Milo

Atheists have been accusing Christians and theists of believing in fairy tales — using condescension — often in place of reason — for decades (centuries?). Watching the stream of rocks fly from the glass house, one wonders, how does the atheist fairy tale read?

Once upon a super-super long time ago, there was nothing. Not no-thing-nothing, but we’ll say “nothing” as if it changes what that word has meant for millennia. Whatever it was, or wasn’t, it was definitely not God. Certainly not God. This something-nothing huffed and puffed and blew the universe into existence! Out of not-nothing-but-not-God poofed an entire…something…from a not-nothing nothing. Or was that a something-not…Never mind.

Anyway…

So, the not-God-not-nothing-nothing exploded a universe that was super-perfect for life — like us — to exist. Even the teeniest, tiniest little change would mean no planets, no elements, no us! We’re hoping…we mean, guessing…this was just good luck on the part of the nothing-something-blowing-in-ago-ness, but definitely not on purpose. Certainly not on purpose. Certainly not God. Life is possible only by luck!

And then, another amazing thing happened. This universe “evolved” which, like “nothing” is a word we’ll use to mean pretty much anything whether it makes any sense or not. Even more amazingly, this change had nothing controlling or guiding it! By, “nothing,” this time, we mean a complex series of consistent, independent, inexplicable and finely tuned rules. So, not nothing-nothing, but more of that something-nothing. You know, I mean, rules-from-nowhere-for-no-reason. Except the rule about things getting less ordered over time…forget that one for now. It all came together to make galaxies and stars and planets. We don’t know why or how, but we know it was definitely not designed. Certainly not designed. Certainly not on purpose. Certainly not God. The not-guided-except-by-something-not-God-stuff self-made itself. Or was not-self-made…not into anything. Something? Never mind.

Anyway…

One little planet was not too far from a star, not too close to a star, but juuuust right so that complicated molecules could jiggle around and become even more complicated molecules and become reproducing organisms. We have no clue how this actually happened, but that doesn’t stop us from being definitely, totally sure it involved absolutely no intelligence or design at all. We have fai— (ahem), confidence…confidence this moment or process or whatever was definitely not creation. Certainly not creation. Certainly not designed. Certainly not on purpose. Certainly not God.

Eventually, those organisms travelled through a magical journey of change and self-discovery to become…us! All without any meaning, purpose, reason, or guidance of any kind whatsoever! Which means you are…or, well…actually, it means you’re just mindless matter reacting to physics, and everything you are or will be is going to come crashing down in obscurity and futility when the universe collapses. We know for sure, for sure that there is definitely no meaning to the universe. Certainly not meaning. Certainly not creation. Certainly not designed. Certainly not on purpose. Certainly not God. But we can make our own meaning, whatever that means.

And that’s the moral of the story! This magical tale, about which we actually know almost nothing, and can prove exactly nothing, explains everything — everything — I SAID EVERYTHING! about life and our universe. Except for anything that actually matters or conflicts with what I want to do; those we can make up however we want! Unless it bothers me, then you can’t make things up that way.

So, finally, after a very, very long time, the matter-machines finally learned how stupid, ignorant, backwards, dumb, stinky, and cootie-brained they had been for looking for actual answers to real questions and somehow concluding there is a God. And, how silly it is to believe fairy tales like an intelligent God making a universe that looks designed on purpose, in order to create people and minds and stuff. They turned away from their childlike foolishness, which had only led to intolerance and superstition, and physics and chemistry, and medicine, and philosophy, and music, and human rights, basically everything civilization is built on…well…wait.

Never mind. The point is, religious people are stupid, even when they’re not. Okay?

And so, we know for sure, for sure, that all of this had nothing to do with God. There is no doubt, no question, that this is a really truthy story, and what we believe…I mean, know for sure without any hard evidence or absolute proof, but won’t call faith because that’s something only dummies and babies use…is definitely not a religion. Certainly not religion. Certainly not meaning. Certainly not creation. Certainly not designed. Certainly not on purpose. Certainly not God.

And they all continued to experience meaningless biochemical reactions until they didn’t! And remember, question everything…except atheism.

A silly, slightly cynical take on atheism. But it mirrors the same “just so story” and self-contradiction atheists claim Christianity is based on. In actuality, we at GotQuestions.org strive to give people the benefit of the doubt, assuming they’ve actually got reasons and evidence for what they do or don’t believe. Obviously, we think the weight of reason, evidence, and experience supports the biblical worldview. It’s the reason we make an effort to “give a reason for the hope that we have” (1 Peter 3:15).

There’s plenty to question and criticize about the atheistic worldview. Even plenty to mock, especially if you’re inclined to oversimplifications, like the above sarcasm or silly comments about religious “fairy tales.” But we wish atheists would see that open derision isn’t a good way to support — or convert — others. But, perhaps sneering at religious believers is the only sales pitch modern atheism has left.

