Yeah, we aren't "bad" at all.
I'd forgotten that Poppy Bush quote. Nice to see the tree that the idiot didn't fall far from.
I'm as libertarian as possible on religion - you can worship whatever you want as long as don't hurt/bother anyone else, far as I'm concerned. But when has that ever been the case with fundamentalists? There's the rub.

yah theo 47 u i agree with you

i prefer to call myself an agnostick as i belive u canot make a desison on weather there is a god ore not. however i dont belive there is a god as described by anny religouse text.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. -- Seneca the Younger 4 bc- 65 ad

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

Men never commit evil so fully and joyfuly as when they do it for religious convictions -- Blaise Pascal

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet -- Napoleon Bonaparte

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence -- Doug McLeod

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. -- Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)

The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason -- Benjamin Franklin

nice quotes, snake, thanks

Carl Sagan is my hero. Read "Candle in the Dark" if you haven't already :-)

Erik Monika laughed at me in the 5th grade when I showed I got the book "Cosmos" for Christmas and thought it was the cats meow. Erik got a new hockey stick that year.

I saw Sagan speak live in '95 or '96 something like that.

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I hope Erik Monika (or Monica?) googles his name and finds this someday. Carl Sagan is awesome. My fav. is Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and the similar but older Dragons of Eden.

I think sometimes about the fact that he died of a brain tumour or brain cancer very young, and that he was such an outspoken athiest.

I remember there was a study of centigenerians a while back. They wanted to find what lifestyle traits they had in common that led to a long life. There was actually very little. Some drank, some didn't, some ate rich foods, some didn't.

The one thing they all had in common, was a very strong faith in God.

This is a very powerful video. I love it.

Nice video, though I'm not sure why so many actors and artists were listed after the "vile people who do no good" bit. Nothing wrong with acting, but they're not exactly saving the world through it (although some of the entertainers listed are in fact pretty active in charities, but the video doesn't mention that). The first half was a lot stronger.

I am not sure what this video hoped to prove. It is easy to find intelligent people on both sides of the debate. However, I would submit, that the following list of THEISTS is far more impressive than the people mentioned in this video.

• Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)
Copernicus was the Polish astronomer who put forward the first mathematically based system of planets going around the sun. He attended various European universities, and became a Canon in the Catholic church in 1497.

• Sir Fancis Bacon (1561-1627)
Bacon was a philosopher who is known for establishing the scientific method of inquiry based on experimentation and inductive reasoning. In De Interpretatione Naturae Prooemium, Bacon established his goals as being the discovery of truth, service to his country, and service to the church. Although his work was based upon experimentation and reasoning, he rejected atheism as being the result of insufficient depth of philosophy, stating, "It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion….

• Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
Kepler was a brilliant mathematician and astronomer. He did early work on light, and established the laws of planetary motion about the sun. He also came close to reaching the Newtonian concept of universal gravity - well before Newton was born!

• Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Galileo did his most useful theoretical work, which was on dynamics. Galileo expressly said that the Bible cannot err, and saw his system as an alternate interpretation of the biblical texts.

• Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Descartes was a French mathematician, scientist and philosopher who has been called the father of modern philosophy. His school studies made him dissatisfied with previous philosophy: He had a deep religious faith as a Roman Catholic, which he retained to his dying day, along with a resolute, passionate desire to discover the truth. Descartes was to establish the near certainty of the existence of God - for only if God both exists and would not want us to be deceived by our experiences - can we trust our senses and logical thought processes. God is, therefore, central to his whole philosophy.

• Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
In optics, mechanics, and mathematics, Newton was a figure of undisputed genius and innovation. In all his science (including chemistry) he saw mathematics and numbers as central. He was devoutly religious and saw numbers as involved in understanding God's plan for history from the Bible. He did a considerable work on biblical numerology, and, though aspects of his beliefs were not orthodox, he thought theology was very important. In his system of physics, God is essential to the nature and absoluteness of space. In Principia he stated, "The most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion on an intelligent and powerful Being."

• Robert Boyle (1791-1867)
Boyle gave his name to "Boyle's Law" for gases, and also wrote an important work on chemistry. Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "By his will he endowed a series of Boyle lectures, or sermons, which still continue, 'for proving the Christian religion against notorious infidels...

• Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
Michael Faraday was the son of a blacksmith who became one of the greatest scientists of the 19th century. His work on electricity and magnetism not only revolutionized physics, but led to much of our lifestyles today, which depends on them (including computers and telephone lines and, so, web sites). Faraday was a devoutly Christian member of the Sandemanians, which significantly influenced him and strongly affected the way in which he approached and interpreted nature.

• Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
Mendel was the first to lay the mathematical foundations of genetics, in what came to be called "Mendelianism

• William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907)
Kelvin was foremost among the small group of British scientists who helped to lay the foundations of modern physics. His work covered many areas of physics, and he was said to have more letters after his name than anyone else in the Commonwealth. Interestingly, his fellow physicists George Gabriel Stokes (1819-1903) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) were also men of deep Christian commitment, in an era when many were nominal, apathetic, or anti-Christian. The Encyclopedia Britannica says "Maxwell is regarded by most modern physicists as the scientist of the 19th century who had the greatest influence on 20th century physics; he is ranked with Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein for the fundamental nature of his contributions.

• Max Planck (1858-1947)
Planck made many contributions to physics, but is best known for quantum theory, which revolutionized our understanding of the atomic and sub-atomic worlds. In his 1937 lecture "Religion and Naturwissenschaft," Planck expressed the view that God is everywhere present, and held that "the holiness of the unintelligible Godhead is conveyed by the holiness of symbols." Both science and religion wage a "tireless battle against skepticism and dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition" with the goal "toward God!"

• Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Einstein is probably the best known and most highly revered scientist of the twentieth century, and is associated with major revolutions in our thinking about time, gravity, and the conversion of matter to energy (E=mc2). Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists." This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: "I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

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I would take issue with your list tgeffeney - most of your people came from a time when if you weren't a theist, you would have a hard time functioning in society, to say the least.

And as for Albert Einstein, he rejected a lot of quantum physics because it did not fit in with his notion of an ordered universe "God does not play dice" was his famous quote, but it turns out he was wrong on that one.

It was indeed more convenient to believe, as you would tend to fit in better, but each of the people of this list with the exception of Einstein were not just believers, but are ardent Christians who devoted themselves to prosetilyzing their theistic beliefs.

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Hmm, I don't think that's true about Galileo Galilei at least - he was persecuted by the church mercilessly, he hardly promoted church doctrine.
There was a great Nova episode on that a while back.


I will also point out that it would have been almost impossible for these people to get a secular education during those times, education was pretty synonymous with the church and therefore their beliefs would have been shaped very early.

Good video. I liked the stat of the amount of atheists in prison vs the total in the population.

dag:

Although many of them are from a time when being an athiest could get you killed, that doesn't mean they weren't. Many were self-described 'deists', which is a belief that god created the set of rules with which the universe follows, but doesn't have an active role in it. It's likely that many took this position not necesarily because it's what they truly believed, but because it was a way to be an athiest but not piss off the church too much.

"O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not to the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves. Wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not.... But to be learned is good if you hearken to the counsels of God." 2 Nephi 9:28-29

The persons who made this video would no doubt read this verse and then come up with clips that say, "Oh yeah? There are plenty of athesists who are rich! They profited!" It simply betrays a profound misunderstanding of spiritual matters.

"What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loseth his soul? Or what shall he give in exchange for his soul?" Mark 8: 36-37

In the eyes of course of the natural man, they dismiss the afterlife and the 'soul' of man as a fanciful legend used to decieve the gullible - to keep the 'commoners' down, as Napoleon suggested, and trick them into giving money/power to the leaders of the churches.

The natural man's existence consists only of the things they can experience with their senses - taste, sound, touch, hearing and sight. And for them, death means the end of all that, and they have nothing to look forward to but decay in the ground and oblivion. Which is why you constantly hear them saying things like "You only go around once" or "you only live once", which is simply the modern-day re-wording of "Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."

The subconscious message projected in that is "you'd better do drugs, have sex, drink and gratify all your pleasures now, because once you're dead it's all over".

