My old pastor once told me those who have the most trouble believing the Bible are those who've never read it. When you look at the overwhelming majority of atheist apologetics, it's clear that this is the case. Some at least try, but as shown by memes like the one in the header image, others rather enjoy their ignorance.
The meme makes 10 points, yet in those 10 points, the only accurate statement seems to be "God comes to Earth in human form". Beyond that, the meme actually stems from an obviously flawed assumption that Christianity teaches that atheism is true. That is, points 3-6 credit God with the atheistic creation myth. To an extent, this can be forgiven, as unfortunately, many Christians have also compromised with the atheistic creation myth. Thus, the straw man version of Christianity presented in the meme can be attributed to interactions with the living straw men that are the compromising heretics. This, however, is no excuse. It is the height of intellectual laziness to get information about a religion from those who follow it (and follow it badly, in this case), rather than dealing with the actual sources. Anyone who is diligent enough to read the first 8 pages of the Bible can see that the meme is a terrible representation of Christianity. In the rest of this article, we're going to analyse and correct it. In doing so, we will see why the real Christianity does "seem legit", and why atheists are absolutely forced to misrepresent it in order to make it seem illegitimate.
Points 1 and 2 - Failure to understand eternity
Points one and two are based on a flawed understanding of eternity, both from a theological and secular perspective. God is said to "exist literally forever", and then "decides to create stuff" after having done so. It's interesting that the reason this is so worthy of mockery is the very reason the reality must be true. An infinite amount of time cannot actually be reached, either forwards or backwards.
The simple fact, then, is that something, whether you believe it was God or not, had to "exist forever". Imagine two rows of black dominoes. One of them has a beginning, but no end. The other has no beginning and no end. In both rows is a white domino. The fall of this white domino represents the beginning of the heavens and the Earth. Suffice to say, that white domino cannot be at the "end" of either row. If you have to wait forever for the white domino to fall, it will never fall, and so we will never exist. But if you make the white domino a feature of the "beginning", it can exist within the first row. But just as it cannot exist at the end of the second row, it also cannot exist in the beginning of it.
Because of the way time works, we can continuously ask the question "what happened before that?" Brian wrote this article. What happened before that? Brian found an ignorant meme criticising Christianity based on several straw man arguments. What happened before that? Brian ate 3 boiled eggs. What happened before that? Well, Brian was born, Brian's parents were born, Brian's great great great (etc.) grandparents were born. What happened before that?
Eventually, however, you have to stop asking "what happened before that", or you hit the identical problem to an event that happens after an infinite future, simply because with an infinite past, we become the aftermath of an infinite future. Therefore, there must be a beginning; a first cause. A finger that "flicked the first domino". Now, you can debate over whether or not that was God, but it has to be something like God. Something eternally self-sufficient. Something timeless. Something that, while it does not literally "exist forever", exists in a state that our finite minds can only understand as having existed forever. There has to have been a first moment in history, "before" which time itself did not exist. Otherwise, we would never exist. Therefore, God did not, as the meme suggests, exist forever, nor did He decide, after forever, to create. Rather, His first act of creation is the first moment of time.
As for the part in point one that says "for no reason", look at what we've just demonstrated and ask, what exactly would the reason be? In order for something to exist, something must have existed. There is simply no way around this. Therefore, the atheist is mocking an essential belief. A belief they know they hold if they think about it for even a brief moment. But nothing they propose makes sense. How can reasonable beings, such as ourselves, come into existence from nothing? Think about math. Why does 1 + 1 = 2, and not 879? Think about logic. Why is it impossible for a true contradiction, like a round square, to occur in reality? Think about history. Why is it possible for me to act in the present, influencing the future, but impossible for me to change the past? Christianity is the one and only worldview that provides a coherent reason that anything exists, so why is it a problem for us to be incapable of explaining why the source of all existence exists? Mocking God for "just existing forever and for no reason", therefore, is as dumb as mocking an airplane for being too heavy to fly, only to hop around imagining you are a bird.
Points 3 through 7 - Misunderstanding origins
As I mentioned in the introduction, the meme goes on to present the atheistic creation myth, as accepted by a minority of modern Christians, particularly in Western culture, as if this is an accurate representation of Christianity. Yet, as I said, reading a mere 8 pages of Scripture is sufficient to show why this is a misrepresentation.
