Ricky Gervais was on with Stephen Colbert and was challenged on his non-belief in God. An atheist is someone who rejects the notion that certain men claiming to speak for God somehow had more authority to do so than the millions of other men making the same claim.

Why is there something instead of nothing? is the first challenge from Colbert. In other words, somehow the atheist is in the position of providing proof. The truth is that we dont know how the universe came to be.

Somehow the truth of not knowing validates simply making things up. Since we dont know, it means a singular all powerful male being, whos jealous and doesnt want us to eat shrimp, sent himself to be sacrificed to himself, in order to save us from himself (but only if you believe it), because of the talking snake incident, pushed the Big Bang button. Obviously!

Why didnt the end of the world happen in 2012? If you cant explain, then you must accept the fact that Macho Man Randy Savage put an elbow drop on Jesus to stop the Rapture. If you cant prove that this didnt happen, thats proof that it did.

Gervais puts the ownership on Colbert explaining that atheism is a rejection of a God claim, and unless he can provide proof, he doesnt believe the claim. Ricky also points out that Colbert is an atheist regarding the thousands of other Gods in other religions, and that he simply takes it one God further.

Then we get the worst argument for God Ive ever heard. I have a strong desire to direct my gratitude. You need an ancient book that condones slavery and murder in order to express your gratitude? You cant direct your gratitude towards your parents, towards human advancements in civilization, towards your evolutionary heritage? You cant direct your gratitude towards science which explains your biological connection to every living thing and how you're atomically connected to the universe itself?

The conversation moves on to Ricky explaining the difference between blind faith and science. We get the results of science through experimentation, so if all of science was destroyed, it would all come back identical as the same experiments would show the same results over time. Religious stories, if completely destroyed, would never come back exactly as they were as they dont have the discipline of reality checks. People would make up different things which would cause different stories.

Even in the same books there are numerous religious sects and interpretations of scripture which itself is commonly filled with inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities.

Throughout this discussion, Colbert jokes about hell. Why not? Nothing is more funny than an all-loving God that burns people forever if they pick the wrong religion or demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims. Wait till Colbert finds out that only the Mormons go to heaven. Thats going to be a riot!

-James Kirk Wall

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Stephen Colbert Worst argument for God ever - ChicagoNow (blog)