The question isn't whether you can be good without God. Atheists and agnostics can do good works as much as anyone else can. They love, they have kindness and compassion, and so on.

Do you know that if, when I died, I arrived at Heavens gate and I met Jesus..and He asked me this question "Why should I let you into My Heaven?" and my answer was, "because of all of the good things I did", He wouldn't let me in?

Why is that? Atheists and most religious people actually have something in common; a fundamental misconception of what goodness is.

Most people have a list of certain crimes in their mind that, so long as they have not committed them, they consider themselves to be good people. They'll say to themselves "I'm a good person. I haven't killed anyone." "I may not be perfect but I am no Hitler or Stalin". Or, they think if their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, they're good people. There are some religions like that.

It's a relative goodness. Most everyone will acknowledge that they've done some wrong, but most will tell you far more right than wrong.

The problem with a relative goodness is that is all it is; it is relatively good. It is only good some of time. That is how human beings are. Goodness in Gods eyes is not relatively good, it is perfectly good. That is why the bible says there is no one good except God. The reason why Jesus won't let me into Heaven based on my performance is because once I've sinned even once I have failed to meet Gods standard; moral perfection. That is the only thing God considers good. Once there is a fly in the ointment, it is ruined.

The inference here is, if that is true then no one can get into Heaven. That's the dilemma, and that is why God sent His Son to die for our sins on a cross. Jesus had met Gods moral standard, He had never sinned. He was Gods spotless lamb, qualified to be a sacrifice for our sins on our behalf, taking the punishment that we deserve. Because of sin we are disqualified but Jesus qualifies us, that is why we need Him, why He is the Messiah.

Because Jesus took the punishment for our sins, when we believe in Him as Lord and Savior, God can forgive our sins and impute the righteousness of Christ to us. God counts our faith in Jesus Christ as righteousness. Not because we ourselves are righteous, but because He is righteous and our faith is counted towards us as righteousness. It is a legal transaction, once we believe God can dismiss our case because justice has been done for our sins by the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

So, when Jesus asks me why I should be allowed in, the only possible answer is this: "I am not worthy to get in; it is your righteousness counted to me that will open these gates. You died for my sins and rose the third day; I believed your gospel and received you as my Lord and Savior."

Atheists can be good without God, so can hindus, buddhists and even Christians. The trouble isn't whether they can be good, the trouble is that it isn't good enough.

No joke. First, Christan politicians of various denominations from various churches holding office in a secular country with a godless constitution is vastly different than when the church controlled king and country all over the western world. Our founding fathers saw to that. The church's power has been in decline for centuries thanks to luminaries like Paine, Franklin and Jefferson. The church has never regained anything like the power it held for the centuries before "the Age of Enlightenment". Source: any world history book. Second, we don't have any idea how many of today's politicians are atheist/agnostic or simple deists because in most places saying so is a sure fire way not to get elected. They wouldn't dare say if they were, but seeing as how most politicians receive a higher education and how higher education leads to a higher rate of atheism, I'd wager the rate of atheist politicians is higher than in the general population. Third, I never said there wasn't a Christian majority in the US. To begin with, I was speaking about the decline of the church's power globally. I shouldn't have to tell you the world has more countries than the United States. With the global economy this distinction (you are too inept to make) is more important now than ever.

The only one of us who should be ashamed is the one with absolutely no sense of perspective. The one who will dismiss the horrors of Islamic fundamentalism because "Christians do bad stuff too!!! WAAAA!" To be clear, the one who should be ashamed will be you, NewtBOY.

Absolutely the officer should be charged. I think it's a huge disservice to everybody that these things are so often dealt with behind closed doors. It breeds contempt and distrust, and it eliminates an important opportunity for the public to understand some of the issues inherent in policing, and it seems to let horrible crimes go largely unaddressed.

