In the first 3 minutes the arguments are kind of weak, I almost closed the page and moved on. It gets more interesting after, however.

He quotemines the bible and recycles others' arguments only to demonstrate that Jesus wasn't a very good god.

It's pretty obvious that Jesus was either a schitzo or a con artist. Either way he was a little weenie who got famous for no good reason, so can we now stop paying attention to him?

Quote mine: fallacy of quoting out of context.

Care to illustrate how his citation of Bible verses is such?

As for recycling other people's arguments, that's pretty much what everyone does, some with more eloquence than others of course.

>> ^messenger:

He quotemines the bible and recycles others' arguments only to demonstrate that Jesus wasn't a very good god.

Modern interpretation of the "Turn the other cheek also" bit and the rest of the "sermon on the mount" ignore cultural context. There's tons of commentary about it if you Google it. Jesus was teaching passive resistance. Not that he necessarily existed at all.

Anyway, he goes on whith the old trope about aksing contrition allowing wrong-doers to do more wrong without consequence. The point of contrition is that if you have to openly, verbally acknowledge your sins, you become more aware of bad things you do, and are less likely to do them again. Raised Catholic myself, until I left the church, I avoided doing bad things because then I'd have to confess them. People who delight in others' suffering aren't the type to get all contrite about it. It's a strawman argument. He equates, "cleansing of unrighteousness" with forgiveness, though they're not the same thing. Unrighteousness is the defect that causes you to do bad things. If you sincerely believe you have been cleased of it, then you will have to choose to act against your god to reoffend. It's a pretty smart system. He also assumed that forgiveness also wipes away contrition. It doesn't. It just clears your heavenly ledger of sins that will be counted against you when you die.

And he really goes wrong with, "Love your neighbour as yourself." He's not commanding people to have loving feelings towards their neighbour or themselves. That's impossible to comply with. It's not love as a feeling, it's love as action. He's commanding people to treat everyone well rather than to harbour grudges and be a bitch, which only leads to escalation. If everyone treated everyone else decently, the world would be a much more comfortable place to live, and we'd all prosper more easily.

Further, it means if someone does something bad, and you show them love, it's more likely to change them in a good way. If you show them hate and contempt and "take pleasure in their suffering", it's just going to make them a worse person, and someone who has already shown a tendancy to do bad things is exactly the wrong person to make worse. You can love someone while protecting yourself. It's way, way out of the Western concept, but it's common in other places to punnish someone, even severely, with love.

The worst is the selective interpretation of "...as yourself." This means "Love your neighbour as well as yourself." It's an extention of your own love to you. When you love yourself, you'll treat yourself better, take care of yoruself more, show yourself more understanding. The result will be your having more love to share with others. I'm totally down with that.

So, you and I are talking about confirmation bias in another thread. Do you think that as an anti-religious person in general, you feel satisfaction when you are shown fault in religious teachings? Does it satisfy you to the point where you might not really analyse what's being said? Looks to me that's what's happened here. You were looking for someone to agree with you, and someone slamming Jesus' main teachings hit the sweet spot. I dislike religions too, and enjoy people like Hitch and Tyson, and to a lesser degree Dawkins doing their thing, but this is really weak soup.

>> ^hpqp:

Quote mine: fallacy of quoting out of context.
Care to illustrate how his citation of Bible verses is such?
As for recycling other people's arguments, that's pretty much what everyone does, some with more eloquence than others of course.
>> ^messenger:
He quotemines the bible and recycles others' arguments only to demonstrate that Jesus wasn't a very good god.

@messenger

I will agree that this video is not one of the best arguments against religion/Christianity (I posted it mainly for the animations), but his interpretation doesn't seem any less valid than that of the Catholic Church; we're talking about critiquing the writings in an ancient book, and I know several biblical verses he could have used to support his arguments (pm me if you want a list). As you rightly pointed out in your first comment, his arguments are a rehash of someone elses, i.e. Hitchens. My guess was that you disliked the video because he presents poorly arguments that you otherwise agree with, but now I'm not so sure. In any case, it's one interpretation among many.


As for confirmation bias, I don't think you are using the term properly, here or in the other thread (actually, especially in the other thread). Yes, I post a lot of antitheist videos, some better than others, because I feel strongly about religion, I enjoy reading people's reactions to them as well as discussing this issue.

*controversy & *debunked

Adding video to channels (Controversy, Debunked) - requested by Trancecoach.

this guy twists the words of christ to the breaking point and then makes a fuss when they make no sense.

I didn't like the video for all the faults you point out. You're also correct that I don't agree with his arguments, especially not that Jesus's teachings about forgiveness were "vile", and so forth. They're just not thought through to their logical conclusion. Having been raised Catholic, I do know a lot of stories about Jesus and his teachings, and the ones I remember from Church are pretty good, IMO, and still ahead of their time 2,000 years later.

My guess is this guy hates religion and anything connected with it, and if he can make any highly regarded aspect of religion look bad by talking black into white, he's happy to do so. And I'm not down with that. I'm more interested in the truth of things, than seeking out uncritically points of view that bolster what I want to be true.

It's also possible I'm not using "confirmation bias" correctly. I thought it meant tending to agree with information that supports your own belief, or the illusion that things which are actually neutral in bias confirm your beliefs. (Now I'm gonna go read the link to confirm my bias).>> ^hpqp:
My guess was that you disliked the video because he presents poorly arguments that you otherwise agree with, but now I'm not so sure. In any case, it's one interpretation among many.

As for confirmation bias, I don't think you are using the term properly, here or in the other thread (actually, especially in the other thread). Yes, I post a lot of antitheist videos, some better than others, because I feel strongly about religion, I enjoy reading people's reactions to them as well as discussing this issue.