with the existence of God will simply opt to the agnostic position. The agnostic says that they just don’t know for sure whether or not God exists. When an atheist claims that God does not exist, then he or she directly denies the clear truth of Scripture. So who will we believe, God or atheists?

Usually the devoutly religious get the whole “atheism” definition wrong, but I think this is pretty accurate. I will go on record denying the fact that Biblical scripture is true.

*Whew* That feels good to get off my chest.

He then quotes Romans 1:18-20 because when you start by establishing that atheists don’t place any weight on the Bible, the logical next step is to use the Bible to tell me why I’m wrong.

And here’s my favorite part:

It is very interesting that atheists, who deny God’s existence, spend so much time, energy, and even money fighting those who do believe. I don’t believe in ghosts or goblins, but I don’t spend any time trying to persecute those who do. Why would I?

Ralphy boy, let me tell you why you would.

Imagine, if you will, a world where 90% of Americans believe in ghosts or goblins. A world where nearly half of people get up on Sundays to go worship them. Because these people have the majority, they start to throw their weight around. Town halls start telling ghost stories before every meeting. The leaders of the GGFA (that’s Ghosts and Goblins For America) start dictating what medications get covered by your health insurance. Every hotel has a copy of Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark on the bedside table drawer. FOX News has a conniption fit because Target says “Happy All Hallows’ Eve” instead of “Halloween” (“They’re trying to take the ‘ween’ out of ‘Halloween'” they’ll say). People fear for their jobs because their boss is a devout Goblinist and they feel uncomfortable revealing their skepticism regarding the magical origins of all Goblin-kind. Heaven forbid a politician makes a speech that doesn’t end with “… and may ghosts spook you, and may ghosts spook the United States of America”.

Ralph, buddy, pal, we are not putting our time and efforts (and considerable amounts of sarcasm) into this atheist movement because we don’t believe in any gods and that makes us cranky. We do it because you guys won’t get out of our faces with it.

And I am not even going to touch that in a single article he denies our existence and then calls us out. (Who are you talking to if you don’t believe in me?)

This is how Ralph concludes his piece:

I conclude the matter this way. God said there are no atheists. I believe Him. There are no atheists.

I will conclude my article this way: (a colon should have gone there by the way, Ralph) I don’t care what your book says. I don’t believe in any gods. I exist.

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ortcutt

If there is a God, then God said there are no atheists, but per definitio
If there is a God, then God is infallible, so
If there is a God, then whatever he says is true, and so
If there is a God, then there are no atheists, but
There are atheists.

Ergo, there is no God.

Q.E.D.
hoverFrog

I’m an atheist. If I kick him in the balls will he believe that I exist?
Matt Dillahunty

Psalm 14:1 – The Bible says there are atheists.
Reducto Ad Absurdum – The Bible is a contradictory pile of poo
Nicole Introvert

That would RULE if every hotel had a copy of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. That is a classic!
Kathi Wise

Apparently, he doesn’t get out very much if he’s only met one or two atheists.
kagekiri

Eh, doesn’t the Romans 1 passage say that God magically made us atheists because we didn’t want to obey him and his “obvious” existence, and he “gave us over to our delusions” and what not?

So less that “atheists don’t exist”, and more saying “because we’re evil scum-sucking monsters who want to do evil while pretending there’s no God, God made us believe our delusions of atheism despite their obvious falseness”.

Man, “God” is really good at this whole “blaming people for what he makes them” shit. And Christians are really good at blaming people for the way “God” “made” them.That’s also next to the passage where Paul says gays get their gayness from God, thus adding more fuel to the burning bonfire of hypocrisy and “victim”-blaming those Christians have got going.
C Peterson

Once again, somebody who doesn’t know what an agnostic is. It isn’t somebody who doesn’t know. It isn’t an alternative to atheism (or to theism).
manielse

People always want a simple answer to a question. The fact is very few live in the absolutes of a spectrum but absolutes do exist. Some know without a doubt that God does not exist, others have never truly questioned the idea that a God might not exist. Most people are somewhere in between even with many who are religious that attend Church weekly. The problem with unique labels such as “Atheist and Agnostic” is that we don’t really have a term for the “weak religious” who have some level of questioning the 100% absolute of God’s existence. However, a large amount of people who say they are “Catholic” or any other religion faction have fairly loose beliefs and/or have questions that challenge what is being taught/said. But there are certainly people on the absolutes who “just know” the answer without physical proof.
MG

Does this mean I don’t have to go to work tomorrow?
Alan Williamson

God is so full of shit that his arse is going to explode.
Patterrssonn

In spookiness we trust.
Stev84

Christians love to isolate themselves from everyone who doesn’t agree with them
Phasespace

This is kind of funny actually. If you look through the past posts of the esteemed Mr. Barker, it would seem that nobody reads any of his posts with the exception of the people he attacks. The only posts that have any number of comments are this one, and a series of posts on the LDS church in which only Mormons responded. In a further post he even complains about no mainline christians supporting him in his posts on the mormons, and nobody responded to that post either.