Which is why the atheist fights so hard against the notion of God and an afterlife, because the possibility of it's existence is terrifying to them. Think back to the movie "Ghostbusters" (since the atheist generally loves hollywood so much). When the prospect of apocolypse was raised, the mayor said "What if you're wrong?" Bill Murray replied, "If we're wrong, nothing happens! But if we're RIGHT...."

Hence, the atheist points to signs of worldly success and says "if God exists, and if those who don't believe are punished, why are these guys so rich and successful?" And again "If religious people are so great, why are so many of them sinners?" And again, "If God's teachings are so wonderful, why did religous leaders cause so much violence in history?" And all these are used, not as impetus to improve future generations, but as excuses to permit current acts of depravity.

A profound misunderstanding. Which is why atheists can point at examples of failed Christian heterosexual marriages and conclude that the entire system is flawed and should be abolished. They can support the spread of porn and say "if you don't like it just don't look, no one's forcing you". But if a billboard showing a picture of Christ and the 10 commandments were raised with the same headline (If you don't like it, just don't look), they'd fight to have it torn down.

"I've always said there's nothing an agnostic can't do as long as he really doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not." Graham Chapman

Slyrr,

You are simply rewording one of my largest complaints about people who don't understand atheism. Essentially your entire argument is that atheists are poor of character because they have no need of morals. Or that they live "loose" lifestyles for similar reasons. God is not the root of morality, humanity is. I sure am an atheist but I am also a humanist, or rather a secular humanist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

Not all things are so cut and dry. Many atheists abhor alcohol and many are healthy vegans who would not defile the shrine that is their body with drugs, and maybe some of them fit your all too weak and stereotyped description. However, i would wager that very few of them are poor in spirit. It takes very little self reflection to follow the religion of your parents, in contrast it can be very difficult to chuck off the yoke of religion. No one becomes an atheist because it's easy, it often involves lots of ridicule and derision from those that you care about. They become atheists because they have thought about the situation and decided they don't believe in god for whatever reason. Oddly enough this decision rarely involves barbiturates and hookers, despite the fear mongering from the right.

Slyrr,

Nobody is putting porn up on billboards which are huge and in your line of sight when you drive. So that's a shitty comparison.

And as for the stuff about "If we're wrong nothing happens ... But if we're RIGHT.."
That's pretty shitty too.
I'm pretty sure God doesn't appreciate worship on the grounds of a flimsy "What if"

"Nobody is putting porn up on billboards which are huge and in your line of sight when you drive."

I would like to point out evidence that just the opposite is true: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tschinagel/183026820/

I respect differing opinion (except the ones that resorted to profanity). But the whole point of that video seemed to be "Look at what the Bible and what religious people say about atheists. They're all liars." They injected a heavy degree of sarcasm and contempt for religion into it - behaving in a manner that was hard to tell apart from what they say is the "fear mongering religious right".

No doubt the video makers would say "is this any worse that what religious zealots have done with their propoganda over the years?" Is it any better?

No, not all atheists are reprobates. Yet a common thread seems to run through all their philosophies - that because some who are members of a religious faith fall to evil practices, it means that religion itself is flawed and must be eschewed or even outlawed. You can hear that philosophy when the subject of gay marriage is broached. Since X percent of 'traditional' marriages end in divorce, this somehow means the institution of marriage itself is wrong and should be replaced with "poly-amorous domestic arrangements" or whatever it was they are trying to establish as law in Sweden.

Check the book of Alma, chapter 30. All the philosophies of men are pretty much summed up by Korihor, one of the funniest anti-christs in all of scripture.

"These prophecies, which ye say are handed down by holy prophets - they are nothing but the silly traditions of your fathers. How do you know of their surety? You cannot know of things which you do not see, therefore you cannot know that there shall be a Christ. You look forward and say that you see a remission of your sins, but it is the effect of a frenzied mind; and this derangement comes because of the traditions of your fathers, which lead you away into a belief of things which are not so.... Every man prospers according to his genius - and conquers according to his strength. And whatsoever a man does is no crime."

And 'fear-mongering of the religious right'? I guess we know which side of the political aisle videosift favors. I've heard the philosphies which always resort to "not everything is so cut and dried". It's the same as "you have to see things in shades of grey" and "not everything is black and white". Which is just a cute way of saying what Korihor said. "There is no right and wrong."

