I love when the animals interact with zoo goers, and otters are often the ones to do it. When I was about twelve I went to the Syracuse zoo in upstate new york with some family and in the lion exibit (a large open area with enclosed class between them and the viewers) a large male was pacing in front of the glass and my inquisitive self, I started pacing along with him, looking at him when he looked out to the viewers, until finally mid-pace he stopped, stood up with his paws on the glass, looked strait at me and roared loud as hell. I of course fell back on my arse. I wasn't scared though, I was fascinated and excited. Bunch of folks around me were freaked out though hehe. I still have fond memories of that zoo, even though I haven't been there in years now, and that particular lion.

i meant that in jest, it's plainly obvious that it's water off your back =)

In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
I'm used to it by now.
Come with the territory, evidently. I liked your post on the matter, btw., many thanks.

In reply to this comment by smooman:
hows you holdin up under the inquisition? =P

I'm used to it by now.
Come with the territory, evidently. I liked your post on the matter, btw., many thanks.

In reply to this comment by smooman:
hows you holdin up under the inquisition? =P

hows you holdin up under the inquisition? =P

enjoying stupid humor (which im sure we can all agree it is) does not make one stupid. I think that is the underlying issue here, at least the one i have a problem with. if slapstick, stupid humor, or whatever the hell else you wanna call this is not your cup of tea, no worries; different strokes for different folks. but when you want to point out all the persons who upvoted for the misogynistic, dumb fuck, witless, woman haters we so obviously are, then i think its time to climb down from that pedestal before you break your neck from turning your nose up so sharply

furthermore, in what ways is this video different from http://videosift.com/video/Kicked-In-The-Nuts-World-Record (particularly as it pertains to VS devolving into YT)? oh this one has a woman instead of a man, how silly of me (thats that super witty sarcasm at work there).
consider the following:
http://videosift.com/video/If-this-isnt-eia-NOTHING-IS
http://videosift.com/video/The-very-definition-of-Evolution-in-Action-20-seconds
http://videosift.com/video/An-EPIC-Nut-Shot
http://videosift.com/video/Slide-Divider-Vs-Nuts
http://videosift.com/video/Nut-Shot-World-Champion-Not-Removed-From-Gene-Pool
so on and so forth.

additionally, http://videosift.com/video/Topless-Chair-Jousting-New-Olympic-Sport-for-2012 is linked below in the related videos. ya its only got four votes (im a sucker for boobies so i upvoted, sue me for being a guy) and theres no controversy voiced in the comments to speak of.........what, really, is the damn difference?

my point being, if this humor suits you, upvote, if it doesnt, dont vote or downvote even, but can we please stop with the inquisition of gwizz and how much of a woman hater he is, and how derp he is for posting this, and how much of a saboteur he is, and how he wants VS to become stupid YT, pretty pretty please?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Well put - you should be a writer or something.>> ^KotDBook:

Quantummushroom's response is why I said publishers feel it's "edgy".
You're right. Hitler and pedophiles are too easy. There are plenty of contemporary examples of why attacking Christianity is easy. The book won't deal with that (only with what's in the Bible...and zombies). The video was about why people should learn what's in the Bible.
I'm not claiming to offer up a brand-new theological paradigm. There are a ton of arguments and counter-arguments, and I'm presenting them in a narrative. The reader will decide which argument makes more sense. Is there a hell? What happens to dead babies who haven't accepted Jesus? How do you reconcile "free will" with a deity that offers immortal rewards? What does the Bible say about eating feces and drinking urine?
Since the Bible's perfect, it should stand up to questions. It has all the answers, right? So isn't exposing people to those questions a good thing? Why is exposing people to the concepts of the Bible "bashing"? Are you only allowed to pick it up if you agree beforehand to accept everything within it without question?
How do Christians expect to convert atheists and other religions to their faith if they can't learn about it? Can you only biology if you agree not to ask any questions? Okay, bad example.
And yes, there are good and bad people, regardless of religion (or lack thereof). And a few bad Popes or Holy Crusades or Inquisitions doesn't mean that every Christian is evil, necessarily.
Good luck with your Mohammed book. I'd skip the slideshow.