But 'triple cuffed' can only mean a daisy chain of cuffs. Nothing else makes any sense, and to do so means that they are making some kind of attempt to accommodate the comfort of the individual during the cuffing. Or do you think it means having 3 sets of hand cuffs individually applied to your wrists? Come on... Doesn't excuse the cuffing of the guy, obviously, but thinking that triple cuffing is some heinous extreme version of cuffing is absurd.

You acknowledge that he had bad aim, and that the majority of shots missed the intended target, whichever target that was. You acknowledge that poor leadership, training, and protocol may have contributed to this outcome, but then you make the leap that because these this incompetency, it must have been intentional. It simply doesn't follow. You might ask them to be held responsible, but it doesn't mean it was the intent.

Saying 'I don't know' in the immediate aftermath of a charged situation where you are just coming to realize you made a huge mistake and nearly killed an innocent seems reasonable. It does not mean 'I meant to kill you and missed." It seems to indicate a state of confusion or shock.

I heard absolutely no reference to any time frame, or them preventing medical assistance for more than 15 minutes. I'll just remain agnostic on that angle.

I'm no lawyer, but I would have thought that intent combined with action was the very core of attempted murder. Murder is all about intent, and attempted is all about action. Attempted manslaughter of some degree seems the most realistic charge to make, but that's up to people that better know the law, and are willing to spend hundreds of hours analyzing the situation.

A huge problem with the system is the way that justice is delayed for so long (assuming it is ever meted out). People want instant karma, immediate redress for wrongs committed. People see something, get heated, and feel that a strong reaction is called for in the moment. The system on the other hand is meant to be about dispassionate discussion of the details of the situation, and can take a long time to play out. This is a big part of why it seems so reprehensible when it's carried out behind closed doors; it looks like it's being swept under the carpet. Similarly this is why media coverage over sensationalizes crime. But that's a discussion for another day.

Anyways, I've already typed too much about this I think.

Amen (And I say that as an agnostic... =)

You cannot change someones mind by shouting at them or turning off their ability to speak, you can only try and bring something to the table to convince them.

Reminds me of that ex-KKK guy who harassed a black preacher for so long that the black preacher eventually outlasted him with peace and love and the KKK guy actually came up to him and asked to sit down and talk. Eventually he studied under the guy and talk over his role when he passed away iirc.

And you're right about the awful implications of trial by public opinion. History has born out that mob rule = no justice for all.

Let's take the next step, Honda. Let's only manufacture engines that are powered by source-agnostic electricity. Is that a dream you can get behind? *promote

I don't think i've done a very good job of explaining my point, because:
1) I do not believe in the god of the gaps in any sense, i reject the notion.
2) I didn't ask for a "reason"; this is a subtle point that i'll try to make clearer.
3) I don't hold any "supernatural" beliefs in the sense you mean - not a single one.
4) I believe firmly in things that i can prove to myself, and am uncertain about things that i cannot supply any proof or reason for.

Why are we here? When i ask that question, i am not asking for a reason for our existence; a goal that humanity collectively must achieve. I am asking why do we find ourselves and our reality as we find it? We use science to describe it and become nonplussed by these amazing things but fundamentally, what is charge? Why do opposites attract? Why does mass attract mass, etc.? Isn't it all a bit weird and wonderful?

There is no answer to that question in physics. To use the term "supernatural" to describe a discussion of why/how (which lies beyond the jurisdiction of physics) is either naive or derogatory because the term is philosophy.

You reject the notion that you could go from not existing to existing, finding yourself in a world of things you don't understand. Yet you seem to find it unremarkable that at one point you went from not existing to existing, finding yourself in a world of things you didn't understand. If i put you in a fully immersive Skyrim game, unconscious and without memory, you'd play that game and think it was real. You may even believe that, once you died, you'd cease to exist. But one day, you die in Skyrim and everything ceases to be, before you're transported to a world of things you don't understand. Yet there were no mechanisms within the Skyrim universe to allow for that! In other words, what about things that exist or take place outside of our 3 spatial and 1 temporal dimensions, or perhaps beyond even our understanding of dimensions?

