In 2015, a Facebook friend shared a meme on her page that read as follows:
"Atheism"
"The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
"Makes perfect sense."
My response is below.
This is not a definition of atheism. Atheism means lack of belief in a god or gods. That's all. However, the snarky explanation above, after a fairly substantial overhaul, might be salvageable for many atheists (and even a lot of religious believers) as a description of the early universe and previous ages on the earth. How about. . . .
"The theory, well-supported by scientific evidence, that there was nothing but a singularity of pure energy, which exploded, transforming into the matter that constitutes the present universe (remark: Einstein established the essential equivalence of energy and matter), which, under the influence of natural laws well understood by physicists, rearranged itself, coalescing in a few cases into self-replicating bits, which, following the unassailable logic that self-replicating material will by its nature increase and multiply rapidly, and, given billions of years to adapt, developed a huge variety of forms in adaptation of the ever-changing environment, resulting in the complexity of life both prehistoric (including dinosaurs) and present.
"Makes perfect sense."