Quantummushroom's response is why I said publishers feel it's "edgy".

You're right. Hitler and pedophiles are too easy. There are plenty of contemporary examples of why attacking Christianity is easy. The book won't deal with that (only with what's in the Bible...and zombies). The video was about why people should learn what's in the Bible.

I'm not claiming to offer up a brand-new theological paradigm. There are a ton of arguments and counter-arguments, and I'm presenting them in a narrative. The reader will decide which argument makes more sense. Is there a hell? What happens to dead babies who haven't accepted Jesus? How do you reconcile "free will" with a deity that offers immortal rewards? What does the Bible say about eating feces and drinking urine?

Since the Bible's perfect, it should stand up to questions. It has all the answers, right? So isn't exposing people to those questions a good thing? Why is exposing people to the concepts of the Bible "bashing"? Are you only allowed to pick it up if you agree beforehand to accept everything within it without question?

How do Christians expect to convert atheists and other religions to their faith if they can't learn about it? Can you only biology if you agree not to ask any questions? Okay, bad example.

And yes, there are good and bad people, regardless of religion (or lack thereof). And a few bad Popes or Holy Crusades or Inquisitions doesn't mean that every Christian is evil, necessarily.

Good luck with your Mohammed book. I'd skip the slideshow.

Nobody expects the Central African Inquisition!

I feel pity for such superstitious people.

The Aliens……… always lose to the Spanish Inquisition; cause no one ever expects them.

quite inquisitive cat. I think that kitty is smart enough to learn a few tricks

What has God done to eradicate homelessness, disease, suffering, starvation? He could snap his magical fingers and *poof* it is gone! But.. the more logical answer is.. he has done nothing because he doesn't exist. Or one could say. "He created homelessness, disease, suffering, and starvation." Probably to make some sort of illogical point that we can't quite articulate, because of his "Mysterious ways" or some such bunk. The "mysterious ways" argument essentially translates into "I don't know, nor do I care to find out why because I lack any capacity to reason. Any instinct to question as a result been subdued out of a fear of ending up in some sort of subterranean firey underworld for an eternity... hosted by rather unfriendly horned red-skinned demons that bugger the local denizens. Very much like Catholic priests in a dark sauna with choir boys.

>> ^quantumushroom:

I spent half the day at a tent camp for homeless folks, numbering in the 100s.
Monies to support them came all the way from the Vatican. What has the 'atheist charity society' done lately?
>> ^honkeytonk73:
>> ^kymbos:
Man, what is it with America and book burning?

Its a long established religious tradition.. inspired from the likes of the Roman Catholic Church during the Inquisition and the Dark Ages. Of course, no religion is excluded to participate! Enjoy the burning!

I spent half the day at a tent camp for homeless folks, numbering in the 100s.

Monies to support them came all the way from the Vatican. What has the 'atheist charity society' done lately?

>> ^honkeytonk73:

>> ^kymbos:
Man, what is it with America and book burning?

Its a long established religious tradition.. inspired from the likes of the Roman Catholic Church during the Inquisition and the Dark Ages. Of course, no religion is excluded to participate! Enjoy the burning!

>> ^kymbos:

Man, what is it with America and book burning?


Its a long established religious tradition.. inspired from the likes of the Roman Catholic Church during the Inquisition and the Dark Ages. Of course, no religion is excluded to participate! Enjoy the burning!

Glad to hear everything's okay in RL!

So, to answer your first question, yes, I have read the Bible and many Buddhist sutras (particularly the Lotus Sutra). I'm familiar with some parts of the Koran, but have not read it in its entirety. What knowledge I have of Hinduism comes from Hindu friends.

Your interpretation of these religious texts is that they promote an obedience to a God or gods. For sure the Buddhist sutras do not, as most sects of Buddhism do not believe in sentient gods per se but in an innate (non-sentient) life force that we all share. But leaving that issue aside, I don't see how you can't have both themes (love thy neighbor/obey god). You couched it as an "either/or" solution, but why does it have to be? There's no logical reason why you can't follow your individual deity and treat other humans with compassion and respect. In fact, in most cases the themes go together--by treating other people with compassion and respect you are following the commands of your deity.

