*quality. Too much atheist douchery on vs.

Awarding dan00108 with one star point for this contribution to VideoSift - declared quality by rasch187.

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

"We all know that the bible is written by humans. We all know that evolution is obvious."

Do we? I seem to be running into quite a few people who don't know that. You make a reasonable case for moderation but I for one believe in the cause of atheism as an important one:

It's important to prevent creationism from being taught as science in schools.

It's important that religious zealots don't prevent women from exercising their reproductive rights.

It's important that we don't let evangelicals proclaim that the United States is a "Christian Nation" and obscure the lines between church and state

It's important that we stand up against using some crappy passages in Leviticus to condemn Gays as abominations

I agree with you dan00108, but it might be easier for me since I'm living in a country with 60+% atheists (and even the religious people mostly have a very loose interpretation). You might know this better than me, but it's still a bit different in the US and religion has taken a very negative influence on politics, especially in the last decade. The separation of church and state doesn't seem all that present regarding certain issues such as gay marriage or abortion. That's why I can understand people's desire to speak out.

What I don't really like is the fact that every aspect of religion is being thrown in one hat and condemned as bad. Many issues are to blame on the churches and their wrong interpretation of their religion, not on religion itself. There are alot of good religious people, who don't take the bible literally and who are open to ideas such as evolution, so I don't think it's right to alienate them and in the end it'll only work against the atheist cause.

In time atheists will become the majority in the US, there's no doubt about that. The only question is how long it'll take.

Religion in its purest form is vicious, manipulative and indeed detrimental to the minds of the people. It is a disease that we must rid ourselves off as quickly as possible to grow as a race.

You don't take the middle road with herpes, hepatitis or even a cold, why should religion be different? What makes religion so special that we have to tolerate it or even accept it? Religion is not just an idea, it's a way of life, a way of influencing morality, actions, interaction with other people. If a cult specialized in mocking black people, we would not fund it with tax dollars, we would tell them that they were wrong and attempt to change their minds. KKK and religions are not different, they just hate in different ways. Christianity hides behind the guise of "love", but still condemns you to eternal hellfire, so that the believers can walk around feeling smugly secure in their afterlife. They still despise you.

Too many people say "oh it will go away by itself", but that's not true - it's been around for a long damn time and it's time to say stop.

There are too few Atheists here and too few in the world! It's time you middle-of-the-road types woke up and chose a side, because the war is on whether you like it or not.

CDM: When religious people are good, they are good in spite of their religion, not because of it.

For the record I am not from America.

I come from a country that has about 80% population that considers itself religious (orthodox). Many of these 80% actually treat religion as I was trying to present it here - not as a final statement in all life but as something that does not hurt to have. I had religion class in school when I was little and I remember that it was never about following word to word what the bible says, but about moral values, about stories in the bible from which we as kids could learn lessons about good and evil and in the end how everything could fit with religion. We also learned that God loves all of his creatures regardless of their belief. This is how I grew not only to respect other peoples religious beliefs but also to let a little bit of room for my own beliefs (closer to agnosticism).

Now I don't know what the situation is in USA... I agree there are many religious people out there that show fanaticism and hypocrisy. American movies portray this kind of behavior a lot.

All the atheist clips on this site are annoying, because they pretty much sing the same song for no one to hear.

P.S. dag, i was referring in that quote to members of the Sift

"What i hope for is to see less videos about religion and atheism and for people to loose interests in this retarded war. I got tired of all the video spam on these subjects long ago, but they seem to keep returning."

As long as there be unfulfilled, frustrated, bitter, and uncreative folk, there will be arguments "for" or "against" anything and everything.

Religions make Semolians....greenbacks...MONEY. Including the 21st Century religion of Atheism. Both sides will always profit in our current paradigm, where money reigns supreme. YES! Has not the choggie been spouting from day 1 here on the sift (with a chambered downvote shotgun at the ready) that the rabid, sophomoric, finger-pointing and name-calling by both sides is a circle jerk of mammoth proportions?

