Let's Discuss Atheist Memes

[blackforest]

On social media, I never know how to handle the many atheist memes I see posted. Do I start a debate on a meme that over-simplifies or misrepresents Christianity? Do I counter-post some Catholic memes? Do I leave the whole thing alone?

Rather than getting into a meme-off there, I thought we could post and discuss some atheist memes here and address what a charitable (please!) but philosophically sound response would look like.

Some of those memes are angry, so post ones that are free of profanity, please. If there’s profanity but you still want to address it, just post a clean paraphrasing rather than the meme itself.

A LOT of them either A) rely on as much fundamentalism and Biblical literalism as many of the people that they claim to challenge or B) fall prey to the false dichotomy of science-vs-religion.

Some are more interesting, however. Either way, show me what you’ve got!

 

[blackforest]

I’ll start.

How does this explain adult converts?

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[Beryllos]

I don’t recall ever seeing atheist memes… or maybe I’m just really good at ignoring and forgetting them.

 

[blackforest]

You clearly don’t clearly don’t lurk in the dark underworld of social media like I do.

If no one has memes but just wants to address any myths, cliches, or tropes, I’m all ears for those, too.

 

[jack63]

Atheist Memes are amusing pictures that distract from the accompanying briefly stated half truth/half lie. Anybody with half a brain should see through these.

The thing is that if these Atheist Memes are really effecting people’s faith or desire to be Christian, we have much bigger problems. I think you should go after the bigger problems, and likely people will stop caring about the Memes…for example the sex abuse scandal, obvious mismanagement, or Christians who can’t explain and don’t understand their beliefs and ignore what they do understand.

 

[jack63]

Sometimes when I talk about my faith to others, I have several straw men to take down before I can even get to the heart of why I’m Catholic. Case in point…

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[ZMystiCat]

Well, you could always be salty and quote Christopher Hitchens:

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Basically, just take advantage of the fact that memes are always lacking in evidence.

By to take one seriously:

How does this explain adult converts?

Without early childhood indoctrination religion would die out

This really relies on assuming either:

1. The god(s) that revealed themself (themselves) would not do it again. That doesn’t make much sense.
2. That any god(s) that exist have not revealed themself (themselves) and would not do it again. This makes more sense internally but requires more speculation.
3. That there is no god, so no god would reveal themselves. This of course is the very thing trying to be proved, so we’re begging the question.

 

[blackforest]

Biblical literalism taken too far . . . by atheists.

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[ZMystiCat]

Plot Twist: No kangaroos harmed in the making of that migration!

More seriously: I get the feeling that a lot of atheists were raised in Fundamentalist households and struggle to think about religion in any way other than what they were raised to think about it. When they (rightly) stop accepting things like Six Day Creationism, they leave religion while arguing against religion with some of the same flawed logic they were raised in.

Now, I would say that these people are just going after Fundamentalists, but I have talked with a couple atheists who very clearly either had never considered you could read certain passages non-literally or fully gave into the Fundamentalist idea that not reading them literally was dangerous to the faith.

 

[blackforest]

Yea, I don’t think a lot of them know how to take me and other Catholics. “There’s no way the earth was created in 6 days!”

“Yes. That is true. And . . . ?”

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

There are atheist memes that refer to Catholics specifically, it’s just that the fundamentalist ones focus on more ridiculous things and make for better memes.

By the way, if you’re looking through atheist memes and see “Checkmate, atheists!” that’s from a guy named Edward Current. He parodied some YouTube apologists like Ray Comfort and The Hovinds who would sometimes say checkmate when presenting things they (and few others) would consider evidence.