But let's take it further than that. I'm just going to quote you here: Of course you dont have to [interpret the Bible that way], and most religious people dont, read or interpret it that way. Wouldn't you agree that if most people don't interpret the Bible as a form of control, then really your interpretation is not the representative of Christian belief? For certain some people do interpret those religious texts as you have-- fundamentalists, for instance. But I would hardly consider them the majority of religious people or the average representative of religion. In short, just because you’ve interpreted a particular religious text in a particular way, it doesn’t mean your interpretation is by any means “correct” or mainstream.

On a side note, I agree with you that there's a lot of f'd up stuff in many religious texts. Take the Old Testament for example and the bloodshed and wars described within it. However, we’re looking at religion as a whole--not just superficially at the religious text but how that text is interpreted and how the people who follow that religion conduct themselves in daily life. One problem with this, as I mentioned in the last post, is that the most vocal nutcases are usually the ones that you see in the media and not your "average" religious person, so it is easy to form a biased perception of virtually all religions if you’re not associating with members of that particular religion on a daily basis. If you ask the majority of Christians what the major theme of the Bible is, you’ll almost certainly get some answer regarding love and redemption—not your interpretation or violence and control.

To address your second question about empirical evidence about the benefits of religious belief--there's lots. I don't have time now to find all the links. You’ll just have to Google it. I've seen the studies--legit ones on both physical and psychological health published in JAMA and other peer-reviewed sources--and they were enough to convince me. Very few counter-examples have been published with the exception of a recent one in 2010 that showed a correlation between religious belief and obesity, but it was such a small sample size that it could have been a chance finding or attributable to other factors (it drew its participants predominately from African-American /Hispanic communities which typically have worse health-care access than other ethnic groups).

Frankly, I’m a bit surprised at your next argument about MLK. You seem to be stating that it wasn’t MLK’s religious beliefs that prompted him to take action. All I need to do to refute this is point you to any biography of the man or his numerous speeches where he clearly states that his religious beliefs have led him to believe in both the moral imperatives of equality for all people and non-violence as a means of achieving this. Was religion the thing that made him what he was? Absolutely. Same with Ghandi. And Mother Theresa. And the Dalai Lama. And a host of other people who have attempted to or succeeded in changing the world for the better.

Next, let’s talk about the Hitchen’s challenge. I find the challenge ridiculous. Why should religion have to be somehow separate from daily life? All religions are deeply concerned with secular life—with how we live and act. Furthermore basic psychology tells us we don’t act because of any one reason but due to a complex interaction of many reasons, some of which are conscious and some unconscious, and which in the end are in our own self-interest. Hitchen’s challenge is a straw-man argument—replace religion with some other construct such as democracy or music and you will be equally unable to find anyone who meets that challenge (by promoting democracy you protect your own rights; musicians may love music but even they need to sell songs in order to pay the rent and will compose for money).

I think equally ridiculous is the argument that things such as genital mutilation have no other possible explanation or cause than religion. Wouldn’t misogyny be a much better and more rational explanation than religion? Clearly religion is used to fuel the misogyny but it would certainly be a mistake to assume that the misogyny couldn’t exist without religion. Let’s take another example—the Spanish Inquisition. The cause of that tragic slaughter was clearly secular in nature—having finally wrested the southern part of the country from Muslim rule, Ferdinand and Isabella chose Catholicism to unify a country in which many different religions co-existed. In short, religion didn’t cause the Spanish Inquisition; plain old political power-struggles did. Religion was simply the vehicle through which it was carried out.

And this is really what I’ve been saying all along—that religion is not, as you keep painting it as, the cause of humanity’s problems. It is a tool—a tool that, can be used for great good or great evil. As the folks at religioustolerance.org state: “Religion has the capability to generate unselfish love in some people, and vicious, raw hatred in others. The trick is to somehow change religions so that they maximize the former and minimize the latter.”