"There has to be a mechanism" is idle speculation on your part, and demonstrates your closedness to anything that might exist beyond our perspective of 3 dimensional space (which might be behind the "why?" and god of the gaps misunderstanding) - for which there is evidence and on which there is active and significant research. Besides, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This is not the god of the gaps, this is acknowledging our limitations and constraining our certainty accordingly.

It's odd that you quote Sagan, because he often spoke about the spiritual and the unknowable/ineffable. I think he would be more aligned with my assessment than yours, as he was an agnostic and rejected the label atheist.

Possibly we continue to exist, perhaps we don't. Perhaps 'exist' and 'not exist' are human concepts that don't mean anything in the bigger picture, and the parts of us that exist outside of 3 dimensions bathe forever in rivers of custard (or something really weird that can't be explained in english). Nobody knows and no guess is less likely or less educated, in my opinion, which is based on my lack of certainty and absolute bewilderment that we did the not-exist->exist cycle in the first place - but i welcome any argument or evidence you can provide counter to this, and my mind is open to them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fine-tuned_Universe&redirect=no

Newtboy, I know that I am wearing glasses. The problem is that you don't think you're wearing any. I see everything through the lens of the word of God, you see it through the lens of humanistic naturalism. We both have what is called a worldview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_view

Your worldview is grounded on your belief in certain axioms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom

A belief such as the scientific method being the best way to understand the natural world is an axiom. The problem with that belief is that you cannot prove that using the scientific method. It isn't a self-evident truth, it is based on unprovable assumptions. That is the fundamental issue which creates what is called the problem of induction which "calls into question..all empirical claims made by the scientific method"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

If you don't think you have a worldview, or don't know what the axioms of your worldview are, then I am sorry to break this to you but you sir are the one walking around completely blind. You believe your filter is wide when it is actually very narrow.

It's easy to think that you're getting a good overall picture when actually you have simply selected sources of information which agree with your underlying assumptions about what you already believe. You are then simply living in an echo chamber.

You also forget that I used to be an agnostic and I understand that point of view. It's not my failure to understand the atheist and the agnostic, it is that I understand them all too well. I rejected that point of view when I found out there was a God. When you find out there is a God your entire worldview will shatter and fall into itsy bitsy little pieces, and you'll marvel that could be so ignorant as to miss the complete obvious:

Which is that It's completely obvious that the Universe was created and is maintained by an all powerful Creator, it isn't something anyone has to strain to look for. The majesty of Gods creation is constantly surrounding us, and our very existence at this moment is proof positive of that fact.

The theory of Intelligent Design looks for design features in the "code" of the Universe. For a good overview for the application of Intelligent Design to many other fields of science, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYLHxcqJmoM&list=PLC805D4953D9DEC66

Hey! No fair rewriting it after I upvote you!

Your imagination steers you wrong again, many people identify themselves as atheist....
Demographics of atheism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A 2012 poll on the demographics of atheism by Gallup International, featuring over 50,000 respondents worldwide, recorded that 13% of those interviewed said they were "convinced atheists".
A 2007 Barna group poll found that about 20 million people say they are atheist, have no religious faith, or are agnostic, with 5 million of that number claiming to be atheists. The study also found that "[t]hey tend to be more educated, more affluent and more likely to be male and unmarried than those with active faith" and that "only 6 percent of people over 60 have no faith in God, and one in four adults ages 18 to 22 describe themselves as having no faith."
'Good' is good because harming others for personal gain is antithetical to civil society, while helping others selflessly is of great benefit to society.

Give me back my vote!

Scientism:

"Scientism is belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints."