Regardless of scientific or artistic accomplishment, if an atheist is wrong and God does exist, they will feel foolish when they stand before Him. This Biblical statement cannot be really evaluated until we can answer the question of God's existance (which can't be know until after death). Clearly there are many intelligent people who believe and many who do not. The Bible says that men who do not believe in God are fools and this statement certainly cannot be disproven with a long list of distingued names.

The funny thing though, chubs, is that if the prominent religion in your country was called Hamsterism, with it's followers obeying every word of their Bible with a doctrine revolving around fear of punishment after death by an omnipotent, invisible hamster called Clyde, you'd be posting here to tell me I couldn't prove He didn't exist and that I'd better pray I'm right lest I face his eternal wrath and spend eternity in Hamster Hell.

The even funnier thing is that the only difference between your ridiculous fairy tale and mine is the Hamster.

An all-loving omnipotent god who allows suffering within his creation can no more exist than can a square circle, so let's dispense with such silliness.

I'm sorry, folks - I know you think quoting Scripture or starting with "the Bible says" is a lively way to argue with a non-Christian, but it's really not. At all. Doesn't mean a damn thing.
And Slyrr? You people have the gall to call US "elites" after those holier-than-thou tirades? A couple of things:
1. Morality was around before the Bible. It's how the best parts of it were written.
2. Atheists don't fear an afterlife, because we don't believe in one. (I would argue, in fact, that it's you who fears it, if you believe the threat of hell is real.) Atheists value life MORE than people who believe in an afterlife, because we know that when a life is extinguished, it's gone, forever - never to be seen or heard from again. Which is also why we want the quality of people's lives on Earth to be better, too...because this is it.
I'd suggest you find another group of people to demonize, because it doesn't work on me. What would be nice is if we could instead concentrate on what JFK called "our most basic common links - that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal."

Well said theo47
Slyrr, as much as i respect your opinion, using bible quotes to put across your opinion to atheists? You could have used Spot the Dog, as that is just as real to me.

As an all-out atheist I reject the whole "hey, look at all the smart people who were atheists" message. Doesnt really prove anything. If you wanted to you could pull out 15 or 20 smart scientologists or other even crazier sect members.

But, because I like mindless debates, I still have to point out that the "smart theists" list is probably affected by the norms of the time, Its even possible that some of them were outspoken christians purely for tactical reasons, I mean what pope or crhistian king would support some scientist heathen trying to disprove evey lesson in the bible?

Darwin, for instance, had this deal which meant he write about evolution, as long as it didnt directly contradict the bible..

I think both tgeffeney and Slyrr are missing the point made by this video. The video never once sugggests that there aren't wonderful contributors to humanity who have also been religious, nor is it arguing for the abolishment of religion. So tgeffeney's counter-list irrelevant to the argument, as is Slyrr's statement that atheists want to abolish religion. All the video is trying to do is argue against the perception that atheism as a general belief system is analogous with an absence of intelligence or morals.

While some of the author's choices of shining examples of atheism are a bit on the weak side (I agree with termal, using almost all entertainers as representative of "good" atheists is a bit odd), I still feel it makes its point - there are good atheists and bad atheists, just as there are good Christians and bad Christians. The statistics provided do suggest that the moral differences between believers and atheists tend to swing in the opposite direction than the Christian bible would suggest.

I believe that people should not be judged on one single aspect of their beliefs, but rather on their overall character and their actions towards themselves and others. The difference is, atheism does not have at its core a supposedly inerrant book of rules that paints Christians and other religious followers as "fools" or "vile people who do no good". Atheists who act that way do so out of stupidity and by personal choice, not because it's a requirement of their continued membership.

So... in the intro, this lists 36million Athiests in the US... but at the bottom says it also includes Agnostics. I don't get why they would lump the 2 together. Athiests don't believe in a god, while Agnostics, do. Do they include both, to skew the number?

Mmm... good debate.

Slyrr, you make some good points but I wouldn't make this sweeping claim. "I guess we know which side of the political aisle videosift favors."

We have people from all parts of the political/philosophical spectrum here, including some who believe that they irritatingly flit around like an electron among various points of the spectrum depending on the topic (i.e., me, among others).