The sift has enough video wreckage-those who play here and show up to look, usually have a brain with a solid handle on a take on God. Personally???...If ya wholesale rule out a creative force in the uni/multiverse that may or may not be a benevolent omni-being or catalytic observer/initiator, well, you simply ain't had a third-eye opening experience, and ya need to have yer pineal gland fibrillated!

Praise Bejesus Mary Magdaloin!

Honestly, if you lived in a country where 80-90% of the population believed that invisible unicorns dictate your lifestyle based on a poorly written book penned in some backwards country over 2000 years ago, and tell you what their book tells you is morally wrong and right, and tell left-handed people they can't marry, and look at you with scorn when you tell them you don't believe in unicorns while they tell you that you'll be stabbed by unicorn horns for eternity for not believing, you'd eventually get to a point where you want to go to the top of a mountain and scream "Are you people fucking mental?!?".

I appreciate that there are moderates who believe both religion and science can co-exist, but at the same time, they don't shout down the fundamentalists when they think that creationism should be taught in schools like it's some kind of science that would actually hold up to scrutiny. The moderates also don't tell the "god hates gays" crowd that god also wants you to stone your kids for misbehaving but you don't follow that rule now, do you? I honestly don't care to offend people, but at the same time I think bible-inspired nonsense (like New York's gay marriage downvote yesterday) HAS to go in this country, and I'd love to see it in my lifetime if at all possible.

That's why I love the Internet and Videosift. I don't care to make people stop believing in some god. I want people who do believe in some god to stop promoting hate and fear inspired by some old work of fiction. The way I see it there are two ways to make *those* people understand our point of view. Videos that help explain the logic and reason of life and science is certainly the more caring route. The other route, unfortunately, is videos that ridicule. Just like the older kids ridiculing the younger kids for believing in Santa Claus. I'm honestly not sure which is more effective, though I prefer the former, of course. It's a shame that moderates get caught in the crossfire, but Videosift provides both of those routes, and I will continue to upvote them both until the population of America shifts severely in favor of less organized religion, and less bible-inspired hate and fear.

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

^here here.

>> ^jiyanibi:
The way I see it there are two ways to make those people understand our point of view. Videos that help explain the logic and reason of life and science is certainly the more caring route. The other route, unfortunately, is videos that ridicule. Just like the older kids ridiculing the younger kids for believing in Santa Claus.


I don't think that works. We're talking about people who have been indoctrinated since their early childhood. If they're not over it by now there's little chance they ever will be, and certainly not by some YouTube clip, just like a Kirk Cameron clip has little to no chance of converting you to his faith. All it does is make you mad and I'd rather practice tolerance and understanding than mock those whose beliefs differ from my own.

And the whole "creationism in public schools" seems to be a purely American phenomenon in the western world, and I don't see it happening even in the US. Just because a few loud people demand it doesn't mean they're gonna get their way. Meanwhile the whole issue is getting way more attention than it should, which plays right into their hands.

I get your point jiyanibi but sifting videos on a site of international atheists and agnostics will not make any difference where you live (my opinion). Fanatics don't come preaching here anyway. All this videos just aggravate some people and annoy others. I don't see anything good in this.

Also the fact that some people are more religious than others should not offend you as long as they are normal people. I know many religious people that don't preach, don't throw stones and don't have anything against gays. They just believe in their own god and live the life they feel is right based on their religious belief. This hate against religious people is almost turning in a kind of racism: like they are all horrible people who stone kids for not listening to Jesus.

I'm from Israel. Come over here and tell me "religion in its purest form stands for all the moral things in life as guidelines to what we should be". I dare you.

Actually, it's, um, 'hear hear', not 'here here'. Unless you're stipulating that we are here... here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear

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

you are right. Stupid atheist. I hate thes kinds of errors the most. "To" for "too" "it's" for "its". I would blame my iPhone- that I'm using right now- but I love it to much to scapegoat it.

>> ^kymbos:
Actually, it's, um, 'hear hear', not 'here here'. Unless you're stipulating that we are here... here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear

Yeah well I wish people would stop sifting fucking family guy clips but it ain't gonna happen.

Actually, there are quite a few popular themes for videos on the sift that I dislike: the single target video, the video where the joke is that someone got really hurt, the fart video--there are tons more. Do you know what I do about that? I don't vote for them, and as much as I can tell ahead of time, I don't watch them. (To be fair, many of the videos I consider not just watchable, but profoundly meaningful, garner few votes.)

