I grew up in Cleveland, where this occurred. That video just makes me homesick.

I wasn't trashing on the VideoSift community, just the prevailing debate over religion in general, so I apologize if it came off that way. I honestly think that overall this is a wonderful online community. My point was that the problem is with the argument itself.

My comments toward atheists were general, and not specific anyone here. I just have a problem with people who reject religion as an unrealistic leap of faith, and in the same breath express a firm -belief- in the non-existence of a deity. Since you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a god (by the very nature of the definition), both believing and disbelieving in its existence are both acts of faith.

As an example, I don't feel that a Christian makes a very good argument for believing in God by citing text from the Bible which supports his existence. By the same token, I'm not convinced by an atheist attempting to prove that God does not exist by disproving portions of the Bible.

I will agree 100% with farhad2000 that when politics and religion mix, it's bad. Religion should be entirely a personal decision, and should only affect people's personal lives. I also think that people should put more thought into this decision than many of them do.

Jlee22: I found that video you linked to fairly interesting. Discourse like that is exactly the sort we should be having regarding religion. Personally, I am agnostic. Were I to be converted to a theist, I would require sufficient scientific evidence to convince me, the same as I would require sufficient scientific evidence to become an atheist. No amount of shouting unsubstantiated or unprovable claims in my face will do a bit of good.

The problem with much of the discussion on religion, and with many of the videos that are posted here on the topic, is that they don't engage in this sort of discourse. You are entirely right about the potshots and tackling of straw men which comprises most religious debates (though it comes from both sides). The problem is that, for most people, entirely too little thought goes into the decision to become a theist or an atheist, and many people make the decision for the wrong reasons. That's why you see ridiculous videos like this popping up on VideoSift.

The girl in this video is clearly brainwashed, and the things she says, and which many evangelical Christians (and extremists of any religious group) say, hold no water when held up to reasonable scrutiny. Religion, in most cases, is too mystical and politicized to allow for intelligent debate. Atheism suffers the same weakness.

In my opinion, people who speak and behave the way the adults do in "Jesus Camp" deserve criticism. So do the atheists who faithfully (and hypocritically) profess an absolute knowledge (read: belief) that religion is entirely a sham.

What Dr. Phil assumes his viewers are dumb enough to believe:

Bum Fights are an insult to his intelligence, yet he somehow managed to book a guest, edit together a segment of that guest's video footage, know enough about that footage to warn parents to have their children leave the room, and then be totally surprised by the footage, enough so to kick the guest off the show before the interview begins.

Doesn't seem to me like he's got all that much intelligence to have insulted. Either that, or he's a sensationalist douche bag. Downvote for cheap, crappy television.

That video made me feel awkward.

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I love Wilford Brimley. So much, that a co-worker and I made diabeetis.com a few months ago. He truly is my personal hero.

My head nearly exploded. Not so much out of surprise that the misunderstanding happened in the first place, but that he failed to convince 3 separate people that a dollar is different than a cent. Especially when the woman at the end referred to it as "a difference of opinion".

Weren't those clips from the PBS Nova on string theory? I think the title was The Elegant Universe.

In other news... hundreds of Flaming Lips fans report sudden, inexplicable vision problems.

Check out some of the stuff people do on drawball.com... it's even more amazing, because they have to wait such a long time to get enough ink to finish, and have to deal with other people's graffiti attacks in the meantime.

Downvote for cruelty to children, just 'cuz everyone downvoted my kitty in the snow video. This guy made both children cry.

If I'm not mistaken, heat shows up as a light "color" on infrared images. Notice how his body is lighter than the colder background, which would indicate that this is the case in these images as well. The "fart" is black, indicating that it's probably very cold air, most likely from an aerosol can being held upside down.

Fake! It's CGI! Like the camouflage one a while back!

*discard