{"id":200,"date":"2012-11-14T11:59:26","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T16:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godscomic\/?p=200"},"modified":"2012-11-14T11:59:26","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T16:59:26","slug":"a-fairytale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2012\/11\/a-fairytale.html","title":{"rendered":"A Fairytale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we near Thanksgiving which once was a Holiday that gave thanks to God for His provisions I leave you with a little story that makes perfect sense if you find God un-intellectual.<\/p>\n<p>Once upon a time there was nothing. No earth or sky or universe or even molecules. Nothing was all there was. Over time, wait; there was no \u201ctime\u201d because there was nothing.<br \/>\nOk, \u201cnothing\u201d apparently got lonely, or bored, or ancy which nothingness tends to do, and out of the blue, (not that blue existed because there was no light thus no color) anyway for sake of argument nothing for no reason whatsoever \u2026blew up.<br \/>\nImmediately after blowing up what once was nothing suddenly became a whole bunch of something. Nothing we humans would recognize but something nonetheless.<br \/>\nSuddenly for no good reason there were molecules that instantly became the periodic table with interesting stuff like hydrogen and carbon and with that came heat and light and even defined space for if something blew up it had to blow up from somewhere and keep expanding towards somewhere else thus creating \u201cborders\u201d so to speak.<br \/>\nAnyway, after awhile though \u201c awhile\u201d didn\u2019t exist since nothing intelligent could say it had been \u201cawhile\u201d yet, some of the matter began slowing down and cooling and some combined with other stuff and became balls of heated stuff that began to cool down in the form of a sphere because of gravity which somehow was invented because of the explosion which happened for no reason.<br \/>\nOne of these orbs had enough interesting stuff to become water and soil and form an atmosphere that eventually would be destroyed by greenhouse gasses but that\u2019s a long time from now and anyway the ozone should have anticipated that and made its \u201clayer\u201d more resilient.<br \/>\nThis was the beginning of the earth though it wasn\u2019t called earth then and didn\u2019t even know it was there. What was interesting from a human perspective which by the way is the ONLY perspective that utilizes the concept of \u201cinteresting\u201d was some of this same accidental, for no good reason stuff made chemicals which took the form of water and soil also became by accident plants and organisms that were autonomous and separate from the rest of the stuff and was actually what we would call alive.<br \/>\nBut even though it was alive it didn\u2019t know it and didn\u2019t care. For some reason though its aliveness was somehow \u201cbetter\u201d than non-aliveness to the point that overtime as long as it was still around it would accidently mutate appendages and gills and eyes and all kinds of accidental stuff that accidently allowed it to survive even though it didn\u2019t know it wanted too.<br \/>\nSo to make a long LONG story short, because this stuff was still around and because it accidently without purpose would for know reason develop stuff that kept it \u201calive\u201d it got even more bored and so now and again would birth a kid that no longer looked like it but instead was something completely different.<br \/>\nSome of these completely different things were monkey looking ape thingamajiggers whose only quality that made it special was figuring out how to use a tree branch to hit things with. It also noticed stuff like fire which when touched burned and hurt but if you threw meat into it, it tasted good and was somehow more civilized than simply eating meat raw which it had done up till then thus interestingly enough never needed fire to cook with in the first place.<br \/>\nOvertime these \u201caliveniks\u201d kept accidently growing things on their bodies and getting a bigger brain for no reason and began to officially \u201cthink\u201d (whatever that means) and take charcoal to draw pictures and communicate with other meaningless things which eventually led to cell phones and text messaging and destroying the environment.<br \/>\nAll of this by the way had no meaning or purpose it just happened until overtime this stuff that came from nothing formed a brain which began to look at the sky and wonder where it came from because apparently nothingness that explodes becomes curious overtime and wants to discover itself. Star matter made of molecules reaches a point where it says \u201c Look, I\u2019m star matter and exist for no apparent reason and have no purpose but to discover I have no meaning and I choose to find meaning in that discovery.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cI will also only believe in my matter and stuff I can observe and experiment on and anything I can\u2019t hold or observe or repeat in an experiment isn\u2019t real and I don\u2019t believe in it\u2026.Except, love, art, courage, justice, joy, curiosity, mercy, philanthropy, goodness, truth, right and wrong, happiness and purpose.<br \/>\nNone of those things can I test, repeat and hold in my hand but I am going to believe in it anyway so I can fool myself into believing that meaninglessness and accidental appearing is true and real and worth knowing.\u201d<br \/>\nThe End\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..