People still claim health benefits from circumcision. Why? so you too can mutilate your kids? One nurse told us (about our newborn) to pull the foreskin back regularly to clean underneath! Craziness! The doctor told us pull it back no more than enough to expose the tip for any cleaning. That foreskin stays put and seals off the rest of the head until you are horny enough in puberty to pull it back yourself (not very painful when you are horny, believe me). This is probably similar in function to the hymen in that it makes for a smaller chance of an infection.

I have lived in the USA for most of my life. My uncircumcised penis has never caused me any bother. When I try to tell Europeans about how many babies are circumcised here in the USA they are like "there's not THAT many Jewish people in the USA". They cannot comprehend why it would be done if you don't have those crazy belief systems.

The laws in Leviticus do not apply to Christians; they were for Israel, for that time and place only. That was the Old Covenant, and Christians are under the New Covenant. In the New Testament, Romans 1:24-27, I Timothy 1:10, I Cor. 6:9-10, and Jude 7 clearly identify homosexuality as a sin. So, immediately his diatribe about shellfish and menstration is a strawman, because none of that applies to Christians in the first place.

In regards to slavery, Dan is purposefully misreprenting the bible, because it does not endorse it. In the Old Testament, there are rules that govern the treatment of slaves in Israel, but in Israel, slavery was not the same thing as it was in modern times. Slavery there was essentially a kind of profession, where people would sell themselves into slavery to have daily food and shelter in exchange for their labor.

Dan is also deliberately misrepresenting what the New Testament says about slavery. For one, Paul did say there are no slaves:

Colossians 3:11

Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all

The bible says that every person has intrinsic worth and value. It says that all people are made in the image of God and He doesn't love the poor man any less than the rich man. In fact very often it condemns the rich man.

Dan also deliberately misrepresents what Paul wrote in the letter to Philemon, because it is the exact opposite of what he implied! Paul told Philemon to let his slave go, and if need be, Paul would compensate him out of his own pocket. Paul told Philemon that his slave had far more value as a free man, and what he said was actually a command to let him go.

Philemon 1:14-21

But I was willing to do nothing without your consent, that your goodness would not be as of necessity, but of free will. For perhaps he was therefore separated from you for a while, that you would have him forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much rather to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

If then you count me a partner, receive him as you would receive me. But if he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, put that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it (not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self besides). Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in the Lord. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even beyond what I say

As far as the reactions from some of the people in this thread go, it's very typical of the sift. The fact is, many of its most vocal members are self-admitted anti-theists. The sift loves videos that bash Christians, and loves anyone who says nasty things against the bible or Christians in general. It doesn't matter if its true, or if it even makes any sense; people who bash Christians and the bible are instant heros here. A pretense of tolerance and equality is brought up when these subjects come up, but hypocritically Christians are always exempt, and often there is a "string em up" mentality as we see in this thread. That the sift denies this was inappropiate, especially at a conference about anti-bullying, is the least surprising thing I've seen today.

Let's face facts..if it were a Christian speaker saying things in a similar tone and manner to a group of homosexuals, it would be as if the world had ended, and many here would be calling for the speaker to be crucified.

Male Mormon babies are circumcised--not by church doctrine but by prevalent custom.

Also, the monster you see in the video is a Tokoloshe - look him on Wikipedia.

>> ^EndAll:

To give some of the stuff in the video a bit more context, there's this further explanation from Xeni Jardin in the comments on BoingBoing:
So, the story behind this video and song (or part of the story -- there's so much going on!) is that this kid was being coerced into a form of ritual circumcision by his community. It's culturally mandatory within his ethnic group, so much so that if you are a young man and you do not participate, you are completely ostracized. It's hardcore.
The thinking, and this is communicated pretty bluntly to the young men, is that if you don't participate, you're gay. You're effeminate. You're not a real man. You never mature from being a boy to being a man.
The kid is hetero. And he struggled with all of this in real life: with what it meant for his personal and cultural identity. And he came to a point where he was like, you know what? Fuck you all. The fact that I won't consent to having my penis sliced with an unsterilized knife, out in the bush, and risk infection or worse-- that doesn't mean "I'm gay," as you say. If that's what being a man is, fuck it, I don't want to be a man. I'll be an "evil boy for life." But, yeah, I am a real man, even if I don't participate in this tradition which I now reject, at the risk of being totally ostracized from my community.
You might have chosen different lyrics, but dude, it's not our story or our culture or our world experience at all.
It's his.