S. Michael Houdmann (with Jeff Laird)

Robin Mark (born 1957) is a Northern Irish Christian singer, songwriter, worship leader, and recording artist based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Mark may be known best for “Days of Elijah”, “Revival”, “All for Jesus”, “The Wonder of The Cross”, and “Not by Might” amongst the many songs he has written and which are sung throughout the world. He has released thirteen albums in total, with sales of over two million worldwide, and has won the GMA’s international award.

Though known within the United Kingdom and throughout Canada and Europe from the early 1990s, it was not until his 1999 live album Revival in Belfast that Mark became known well in the United States, Australia, and the rest of the world. His signature song, “Days of Elijah”, has proven popular since 1996.

Mark’s album Revival in Belfast, released in 1999, remained high in both the Christian retail charts and Billboard charts for many years. It was still at No. 39 on the Billboard Top Christian Albums chart in 2004. When the follow up album, Come Heal This Land, was released in 2001, it went straight to No. 1 in the Christian Retail Charts in the United States. Robin became the first artist from the UK to accomplish this feat.[2]

Robin Mark is also the worship leader in his home church, Christian Fellowship Church (CFC) in East Belfast.

Translator: Mary E. Byrne
Mary Elizabeth Byrne, M.A. (July 2, 1880 – January 19, 1931) was born in Ireland. She translated the Old Irish Hymn, “Bí Thusa ‘mo Shúile,” into English as “Be Thou My Vision” in Ériu (the journal of the School of Irish Learning), in 1905.

1 Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
naught be all else to me, save that thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
2 Be thou my wisdom, be thou my true word;
I ever with thee, and thou with me, Lord.
Born of thy love, thy child may I be,
thou in me dwelling and I one with thee.
3 Be thou my buckler, my sword for the fight.
Be thou my dignity, thou my delight,
thou my soul’s shelter, thou my high tow’r.
Raise thou me heav’nward, O Pow’r of my pow’r.
4 Riches I heed not, nor vain empty praise;
thou mine inheritance, now and always.
Thou and thou only, first in my heart,
Ruler of heaven, my treasure thou art.
5 “*True Light of heaven, when vict’ry is won
may I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heav’n’s Sun!
Heart of my heart, whatever befall,
still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
*Alternate phrase: “High King”

Hebrews 1:3

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Who being the brightness . . .–Who being the effulgence of His glory and the exact image of His substance. The first figure is familiar to us in the words of the Nicene Creed (themselves derived from this verse and a commentary upon it), “God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God.” Again striking parallels to the language present themselves in Philo, who speaks of the spirit breathed into man at his creation as an “effulgence of the Blessed and Thrice-blessed Nature”; and in the well-known passage of the Book of Wisdom, “She (Wisdom) is the effulgence of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness” (Wisdom Of Solomon 7:26). In the Old Testament the token of the divine presence is the Shechinah, the “cloud of glory” (called “the glory” in Romans 9:4; comp. Hebrews 9:5 in this Epistle); here it is the divine nature itself that is denoted by the “glory.” Of the relation between this word and that which follows (“substance”) it is difficult to speak, as the conceptions necessarily transcend human language; but we may perhaps say (remembering that all such terms are but figurative) that the latter word is internal and the former external,–the latter the essence in itself, the former its manifestation. Thus the “Son” in His relation to “God” is represented here by light beaming forth from light, and by exact impress–the perfect image produced by stamp or seal. These designations, relating to the essential nature of the Son, have no limitation to time; the participle “being” must be understood (comp. Philippians 2:6; John 1:1) of eternal, continuous existence. The word “person” is an unfortunate mistranslation in this place. Most of the earlier English versions have “substance,” person being first introduced in the Genevan Testament in deference to Beza.
By the word.–The thought seems suggested by Genesis 1. (Psalm 33:9); the spoken word was the expression of His power. What is said above of “being” applies to “upholding,” except that the latter implies a previous creative act. . . .