If you don't like the videos that clearly many sifters do, don't watch them. Personally, the religion videos are some of those on VS I have enjoyed the most. I was raised a fundamentalist christian (and I am talking a really severe sect) and I am now as close to an athiest as, say, Christopher Hitchens (though non-evangelical). I really enjoy having the atheist view supported. I really enjoy learning of even small victories to fight back religion, which I find to be the greatest force for evil in the world.

Opinions vary. That's why we vote.

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

You can also use the channel filters in your profile to remove religion videos from your view of the Sift.

As I've said before on VS, I'm somewhat religious. I go to church a couple times a year and I pray once in awhile. Fundies would probably call me a "cafeteria Christian" with derision in mind but, to quote a video* here on the Sift, I rather like that label. For the record and to keep things brief I'll note that I'm in agreement with Dag on the things he listed above.

Anyway I have a buddy who is vocally atheistic (it seems to me he's quite proud of that as well). He's a clever conversationalist and with our different perspectives I think we could have some really good talks about, say, Creationism and its associated movement in the US, something that both of us find unsettling -- except that he scorns the religious moderate (e.g., me) just as much as he does the extremist (e.g., a former roommate who turned out to be a non-evolution-believing fundie who seriously wore shirts that said in big letters ABSTINENCE IS AWESOME), so that is not happening. I am sure that a large part of his loud atheism is obnoxious shtick for the sake of those watching, an excuse to say jackassed things about believers and seem edgy.

Oh yes: when he was about to go to a dangerous place, he told me that he had become a "receptive agnostic" and stopped being beaky and snidey about religion and faith and believers and so on. When he came safe home, he cranked up the outspoken douchey belligerent atheism to a level as high as ever. I always thought that was really weak. He's smart enough to think so too, I'm sure, somewhere in there.

* http://www.videosift.com/video/AJ-Jacobs-My-year-of-living-biblically

I generally do lean in favor of practicing tolerance. One of the big problems I have is that all of those moderates who don't actually go out of their way to point fingers and tell me I'm going to hell, *DO* watch Fox News and say "Hey, I'm religious and so is Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, and I don't need to know anything more than that, so I'm going to go out and repeat what they say and vote like they want me to vote." That mentality in moderates is what disturbs me the most. The people who just go about their day, loving their god quietly, *do* VOTE with their religion, much like the gay marriage vote in New York. And that shit hurts more than any one finger-pointing fundamentalist telling me I'm going to hell. So while I understand where you're coming from Dan, I think calling it a sort of racism may be a bit off the mark. No matter how much someone may dislike a race, their race will never change. But ignorance is correctable.

And, yes, though the majority of religious people may be angered by some of the atheist videos on this site. Some of the atheist videos that are more towards my original point (educational), have had an impact. I actually found Videosift originally because of a clip from an Austin call-in show called The Atheist Experience (the "punch yer fat head in fer Jesus" clip, which appears to be missing). Although the video was funny at the end, it was 10 mins of the most enlightening conversation about positive atheism. That one video got me to dig more for similar educational videos, and changed me from Agnostic to Atheist simply by helping me get past the idea of "it couldn't hurt to believe, just for the sake of not going to hell" concept (Pascal's Wager), which I think is a big concern for a lot of Agnostics. And there have been multiple episodes of the show where callers have expressed how the show has helped them get past certain fallacies they'd always believed, including one preacher that used to speak ill of the show in his sermons, but in his repeated viewing eventually denounced his religion and his position in the church.

So my belief is that the educational videos, like The Atheist Experience clips, are more to help enlighten the religious and semi-religious, while the mocking videos are more for us folks who are already atheists and just like a good firing-up from like-minded individuals. And as oxdottir has pointed out, you can always not watch and/or downvote.

I dont mind the atheist videos at all. Im more of a middle of the road man myself. Its the belittlement of others that irritates me. The comments that a lot of people post in the videos almost seam instigative. Every time I see one I think of Germany. Oh and when I did attend church I was preached that one day people of religion would be persecuted to an extent that they would be hunted down and executed. Then again Im usually over emotional so I know my views are biased and over-exaggerated. So Ill leave it at this one quote that sums it all up for me.