One of the best things about VS is the rather broad area of sometimes heated but almost always civil discussions we have on the comment threads. Welcome.

A fun exercise which any believer should engage is to examine the 'paradox' of the morally good atheist. Actually, if someone was trying to write up such a report, this thread would have a good selection of arguments to use.

I think it takes a lot of faith to be an atheist . . . what if you are wrong?

@Devlin: http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=7817

If there's an individualistic god with a sense of self as depicted by most religions, he's a sadistic hypocrite who likes to play with his creations, and who supposedly created us and immediately put us to the test on this planet to see if we really are worth keeping.

How can you create something and just toss it into a world and give it all these "rules" so you can accept it? Isn't that just plain ridiculous and cruel? I know it is to me.

Something extremely ironic is that this cruel god "loves" you and suffers when you deviate from him and he has to punish you sending you to a place of eternal agony. So basically he is a two-faced schizophrenic god who is inevitably, and constantly happy and sad at the same time. Sad when he punishes those who don't follow him, and happy when he's praised and worshiped.

The truth is that all these "rules" are practically impossible to follow perfectly, as even the thought of saying a lie already angers this mentally unstable god. So even if you make it to "heaven" you still have to be careful not to have a single bad thought for the rest of eternity fearing god. That would also be some kind of "hell", if you ask me.

When something doesn't seem to fit this god governed reality, religion often has one answer, and one answer only: "God works in mysterious ways". OK so this god besides being cruel, hypocrite, and schizophrenic is also sneaky and doesn't really want you to know a lot of things, only a few. Coincidently these only few things he wants you to know are also the things that the leaders of religion use against people to get them to join and get attached to their religion by implanting the fear of being forsaken and doomed by this god of theirs.

I believe in a God (if that's what can be called), but it's not even close to how it's described by most religions. I recommend a book called "A Course In Miracles" if anyone's interested in finding out what I believe in which makes perfect sense to me, and doesn't contradict itself.

Er, no, people choose to go to hell, they're not sent there.

Uhm, ok I suppose you have good proof of this.... So basically we can be bad and if god wants to send us to hell we can refuse, right?

Another thing... So we choose whether we want to go to heaven or hell, no? Do we also get to choose whether we want to exist and go through all this mess?

Rifter, being an agnostic does NOT mean you believe in a god.
It's simply an acknowledgement that you don't know (and may never know) whether there is one or not. Admitting that you don't know something is where wisdom begins.

I agree that quoting the Bible makes little sense when speaking to an atheist since a Christian believes that the scriptures are inspired by God and the atheist does not believe in God. However, the Bible does not only contain the wise sayings of sages, but descriptions of people and events – historical references -- that can be substantiated or disproved by comparing them with accounts provided by secular historians of the day. Since the Bible contains detailed genealogies of actual people who lived and died, it is quite reasonable for an atheist to believe in the historically verifiable pieces of the Bible while still discounting the parts that cannot be proven. If the Bible has been shown to historically accurate, the atheist should have no trouble agreeing that Jesus Christ was a descendant of King David, who was a descendant of Moses. In fact in the face of historical texts, it would take more faith to disbelieve this. It is also reasonable for an atheist to agree with the Christian that a man born in Bethlehem, Jesus Christ, during the rein of Cesar Augustus does appear to fulfill many prophesies written concerning a future descendant of King David (most notably that he would claim to be the son of God and that he would be put to death for it). What we do with this claim is the primary thing that separates the Christian from the Atheist.

But let's be clear on what is in the Bible and what is not. Slyrr is quoting the Book of Mormon, not the Bible. There is a big difference. The Book of Mormon was unearthed and translated from text inscribed on shiny sheets by Joseph Smith (founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints) in 1823. According to Wiki, these texts were only shown to eight people and most of them fell away from the religion, so the whole thing seems rather suspect to me. I see no historical basis for it that can be substantiated.