Hebrews 1:2

but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Hath in these last days . . .–Better, at the end of these days spake unto us in a Son. The thought common to the two verses is “God hath spoken to man”; in all other respects the past and the present stand contrasted. The manifold successive partial disclosures of God’s will have given place to one revelation, complete and final; for He who spake in the prophets hath now spoken “in a Son.” The whole stress lies on these last words. The rendering “a Son” may at first cause surprise, but it is absolutely needed; not, “Who is the Revealer?” but, “What is He?” is the question answered in these words. The writer does not speak of a Son in the sense of one out of many; the very contrast with the prophets (who in the lower sense were amongst God’s sons) would be sufficient to prove this, but the words which follow, and the whole contents of this chapter, are designed to show the supreme dignity of Him who is God’s latest Representative on earth. The prophet’s commission extended no farther than the special message of his words and life; “a Son” spoke with His Father’s authority, with complete knowledge of His will and purpose. It is impossible to read these first lines (in which the whole argument of the Epistle is enfolded) without recalling the prologue of the fourth Gospel. The name “Word” is not mentioned here, and the highest level of St. John’s teaching is not reached; but the idea which “the Word” expresses, and the thought of the Only Begotten as declaring and interpreting the Father (John 1:18; also John 14:10; John 14:24) are present throughout. There is something unusual in the words, “at the end of these days.” St. Peter speaks of the manifestation of Christ “at the end of the times” (1Peter 1:20); and both in the Old Testament and in the New we not unfrequently read “at the end (or, in the last) of the days.” (See 2Peter 3:3; Jude 1:18; Numbers 24:14; Daniel 10:14, &c.) The peculiarity of the expression here lies in “these days.” The ages preceding and following the appearance of Messiah are in Jewish writers known as “this world” (or, age) and the “coming world” (or, age); the “days of Messiah” seem to have been classed sometimes with the former, sometimes with the latter period; but “the end of these days” would be understood by every Jewish reader to denote the time of His appearing. . . .

Pulpit Commentary
Verse 2. – In these last days. The true reading being ἐπ ἐσχάτον τῶν ἡμερῶν τούτων, not ἐπ ἐσχάτων, as in the Textus Receptus, translate, at the end of these days’, The Received Text would, indeed, give the same meaning, the position of the article denoting’ “the last of these days,” not “these last days.” The reference appears to be to the common rabbinical division of time into αἰὼν οϋτος, and αἰὼν μέλλων, or ἐρχόμενος: the former denoting the pro-Messianic, the latter the Messianic period. Thus “these days” is equivalent to αἰὼν ου{τος, “the present age,” and the whole expression to ἐπὶ συντέλειᾳ τῶν αἰώνων, “at the end of the ages” (infra, Hebrews 9:26); cf. 1 Corinthians 10:11,” for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.” The term, αἰὼν μέλλων, is also used in this Epistle (Hebrews 6:5); cf. Hebrews 2:5, τὴν οἰκουμένην τὴν μέλλουσαν. For allusions elsewhere to the two periods, cf. Matthew 12:32; Mark 10:30; Luke 18:30; Luke 20:35; Ephesians 1:21; Titus 2:12. Cf. also in Old Testament, Isaiah 9:6, where, for “Everlasting Father,” Cod. Alex. has πατὴρ τοῦ μελλόντος αἰῶνος. A subject of discussion has been the point of division between the two ages – whether the commencement of the Christian dispensation, ushered in by the exaltation of Christ, or his second advent. The conception in the Jewish mind, founded on Messianic prophecy, would, of course, be undefined. It would only be that the coming of the Messiah would inaugurate a new order of things. But how did the New Testament writers after Christ’s ascension conceive the two ages? Did they regard themselves as living at the end of the former age or at the beginning of the new one? The passage before us does not help to settle the question, nor does Hebrews 9:26; for the reference in both cases is to the historical manifestation of Christ before his ascension. But others of the passages cited above seem certainly to imply that “the coming age” was regarded as still future. It has been said, indeed, with regard to this apparent inference from some of them, that the writers were regarding their own age from the old Jewish standing-point when they spoke of it as future, or only used well-known phrases to denote the two ages, though they were no longer strictly applicable (see Alford’s note on Hebrews 2:5). But this explanation cannot well be made to apply to such passages as 1 Corinthians 10:11 and Ephesians 1:21, or to those in the Gospels. It would appear from them that it was not till the παρούσια (or, as it is designated in the pastoral Epistles, the ἐπιφάνεια) of Christ that “the coming age” of prophecy was regarded as destined to begin, ushering in “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). Still, though “that day” was in the future, the first coming of Christ had been, as it were, its dawn, signifying its approach and preparing believers for meeting it. “The darkness was passing away; the true light was already shining” (1 John 2:8). Hence the apostolic writers sometimes speak as if already in the “coming age;” as being already citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20); as already “made to sit with Christ in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6); having already “tasted the powers of the age to come” (Hebrews 6:5). In a certain sense they felt themselves in the new order of things, though, strictly speaking, they still regarded their own age as but the end of the old one, irradiated by the light of the new. To understand fully their language on the subject, we should remember that they supposed the second advent to be more imminent than it was. St. Paul, at one time certainly, thought that it might be before his own death (2 Corinthians 5:4; 1 Thessalonians 4:15). Thus they might naturally speak of their own time as the conclusion of the former age, though regarding the second advent as the commencement of the new one. But the prolongation of “the end of these days,” unforeseen by them, does not affect the essence of their teaching on the subject. In the Divine counsels “one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Hath spoken unto us (more properly, spake to us) in his Son. “His” is here properly supplied to give the meaning of ἐν υἱῷ. The rendering, a SON, which seems to have the advantage of literalism, would be misleading if it suggested the idea of one among many sons, or a son in the same sense in which others are sons. For though the designation, “son of God,” is undoubtedly used in subordinate senses – applied e.g. to Adam, to angels, to good men, to Christians – yet what follows in the Epistle fixes its peculiar meaning here. The entire drift of the earlier part of the Epistle is to show that the idea involved in the word “Son,” as applied to the Messiah in prophecy, is that of a relation to God far above that of the angels or of Moses, and altogether unique in its character. This idea must have been in the writer’s mind when he selected the phrases of his exordium. Nor is the article required for the sense intended. Its omission, in fact, brings it out. Ἐν τῷ υἱῷ would have drawn especial attention to “the personage in whom God spake; ἐν υἱῷ does so rather to the mode of the speaking – it is equivalent to “in one who was SON.” Son-revelation (as afterwards explained), is contrasted with previous prophetic revelations (cf. for omission of the article before υἱὸς, Hebrews 3:6; Hebrews 5:8; Hebrews 7:28). Whom he appointed (or, constituted) heir of all things; not, as in the A.V., “hath appointed.” The verb is in the aorist, and here the indefinite sense of the aorist should be preserved. “Convenienter statim sub Filii nomen memoratur haereditas” (Bengel). Two questions arise.
(1) Was it in respect of his eternal Divinity, or of his manifestation in time, that the Son was appointed “Heir of all things?”