In reality, the Bible presents the origins of the heavens and the earth as a very swift event, taking a mere 6 days, rather than billions of years. Furthermore, if there is any "Big Bang" in Scripture, it is at the end of this creation, not at the beginning: "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up." (2 Peter 3:10).
But the atheist might simply shift the objection. Just as it would be strange for God to set off a magical explosion and wait billions of years, it seems strange, if He can create everything in less than a second, for Him to take 6 days. The Bible actually does give an answer to this. God took 6 days to create and one day to rest as a pattern for us (Exodus 20:11; Mark 2:27-28). The doctrine of the Sabbath gets deeper, but it is silly to discuss this depth with people who do not understand the basics, much less believe. You have to walk before you can run, as the saying goes.
So already, whoever made the meme has the timeline so unbelievably messed up that a 4 year old can prove them wrong with a standard book of children's Bible stories. This, frankly, is embarrassing, and while I prefer to default towards assuming a person is ill informed, when they make major errors like that, I find it hard not to assume they are being dishonest.
I now want to address the whole "God does nothing for X amount of time" statements in the meme. This will apply to future points, too, so it's important to lay this foundation down. Now, given that the atheist presumably believes other organisms existed before dinosaurs, it's strange how they would single dinosaurs out. According to Scripture, "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." (John 1:3). Even in the Theistic Evolutionary timeline, there were fish before dinosaurs, therefore God created fish. There were plants before dinosaurs, therefore God created plants. There were magical microbes that just formed in a scummy pond before dinosaurs, therefore God formed the magic microbes in the scummy pond. Furthermore, God sustains all things (1 Corinthians 8:6; Hebrews 1:3; Colossians 1:7), and so the very idea that God "does nothing" is absurd. To really seal this off, Jesus says "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working." (John 5:17). God is always doing something, taking a very active and constant interest in this creation. Therefore, even under the excessively ridiculous straw man version of creation presented by this meme, God was never "doing nothing".
But obviously, creation didn't happen over millions of years, but over the 6 days previously mentioned. On each of those 6 days, God made something new. The dinosaurs, being land-dwelling, flightless creatures, were created on the 6th day, a maximum of 23 hours and 59 minutes before mankind. But even that maximum is absurd, given that male and female were created on the same day (Genesis 1:24-28), yet Genesis 2 gives an overview of that day, showing a delay between Adam's creation and Eve's creation, during which Adam received commands from God, and named all the animals that had been put into his care.
So, God did create the dinosaurs. He did not, however, kill them, then create man in His image. In fact, reading on into Genesis 3, we see that death did not enter the world until man sinned. Adam disobeyed God, then death entered the world. This event is called "The Fall", and it is vital to understand The Fall to understand Christianity with any degree of accuracy. A failure to understand the fall is the reason for one of the meme's bigger mess ups in point 9.
Before the fall, no dinosaurs had actually died, nor were they capable of doing so. In fact, it even seems dinosaurs survived until Job's time. And that's just in the Bible. The historical record shows several cultures lived alongside creatures which seem suspiciously close to dinosaurs. This is so vivid, Carl Sagan even proposed that we have retained memories from our mammalian ancestors who actually saw dinosaurs. Regardless of when dinosaurs actually died, the fact is death entered the world through man, and so it did not occur millions of years before the Fall.
Point 8 - God's dealings with Israel
The meme goes on to say that "God meddles wildly in the affairs of humans in a small part of the entire Earth for about 1500 years, including giving one tribal society rules to live by and helping them defeat their enemies". Now, I'm not going to lie, if I did not have a God of both reason and grace, I would probably respond to this point alone in the same way atheists tend to respond to Christianity as a whole. The difference is, I would mock it precisely because there are so many things wrong with it, it is almost worth nothing but mockery. Nevertheless, I do serve a God of reason and grace, and so I will graciously respond to it with reason.
The first problem with this statement is the idea that God "meddles" with anything. Meddling implies that human affairs take priority over God's, but the reality is, God's agenda takes precedent, for it is the very reason there are humans with affairs to be "meddled" with. The simple fact is we are actually the ones doing the meddling. Unsuccessfully, of course. When we go against God, we invariably lose. The devil himself cannot flex his pinky if God does not grant him the strength to do so. But though we are doomed to fail when we meddle, we remain the meddlers.