Snake: I noticed that you quoted Blaise Pascal. Pascal devoted much of his life to using reason and logic to argue for the existence of God, it seems odd to use one of his quotes to argue the opposite.
"It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason." -- Blaise Pascal

Nope. Not even Biblical scholars think that the Bible is presenting literal history in its "genealogy" -- but rather how it services the stories in the book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy_of_Jesus
I also would argue that the Book of Mormon is just as "accurate" as any of the other books in the Bible. If age and the passing down of stories from one generation to the next equaled historical truth, there'd still be people praying to Zeus and Poseidon, no?

chub, "It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason." -- Blaise Pascal

Oh, glad to see Blaise agreed that "God" is something which exists within people who refuse to reason.

Tell me, chub, what makes you so sure your god is the real one, out of the several hundred gods presently being worshipped by people around the world?

http://www.godchecker.com

This is like asking a 6 year old kid what makes him so sure Superman is the real superhero out of all the characters in the Marvel pantheon.

devlin, to address your question "I think it takes a lot of faith to be an atheist . . . what if you are wrong?"

Why would someone need faith to believe that something that has no evidence for its existence doesn't exist? Do you have faith that there are no goat-people living on Jupiter, or do you just accept such a notion as the nonsense that it is and get on with your day? Are you confronted with a painful dilemma every time you watch an episode of the Twilight Zone? "OMG! What if that was all real!??"

You might just as well say "I think it takes a lot of faith to believe there isn't an all-knowing cow living on the planet Mercury who will send you to eternal damnation if you don't floss every day. . . what if you are wrong?"

Nice video, though the point is kinda moot.
Anything is possible...

It's unfortunate that the author of this video lumps athiests and agnostics together. There's a sharp distinction. An athiest shares an unprovable faith as strong as the theist - they both believe that they're vision is correct without proof. Agnostics, on the other hand, realize that there is no proof to either prove or disprove the existence of a god.

Personally, I hope that there is a god, that there's life after death, that bad people are punished after they die. But my money's on no god. The good news is that, in the end, we all get to find out for ourselves the answer to this timeless question! :-)

An interseting argument, although I agree that the video does little to support the side of atheists. As someone else already stated, there are good and bad atheists, agnostics and theists (I had to look up that word BTW as I thought it was atheists spelled wrong. Who knew:))
I often visit this site but didn't become a member until this video. I was born into a Catholic family but had really rejected the religion at an early age because I could never find a good reason to believe (I suppose I tend to look for scientific proof rather than historical) in it. It's funny, I never told my parents until recently. My mother was shocked when I finally told her.
My wife tends toward agnoticism while I fall heavily on the atheistic side.
BTW Snake, Superman is a DC (or Action) superhero. I know, I know, a trivial point.

Good discussion by all never-the-less...

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Thanks for Delurking Spoon.

Good to know this video has inspired a casual onlooker to become a member. I feel accomplished.

"So basically we can be bad and if god wants to send us to hell we can refuse, right?"

False logic. Why would you want to go to heaven if you want to be bad?

"Another thing... So we choose whether we want to go to heaven or hell, no? Do we also get to choose whether we want to exist and go through all this mess?"

Same idea. It's actually the reason for the in many ways harsh view that suicide = mortal sin (i.e., you're going to hell). There are exceptions/loopholes big enough to drive a truck through, and we'll get to those in a moment.
Catholics believe that God created the Earth; Hell is basically what exists without God. Since God is the source of everything Good in the world, hell is basically the opposite.
If, as you put it, you don't want to live on this world, or "through all this mess", then I take that to mean suicide.

If you're deciding against living in this world, you're deciding against creation, therefore the logic is you're going to hell.

Of course, this ignores many different scenarios, such as:
- mental illness
- war/battles/'suicide missions' (real and "Hollywood" style)

You get the idea. In that case, you have what courts would call a mitigating factor - does it mean the person really hated the world/God/life? I don't know - it obviously varies according to each scenario. Which is a windy way of saying, "don't judge" - you don't know if the person went here or there.

You can go into more detail, but I think that's enough for tonight. I'll leave you with only one thing to consider: Catholics have a certification process to prove someone's in heaven (Sainthood). They will never say they have any proof that anyone's in hell.

If a Catholic ever does do that, you can rightly accuse them of being a Bad Catholic, and you'll be right.