(2) When is God to be conceived as so appointing him? i.e. What is the time, if any, to be assigned to the indefinite aorist? In answer to question

(1) the second alternative is to be preferred. For

(a) his eternal pre-existence has not yet been touched upon: it is introduced, as it were parenthetically, in the next and following clauses.

(b) Though the term Son is legitimately used in theology to denote the eternal relation to the Father expressed by the Λόγος of St. John, yet its application in this Epistle and in the New Testament generally (excepting, perhaps, the μονογενὴς υἱὸς peculiar to St. John, on which see Bull, ‘Jud. Eccl. Cath.,’ 5:4, etc.), is to the Word made flesh, to the Son as manifested in the Christ. And hence it is to him as such that we may conclude the heirship to be here assigned.

(c) This is the view carried out in the sequel of the Epistle, where the SON is represented as attaining the universal dominion assigned to him after, and in consequence of, his human obedience. The conclusion of the exordium in itself expresses this; for it is not till after he had made purification of sins that he is said to have “sat down,” etc.; i.e. entered on his inheritance; having become (γένομενος not ω}ν) “so much better,” etc. This is the view of Chrysostom, Theodoret, and the Fathers generally (cf. the cognate passage, Philippians 2:9).

(2) It seems best to refer the aorist ἔθηκε, not to any definite time, as that of the prophetic utterances afterwards cited, or that of the actual exaltation of Christ, but indefinitely to the eternal counsels, which were indeed declared and fulfilled in time, but were themselves ἐνἀρχῇ. A similar use of the aorist, coupled with other aorists pointing to events in time, is found in Romans 8:29, 30. What this heirship of all things implies will appear in the sequel, By whom also he made the worlds. Interposed clause to complete the true conception of the SON; showing who and what he was originally and essentially through whom God “spake” in time, and who, as SON, inherited. Here certainly, and in the expressions which follow, we have the same doctrine as that of the Λόγος of St. John. And the testimony of the New Testament to the pre-existence and deity of Christ is the more striking from our finding the same essential idea under different forms of expression, and in writings differing so much from each other in character and style. He who appeared in the world as Christ is, in the first place, here said (as by St. John 1:3) to have been the Agent of creation; cf. Colossians 1:15-17, where the original creative agency of “the Son of his love” is emphatically set forth, as well as his being “the Head of the body, the Church.” This cognate passage is of weight against the view of interpreters who would take the one before us as referring to the initiation of the gospel ages; with respect to which view see also the quotation from Bull given below under ver. 3. Here τοὺς αἰῶνας is equivalent to “the worlds,” as in the A.V. For though the primary meaning of αἰών has reference to time – limited in periods, or unlimited in eternity – it is used to denote also the whole system of things called into being by the Creator in time and through which alone we are able to conceive time. “Οἱ αἰῶνες, saecula, pro rerum creatarum universitate est Hebraismus” (Bull); cf. Hebrews 11:3, καταρτίσθαι τοὺς αἰῶνας ῤήματι Θεοῦ: also 1 Corinthians 2:7, πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων: and 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2, πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων.