This Stand-Up Comedian Gets Just About Everything Wrong When It Comes to Atheists

[rug]

May 16, 2017
by Hemant Mehta

As a comedian, Neville Shah seems to be doing it right. He has the delivery and timing of a good stand-up.

As someone who wants to mock atheists, Shah is just God-awful.

His new special “What Are You Laughing At?” is now out on Amazon and it include a bit about the problem with atheists.

See if you can spot all the flaws.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/05/16/this-stand-up-comedian-gets-just-about-everything-wrong-when-it-comes-to-atheists/

I agree with Hemant. Attacking strawmen is a dead giveaway for ignorance of your target.

[DetlefK]

1. I read a horrible novel about atheists a while ago.

The premise:
Our world, except during Y2K suddenly all gods show up (except Jehova/God/Allah) and reclaim their domains and kingdoms. They are mostly benevolent and you will live a good life as long as you are loyal to them. Their arrival kicks of several brutal world-wide civil wars and when they end, Earth is transformed into a semi-fantasy realm where gods, demi-gods and demons exist alongside modern technology.

Now, in this world where gods exist, is a police-detective who's an atheist.
He had faced demons and other creatures as a soldier during the civil wars.
He uses magical trinkets.
He's in a division for supernatural crimes, so over the course of the novel, he repeatedly meets gods.

And instead of looking/asking/searching for evidence whether these gods actually are gods, he's just a smug asshole who makes a point out of being an atheist to spite others.
He's a detective and an atheist, yet he somehow doesn't have enough curiosity to actually find out more about the gods. He just brags how he's so special because he's the only one being critical of them, yet he doesn't actually DO anything.

And these fucking magical trinkets he uses. How come he doesn't even bother to have them analyzed by a scientist to find out what this "magic" is???????




And it wasn't just this character. The whole novel was really badly written.

[TlalocW]

3. If presented with good enough evidence

An atheist would believe. He or she probably wouldn't follow whatever gods he came across. After all, in the Christian mythos, Satan knows God personally and what He's capable of, but he still doesn't follow Him.

But if this happened, I would be like that guy - I'd gather up whatever magical trinkets I could to protect myself. It's like that one Deep Thought by Jack Handey - I wish I had a cross made out of Kryptonite... That way I could keep vampires and Superman away."

TlalocW

[rug]

4. Stereotypes make poor opponents and reflect poorly on the proponent.

[TlalocW]

2. Flaw number 1

He's not funny.

Flaw #2 - He didn't realize that the atheists in the crowd were cheering at the description of an atheist attempting to sway a theist (believe or I'll kill you) because he said, "This is what religion is."

Flaw #3 - I don't think he's ever met an actual atheist. Most of them come from leaving a religion, and a lot of them, if they've been well-indoctrinated before getting out, are filled with self-doubt and worry, especially when it comes to hell. And theists will try to exploit that, telling them that's God trying to convince them to believe.

Other than that, the basic strawman of this is what an atheist is and misclassifying atheism as a religion.

TlalocW