It's strange that the meme actually glosses over the flood and the Tower of Babel. These two events both deal with the entire human race. During the flood, all of humanity had crossed just about every line they could, and so God destroyed all but 8 of them with a global flood. That hardly seems like a "small part of the entire earth".
After that, humanity grew in number, and yes, they did conspire to stay in a "small part of the entire Earth", against God's command. But God thwarted them, and spread them across the entire Earth. From there, they formed nations, which, according to Paul, God "...has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’" (Acts 17:26-28). And it's interesting to note... they did!
See, obviously, the nations didn't wander off from Babel and immediately start worshiping God. But when you look at the religious practices of history, it's interesting to note, first of all, that they did have religious practices. This culture over here? Theists. That culture over there? Theists. This completely isolated tribe on some obscure island untouched by any other culture? Theists. Atheism has been historically rare worldwide. It is, ironically, a human affair that until relatively recently, of course owing to Evolution becoming the dominant religion in science, existed in a small portion of the entire world. God's most passive activities, therefore, have spread further than the most aggressive attempts at Evangelism atheists have ever made.
How can this "imaginary" figure be so much more powerful than Atheist Almighty here? Simple: "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork." (Psalm 19:1). Humanity has always believed in God, simply "...because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse," (Romans 1:19-20).
But of course, generally, it sticks to His invisible attributes. We've always known there is a God, but through both sin and ignorance, we've warped Him into a number of weird and wacky religions. We have a basic set of morals most of us never questioned (and even atheists instinctively live by, though they have no foundation for it, especially if they are Evolutionists), but we've severely modified the truth. Deism, Polytheism, Henotheism, even ancestor worship. So on its own, while this is consistent with Christianity, it is hardly an indisputable testament to it.
What is surprising, however, is that the older a religion is, the more likely it is to have themes from, at the very least, Genesis 1-11. The flood in particular is quite well attested, with many cultures, even those isolated from each other, having stories which are very clearly based on the historical flood. With numerous common elements that ought not be common, even one of these legends is suspicious, but the fact they are found in almost every culture worldwide, each with common elements with the Genesis flood, strongly suggests they all come from one common source. Yet, the only feasible common source is the common ancestry of all humanity: Babel.
It's worth noting that on top of this, Genesis 6-9 is the only flood story that is realistic, even to the point of the dimensions of the ship involved. Whereas other legends involve arks that would sink or be tipped over, Noah's ark is 6 times as long as it is wide, giving it the ideal balance of comfort, stability, and strength. According to one study by Dr. Seon Hong and his team, there are no designs that can outperform the ark. In order to increase one of those elements, you must decrease another.
So already we see that God has been active across the entire world, "meddling" in human affairs to the extent that they both noticed and remembered it, but it's worth noting that some ancient religions even mimicked Judaism to an extent that simply cannot be coincidence. Take, for example, the ancient Chinese God, ShangDi, meaning Heavenly Ruler. This God, though the Chinese worshiped Him long before Moses, sounds so similar to Yahweh, I have no trouble, at least for now, classifying them as one and the same.
How strange it is then, to the point of being positively asinine, that an atheist would suggest God was only active in a small corner of the world, among only one tribal community. A simple reading of Scripture shows this is not what Christians believe, and a greater examination of world history proves we are right not to believe what we do.
But one thing that can't be denied is that God did show special interest in the Jews. In fact, it is for this reason Paul considers it advantageous to be Jewish (Romans 3:1-2). But God does actually give us some insight as to why this is: "The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;" (Deuteronomy 7:7-9).
This is interesting, however, because of how it factors in to the New Testament. Note Peter's words in 1 Peter 2: "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy." (1 Peter 2:9-10).
Now, I have skipped over a lot of complex theology here (which is apparently necessary, as if whoever made this meme cannot read 8 pages of the Bible, I doubt they have sat through the 12 minutes it would take them to reach this point in the article, much less comprehend the more complex details of Israel's role in salvation for the world), but note how similar wording is used for the Church as for Israel. We are all God's "chosen generation", "holy nation", "His own special people". Yes, even a royal priesthood. God's "meddling" with Israel's affairs is actually what made this possible. Again, I'm skipping over exactly how, for sake of not extending this article, and because I'd rather let the atheists study, and that preferably after belief, but suffice to say for now, whoever made this meme made a spectacular goof.