Apparently, he’s having trouble reaching his intended audience.
allein

Why do religious people seem to have such a difficult time pluralizing the word “atheist”?
John Purcell

This guy needs a Pharyngulated type response from all the atheists. Maybe block up his comments.
mikespeir

Does this mean they’ll quit preaching to us? Ha! Nonexistence doesn’t faze them!
ortcutt

Biblical exegesis isn’t Barker’s forte any more than logic is.
A. Redel

While Mr. Dillahunty makes an interesting point, I also think Romans 1 gives us good reason to doubt the faith that is NOT within us. We have a powerful and internal confirmation that there is no God and Christianity is wrong — as we know we are not merely suppressing a truth and do actually not believe.
articulett

He does so believe in ghosts– certainly he believes in spirits, a dead guy (who is really alive and invisible), a “holy ghost”, a 3-in-1 god that has no measurable properties, Satan, angels… –what’s the difference between these things and ghosts? How do you tell a real ghost from an imaginary one anyhow? How do you tell invisible forms of consciousness apart?

They’re all ghosts to me… and I REALLY don’t believe in ghosts.

If you want me to believe you exist… you need to have a material brain– preferably one that works better than Ralph Barker’s.
TerranRich

Keep your ghost-damn religion to yourselves.
zeggman

I’m pretty sure that’s the ghost of Richie Rich.
Kodie

Granted, some people might feel safer copping to agnosticism around a guy like that, or in general. Even others would not say they are agnostic or atheist even if they self-described as either or both. He might know plenty of atheists, he just has no idea why they might not tell him.
Keulan

Clearly logic is not Ralph Barker’s strong suit.
Pseudonym

Clearly.

But on the other hand, I’m a liberal Christian, and quite a few new atheists appear to think I don’t exist. They appear to think that religious people come in only two varieties: fundamentalist and hypocritical.

So yeah, I feel for you guys. It’s never fun being told you don’t exist.
trivialknot

I’ve met some agnostics before, but I’ve only met one or two people who actually claimed to be an atheist.

He’s saying he only has passing familiarity with atheists, and we’re supposed to think his opinion has any weight?

I don’t believe in ghosts or goblins, but I don’t spend any time trying to persecute those who do. Why would I?

There are many reasons, and here’s another. Imagine that you used to believe in ghosts and goblins, invested a great deal of time in it, and based life decisions on it. But now realize how silly it was. You wouldn’t care about it at all afterwards?
Cosmic Mind

No one exists except you. Everything else is a constructed illusion, a higher vibrational dream put forth for no other reason than to deal with the existance of self as it is defined within an infinite reality
Cosmic Mind

No one exists except you. Everything else is a constructed illusion, a higher vibrational dream put forth for no other reason than to deal with the existance of self as it is defined within an infinite reality
James

Well said! I must say that in the few short months that I’ve been religiously following (haha!) this blog this is by far the most poignant, scathing satire regarding these ass-backwards Christian Americans like Ralph Barker who are becoming increasingly irrelevant in our society. Damn good writing, Jessica!
Triplethinker

repetitio instrumentum propagande

but if you are too stupid to keep track of your repetitions you may contradict yourself.
this proofs that the logic of god is flawed.
if the logic of god is flawed this means that the logic comes from humans who pretend to have gotten gods logic in their mind.
since god is infallible this theory is logically sound,
which means that the bible contradicting itself proofs that god doesnt exist.
god doesnt change his mind.
god has the truth.

i will go marry a 14 year old now, then beat her if she doesnt obey me and kill her if she betrays me. thanks god for knowing the neverchanging truth so well…
Triplethinker

no.

but he will realise that his balls exist,
and grow some.

then look the fact in the eye that he only has one life in this body with this mind and that there are no angels or devils after death.
which *gulp* leads to the next, even worse, fact:
there is no sense to all of this.

i wish those godfearing people would all grow some balls and allow this facts to sink in…
but i understand that its easier to fear something that doesnt exist than to fear something that exists 😉
NickDB

My coping mechanism for idiots like this to replace every time they mention god with papa smurf.

