“What Building? All I See Is A Wall!” said the Ant

Let me get this straight: The farther we get away from an event, the LESS true it becomes? This is Bill Maher’s logic. That because somebody told somebody else that some guy named “Jesus” allegedly lived two thousand years ago, and allegedly rose from the dead (how ridiculous!), flew up to heaven, and told us that we also would eventually rise, too much time has passed, and we are too modern to believe such fairy tales. (when was the present ever past? all times were modern once) By this reasoning, what we say and do now will, in twenty more centuries, not have been said or done. Time doesn’t diminish truth! (Look at how revered Muhammad Ali is now. People hated him forty years ago for his stance on the war.) 

People like Maher call Christians arrogant for assuming that they know the Truth shown them by some MAN, but how much more arrogant is it for him to command God to personally show him the facts?! (He DID already) Besides, he believes just as firmly the truth of the position he promulgates as I do mine. Yet no one points this logical contradiction out to him. He calls Christians naive for denouncing evolution, but how much more naive is it for him to hold onto an invisible rope that believes everything came from nothing?! People like this use the Bible like anti-biotics; they take in just a little bit, thinking they’ve got enough, and before long, the ignorance causes calamity. We have to take the FULL dosage in order to be made whole.Standing in the front doorway of the Empire State Building will not give me an indication of its grandeur, but from a few blocks away, its fulness can be known more clearly. Likewise, moving farther away from the life of Jesus can give us a true perspective on His actual Godness.

Many of those seeing Him up close completely missed the big picture, thinking He was there to conquer the Romans in warfare, or that He was merely a troublemaker.

Time and distance show us who Jesus really was. We see a Church numbering into perhaps billions in spite of centuries of persecution and martyrdom. With the canonization of the entire Scripture, we see fulfilled prophecies and numerous healings and other miracles that point to His Godness. We have archaeological evidence and non-biblical testimony which verify the accuracy of the Bible, and the occurrences of miracles.

Maher cleverly “ridiculizes” the Christian faith by saying things such as, “Christians look up in the sky waiting for some MAAAGICAL man to fly down and scoop them up and flyyyy them through the solar system to a place called ‘Heaven.’ This invisible magic man in the sky wrote the Bible with his invisible hand, and taaaalks to them and tells them seeecrets and stuff.”

He didn’t say these exact words, but I’ve heard him say this kind of stuff many times. I actually think he is quite funny. Just misguided. And I DON’T mean that condescendingly.

The thing is, one could use that line to make anything seem stupid: ca. 1893. “There’s this guy who’s goin’ around sayin that in a hunnerd years, man’s gone be able da flyyyy through tha aaairrr in big giant metal macheeeens! He claims we’ll be able da clear fordy akers a’ land ‘thout horse nur MULE! He says that a fella’ll be able da stan’ in Neew Yo-werk Ciddy’n tawk inta this thang called a my-kro-phoam ‘n’ you c’n see ’em clear in Nevada on whatcha call a pitcher-box at da saaaame tiiiime! Heck, he ee’m reckons a man’ll WALK ON DA MOON! Have you ever heard such a load a’ puckey in yer LIFE?!”

The point is that those with a finite degree of understanding on a particular subject are well-served to understand that the human mind cannot contain infinite knowledge. What seems ridiculous is not necessarily so in the objective light of the facts. Sure, Mr. Maher, your jokes make me laugh. You are proof that it takes brains to be funny, but making a thing sound ridiculous does not necessarily make that thing a lie.

Who would’ve thought that a man could survive with a plastic heart? Who would’ve thought that a woman could be impregnated with sperm from a freezer?

And speaking of “ridiculous,” who, in the face of a mountain range of evidence, could still believe that we evolved from a single-celled organism, increasingly, stage by agonizing stage, realizing our limitations, and encoding the improvements to the next model, billions, quintillions of times, achieving the capacity for self-awareness, lust, and morality? When science tells us that things go in the OPPOSITE direction, from order to DISorder. How absuuurd! And who thinks of a fetus anymore as a “blob of GOO” as you put it?

Darwin can almost be excused for thinking such things, since he lived a century and a half ago, but not someone enlightened. You would rather believe in a racist theory with shaky – at best- evidence than to believe that an all-powerful being cannot exist without being seen. Heck, I exist, and Stevie Wonder can’t see ME! YOU have never seen me. I submit that EVERYTHING is the evidence of His being. Even the basic fact that you can think.

You say that you don’t know, one way or the other, but from the OTHER side of your mouth, you go about the business of trying to PROVE God’s nonexistence. What is the real truth?

The facts are out there but I fear that, like a President, you only listen to the ones that agree with your already made-up mind!