Another thing that's quite important to note is the overemphasis the atheist places on God's activities. It's true that God was more directly involved with Israel than other nations (and the other nations often found that out the hard way), but actually, for the most part, He didn't step in much. And for several good reasons, starting with the simple fact they asked Him not to. After the giving of the 10 commandments, for example, we read "Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.”" (Exodus 20:18-19).
Imagine a criminal quaking in his boots before a mighty king and his armies. He has committed multiple capital crimes, and the king is simply reading out a list of laws that the criminal has already broken. The fear that criminal has does not even begin to compare with the fear every Jewish man, woman, and child felt at the bottom of Mount Sinai. The simple fact is, the closer God gets to man, the more terrifying it is. We don't want Him close to us, and when He does reveal Himself more directly, we typically ask Him to go away again. We are not compatible with God, and so we will not be able to handle prolonged exposure to Him until our Earthly bodies perish. Even then, if we remain in our sins, all we will know of God is His everlasting wrath.
So clearly, God was not always blatantly active in Israel. But even when He was, that's actually still a historical fact. An atheist might not understand why God was most active in Israel, but when you read the Bible, you are reading true, often first hand eyewitness accounts of how He did interact with them. Thus, if you're an atheist, it's not enough to simply mock the idea that God would show special interest in a specific culture. Rather, you must explain all of God's dealings with them without God. You must explain how they ended up in Egypt, how they bulldozed their way out, how they survived so long in the wilderness, how they minced the Canaanites and took their land for themselves, how they consistently and reliably thwarted their enemies (and how their successes and failures so conveniently coincided with their obedience, or lack thereof, of God's laws), and so much more. Personally, I'm more inclined to believe that if a Theistic culture so often seems to be empowered by God, they probably are.
A final thing to note is that although special divine intervention does seem common throughout Scripture, this is because scripture itself is a compilation of such events. To illustrate this, consider this video of a fox:
In the video, it appears the fox visits my driveway to take the bait multiple times in the space of 66 seconds. The reality, however, is that this is a compilation of visits that took place over the course of half an hour. In much the same way, special divine intervention might seem like a regular occurrence in Scripture, but actually, the reason it shocks most people when they see it is they simply aren't expecting it. It's that rare.
Point 9 - The message of the cross
Point 9 of the meme is about as accurate as this meme gets. It correctly recognises that Jesus is God, though makes a blunder by suggesting God "comes back to Earth" (see previous points to figure out why that's not accurate). It also notes that Christ's death serves as atonement. But it says this atonement is "for the flaws inherent in all humans (which he created)." I have to hand it to the meme maker, of all the points, this is the only one that actually hits the dart board. It doesn't quite hit the target, but it's on the board. We do have to settle some definitions here, as well as talk about a bit of ambiguity in the statement which I will refer back to when addressing point 10.
Now, what exactly is a "flaw"? A flaw is a defect, an imperfection, or a shortcoming. In theory, this would include physical flaws, or limits. I can assure you, however, that Jesus did not die because your nose is crooked, or because you sing like a dying cat, or because you can't run as fast as a car. These are all flaws, but Jesus did not die for them. No, Jesus died for a specific type of flaw: Sin.
Sin, by definition, is not a created thing. In fact, it is parasitic upon created things. God created marriage, but if there is no marriage, one cannot commit adultery. God created property and gave us rights to it, but one cannot steal what is not privately owned. God created life, but one cannot murder if there is no life. Even blasphemy cannot be committed if there is no mind to oppose God. Every sin is possible only because good exists. Thus, no matter which way you cut the pie, the atheist cannot argue that God is responsible for the flaw that is sin without saying "God shouldn't create good things because that increases the possibilities for free willed beings to sin", which is a blatantly daft way to argue.