Makes it a lot more entertaining.

“I’ve met some agnostics before, but I’ve only met one or two people who actually claimed to be an atheist. Most people who struggle with the existence of Papa Smurf will simply opt to the agnostic position. The agnostic says that they just don’t know for sure whether or not Papa Smurf exists. When an atheist claims that Papa Smurf does not exist, then he or she directly denies the clear truth of Scripture. So who will we believe, Papa Smurf or atheists?”

It’s either that or carry on my work with nanobots that sterilize religious people
Anon

Here’s the comment I posted, simply because I don’t know if it’ll get through moderation. Though some fairly critical comments have so far.

‘Let me ask you a question.

If I went around saying that the Iliad (a text which is older than the Bible) was real and that proved the existance of Zeus and the other Greek gods and that we should worship them would you consider me sane?

I’m going to bet your answer there was no, because the Iliad is just a book written by men.

Now, let’s replace ‘the Iliad’ with ‘the Bible’.

I don’t believe the Iliad is real, I don’t believe the Bible is either. I believe it’s a text which shows the values of its time, the same as the Iliad does, but that doesn’t automatically mean that we should attempt to follow those cultural values. Mostly because they both include slavery, rape, killing children, sacrifice. Also both sets of god/s are equally likely to kill you because you pissed them off.

Also, by your logic, if I wrote on a piece of paper ‘There are no gods or supernatural beings and this is true because I say so’ there would be no gods and no supernatural beings. After all, I just said so. Why would anybody contest that, didn’t you know it’s written down?

And just as a final point. I am getting very, very tired of being told I don’t exist because I’m bisexual or because I’m an atheist. Considering that it hurts when I pinch myself and other people can see and interact with me I’m as sure that I am real as anybody who’s seen the Matrix can be.’
sunburned

Which would include everyone on the planet. Kinda makes the term useless.
Mike Funicelli

Aren’t atheists one of the groups that need to be stoned to death when discovered? If we don’t exist, shouldn’t there be provisions for Yeti, Loch Ness Monsters, and UFO pilots?
saopaco

Because we don’t exist, silly! How can there be more than one of anything that doesn’t exist? Wait…
The Other Weirdo

If no one exists but me, then who posted this twice?
usclat

Absolutely! Hear Hear!
Jessica

Thank’s James!
Jessica

Dammit. Thanks. No apostrophe. What an asshole I am.
Hansono5

Attacking hypocrytical christians I understand, attacking God, even if you don’t believe in him…why? Ignorance will be no defence.
Sideshow Billybob

In other news, a desperate religion writer pokes atheists with a stick, hoping for a response to pad his page views and justify his own existence on a website.
r.holmgren

The post was excellent. The comments? Mmm – not so much.
C Peterson

Quite a lot of people know what the word means… particularly those with a decent education.
allein

Sorry, I’m new here. 😉
Troglodyke

I absolutely know that liberal Christians exist.

What I do not know is why.
sunburned

How could one possibly have the requisite knowledge to be anything other than an agnostic?

Knowledge would require *True Belief* and *Sufficient Justification* (evidence for said belief)…..or at least that is what Plato thought.

Mayhap I needz a bit mour skooling to finger ‘oot hown to git ta a known’en witout gitten the justfiying.
matt

Because its entertaining and comical to reference “him” according to the nonsense that he/she/it supposedly inspired. And it gets old putting “if he did exist” after every usage.
raytheist

Matt: I love ya brother but you have to remember that Ps. 14.1 (the whole verse, not just the convenient first phrase) is talking about fools, not atheists. Fools deny god; fools are corrupt; the deeds of fools are vile; fools do no good.

1 The fool[a] says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
Footnotes:
Psalm 14:1 The Hebrew words rendered fool in Psalms denote one who is morally deficient.(Ps. 14.1: per biblegateway.com, New International Version)

Atheists do also deny the God of Abraham, but atheists (as a group, anyway) are not without morals, not corrupt, not doing vile deeds, not void of charity or altruism.
Pseudonym

It’s the way I was brought up. It’s my native religion. It’s pro-science, pro-reason and pro-skepticism, it’s anti-homophobic and anti-theocratic, so there’s really nothing sufficiently objectionable in to to give me any reason whatsoever to dump it. Plus, you get to part-own 2000 years of Christian art, music, philosophy and literature.

It’s certainly not for most people, but it sure works for me.