\u2026..I believe in God, which apparently makes ME the idiot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we near Thanksgiving which once was a Holiday that gave thanks to God for His provisions I leave you with a little story that makes perfect sense if you find God un-intellectual. Once upon a time there was nothing. No earth or sky or universe or even molecules. Nothing was all there was. Over&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":223,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","tag-darwinism-evolution-intelligent-design-creation-science-thanks-giving"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Fairytale - God&#039;s Comic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2012\/11\/a-fairytale.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Fairytale - God&#039;s Comic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As we near Thanksgiving which once was a Holiday that gave thanks to God for His provisions I leave you with a little story that makes perfect sense if you find God un-intellectual. Once upon a time there was nothing. No earth or sky or universe or even molecules. Nothing was all there was. Over&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2012\/11\/a-fairytale.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God&#039;s Comic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-14T16:59:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brad Stine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Fairytale - God&#039;s Comic","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2012\/11\/a-fairytale.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Fairytale - God&#039;s Comic","og_description":"As we near Thanksgiving which once was a Holiday that gave thanks to God for His provisions I leave you with a little story that makes perfect sense if you find God un-intellectual. Once upon a time there was nothing. No earth or sky or universe or even molecules. Nothing was all there was. Over&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2012\/11\/a-fairytale.html","og_site_name":"God&#039;s Comic","article_published_time":"2012-11-14T16:59:26+00:00","author":"Brad Stine","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2012\/11\/a-fairytale.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2012\/11\/a-fairytale.html","name":"A Fairytale - God&#039;s Comic","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-11-14T16:59:26+00:00","dateModified":"2012-11-14T16:59:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/#\/schema\/person\/243d86fd9261f0ca95264b80e71e80e9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2012\/11\/a-fairytale.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2012\/11\/a-fairytale.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2012\/11\/a-fairytale.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Fairytale"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/","name":"God&#039;s Comic","description":"God&#039;s Comic - Brad Stine","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/#\/schema\/person\/243d86fd9261f0ca95264b80e71e80e9","name":"Brad Stine","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/870\/870f4e7ff5414a60daaefcce61009a6cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/870\/870f4e7ff5414a60daaefcce61009a6cx96.jpg","caption":"Brad Stine"},"description":"\"Brad Stine is on a mission \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a mission to free us all from the chains of political correctness and prevent our eventual \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwussification.' From his Nashville stronghold, Stine is mounting his crusade against these hypocrisies, all of which are explored in his highly anticipated 4th album\/DVD, aptly titled \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWUSSIFICATION!' \"You know what offends me?... Offended people,\" says Stine. A staunch supporter of first amendment rights and foe of political correctness, Stine asserts that rights should be universally applied. \"In a country with guaranteed rights to freedom of religion, its citizens are constantly trying to make faith in public spheres illegal, I am offended by that contradiction and want to talk about it as a comic.\" The strength of his conviction about our freedoms can be found in many places on WUSSIFICATION \u00e2\u20ac\u201c from \"Merry Christmas Too!\" (the right to celebrate religion) to \"At Least We're Not France!\" (the responsibility to take action as a country) to \"Spank\" (the ability to discipline our children the way we see fit). What would cause the wussification of Brad Stine? \"I hope that nothing ever wussifies me to deny my own personal beliefs,\" he says. \"Brainwashed wussies have been taught that standing up for yourself and defending your personal point of view makes you a close-minded hate monger.\" Stine stops short of defending his point of view as the ONLY one, adding \"...one must also be respectful of dissenting belief while supporting their own.\" He is, after all, an inclusive figure who trains his comedy to attack ideas, not the people who embrace them. Stine's faith forces him to acknowledge the respect and dignity of all\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 even the wussies with whom he disagrees! Stine models his approach to comedy after legendary practitioners that he has known and loved over the years. Despite George Carlin's disdain for theistic beliefs, he has been a big influence on Stine. \"I always enjoyed Carlin for turning the tables on culture. He is an excellent writer that has endured for decades.\" More current comedic touchstones are Brian Reagan, Paula Poundstone, Jim Gaffigan and Monty Python, among others. Fear not, true believers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c with his brand new album, Brad Stine is here to save the world from WUSSIFICATION \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one politically-correct, offended person at a time!\"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/author\/bstine"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}