This video and its thousands of comments made me want to join as well. I have to say this is why I don’t choose a religion for myself. It seems to me that no matter what opinion someone puts out about their religion someone comes around to oppose it. and then really no one give the time of a day to let the one being opposed explain why they feel this way. One might not choose to believe in god because of some traumatic event that happened in their childhood like witnessing a death for example. They might think to their selves what god would let me witness such a thing at such a young age. But then there are those who say because you do not believe you are going to hell. Isn’t that part of the Christian religion not to tell people they are going to hell? What happened to love thy brother? One way or another someone is going to tell you, you are wrong, and that’s just going to make you defend your case even more. Thus religious wars break out all in the name of the one you call your savior. There are well over a thousand gods in human society, some for every feeling a person has. Ones who believe in multiple gods are going to look at those who only have one god in the way that those with one god look at those with no god. Everyone is negative towards each other when it comes to religion. So I say let bygones be bygones and move on. Everyone is different, and people of religion and of non religion should respect that and not force each other to believe what one believes.

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

This would have to be a candidate for the wordiest VS thread to date.

ScottMitchel:

Atheism includes both a 'lack of belief in god' and 'belief there is no god'. Some refer to the former as 'weak atheism' and the latter 'strong atheism'. I consider myself a 'weak atheist' in the sense of god in general, since the latter would require proving a negative, which in this case seems impossible. That said, I also don't believe in the dragons and fairies, but I can't say for absolute certainty that they don't exist.

Agnostics feel that people can't really know what the spiritual world is. They don't know if there is a god or isn't, and tend to hold skepticism towards religion. Given your comment, I think you would fall into the agnostic category, since you seem to not be too confident in whether or not to believe in god.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic

A bit of a silly video really, since the movie's creator didn't bother to actually research what 'fool' meant in biblical terms. In the scripture quoted, (and I only bothered to watch half of the video, so sorry if there's more than one) the bible certainly isn't referring to human accomplishments when it's talking about people being fools.

God gives the gift of faith in order to know Him, and until one receives this.. they'll remain an atheist or agnostic.

Alright, the final word (yeah right).
The video was simply meant to combat the extremely negative view that a lot of religious people have of atheists. The celebrity thing is pretty weak in my opinion since I really don't give a crap about so called "celebrities" but it is important to show some people that there are individuals that they may like that are atheists. The statistics of prison populations are also good for this.

Good video lucasgreen, thanks. I'm wondering though if there are any statistics available as to how many of those Christian inmates became so after they were incarcerated.

Prison seems like an ideal place for Christianity to proliferate and might be the reason for why the numbers are showing they are 75% full of Christians. In your video, it seemed to be making the point that more Christians go to jail which would be a different statistic.

BJB

Hey dag, do you have a comment thread word-count feature? Is it possible to code one in? <grin>

What's with people defending agnositicism? Damn no-good wishy-washy fence-sitting flip-floppers! At least religious fundies have the courage of their convictions (even if they would be entirely different convictions had they been born in a different place/time - go figure).

Anyway, it's reassuring to see that when these debates happen on the internet at a theologically neutral venue like VS, the atheists tend to outnumber the theists. In the Real World, the statistics would have us believe that a large majority of people believe in (a) (G/g)od(s). People who involve themselves in debates such as these tend to represent the better-educated portion of humanity, with more deeply considered opinions. That's why it would be interesting to see some statistics comparing religious belief with other social indicators.

Oh! Look what I just found: http://www.humaniststudies.org/enews/index.html?id=219&article=7

(By the way, I really don't care if I've offended anyone. Aside from the general rule that people who are easily offended need to be offended more often, I side with the Marxists when they say that religion is a symptom of a diseased society - if we could build real community here on earth, with meaningful relationships with one another, we wouldn't need to alienate ourselves by projecting our personalities onto a ruler-God. It's the 21st century people!

It's deeply patronising to suppose that the only way people can treat each other ethically is with the carrot and stick of heaven and hell. (Strictly speaking, that's not even ethical behaviour - it's non-ethical, in that questions of ethics don't arise when behaviour is self-motivated.)