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it... Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Dr. Martin Luther King.

Hey, I posted that video.

The statement that prompted the original post of this thread is "If this does not get rid of my P there is no god." Which was meant as a tongue and cheek statement, that is all. I am glad it sparked a discussion. dan00108, you said "This war is useless and does not deserve the attention it is receiving." I disagree with you for all the reasons that dag and jiyanibi stated.

dan00108 you also said "As a note: All this is entirely my opinion and nothing else." I like that you took the time to write a good post about your opinion. I can see how my statement could be taken as jackassery, but i was just goofing around.

My pet peeve is lame, whiny and presumptuous sift talk posts that attempt to tell others what not to submit, vote up or comment on. If you don't like atheist videos (or cat videos, or political videos) then don't watch them. It's really not that difficult.

OP takes Einstein so far out of context that OP completely misunderstands him. Einstein was an agnostic, a pantheist, and a humanist. By that particular quote, he meant "Without 'ethical culture' there is no salvation for humanity." Everybody recognizes the need for ethics. But the structure of most religion-based morality, that something is right just because an invisible tyrant says so, is a recipe for tyranny and disaster.

Morality should be a rational protocol for the mutual benefit of all, not fiats of authors.

If the right is right without an authority figure ordering it, then we have no use for fiction authors ordering us around with imagined words of god. The same epistemic pathway that makes them suceptible to religion is abused by advertisers, nationalistic tyrants, politicians, etc, causing all sorts of mischief. People just need to stop being so gullible and start asking the right questions.

Nice comments. I appreciate each and every opinion.

Of course I don't watch those videos if I don't like them.

d3bas3r don't worry. It was just an example. Your video happened to be recent.

What are you talking about? Family Guy is great!

Regards!

God likes little boys.

So, in short, let's just be a little nicer to each other, regardless of differences in opinion/belief? I am all for that. Some people are a bit too scathing in their commentary, and when your audience is mostly in agreement anyway, you're kinda just pissing in the wind.

I can't stand the overblown sense of equivalency I see everywhere. One thing does not mean another.

I hate it when people subscribe exclusively (in a given domain) to pretty much any ism. Call it non-adherism. People who run around self-identifying as "atheist" are allowing semantics and the gaps in perception to work against their purported goal to subvert religious thinking. Better to ignore religion completely and act like you've been asked if you believe in Santa Claus when it comes up. Snort, say "of course not" and move on with your life. Don't say "No, I'm an atheist." Because true though it may be, to a christian mind, you have just said "no, I'm one of them" because at root they have a tribal mentality. Try to exist as an individual and not present yourself as one of a throng. If more people did this we could shave a couple generations on the ETA of rational predominance.

I can't stand these fucking T-shirt wearing atheists who make not believing in god as much a part of their identity as the idiots who do believe in god. They don't even get the fucking concept. These disciples of nothing, who act like we're in some club together because neither of us believes in god, have less of my respect than people who go to church every weekend. Hey I'll bet I have not believing in the Easter Bunny in common with lots of people, that doesn't mean we're allies. It doesn't make us smart or moral either. We're mostly fucking idiots just like every other "group"*.

Being an atheist doesn't necessarily mean you believe in evolution.

Being an atheist doesn't necessarily mean you believe that things started with a big bang.

And the big bang theory doesn't state that the big bang was the beginning of the universe. It states that in all likelihood the current state of the universe developed after a big bang. I like the idea of big-crunch-big-bang cycles, seems quite elgant to me.

*if you group people by what they don't believe. Which is fucking stupid.

^ While I get where you're coming from, I think atheism is a bit of an exception to the rule, IMO. While it certainly seems ridiculous for a group of people who don't believe in unicorns to get together and bitch about people who DO believe in unicorns as a unified voice, the people who DO believe in unicorns aren't also trying to deny civil liberties, control the reproductive systems of women, claim this country as a Unicorn nation, and generally retard the growth of human knowledge and understanding (all the things Dag mentions in his original post).