I know he was aware his life depended on it, but that was still a pretty speedy recovery, given the circumcision circumstances.

The First Amendment protects the rights of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition. However, it does not mean that anything goes.

For example, speech is a fundamentally protected right. But I cannot publish a false account of your business making me sick without repercussions - e.g., libel and slander.

And while religion is fundamentally protected as well, it does not mean anything and everything any religion does is okay - e.g., polygamy or female circumcision.

These are the facts.

Does not work for male circumcision.

I'm not at all a scholar of the bible. I've read parts, I've been to
Sunday school before i was confirmed (age 14) and I have at times had
fun reading it.

Well, I would encourage you to try to understand it. Every conversation I've ever had with an atheist about the bible either brings up the same five things from the old testament or their doubts about who wrote the bible..and that's it. I've never actually spoken to an atheist, and I've spoken to many atheists, who even understood the basics. I think that if you're going to criticize something, you should at least try to understand it at a basic level..maybe that's just me. Although, the lack of understanding matches what the bible says, that the truth is spiritually discerned. Without the Holy Spirit, the atheist is going to find it fairly impossible to comprehend.

Arguing from authority is not a strong argument. Just because "the
intellectual scholarship" is much greater than I understand, doesn't
change what the book says. And since new evidence is not uncovered, it
is what it is, you are forced to "interpret new evidence" and that's
not the way the world works.

What you, and many others try to imply, is that what is the bible is simplistic, and for people without any intellectual standards. The truth is that what is in the bible is complex, and it takes a real intellect (supplanted with godly wisdom) to be able to understand it. The intellectual scholarship is vast because the bible is inexaustible. It functions as a cogent whole, and address all the deep questions that human beings have. It is not simple by any stretch of the imagination.

1) Personal evidence cannot be verified. What things were revealed to
you before you ever read or understood them? How were they revealed,
what was revealed, how did you later understand them / where did you
read them?

I would like to understand your thought process, which is why I ask.

Is it possible that you already had a forgone conclusion when you read
X, and therefore you interpreted X the way you wanted?

God had revealed to me through signs that He is a triune God, and that He has a Messiah, someone whose job it is to save the world. So when I finally read the bible, those signs are what initially confirmed it to be true. I didn't have any foregone conclusions about the bible before I read it. I had no actual idea what Christianity was all about.

What happened? How has your life improved, what did you do before,
what do you do now? How can you tell that it happened supernaturally?
Is there any difference from that to just having a profound change of
heart. If you are talking about addiction, it is possible to fill the
void of that addiction with other things - some people exchange
cigarettes with food, why not religion/faith? Does your faith take up
as much of your time as "the unhealthy things" you did before?

Before I became a Christian I was a theist, and before I was a theist I was an agnostic. When I became a theist my bad behavior didn't change. I was like Enoch, in that I believed that none of the religions were true, or that all of them just had pieces of who God is. I believed in a God that loved you the way you are and didn't particularly enforce any kind of behavior upon you, as long as your heart was in the right place. I would think that God, knowing me intimately, and knowing my good intentions, was very understanding if I did something which was out of line. Of course God is very patient with all of us, but the point is that I had plenty of faith in God at the time, and spent my time thinking about Him and pursuing the truth. The difference is that once I accepted Jesus into my heart as my Lord and Savior, everything changed.

It was only when I became a Christian that my behavior changed, and much of that practically overnight. When you're born again, you are spiritually cleansed and start out with a blank slate. You become like new. I had addictions, depression, anger, pain, sadness, and other issues that left me in short order. Some of those things I never thought I would give up, some of them I never wanted to give up, but I immediately lost the desire for them. It was a change of heart; God gave me a new one. It was supernatural because as I said, I didn't do any work. People spend their entire lives in therapy or counseling and spend tens of thousands of dollars or more to get rid of just some of these problems, and often don't see any results. I lost almost all of my baggage in just a few short months.

3) Not really. It only accounts for a visual interpretation of how men act. The writers of it has observed how people act and guessed at reasons why that is. Some are close to reality, some are way off. Which human behaviors does it predict? How and where does it describe in finite detail how those behaviors are created? I'm looking for actual citations here, because this is complete news to me.