But it's interesting to note, there are two main ways to cut this pie. The atheist argues that Christ makes atonement "for the flaws inherent in all humans (which he created)", but which is the atheist arguing that God created? The flaws, or the humans? The way we answer his objection depends on which interpretation we take, does it not? If the atheist only means God created all humans, then there is no objection to answer to. Why is it even remotely problematic for God to atone for the sins of people He created? That sounds like an amazingly merciful God I am quite happy to worship. Wouldn't you be if you were flawed, and rather than punish you for it, God took the punishment Himself? But if the atheist argues that God created the flaws along with the people, that adds a whole new layer to our answer, that being the layer mentioned above.
Point 10 - An absurd summary of scripture
How ironic it is, then, that the atheist would then turn around and accuse Scripture of being arbitrary. Of course, there is quite a difference between a single statement and a whole book, but even in that statement, I demonstrated two possible interpretations. Yet, the atheist obviously had a meaning in mind, and communicated it to the best of their abilities. In much the same way, the Bible is not arbitrary, but has purpose in mind, and is quite adept at fulfilling it.
But the atheist might ask, as they frequently do, then why are there so many vastly different interpretations? The simplest answer to this is that the mere existence of an interpretation does not validate it. When you look across these interpretations and compare them to the Bible, you soon see that some of them can be easily discarded. Like, for example, Theistic Evolution. As confident as this meme maker is that Christianity can be summed up in 10 simple points (which it could not be if it genuinely was arbitrary), and that those points factor in billions of years of Evolution, Theistic Evolution can be, and for 1700 years had been, dismissed by the Church, simply because the Bible plainly and unambiguously lays down a 6 day period of creation.
It is true that there are different interpretations of various Scriptures, but this is due to the fact it simply wasn't designed to reward the lazy or the wicked. It is designed to be studied as diligently as your greatest interest, yet in reality it is studied as lazily as the terms and conditions of a social media site. How could such laziness not lead to differences in interpretation? Even if the only sin human beings still committed was laziness, there would be a diversity of understanding simply because we quote one Bible verse without giving due care and attention to that which precedes or follows it.
Before making a woefully inadequate summary of what the Bible is, the atheist suggests it is all we have been left with. This is silly for two main reasons. First, there is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Every Christian who has ever lived has had a close personal relationship with God through the Holy Spirit, with whom we interact in a number of ways. This is even externally visible through changed lives, most notable in Christians whose pre-Christian lives were less than admirable. David Wood, for example, is a literal psychopath, devoid of the normal human emotions, and the natural human conscience. He was incarcerated for attempting to murder his father (completely unprovoked), but converted in prison, and soon, his fellow inmates began to suspect he may be in prison because he defended a woman's honor, or some other more "noble" crime. To this day, you wouldn't know David's past if he did not tell you.
But it's worth noting that God's apparent 2,000 year absence was not unexpected. The book of Hebrews begins "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son..." (Hebrews 1:1-2a). This was written while Jesus' ministry was still in living memory. A significant number of people who read that book would have seen, met, and maybe even been healed by Jesus. It's worth noting that this is the primary audience of the whole New Testament. When these books were first written, there was not one person alive who would have been unable to investigate these claims directly. 1 Corinthians 15:6, one of the earliest epistles written, even says "After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep." There were people alive at that time who could have easily confirmed or denied the resurrection. Yet, in spite of heavy persecution from both apostate Jews and the Romans, those closest to Christ retained their testimony.
Thus, the irony is, even if Jesus had packed up and gone to the Heavenly version of Hawaii and forgotten about us until now, we still have a reliable witness in the Bible. Scripture alone is sufficient, yet Scripture is not alone, because God is present with His Church, which can be shown, in part, by our lives.
Conclusion
Though by no means representative of all atheists, this meme is fairly typical of atheists around the world. In particular, it is representative of atheists you'll find online. Yet, what it shows is an abysmal failure to think before they speak. As Proverbs 18:13 says, "He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him." In just 10 points, whoever made this meme proved they know next to nothing about Christianity; certainly not enough to criticise it, nor to sarcastically declare "seems legit".
But in analysing these 10 points, we have corrected several major errors seen in the meme, responded to a few common atheist arguments, and even given a starting point to anyone who is willing to look up the evidence for the Christian faith. I highly advise it, as today is the day of salvation; you are not promised tomorrow. Repent, and believe in Jesus, so when you meet Him, He will grant you access to Paradise, as He did for the penitent thief who hung beside Him.