Fusionaut, they actually address your arguments in one of their videos. They claim to take the ten commandments literally, and say all the new texts that offer easy repentance are bogus. That you're only repenting to a fellow man, not the Big-G himself.

Kirk continues to be a growing pain.

In addition to being complete morons these fools are also bad christians. The "are you a good person test" asks if you are a good enough person to get into heaven. But if they actually read a bible once in a while they might come across this. Whoever that criminal on the cross was probably didn't follow very many of the ten commandments yet he was allowed to enter paradise. All he had to do was ask. Another verse they might find handy is this one.

They are so narrow minded they can't possibly be dissuaded from their false beliefs. Don't they know that the truth will set them free? (see what I did there?)

Also, using their scriptures against them is awesome. Read your own references, idiots. Man, these guys are annoying. This is one of those vids that you upvote because you hate it.

If a courthouse had a display of a dozen different ancient law codes, and the ten commandments was one of them, I don't think it would be a problem for most atheists. The problem is when that is the ONLY one displayed, especially in the form of a 2.6-ton granite monument.

Atheists need to be more willing to acknowledge America's historical roots. America's formative underpinnings were always steeped in Judeo-Christian values. The 10 commandments are THE document that epitomizes the origins of both values and laws for that culture. Atheists need to lighten up in that respect. To have a courthouse want to pay homage to one of the most important documents in Judeo-Christian legal history is not a big deal.

That said - if the ONLY thing American courts ever displayed were the 10 commandments then atheists would have a point. But of course that is not true and never was. Courts, schools, and public locations frequently display a great variety of thoughts from many cultures. The 10 Commandments are simply the stock in a stew as far as that goes.

And if you take another look at the ten commandments, only two of them (murder and theft) are still against the law.

It's still the most important 'document' in regards to the historical origins of the values & rules that the courts hew towards. Honoring your parents, not coveting other people's property, telling the truth, and honoring your marriage vows are values very much pertinent today - atheist or not. The 10 commandments have a religious half (1st five) and a behavior half (2nd five). Atheists only have a problem with the 'I am your god, no idols, keep the Sabbath' bit.

And I also think it is highly unlikely that your local library would be able to post "God is dead." on the wall. But I'm glad to hear you would let it slide if they did.

I have never understood why people get so offended just by someone daring to have a different point of view. I'm not so insecure in my values that I dare not see the smack of some other value system. Are atheists so insecure that passing by a stone block 10 phrases on it is going to give them religious cooties? Are Christians really so weak that the sight of a billboard is going to turn all their kids into atheists? Feh!

Any person who demands that different points of view be 'removed' from their presence because they disagree with them is nothing but a coward. I was exposed to the beliefs of all kinds of philosophers, thinkers, and cultures at school. I didn't go around whining about it when I ran up against positions and ideas that I disagreed with, or that I thought were a load of hogwash. Oh no - someone is praying to Allah in my high-school! That's a violation of my 'rights' to be exposed to that! Pht - please - only a coward thinks that way.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I disagree. The locations you mention have quotations & images of philosophers, historical figures, poets, authors, actors, atheletes, and public figures of all kinds. Some (not all) of those displays have origins in religion. The historical role of religion in government and law is important. It is part of our culture. For a modern court or school to give a nod & pay homage to that role is not a slap in the face of any particular belief system, nor is it 'advocating' any particular religion.
When a library somewhere puts up a pithy quote from Frued, Nietzsche, or some other sectarian it isn't a big deal to me - even if I disagree with the overall senitment. It doesn't make me want to 'join' an organization that respects the subject. They are just tipping a hat to 'good advice' and great people & events from our shared history. To suggest that some images/quotes/events/displays should be banned because they happen to have their origins in religion is censorship of the worst kind - and people who claim to be 'open minded' should be ashamed to have any part of it.


If a courthouse had a display of a dozen different ancient law codes, and the ten commandments was one of them, I don't think it would be a problem for most atheists. The problem is when that is the ONLY one displayed, especially in the form of a "2.6-ton granite monument".

And if you take another look at the ten commandments, only two of them (murder and theft) are still against the law. Well, two and a half, since bearing false witness is sometimes illegal. If you want to "give a nod" to it, fine, but others try to claim it's the "foundation" of our legal system (as in the article). Twenty five percent congruity is not a foundation, and I doubt there is a religion or philosophy where those actions aren't condemned. So "give a nod" to all of the other ones, too.

And I also think it is highly unlikely that your local library would be able to post "God is dead." on the wall. But I'm glad to hear you would let it slide if they did.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Aren't atheists always the ones saying that there shouldn't be public displays of belief - and that anything that even HINTS at a person's belief system is 'insensitive' and 'inappropriate'?



Ummmm No.