It predicts all kinds of human behaviors by describing the mechanisms which motivate them to act. It shows the fundemental dichotomy of the heart of man. As an example:

James 3:3-10

When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

and

Matthew 12:34

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

and

Matthew 15:19-20

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

4) I disagree. It describes a point of view. The morality of the God of the bible is hardly any good morality. We have an ingrown moral compass, I can agree on that, it's been naturally selected against because it helped our ancestors to survive and procreate. "His moral law" is atrocious, if the bible is any indicator.

If everyone followed the morality that Jesus taught us, this planet would be as close to a utopia it could possibly get. He taught us to love one another, to forgive as a rule, to do good to even those who hate you, to help everyone in need, and to follow the moral law. Your idea of Gods morality being atrocious is plainly false. The passages that you feel are atrocious have an explanation, its just whether you want to hear them or not. As far as natural selection goes, all it cares about is passing on its genes. That is the only criteria for success. This doesn't explain noble behavior in the least, such as sacrificing your life for someone else. That's a bad way to pass on your genes.

5) Which prophecies have been fulfilled? You don't think Israel chose their currency based on the bible instead? Which captivities have been prophecied down to the year and where in the bible?

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/552/


6) This is hardly uncontested. There are parts of the bible that seem to be true, but because some of it is true, does not mean that all of it is. http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/982front.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_history#Historical_accuracy_of_biblical_stories

It's positive evidence in the bibles favor when it is verified by archaelogical evidence. There are many things in the bible that historians denied were true in the bible, like the hittite civilization, until archaelogy proved the bible correct.

7) Citation needed. Saying that the universe has a beginning is hardly proof of anything. That's the easy way to say it, anyone apart from earlier theories said that, so of course they did it in there too. In actuality the bible claims that God is eternal, which there is no basis for.

These claims are just claims, there is no basis for saying them in the bible. Blood clotting could be found by trial and error back then, ocean currents can to a great extent be measured by fishermen even back then. Scientists who believed in an eternal universe have since changed their mind, when evidence discredited the theory. It's all about being able to back up your claims. the bible just claims.

This guy discovered and mapped the ocean currents, and he did so being inspired by psalm 8, which is the one that mentions the "paths of the seas"

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

Abraham didn't learn from trial and error. They were doing circumcisions on the 8th day from the beginning.

You must think something is eternal, unless you believe something came from nothing. So your problem isn't really with eternal things, just an eternal person.

Here is a list of them

http://www.inplainsite.org/html/scientific_facts_in_the_bible.html

8 ) How did you experience the holy spirit?

It's really impossible quite impossible to describe since it effects every level of your being at the same time, but experientially you could say it's like going from 110 to 220v. It's like you lived all your life being covered in filth and suddenly you're washed off and sparkling clean. It's like being remade into something brand new.

>> ^gwiz665

I am very open-minded to new ideas, even though it might not seem like it in my comments here, but that's entirely because no one has yet presented any new ideas with any shred of evidence or backup other than, for instance, the bible which is not a credible source. @shinyblurry, I'm looking at you.

Have you ever read the bible? I've found most critics of the bible haven't actually even read it, much less understood it. Generally, the average atheist will pick through it and find a few things he doesn't like and then turns off his brain at that point. The intellectual scholarship of Christianity is much greater than you understand, and if you studied the bible for an entire lifetime you still wouldn't know everything there is to know that is in it. It is inexaustible.

I'll give you a few reasons why I think the bible is credible. The first two are personal. One, that revelation was given to me about certain facts in the bible, before I ever read or understood it, so that when I did read it, it was instantly confirmed to me as being divinely inspired.

Two, by following the words of Jesus Christ, my life has been completely transformed for the better in every tangible way. I stopped doing many unhealthy things I formally did not have the willpower or inclination to stop doing, and these near instantaneously. There was also a transformation of my character, and a 100 percent cure to any depression that I experienced, that being replaced with joy. None of this was accomplished by hard work on my part; I simply believed in Gods promises and followed His word and it all happened supernaturally through the Holy Spirit. The experience I've had matches the promises to the letter.

Three, the bible accurately describes the human condition. It lays bare the nature of man and describes the fundemental dichotomies of his existence. It accurately predicts human behavior and describes in finite detail the mechanisms that create those behaviors.

Four, the bible accurately describes the moral realm. It shows that right and wrong is intuitive to human nature, being that each of us has a God given conscience that knows right from wrong. This matches the universal norms of morality we see in all human civilizations. It also matches my experience, that although humans can justify any kind of behavior, that there is a sense of absolute right and wrong which precedes any intellectual calculation. It further illustrates the moral responsibility we have to our Creator, because sin transgresses His moral law. That the guilty conscience you have is foremost because you have offended a holy God, and the things you think you have gotten away with are really the chains that bind you.