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism

http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/sciism-body.html

The idea that science has all the answers is a particular faith of some atheists and agnostics, with no evidence actually supporting the claim. The problem of induction alone throws that idea out of the window. I love science and I amazed by what we are able to do, technologically. I've studied astronomy quite a bit in my lifetime. Just because I love science does not mean that I must bow before any theory because it is accepted by the mainstream scientific community as being the current idea of what is true and real.

If you look through history you will see many of these ideas held to be truth by the scientific community turned out to be half-baked ideas based on pure speculation. Somehow, people think we have it so nailed down now that the major ideas we have about the cosmos have to be true. It's pure hubris; our knowledge about how the Universe actually works or how it got here is infinitesimal compared to what there actually is to know.

Draw a circle on a piece of paper and say that represents all of the knowledge it is possible to know. What percentage of it could you claim that you knew? If you're honest, it isn't much. Do you think that knowledge of God and the supernatural could be in that 99 percent of things you don't know? If you really think about this you will see that to rule these things out based on limited and potentially faulty information is prideful and it blinds you to true understanding.

I think having a conversation about evolution versus creation can be fruitful. As a former lifelong agnostic who has experienced it, I can testify of the brainwashing that goes on the other side of the fence. It starts out early in childhood books and cartoons, then through public education, television, science fiction and movies. You're raised all of your life to believe the secular creation narrative, and your friends and family who believe as you do reinforce this belief. You are self-deceived into thinking your information filter is very large and sophisticated when it is very small and full of personal bias.

That can be why people have an adverse reaction when evolution is called into question. To them it is reality and if you were to remove that cornerstone their idea of the way the world is would come tumbling down with it. If someone doesn't understand their need for Jesus, it is a hard thing to consider accepting.

@poolcleaner

Hi poolcleaner,

Thank you for sharing where you're coming from with me, I appreciate it. My story is a lot different than yours. I grew up in a home without any religion and God was not discussed, for or against. By default, I was agnostic towards the idea. I did not believe in anything supernatural; I probably would have fit in here fairly well for the most part. I was extremely liberal on many different topics and that seems to be the norm, here.

What changed is that I started to have supernatural experiences and things started happening to me which you couldn't explain away by mere chance. On that basis I started to explore the possibilities, fell into the new age for awhile, and then God reached down one day and pulled out a Christian out of that mess. That's the super short condensed version of what happened.

Even when I became a Christian, I still held to all of the secular views that I did before. It's only when I started to investigate the scientific evidence for these things that I changed my mind. I would still believe those things to this day if it wasn't for the evidence and where it pointed. I will get back to you on this; I'd like some time to come up with some good information for you. God bless!

i ran a metaphysical shop for a few years with my ex-girlfriend and this is what the majority of our customers acted like.

this had me laughing so hard i think i peed a little.

this man has it spot on in regards to switching one dogma for another and these people are fucking oblivious to that fact.

just as a fundamentalist is constrained by his own dogmatic absolutist thinking,these people are just as imprisoned by their own lack of imagination,rigid thinking and an over abundance of incuriosity.

the seeker..no matter what flavor..be you religious,agnostic,atheist or spiritual..will always push the bounderies and always ask questions.

we know that we dont know and that is why we seek.
we ask the hard questions and do not rely on others to give us the answers.

these kind of people always had me giggling.usually white and over-privileged but i rarely found a seeker in any of them.they always wanted you to hold their hand and tell them what to do.

and they didnt take bad news well,because they all watched "the secret" and we all know...just like joel olsteen and his bullshit "prosperity gospel" that god/universe wants you to be rich and happy.

bad things happen to other people...not them.
bunch of incurious dipshits.

*promote

I was clear from the beginning that I came to lend a Christian voice to the sift. I enjoyed videosift and had been using it for some time before I created an account. I registered an account specifically because of the number of anti-christian videos that I was noticing were hitting the top ten. I wanted to engage with the people here over the topic of Christianity because the sift was, and primarily still is, an echo chamber for the worldview of secular humanism. That's the way the sift likes it, and the sift is intolerant of any voice which challenges that viewpoint. Period, end of story.

