Ricky Gervais believes in science

Monday, February 2, 2026

Today I stumbled into a quote “Saying atheism is a belief system is like saying not going skiing is a hobby”, attributed to British comedian Ricky Gervais.

This sentence is funny, but it’s wrong. There is no world view without beliefs. Atheism is a belief system like every other belief system. Monotheistic religions postulate that there is exactly one God, and atheism postulates that there is no God. Atheism is not a religion because it has no teachings nor holy scriptures, but it’s an encompassing and comprehensive world view. See Everybody is faithful, About religion and such, About science and About faith. Of course I guess that Ricky would instantly find some bug in my definitions and hence would disagree with my suggestion.

In February 2017, Gervais pointed out an interesting observation: “Science is constantly proved over time. If we destroyed any fiction or any holy book, in a thousand year’s time it wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact, and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back because all the same tests would be the same result.” (source: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert)

I read a blog post Ricky Gervais: Why I’m an Atheist about an article of same title in Wall Street Journal behind a paywall. I watched Gervais making fun about creationism

In general I like him.

I suggest that Gervais actually isn’t laughing about religions but about mystical thinking. And he believes that scientific thinking is better than mystical thinking. I feel with him. But I am learning to take it easy. One property of the Bible is that it works for both types of thinking. I have no problem with atheists, I have a problem with people who believe that their their world view is the only correct one.

scientific thinking

A world view that claims to believe only in provable facts, in reality.

mystical thinking

A world view that doesn’t worry about science and believes in all kind of things.