I was pointing out something Ricky Gervais said to a Muslim friend of mine.

“You see if we take something like fiction and any holy book, and any other fiction, and destroyed it, okay. In 1000 years’ time that wouldn’t come back just as it is. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all. In 1000 years they’d all be back because all the same tests would give the same result.”

— Ricky Gervais

My Muslim friend said something along the lines of, “so if that’s true and Ricky Gervais is an atheist, does that mean there’s no God?”

No, I don’t take that to be true. One quote from Ricky Gervais that sounds true, does not make all of his words the truth.

We are free to believe some things Gervais says but not others.

This is, for me, where one of the problems with the Bible and the Quran comes in. To believe in the Bible and the Quran means to accept that the Bible is the word of God as interpreted in the Gospels. Even stronger, Quran is the literal word of God, God spoke the words to Muhammad and he could not write so spoke the words exactly as told by God.

You have to believe that every word spoken is the truth. The literal truth. The word of God.

But I believe that the word of God – that is the humans on earth who claim to speak the words of God – is no greater than the word of Gervais.

That doesn’t lift Gervais up to the level of God, Gervais talks enough rubbish. It drags the words spoken by preachers down to everyone else’s level.

We’re all in the gutter, you, me, Gervais, all the prophets and the preachers.

Truth in my view is a direction (like Freedom is a direction), you can never speak the literal truth, just slowly get closer to it, but never reach it.

P.S. Here’s a bit more context for what Gervais said. Stephen Colbert is an open Catholic believer:

Stephen Colbert: You’re just believing Stephen Hawking [about beginning of universe] and that’s a matter of faith in his abilities. You don’t know yourself, you’re accepting that because someone told you.

Ricky Jervais: Well, yeah, but science is constantly proved over time. You see if we take something like fiction and any holy book, and any other fiction, and destroyed it, okay. In 1000 years’ time that wouldn’t come back just as it is. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all. In 1000 years they’d all be back because all the same tests would give the same result.

— Late Show with Stephen Colbert