There's nothing wrong with my coming to represent Christ, here. Have I utterly failed to do so? Yes, most definitely. However, it is up to me how I want to use this site. I have commented here almost exclusively on religious topics, either on my videos or someone elses it. Occasionally I will comment on a political video or something else, but usually only on religious topics. The point being is that, that is the way I have chosen to use this site. I don't run around and dictate to anyone else how they could or should use the sift, so why should I be singled out? I didn't cause any material harm to anyone, I wasn't off topic, I didn't flout the rules. I was on topic on the videos I commented on, and I brought a Christian viewpoint to the discussion. The sift, being inhabited primarily by atheists, agnostics and anti-theists, utterly rejects that viewpoint. It's not any different if I were to go to the comments section of any major website and say anything positive about Christianity. I would instantly get 2 to 3 comments mocking everything I said.

I stated in my post that I realized that bringing a Christian viewpoint to the sift would get me a lot of flak. I didn't always react well to that, and I acted like a jerk at times. I am sorry for that. I could have done more to build relationships here and I never put in the time. There is some truth to what you have said, that I brought the way I was treated on myself. But your rant is also a product of the simplistic and distorted lens that you view me through. I mean, you on one hand call my treatment here a persecution fantasy and on the other hand say I brought it upon myself. That's just intellectual dishonesty, pure and simply. The truth is, there was a concerted campaign to deny my participation on this site, and whatever you think the reason may be, it did happen.

As to the video, if this video was of a senior consultant from the Bush administration admitting that they systemically deceived the American people this would be #1 on the sift. You're deceiving yourself if you think that the reason this video is being suppressed is due to anything other than the ideological bent of the sift.

The website may be biased, but the polls listed are world recognized polls that are mostly above reproach. Christianity is not at the table on this, nobody is saying that there aren't wackos involved in any religion, but realistically how many christian holy war incidents can you list in the last 20 years? I mean real incidents, not just some random guy doing one thing to a doctor or clinic, but a group of holy christian fighters blowing up swathes of people or beheading them. It's not in the same ballpark, in fact it isn't the same league, or sport.

As far as US international policy goes, we do stupid shit a lot of the time. Other times we get dragged into shit because people complain if we don't. Personally I wish we would cut our defense budget in half and tell the rest of the world to go pound sand when they ask for help, but again it is not the issue of discussion we are looking at.

The issue is whether or not Islam, due to the nature of it's teachings, promotes certain things that lead to war and/or brutal acts. The fact is that it does, assuming you follow the tenets laid forth in the Koran and other works, such as the Sunnah and the anecdotes of the 12 Imams.

What other religion currently follows these tenets in it's religious laws?

- Leaving Islam is a sin and a religious crime. Once any man or woman is officially classified as Muslim, because of birth or religious conversion, he or she will be subject to the death penalty if he or she becomes an apostate, that is, abandons his or her faith in Islam in order to become an atheist, agnostic or to convert to another religion.
- If a person has never been a Muslim, he or she can live in an Islamic state by accepting to be a dhimmi and pay a Jizyah tax. They cannot practice their religions openly and they also do not have the same rights and legal protections as Muslims.
- Death penalty for Homosexuals
- Numerous women's rights violations and restrictions
- Child marriage
- Jihad is an important religious duty for Muslims. It is only very recently that it has started to be redefined by a small amount of Muslims as being possible to be non-violent in nature.

As it stands, Islam is not a religion of peace but of strife. Unless you are a casual follower, you will be trying to promote tenets of this religion either through non-violent or violent ways. As we can see around the world and even through the events of the Arab Spring, the violent ways are far more likely.

Yep, I thought that might be the video. If I remember, he identifies as an agnostic, and then goes on to describe his views, which conform to what I would call weak atheism ("don't believe there is a god, would be nice if there was").

Either way, it has nothing to do with the completely valid points he makes in this video.