Atheists are the ones saying that there shouldn't be displays of religious beliefs on public property like courthouses, schools, libraries gov't buildings. There's a big difference. If you want to shove your religion in my face by paying for a billboard or sticking a Jesus is Lord bumper sticker on your car, feel free. But don't hang the ten commandments on the courthouse wall (especially if you can't even name them)

I cannot believe that half the world's population would be stupid enough to deny full understanding of evolution and the development of the universe if they truly understood what the evidence for it was. Remember he's talking about "young earth" creationists. The vast majority of theists that I know accept that the world is extremely old and that evolution is how the living creatures got to their current state. They just believe that god used those as tools and that the bible was written using metaphors. Therefor the insult is going to a small but vocal population of stubbornly ignorant fools, and I agree with Dawkins that there is nothing more disgraceful than a stubbornly ignorant person. It denies the intelligence that separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom.

As for "conforming", perhaps "compromise" is a better word. In the sense that we would have to compromise our standards of teaching only evidence based science in the science classrooms. That we would have to compromise our policy of maintaining a religion-neutral government when we put the ten commandments in a courthouse. They are trying to force us to stoop to their level when they insist that their magical thinking is on the same level as evidence and rationality.

Clearly there are benefits from having faith, people who have a deep faith tend to live morally righteous lives, and people who "find" faith, tend to right their wrongs. The ten commandments are just a good set of ideas to follow to live longer. The problem I have with faith, most religions for that matter, is that the stupidest people seem to be attracted to it, as its pointed out in this video. It's all a crutch, though. A place holder for your decision making process. Any thing the bible can tell you, could have been just as easily produced by your own mind. The want to act better, the urge to live an honest life... It's all there in front of you and a book has little to do with it.

Most of the arguments for why a "God" exists are baseless and easily refutable... but you assume the person you are dealing with is on the same level of willingness to understand that you are or that you need them to be in order to make a meaningful decision. The biggest problem, and this stands for all humans, is that you can't reason with the unreasonable. People who are stupid enough to blindly follow some poorly written, and poorly re-written book are lying to themselves anyways, and probably have no interest or aren't capable of understanding logic and evidence.

This video is really for the benefit of people who already know that you can't prove "God" exists, What they need to do is make a video explaining how to snap the masses out of this 2000 year brain washing. I'm thinking something with a lot of colors and pictures of animals.

>> ^Jesus_Freak:
Wow. I'm accused of making lazy arguments, when some of the best you guys can throw at me is that we have 100% odds of living on the planet we live on under the conditions that currently exist. That's not lazy?
"Well, we're here, so how we got here is irrelevant."

Let's be clear about this. No scientist has ever or would ever say that "how" we got here is irrelevant. Why do you think so many people are fighting to make sure natural selection and the theory of evolution are taught in schools?

No, what's irrelevant is the "odds" against life developing. As with an earlier example that you seem to have ignored (big surprise), imagine you roll a die a thousand times and write down the numbers you get in order. Now show that list to someone and say "What are the odds against rolling those numbers in that exact order?" The odds against it would be enormous! But that doesn't mean God made those numbers happen, it happened because the die was rolled and there was a record. It doesn't matter what the odds against doing it again are, because it already happened. It took an estimated 13.7 billion years for life to develop to this point. A whole lot of crazy shit can happen in that amount of time, with an estimated 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars and who knows how many planets and moons around each star?

So what are the odds against you having rolled that sequence of numbers on the die? Zero. It happened. There are no odds against it. The odds against it happening again may be huge, but it happened once and there's no wagering against that. So the odds against life developing on Earth? Zero. It happened. Pick something else to base your silly arguments on.


"I do take exception to how off-handedly dismiss the Bible, though. The Bible has been validated through historical accuracy of events depicted, is a unique document in all of human history, and is validated through the fulfillment of prophecy over time."

There are massive and glaring historical inaccuracies, or at the very least, completely uncorroborated by contemporary historians. There is no evidence of Herod's Massacre of the Innocents, no evidence that a "city" named Nazareth existed at that time, no evidence that there was a tradition of letting a prisoner go free (when the crowd supposedly chose Barabbas instead of Jesus), no record of a disruption in the temple during passover (when Jesus drove out the money changers), no record of a prophet who had thousands of people going to listen to him.

There were a number of good writers in those times, many of whom wrote on the events of the times. Nobody mentioned a person resembling Jesus at all until many decades after his supposed death.


"The lazy argument probably on the tip of your tongue is that the Bible has been altered a bazillion times to make it look like it got the story right. You've got quite a steep slope to climb to make that argument. The Bible includes 40 authors, 3 languages, 3 continents, and a authorship span of 1500 years. Studies have verified that the transcripts have held up without material alteration according to the earliest known records."

You are off your rocker. All you have to do is look at a few passages from a few different translations to know that is complete bunk. Consider for instance the most famous of the ten commandments: Thou shalt not kill - King James Version. That is also translated as "You shall not murder." (New International Version) Consider the difference between killing someone and murdering someone. Killing can be self defense, or what a soldier does in war. So making a new translation that uses the word "murder" instead will allow priests the justification to let people go become soldiers, or perhaps use the death penalty ("It's not murder, it's justice.") Huge difference in just that one translation, and you think that doesn't happen all over the bible? You know nothing. And religion depends on you remaining ignorant and pliant. Why do you think it took so long to translate the bible into English? Because before that happened, the priests had complete and utter control over the interpretation. Now they have to twist the words around and create convoluted justifications for weird stories there. It's not as easy, and fewer people are buying their bullshit every day.


