How Do You Explain a Mosquito if Their is No God?
(note: I borrowed the wrong homonym in my title to keep with the meme...)
For some reason the not-particularly-new meme from some dumb-ass theists asking questions to "prove" that god exists came to mind. One in particular, with a woman holding a hand written note "how do you explain a sunset if their is no God?" (sic).
In my sleep I thought of three different ways to interpret the question itself (ignoring the incorrect homonym). There may be more interpretations, I just thought of these three, and I already know I'm not particularly bright in general.
- How do you explain why the sun sets at all, as opposed to remaining the sky?
- How do you explain why the setting sun looks the way it does?
- How do you explain why we almost universally feel sunsets are beautiful?
The first two are easily explained by physics, of course, and most of the memes that "answer" this question revolve around those two, the sun sets because the Earth rotates on its axis, and the Rayleigh scattering explains why it looks like it does in Earth's atmosphere.
The third interpretation, though, is a lot more philosophical. If sunsets weren't almost universally considered beautiful the woman in the meme, and many others, likely wouldn't associated them with god. And for people who believe in crap like a supreme being want to associate good or beautiful things with their supreme being.
And because the third interpretation appeals to people, they likely won't find arguments against the meme to be at all convincing. Sunsets are still relatively beautiful, even if you understand why they happen and why they look the way they do.
Otherwise, the question could be "how do you explain a mosquito if there is no god?"
Then again, many religious people see the explanation of negative, bad, or ugly things as still proof there is a god, punishing the wrong-doers, or punishing the righteous for not fighting the wrong-doers enough or something.
I guess there's no getting anywhere with this shit.