Five, the bible has much fulfilled prophecy, starting with all of the prophecies of the Messiah, which Jesus fulfilled hundreds and in some cases over a 1000 years after they were written. There are also prophecies about israel going into captivity at certain times down to the year, the destruction of Jerusalem, the recent reformation of Israel, accurately predicting even the very currency it would be using.

Six, that it is historically accurate, and has been verified by archaelogy literally 10s of thousands of times. The people, places and civilizations in the bible have been confirmed as being real and existing as described, and this over much scoffing and skepticism over the centuries.

Seven, that it contains certain facts about the world that simply could not have been known at the time, such as information about the hydrologic cycle, ocean currents and springs, the right day for circumcision (on the 8th day the chemicals for blod clotting are at their highest peak), that the earth is free floating in space, the uncountable number of stars (at the time they thought that they could put a number to it by counting the ones we can see), etc..or at the most basic, that it says the Universe had a beginning, which science didn't figure out until more recently..and scientists actually used to use their belief in an eternal Universe to discredit the bible..

One of the biggest confirmations was that I received the Holy Spirit. That alone confirms everything Jesus said is true. It is something tangible and is an experiential experience that isn't simply wishful thinking. More than an experience, it is to know God personally, because His Spirit dwells within you.

Lastly, and most importantly, is the person of Jesus Himself. His words outrank by a vast degree any earthly wisdom, and expose the vain philosophies of man as foolish and futile. His words are a fountain of life, living and active, and they set the standard for all human discourse. Indeed, they are the words this civilization is built upon. The transforming power they have had on the world and in the hearts of men is beyond dispute, and direct proof of their pure truth. To follow the example of Jesus is the most difficult thing any person could ever try to do (indeed it is impossible without supernatural help) and it is also the most rewarding (as in eternally). In truth, they are the only words that lead to life. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

So, these are a few reasons I think the bible is credible. What I can tell you is that without the Holy Spirit you will never understand it, because it is truth that comes by supernatural revelation. Feel free to disagree, but I was once in your position, and believed much the same things about the bible. You just cannot imagine how far off you are from understanding it until that veil is removed from your eyes.

>> ^gwiz665

I especially enjoy when he doesn't just argue for another point of view, but holds a mirror up to his opponent and calls them out on the concept they're espousing, telling them point blank how low he thinks they've sunk in defense of some ugly nonsense. Examples being the jokes about circumcision, and god monitoring your thoughts to incriminate you unless you beg forgiveness, etc.

The incredible amount of garbage and lies the faithful try to pass off as something based in reality requires nothing less than a generous portion of Hitchslapping.

maybe if it is your child who is genitally mutilated you will stop and think about what the reason is for this complete lack of human dignity
>> ^hpqp:

Stay classy. (<-- that's about all the time I feel like wasting on your ignorant drivel)
>> ^CaptainPlanet:

frankly your disgust comes off a bit conceited. Genital mutilation, or the mutilation of genitals, is never ok. as someone who claims to 'oppose' circumcision, how can you look in the mirror and see anything but an ugly face hypocrite? some people are so 'open minded' their brains really do fall out
as per your Brazilian girl, i'm sure she would love for you to tell her it was "elective surgery", bitch-fuck-holeintheass
you also said that you are lazy, which i am inclined to agree with. anyone who can quote laws strictly dictating these disgusting procedures not be administered to anyone under 18 and at the same time intentionally over looks the fact that the woman in question is 16, is a lazy piece of shit and hope you dead

Stay classy. (<-- that's about all the time I feel like wasting on your ignorant drivel)
>> ^CaptainPlanet:


frankly your disgust comes off a bit conceited. Genital mutilation, or the mutilation of genitals, is never ok. as someone who claims to 'oppose' circumcision, how can you look in the mirror and see anything but an ugly face hypocrite? some people are so 'open minded' their brains really do fall out
as per your Brazilian girl, i'm sure she would love for you to tell her it was "elective surgery", bitch-fuck-holeintheass
you also said that you are lazy, which i am inclined to agree with. anyone who can quote laws strictly dictating these disgusting procedures not be administered to anyone under 18 and at the same time intentionally over looks the fact that the woman in question is 16, is a lazy piece of shit and hope you dead