But the think that REALLY gets my goat about religious people is this: YOU DON'T HAVE A RIGHT TO INDOCTRINATE YOUR KIDS. Children overwhelmingly take the faith of their parents. By failing to present them with a spectrum of possibilities (from which they can choose when they reach maturity), you are restricting their choices in life, and potentially perpetuating a set of dangerous and divisive myths. That's tantamount to abuse.)

[/rant]

The fool says in his heart "There is no God."

- - - - -
Context: This is a 'song' written by King David. It's in the Old Testament (before Jesus came). At that time, Israel was God's chosen people.

Taking one bible verse, chapter or book of the bible in isolation is usually a bad idea. It has to be balanced against the rest of the book.
- - - - -

I'd be interested in hearing r10k's interpretation of fool. I think that is doesn't simply mean unintelligent. It's obvious that there have been intelligent and unintelligent atheists throughout history (as well as intelligent and unintelligent theists).

The bible talks about human wisdom and God's wisdom being different things. As a Christian, I don't leave my brain at the door of church but I do except that there's some things I simply can't explain.

Overall, I think there is a compelling case for Christianity but I couldn't prove God to you.

As said above, ultimately not believing in God will turn out to be foolish- that's not to say unintelligent, just a very bad choice.

David had a pretty close walk with God. To him it may have seemed a) obvious, and b) beneficial, that God existed. After the experiences David had with God, he might have been in a good place to sing that it was foolish to say he doesn't exist.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"They are corrupt, their deeds are vile, there is no-one who does good."

This bit is a lot easier to explain!

It's actually mentioned again in Romans chapter 3, where Paul goes on to say that it applies to everyone! Yes, that's right - Mother Teresa, her deeds are vile.

The bible is pretty clear (and certainly my experience backs this up for me) that compared to God we're pretty messed up, everyone. When you look at everything you've done, thought and said, and even what you've not done and could have - compare it to Jesus.

I do believe that when you become a Christian, God gets to work changing you for the better - but no-one in the history of mankind has even become completely perfect, leaving an insurmountable gap between them and God, who is.

But that might be a little off-point here because the passage specifically labels 'those who do not call on the LORD' (it's a bit unclear because some of the passage seems to refer to everyone, others just to those who don't follow God).

The bible talks in other places about it being impossible to please God if you're controlled by the sinful nature. Very much simplified, without God's help you're never going to get it right, at all. Thing is, God looks at the motives as well.

If you're not living to please God, who are you living for? Where do your desires come from?

Just food for thought.

I'm sorry, you're all wrong. The correct answer is "Mormonism". Thanks for playing.

Sorry, lame vid. "Atheist aren't bad because they are a lot of smart atheist"? That's your message? Are all theist idiots then? Also the choice of 'why' the selected individuals was a bit dubious - I don't see how being 'America's leading skeptic' makes you a particularly smart person. But whatever.

I would like to point out that Francis Crick was an agnostic with strong ties to atheism, not exactly an atheists. But whatever.
Hmmm. You know 75% percent of this nation (USA) probably does claim to be Christian, but as you can tell from TV and the way most of this country acts, most do no live like the belief in or care for God. Unfortunately, Christianity has become something of a joke in America, a novelty, if you will. It's pretty much the defult choice for a belief system and thus, many that claim to be a Christian do not live like one. I remember a quote from Billy Graham stating that he would be lucky if just have of the people that were "saved" at any of his crusades were indeed salvations. Anyhow, that is just food for thought next time someone uses stats regarding beliefs systems.

I noticed scripture in this video. Allow me to bring some things to light.

Psa 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good.
Psa 14:2 The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
Psa 14:3 They have all turned aside,They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.

1Cr 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1Cr 1:19 For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."
1Cr 1:20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1Cr 1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
1Cr 1:22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;
1Cr 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,
1Cr 1:24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1Cr 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1Cr 1:26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
1Cr 1:27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
1Cr 1:28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are,
1Cr 1:29 that no flesh should glory in His presence.
1Cr 1:30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God--and righteousness and sanctification and redemption--
1Cr 1:31 that, as it is written, "He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.

Excellent.

*religion *philosophy

Adding video to channels (Philosophy, Religion) - requested by gwiz665.

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The duration of this video has been updated from unknown to 5:21 - length declared by bareboards2.