I enjoy the challenge of engaging sophisticated defenses of atheism and critiques of Christianity, but sometimes the low-hanging fruit tastes too good to resist. Here’s one meme that at first I thought was a Christian parody of atheism:
Wow. Nobody tell these people about Alexander the Great or his father Phillip II, who lived in the fourth century before Christ. I mean, isn’t Alex a name from the twentieth century? Of course, his Greek name was Alexandros and his father’s name was Phillipos, from which we get the Latinized (and eventually Anglicized) versions of their names.
This happens when you transfer a name in one alphabet to a different alphabet or language. So the English name John comes from the middle English Jan, which comes from the French Jean, the medieval Latin Joannes, and the Greek Ionnaes, and finally the Hebrew Yehochanan which means “God is gracious.”
Here’s a similar meme I came across:
The Greek word Paul uses in Romans 15:28 is Spania, which refers to a region of the Roman Empire called Hispania where modern-day Spain is located. The Latin vulgate calls it Hispaniam. We use the English word Spain because it is the English equivalent of the Greek term Paul used to refer to a part of the Roman Empire.
Finally, even if this were an out-of-place reference to the medieval kingdom of Spain, that would disprove atheism. We have third-century manuscripts of Romans, which proves it was written over a thousand years before the kingdom of Spain came into existence. Therefore, Paul could have only known about this future kingdom through divine revelation.
Of course, that’s a dumb argument a Christian should never use, even if he’s confronted with dumb memes atheists should never use.
To hear Trent tackle more of these kinds of arguments, check out this episode of The Counsel of Trent.