Later on, they go on to state that they feel that religion overall has a positive effect on society. That pretty much sums up my view of religion. If you do away with religion, you throw out the baby with the bath water. You lose the Martin Luther King Jr.’s, the Ghandi’s, the Mother Teresea’s, the Dali Lama’s of the world. It’s too a high a price to pay. For me, it’s all about dialogue—talking with others, getting them to see the common ground we all share, respect each other, and, as they said on their website maximizing the good and eliminating the bad.

As long as we keep talking—as you and I have been doing through these threads--we will keep moving forward. But I believe the instant dialogue ends—the instant you demonize the” other” and refuse to engage with them--you’ve planted the seeds of the next conflict: the next Spanish Inquisition, the next Bosnian massacre, or the next 9/11.

Firstly, about the RL busy stuff, I'm fine, I've just been moving and stuff, nothing bad, but thanks for caring

While I agree religion is more than dogma, I think i have a bit of a different perspective on it, religion is, or can be a large part of someone life, obviously, and in that sense it is, as you say a complex socio-cultural phenomen. but heres where i have a problem with the stuff you say:

If you look at the Bible, or the Koran, or the Buddhist sutras, the overarching message you see is one of love for fellow humankind: the Golden Rule. That is religion and that is what people should be practicing.

Really? Have you READ the bible? or the Koran? These books are not written with the golden rule as a model. Sure, there are some hints of that here and there, but the overall theme is something quite different. The message that these books emphasize is one of total obedience to god. Of course you dont have to, and most religious people dont, read or interpret it that way, but that is in fact the main focus of these books.

The empirical evidence we do have, though, shows religious people live longer, happier, and healthier lives overall.

Uh, really? where can this evidence be found? seriously? I live in Norway, one of the least religious countries in the world. We live longer,happier and healthier lives than most of the planet.

For every example that you might choose to offer, say the Inquisition or the 9/11 terror attacks, that supposedly show why religion needs to go I can offer you a historical counter-example like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Ghandi as to why religion is crucially important.

Ok, I completely agree that keeping scores here would be pointless, so lets think about this for a few seconds. Take MLK jr. Great guy, obviously, and yes, he was a preacher and certainly religious, by all means, and he also famously quoted the bible in his speeches. But answer me this: Was religion the thing that made him into what he was? Lets suppose he was an atheist, or lets say a muslim for that matter, would he have been totally lost without the wisdom of Moses, who famously said "Let my people go"? or the teachings of Jesus? You know what? I think MLK was a great guy, who fought for a great cause, and I think that independent of his religion. And we all know there were plenty of good arguments OUTSIDE of the bible for a civil rights movement, in fact, the bible doesnt even come around to condemning slavery. So its not really a religious thing, is it? I can say honestly and with a straight face that yes, i think a non-religious person could do what MLK did, (and in fact MLK was actually critized for having to many non-religious people in his circle at the time)

Now look at my side of the scoreboard. And I'll give you the challenge Christopher Hitchens has given many times: You have to name me a good act done or a good thing said, by a religious person, that doesnt have any secular, non-religious basis or potential argument in its favour. and then you have to come up with a bad or wicked thing said or done.. I dont even have to end the sentence.. You've already got several, stuff that you couldnt possibly do for ANY OTHER REASON then the religious one. Who would cut into their childrens genitals without a good medical reason?, who would discourage condom-use in countries where the % of aids victims are well into the 2-digits? what maniac would run an airplane into a skyscraper and think this act would give them 72 virgins in paradise? What sadistic bastard would stone a young girl to death because SHE was raped?

Well, You get my point. I think very large parts of what you call religion, I simply attribute to our normal, human behaviour. not to repeat the MLK point to much. But I think the feeling of injustice that he and all black americans felt at the time had nothing to do with religion, and i think that ultimately his rebellion against it had nothing to do with religion, and again, people listened and things finally changed, not because of religion, but because it was the right thing to do. Just like most Christians and jews refrain from killing people, not because a commandment says so, but because thats how we humans work. But still, there are those who think thats why we dont all just kill eachother, and even those who thinks thats why they dont kill their neighbour , but obviously, thats not it.