"I'm still not impressed with the answers."

You won't be impressed with anything that anyone has to tell you about the truth behind religion until you stop holding on to the idea that blind faith is a good thing. Faith in something without any evidence is never considered a good thing by anybody, with the sole exception of religion.

If you want to be impressed, start looking for real evidence that what you believe about God is true. And when you find that there is none, anywhere, except for the dubious scribblings of some unknown authors many centuries ago, maybe then you'll be impressed. But I suspect your head is just too far under the sand for that to happen.


"If you want to get into a theological debate on whether my Bible is rubbish...I ask a similar question. Why would Jesus' disciples subject themselves to being cultural outcasts and ultimately suffer fates of excile and execution if they didn't truly believe in the message? Wouldn't at least one of them, seeing their reflection in the executioner's sword, yell out "Just kidding!" unless they passionately knew theirs was the most important message of all time?"

You don't know the bible at all do you? "And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly." Who knows how many others abandoned their belief after supposedly being in the presence of the Christ himself, and we are all asked to devote our lives to him without even having met the guy? Again I call bullshit. If God wants me to believe in him, he can come tell me why himself.

But the messages I'm getting lately are quite the opposite. Just a few years ago I discovered there is no evidence outside of the bible that the person we call Jesus even existed.

"The Bible depicts Herod, the Ruler of Jewish Palestine under Rome as sending out men to search and kill the infant Jesus, yet nothing in history supports such a story. Pontius Pilate supposedly performed as judge in the trial and execution of Jesus, yet no Roman record mentions such a trial. The gospels portray a multitude of believers throughout the land spreading tales of a teacher, prophet, and healer, yet nobody in Jesus' life time or several decades after, ever records such a human figure. The lack of a historical Jesus in the known historical record speaks for itself."

- Jim Walker, nobeliefs.com

The Jews were very good record keepers, and these glaring omissions are very telling.

On the other hand, there are many, many legendary mythological figures, from Mithras to Hercules, that have a very similar story to Jesus. I see absolutely no reason why Jesus isn't just one more myth that will eventually fade into time and be taught along side Greek and Roman mythology.

To counterweight the amazing stupidity and ignorance on display in this video, I suggest you now go listen to Christopher Hitchens on morality and the "ten commandments" over at this page:

http://www.rom.on.ca/media/podcasts/display.php?id=78

1. http://www.videosift.com/video/George-Carlin-Ten-Commandments
2. http://www.videosift.com/video/Hadoken

I don't remember what came after that, so I'll just make a few suggestions...

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Power-of-Nightmares-part-1
http://www.videosift.com/video/Adam-Ferraras-girlfriend-moves-in
http://www.videosift.com/video/Wassup-Holmes-the-illest-detective

Fixed embed with the entire interview segment from The Colbert Report; the Ten Commandments question is at the end, around the 4:50 mark.

Your video, Battle for the Ten Commandments, has made it into your personal Highest Rated Videos listing. Congratulations on a job well done. For you contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I considered myself to be an a-political agnostic before the religious right started pushing creationism in schools again. That issue, as well as a few smaller issues like displaying the Ten Commandments in courthouses, pushed me to take a harder look at my stance, and read a few more books about science and atheism.

So I guess one could say that if it weren't for outspoken religious nutjobs, I would never have become an outspoken atheist.

By the way, most atheists aren't claiming that there is no God, just that religions created by humans are all absurd.

>> ^BisH0p69:
>> ^spoco2:
Brilliant... I mean really, all well and good if you're Christian, Muslim, whatever... but keep it OUT of a swearing in of a president... MAN, PLEASE... can we get rid of this singular belief crap from these ceremonies?
Upvote this all the way to the top? Please?

I gotta say this felt so out of place during the ceremony. I don't understand, the US, being supposedly secular by design, has these VERY religious bits during the swearing in of its president (seperation of church and state anyone?)


On the same principle as a judge not being allowed to put up a monument to the ten commandments in his courtroom, religious content in the inauguration could not not withstand legal challenge. The president can believe whatever privately and worship however he wants privately, but he can't use his position of governmental power to grandstand for a religion during official government ceremonies. It violates the establishment clause in the same way as a Judge putting up a monument to the 10 commandments in his courtroom. The way the inauguration has been conducted violates at least two prongs of the Lemon test.

those moralities are based are deeply rooted in religious belief.

This reminds me, what are the FOUR first of the Ten Commandments all about again?

Oh yea, keeping your shelves in order, isnt it?

So, if you, God forbid, have your morality "deeply rooted" in religion, you should be an excellent target for this video. If you are an atheist, and have a secular understanding of morality, we have no commandments that says "Thou shalt have NO gods" or any nonsense like that. We do have one important one tho "Thou shall keep thy religion to thyself"

As they say: Dont preach in my school, and I wont think in your church.