Yes, you as an individual atheist may not experience personally any of those issues mentioned above and you're free to express your beliefs as loudly or quietly as you care to. But those who do believe strongly against the wrongs that theists perpetrate in our country should have an opportunity to get together as a group and explain to them why we have no interest in their agenda. Just my opinion.

Termites will bring down a building sure as a wrecking ball.

(that's my own turn of phrase, copyright 2009 Budzos).

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
My pet peeve is lame, whiny and presumptuous sift talk posts that attempt to tell others what not to submit, vote up or comment on. If you don't like atheist videos (or cat videos, or political videos) then don't watch them. It's really not that difficult.


Maybe you shouldn't read sift talk posts. It's really not that difficult.

Or maybe you could just let other people voice their opinions whether you agree with them or not.

>> ^xxovercastxx:
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
My pet peeve is lame, whiny and presumptuous sift talk posts that attempt to tell others what not to submit, vote up or comment on. If you don't like atheist videos (or cat videos, or political videos) then don't watch them. It's really not that difficult.

Maybe you shouldn't read sift talk posts. It's really not that difficult.
Or maybe you could just let other people voice their opinions whether you agree with them or not.


As always, the point has gone straight over your head - or you've developed a sense of irony.

To those you that say moderation is the only way to get through to religious people and/or that ridicule won't work, you are wrong.

I spent 25 years as a Catholic, but I always had my doubts about god. I could never tell myself that God didn't exist, for fear of going to hell. So I kept on believing, though deep down, I knew there was something not right about this belief.

A few years ago I was watching a George Carlin video, where he openly mocked my religion. I wasn't laughing at my beliefs, he was and it made me feel stupid. I realized that not only was this guy funny, he was right!

That was the trigger to my atheism. All started by someone mocking my beliefs.

This may have been touched on in some other posts, but I think Atheism a bit of a circle jerk for VS. And I don't mean that in a bad way. A lot of us are surrounded by the blatant and sometimes dangerous ignorance exuded by the religious community. So we come to VS and find a bunch of like minded people and we vent, and sometimes say mean and/or intolerant things. I don't think any of us is thinking of the nice people who go to church, or say God Bless you when you sneeze, and worry they might have offended by saying that. I think of the ones that knock on my door telling me I'm an abhorrent who will spend eternity in damnation unless I say I give myself to some attention starved god who's more worried about whether I like him or not than what kind of person I am. Or the ones that cheery pick which bible verses to interpret loosely or literally so they can rally their peers and oppress those who have a dissenting opinion no matter how based in fact that may be. A lot of us are just blowing off steam and finding comfort/sanity in like minded people.

For my part I try to avoid using all encompassing words such as 'all Christians', and direct my derogatory remarks towards those who've demonstrated their douchebaggery. I do remember seeing a video with a rather sensible priest expressing his views on religion which many VS atheists praised. So we're not always ready to launch at the throat of everyone flying the banner of religion.

as long as "x" people don't downvote religion "y" just because it's y.

I think of videosift as a university. every course of study is welcome, but we still have to stop the trash.
So you would ideally get the best videos from every faith.

I happened to be looking up Emma Thompson after enjoying "An Education," and I found a nice quote from and about her on Wikipedia:

Thompson is an outspoken anti-religious atheist: "I'm an atheist; I suppose you can call me a sort of libertarian anarchist. I regard religion with fear and suspicion. It's not enough to say that I don't believe in God. I actually regard the system as distressing: I am offended by some of the things said in the Bible and the Qur'an, and I refute them."

You should definitely mock and deride religion whenever the topic comes up. Just try to avoid self-identifying as an atheist. Just be a person who thinks religion is stupid. You're not an "ist". Claiming an "ism" weakens your position as an independent, free thinker. Atheism comes from within, everything else is indoctrinated. That's why "they" need "isms" and people with free indpendent minds should avoid any belief framework rigid enough to be bound within an ism.

>> ^acidSpine:
Yeah well I wish people would stop sifting fucking family guy clips but it ain't gonna happen.


Hear! Hear! That made me laugh.

There shall be no hating on Family Guy, that's family guy-cism! (And mostly my sifts )