"The Book of Nothing" - An ironic critique of the New Atheists

November 16, 2016 David W. Pendergrass, PhD

This is a piece composed by my very talented brother, Stephen. I asked to publish it here. (You can listen Stephen's powerful testimony in my podcast.)

The Book of Nothing (Chapters 1-10)

Before Nothing existed, there existed nothing. No mind, no intelligence, no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no thing. Not even the concept of "no thing" existed, as there was nothing. But as the Prophet Lawrence Krauss hath proclaimed , since “nothing” is the opposite of “something,” Nothing must be Something. And because of that, The Multiverse came into being. Praise be to Nothing! Mighty and Majestic is It.

Over eons, the Multiverse, the offspring of Nothing, produced it's own pointless offspring. The Multiverse accidentally begat Universe 1, Universe 2, and so on, until infinity. Indeed, many university chalkboards filled with numbers and mysterious symbols written by Great Prophets eager to avoid intelligent design have shown that so many Universes exist that we cannot begin to fathom their numbers. And even though we cannot observe these other Universes, or measure Them, or interact with Them, or possibly know anything about Them, our faith remains strong in the existence of these Parallel Universes. For without the Multiverse , Our Universe would be a unique creation. Praise be to Nothing, and all thanks be to It. May You continue to produce in great number both Parallel Universes and Prophets that popularize the idea, as it brings great joy to many potheads to imagine themselves doing something really cool in a Parallel Universe. Praise be to Nothing! Mighty and High are Its Ways!

Now some Prophets hath proclaimed that life on Earth originated from the Sun warming up a pool of soup to just the right temperature. But as the Great Prophet and Evolutionary Biologist, Holy and Perfect be his Name, Richard Dawkins, saw in a great vision, a highly-evolved civilization from outer space may have travelled to Earth and went on to engineer, with meticulous, accidental precision, the complex conditions and materials needed to produce the first single-celled organism. But regardless of how Nothing accidentally caused life to form, the first cell would accidentally lead to the development of highly-complex animals known as Humans, the most incredible of which would become the Great Prophets of Nothing . Peace be upon them.

Among the Greatest Prophets of Nothing was the Naturalist Charles Darwin, Hallowed be Thy Name. Early in life, Darwin was a believer in God, but one day he noticed that not all birds are the same height, nor do they all eat the same thing, which made it obviously clear that God could not exist. Praise be to Nothing. Then, in a vision received from Nothing, Darwin saw a process that would open the door for moral relativism in a new way, a combination of Random Mutation and Natural Selection, that would accidentally produce millions of species of plants and animals, even Humans, over hundreds of millions of years and without design. Revelations from this vision would later be written down in the book, “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” a Holy Book that that would help many world leaders justify, on scientific grounds , racism and the murder of over one hundred million people in the 20th century alone! Thanks and praise be to Nothing!

And it came to be known that it is mathematically impossible for Random Mutation and Natural Selection to produce Humans from a single-celled organism if the Earth is only hundreds of millions years old. So it came to pass that the Earth should be billions of years old instead. And if it is it ever found that billions of years is not enough time for Us to avoid intelligent design, then our Universe shall be trillions of years old, and if necessary, bagillions. And anyone who questions these age estimates or the methods used to arrive at them shall surely lose their teaching job and be ridiculed online! This is the will of Nothing. Unintentional and Not-Designed is His name.

And Nothing said unto to his Prophets, “Go and make all nations of the world believers in Me. Thou shalt reap great rewards in the form of respect from those who are eager to avoid absolute morals, as well as favor among left-wing politicians and journalists whose political views benefit from the absence of God . And if thou art ambitious enough, thou shalt be offered book deals and television appearances. Thou shalt also have a great number of devoted followers who shall support you with great fervor online.” And the Online Atheists did appear, and continue to spend countless hours of their limited time on Earth going to YouTube, searching for videos about God, watching those videos about God, then reading the comments below the video, then typing and submitting their own comments or even producing their own videos in which they argue that anyone who wastes their time arguing over God is an idiot. Peace be upon these Online Atheists, for their inability to see the irony in that is priceless.

And it came to pass that the Humans begat a subspecies known as creationists, the most evil of infidels, for they see purpose and design in the Universe, and even worse: objective morality. And among them came many false prophets of Science , who claim that God and Science are not in conflict. Among these creationist liars are Nobel Prize winners, medical doctors, surgeons, cosmologists, biologists, mathematicians, engineers, physicists, molecular biologists, paleontologists, geologists, and geneticists. Through some type of trickery, these creationists somehow continue to successfully practice Science in their respective disciplines. And even more woe to those scientists and researchers who are skeptical of Darwin, for they are increasing in numbers!

Praise be to Nothing! And woe to the Christians and their God! For it shall come to pass that Nothing, in Its infinite power, shall strike these false prophets with a vengeance at a time and place unknown to anyone because Its revenge shall be the result of an unguided, undirected process, and will be separate from the wrath of the Online Atheists, who will surely post something daily.

Go, therefore, and read the Books of the Great Prophets of Nothing. And put your faith in these Atheist Scientists alone, and accept as truth anything they say, including what is outside the parameters of Science, else you are doomed to wander astray and begin to see design and eternal purpose in life, or even worse, guilt for certain behaviors. And if Thou are not much for reading books, it is acceptable in the eyes of Nothing to study Its Word found routinely in the news or on PBS, BBC, and The History Channel. These one-sided , clearly biased articles and television shows do much to popularize the belief in Nothing, going so far as to perpetuate a myth that Jesus never existed . After pouring over the Word of Nothing, it is also acceptable in the eyes of Nothing to watch other shows on the above networks, including “Downton Abbey” and “Pawn Stars.”

All praise and thanks be to Nothing, which in order to avoid design, accidentally created a Multiverse, which accidentally created our Universe, which accidentally created a bowl of soup (or Aliens), which accidentally created a single-celled organism, which accidentally created You. And if you do not accept this as the only reasonable explanation, the Great Prophet Richard Dawkins , peace be upon Him, hath made it clear that you are “ignorant, stupid or insane.” All praise and thanks be to Nothing, for It is the Opposite of Something!