To me, the video sorta oversells the difficulty in identifying / escaping from "ridiculous claims", at least in comparison to my personal experiences.

I grew up in a very religious (Christian, Methodist) family / city / state / country. I was questioning the indoctrination at an early age (younger than 10), and rejecting it due to never receiving satisfactory answers to those questions by ~12. Actually, one of the most significant pushes for me was the ultimate reward/punishment thing. Zero consistency and open contradictions between different religions / sects / sources, etc. In symbolic logic, contradictions mean that one of your premises is wrong. Reconsider what you "know" and try again.

With regards to atheism vs (a)gnosticism, technically I'm an agnostic because I don't know with absolute certainty that there is no god / gods out there. However, in practice, I easily and comfortably would rather self-identify as an atheist. Why, when I don't know for certain? Because I also don't know that there isn't an Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Loch Ness Monster, or Leprechauns, yet I don't feel compelled to tell people that I'm "agnostic" about those things. No. They are pretty clearly human-invented bullshit, with readily apparent human motivations behind their invention. Sounds like religion to me.

That's basically Russel's teapot.

Santa Clause Bernie.

Trumpism is winning on all fronts.

Free school, free healthcare, 15$/hr, Everyone will have a government job if they need a job.

Socialism works great till you run out of others people money.


Other than fixing the jail system this guy is dead wrong.

Three stages to a man's life.

1. He believes in Santa Claus.
2. He doesn't believe in Santa Claus.
3. He becomes Santa Claus.

And Santa Claus is real.

@harlequinn

Yeeeaaaaaah...

Judging by the incoherent rambling of that last post, it looks like I struck a nerve. I mean, come on man. You claim you can't remember everything you read, but in this case you somehow didn't remember that the Christian god is omnipotent--a fundamental doctrine of every major denomination of Christianity in existence today? That's seriously your defense?

Quit your bullshit. You tried to shut down @newtboy and got yourself shut down instead. I'm sure that's frustrating and contributed to the nonsensical nature of that last post, but still....

To answer in all seriousness your subsequent questions:

1) Yes, atheism has brought me immense peace. It felt great to let go of religion--Christianity specifically--especially all the guilt-tripping and fire-and-brimstone bullshit that went along with it. As a side bonus, I felt relieved that I was no longer financially subsidizing a bunch of pedophiles (I left long before the major scandals broke in mainstream media).

2) No, I'm not angry but I am certainly annoyed at all the numb nuts who keep blowing themselves up, discriminating against the LGBT community, and trying to tell women what they can and can't do with their bodies using only their Bronze Age (or older in the case of religions like Hinduism and Buddhism) superstitious beliefs as the rationale for their behavior.

3) No, I am not vegan. Just had fried chicken for dinner tonight.

4) Yes, I had to Google the exact passages but I knew the bible said somewhere that god was omnipotent because, as a former Christian, I'd read through it several times before. Sorry to hear you are so "forgetful" about the holy text that forms the backbone of your religion. Actually, I know you're not forgetful; the point the guy in the video is making is that most Christians choose not to look at the parts of the bible they don't like or even worse make ridiculous convoluted arguments to try to explain them away (as you tried to do here in explaining away god's omnipotence/omniscience).

Moving on, the "tenability" of Christianity has nothing to do with "Tradition." The whole thing is a house of cards. It doesn't matter in the slightest whether you want to interpret any holy text in the world literally or through some collective interpretation by an ostensibly educated priest-class. What makes all religion untenable is the fact that it is 100% made up bullshit. There is as much evidence for the existence of a Christian god as there is for Zeus, Thor, Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy (i.e. none).

Finally, no, I don't need to come up with a system to replace religion. It already exists and it is called "using reason and compassion." The idea itself that we need some system to control us or protect us from ourselves is archaic and frankly anachronistic in this day and age.

Now, I mean this in all seriousness--I wish you the best. I was you once, a long time ago, trying to stave off the cognitive dissonance of being a rationale human being yet also believing in a religion. I'd argue with atheists just like you're trying to do now. But the thing is... they made good arguments. The stuff they pointed out stuck with me. At first I'd shrug it off, but the facts nagged at me and nagged at me until I finally set out to prove those pesky atheists wrong--only to find out through research that everything they were saying was 100% correct.

Like I said in the previous post, you'll either face the facts or turn away and hide from them. I can't tell you if you'd be happier or not without religion--no one can. What I can tell you is that at the very least you would no longer be contributing to a collective hive-mind that has very real and very negative effects on the world we live in, regardless of whatever benefits the religion may bring to you personally. Either way, I sincerely wish you peace.

Your video, Liam Neeson Auditions For Mall Santa Claus, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

The problem isn't just Twitter. It's sheepish mankind. We are becoming a society that thinks private corporations, that want our clicks and personal information, are trustworthy news sources. We tend to ignore that these companies are enablers of well-being, well-thinking, by serving us what we want to see and hear. Why? So we click their links and tell them about ourselves. So they can sell ads and data for mining in regards to customer behaviour.
We might as well ask umbrella maker for the weather forecast and your racist uncle for advice on immigration policy. But then...
we have the Facebooks and Twitters of the world at our disposal.

And now everyone is upset that we've been told it might rain and mexicans want to steal our jobs. We're upset because things we read online aren't always true. Maybe Santa Clause and that nigerian Prince who e-mailed me aren't for real either.

What passes as news today is quite often nothing more than a 14 year old girl professing her believe that Becky is a total slut. It's gossip. And that why pedophiles working for Hillary Clinton hang out in Pizzashops. Let's go investigate.

That's how you get ants Trump!

I know exactly why I'm a misanthrope.

What BS slant. The issue is the same on non violent people stuck on the no fly list who who would not be able to defend their families.


So Santa Clause did not win but his elf Hillary did.

Try is right and Bernie is not it.

Cruz and Trump will lead America out of Democrat failure.

Education-- 50+ years of democrat control.. Failed

Santa Clause Bernie is incapable of changing the status quo.
Same goes for Hillary.

A guy who went to Russia for his honeymoon.

Guess Santa Clause is real and running for president.

Oh no!!

Will Santa Claus still visit me there? Or the Easter Bunny?

Maybe the loch ness monster will be there! Or a republican presidential candidate with an IQ above 50....

Not a dilemma at all actually. What we will tell them, whether it be with the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, or Jesus Christ, is that some other parents believe some things that we don't, and they teach those things to their children.

We are fortunate to know some people who were raised with parents who were truthians and hearing how they handled all those things makes it clear not only that it is possible but how it's possible to raise a child in an environment of ~total honesty.

(Funnily [to me] is that one such guy I know told me how his parent told him, "We will never lie to you so you can always know that what we tell you is the truth. That's how you know Jesus Christ is really your lord and savior." LMFAHS. If you're wondering, yes, he's a die hard Christian.)

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians - dubbed has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals on that post.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians - Cinematic Titanic MST3K has been added as a related post - related requested by PlayhousePals.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Santa-Claus-Conquers-the-Martians-Cinematic-Titanic