@quantumushroom

I think you're looking for the word "empathy" when writing REspect.

1) Strawman attack. Nothing in the letter suggests what you're accusing it of.

2) No, replace "religion" with "white supremacy" (or any other form of stupid ideology) and the conclusions remain the same, without the speaker being an idiot. Atheists are smarter than religious people within the domains mentioned.

3)You have two points here that have nothing to do one with the other. First: most religions (including the worst of the lot, i.e. the Abrahamic monotheisms) do exclude all other religions. The farther one moves from this exclusivity, the closer one gets to a religion being a philosophy (e.g. Buddhism, Jainism), or woo (e.g. New Age).
Second: “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” ~ Steven Weinberg

4) Care to explain how atheism is delusional?

Max Weinberg got tan!!

Dawkins, Dennett, McGinn, Miller, Turner and Weinberg - all parts were previously sifted. So is it considered a dupe or not?

Great stuff nonetheless, my favorite was McGinn.

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

Great follow-up. I love how the Max Weinberg 7 slot in as his "band". Those guys were pros.>> ^Duckman33:
Here's a live version on Conan in 2001:

Given the religiously themed title of this post, I have to say, hooray for humanism, and our ability to forgive and treat one another with compassion. and point out that this is NOT something we get from religion, but something religion steals from us. Had this nice man been a believing Christian, for example, he would probably attribute, wrongly, his act of kindness as something he picked up from the emphasis on forgiveness in the new testament. But even though Islamic scripture, to my knowledge, does not emphasize the "turn the other cheek" mentality like Jesus occasionally did, it is pretty safe to assume that this noble behavior by this man was not, as the robberer assumed, because he was religious, but rather despite it.

Steven Weinberg once said: With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion.

With this video, and perhaps Daniel Dennetts excellent near-death article in mind, one could perhaps reverse the slogan, and simply say "With or without religion, for people to do good things - that takes Goodness."

His series found on Videosift:

A Brief History of Disbelief
Part 1
http://www.videosift.com/video/Atheism-A-Brief-History-Of-Disbelief-BBC-documentary-59m
Part 2
http://www.videosift.com/video/Atheism-A-Brief-History-Of-Disbelief-Part-2
Part 3
http://www.videosift.com/video/Atheism-A-Brief-History-of-Disbelief-The-Final-Hour-33

The Atheism Tapes
Daniel Dennett
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atheism-Tapes-Interview-with-Philosopher-Daniel-Dennett
Denys Turner
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atheism-Tapes-Denys-Turner
Richard Dawkins
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atheism-Tapes-Richard-Dawkins
Colin McGinn
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atheism-Tapes-Colin-McGinn
Steven Weinberg
http://www.videosift.com/video/Atheism-Tapes-Steven-Weinberg

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion -Steven Weinberg

People say we need religion when what they really mean is we need police. - H L Mencken

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. - Bertrand Russell

Looks like they are going after all.

http://www.tvsquad.com/2009/02/19/max-weinberg-and-the-max-weinberg-7-are-going-to-la-video/

That's too bad about the Max Weinberg 7. I always liked how the show would do skits featuring one or more members. "Small Talk" moments with Max were hilarious.

>> ^dag:
Just watched the whole episode - it was kind of touching how he thanked so many people at the end. He seems like a truly nice guy. Is Max going with him?
edit: evidently Max is not going with him
http://www.tvsquad.com/2009/02/05/max-weinberg-wont-be-j
oining-conan-when-he-hits-l-a/


Aww. Max was cool.

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

Just watched the whole episode - it was kind of touching how he thanked so many people at the end. He seems like a truly nice guy. Is Max going with him?

edit: evidently Max is not going with him
http://www.tvsquad.com/2009/02/05/max-weinberg-wont-be-joining-conan-when-he-hits-l-a/

>> ^nickreal03:
his guy really doesn't understand anything. The meaning of like is so obvious that it hurts. Fallow steps:
1. Find best mate you can. Marry it.
2. Have children.
3. Educate your children the best you can.
4. Help society by keeping yourself useful.
5. The more you know the most useful you can be.
6. Make people in higher positions than yourself accountable.
7. Demand everyone to get better all the time.
8. Make the world a sustainable one.
9. Think how the human as well as other spices can survive in the worse of events.
10. Execute some of those plans.
The rest is just details. Sorry this list could be compress to a single sentence but I let that to the reader.


While those are positive endeavors, none of them really give insight into the meaning or purpose of life (except possibly having children I guess). Those are more along the lines of self-fulfillment.

Many people feel like they have no direction or ultimate goal in life other than to survive and possibly be "successful", but that's just how life is. Other then a religious view of life, there really isn't a preset direction that a person or all of humanity is designed to take. That idea bothers a lot of people, which is why the search for the "meaning" of life is very important to many, whether it exists or not.

Personally though, the one thing I do foresee the human race creating that will change everything is Artificial Intelligence that completely surpasses the abilities of even the most brilliant human. That is the closest thing I can think of to a "purpose" of life, if you would really call it that.

If you're curious, the AI thing should happen between 2030 and 2050, though some estimates have it occurring even earlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

>> ^nickreal03:
his guy really doesn't understand anything. The meaning of like is so obvious that it hurts. Fallow steps:
1. Find best mate you can. Marry it.
2. Have children.
3. Educate your children the best you can.
4. Help society by keeping yourself useful.
5. The more you know the most useful you can be.
6. Make people in higher positions than yourself accountable.
7. Demand everyone to get better all the time.
8. Make the world a sustainable one.
9. Think how the human as well as other spices can survive in the worse of events.
10. Execute some of those plans.
The rest is just details. Sorry this list could be compress to a single sentence but I let that to the reader.


11. Register for english refresher course at local community college.

>> ^blankfist:
I see the value in Fedquip's position. This whole SiftTalk post was spawned because I discarded one of GreatBird's posts. To me, it's a dupe, although some would and could argue it serves to better make this site a kind of catalog of video content. I think if it lives on the site somewhere else in some capacity then it's a dupe.
Of course, to be honest, I really don't care one way or the other. I'm not gonna sit here and pretend my heart will be broken if the rule changes one way or the other, because it's kind of a trite thing to get my blood boiled over, so I won't. I still think they're dupes, and whenever I post something that is part of another video, and it's brought to my attention, I discard it. Period.
I think the rule should be: if the video you posted is adding more as opposed to showing less of an already existing video, I think the consensus is that you can safely post it. Though, who gives a shit?
--Signed, the apathetic blankfist

...apathy never appeared so long-winded

>> ^blankfist:
This whole SiftTalk post was spawned because I discarded one of GreatBird's posts.

Well, yes and no. I was actually looking for a good Bill Hicks clip, because he's great, and I found one from his Revelations show. I checked the sift to see if there were any dupes. My recent experience with the Stephen Weinberg clip is what sparked my post here. I agree with Fedquip's possition that there is value in short clips even though we have the whole thing. Just look at how well all the other Hicks clips have done.

As an example, I was hanging with some friend and they were watching the new American Gladiator show. That was the perfect opportunity to pull out Hick's American Gladiator post. If I had to go though the whole video I would have lost interest and so would they.

I'm not trying to make waves or anything. I just am looking for some rule-of-thumb consistency in these types of situation.