The questioner looks like he's been kicked in the nuts. Poor fellow.

Gee, I came here expecting a kid actually being told there was no santa clause.

Kid? That guy looks like he's in his 50s .

metaphors FTW

Maybe he has progeria?

>> ^jwray:
metaphors FTW


So what you're saying is all kids are stupid by nature?

Yeah, I can't upvote this because I just feel sorry for the poor sucker. I guess I'm a softy.

Thats a very "Fox Newsy" Title you got there Lots of Truthiness! "Barack Makes Child Cry?" Anyone? Anyone?

*woohoo for the last bit

Adding video to channels (Woohoo) - requested by maatc.

Yeah, I feel kinda bad for the guy too, he seemed really frightened. But, speaking from experience, when you suddenly are presented with something that questions your entire basis of reality, your entire focus in your life - that's pretty terrifying. But, hopefully you can get through that... my journey from religious dogma to what I would call a healthy skepticism was a really difficult one. Mainly because of the fear that religion instills in you, from childhood. You can see that fear, plainly, in that poor old man.

I thought Dawkins answer here "hallucination" is , altho its basically right, a bit simplistic, perhaps. Hallucination is what I would call momentary "trips" and not a lifetime in religious delusion. For example, a drug addict, or gambling addict has some pretty screwed up views, they'll justify their addiction to themselves and live in a perpetual state of nonsense, and perhaps they even have occasional hallucinations (ie: a trip on drugs) but to say that their entire problem is "hallucination" is overly simplistic, and not very helpful.

In my view, this man is suffering from addiction, conviction and self-deception, its a complex cocktail of faith-based reasoning that poisons his mind. He has, in short, lost his own ability to reason clearly, and distance himself from his own train of thought. Crucial questions like "What if I'm wrong?" or "Do I really know I'm right?" or "How do I know this?" seems to have escaped him entirely.

that's exactly the reason why religious nuts are on the rise - cause decent, rational human beigns don't have the heart to tell them they need treatment...

>> ^Bleedingsnowman:
Yeah, I can't upvote this because I just feel sorry for the poor sucker. I guess I'm a softy.

Your title sucks, but works. I wanted to see a kid cry. No vote for me.

Bicycle, the old guy said he had actually "met" Jesus, which sounds like a hallucination to me.

>> ^budzos:
Bicycle, the old guy said he had actually "met" Jesus, which sounds like a hallucination to me.


Or a dream.

I really expected a better answer from Dawkins. Maybe he's said the same thing so many times that he's given up on those who are too far gone, and decided to focus more on those who have the capacity to listen to him with a critical mind.

I wanted to see a kid cry, but instead I see just another hallucinating religion freak. This makes me sad.

There's an old saying that goes something like this: "The truth is all warm and fuzzy." Um, wait, that's not right.

I'm surprised* that so many people seem to be praising Dawkins here. I don't think it matters what side of the argument you're on; it seemed to me to be a very disingenuous and spitefully condescending remark. Do any of you really believe the man is prone to hallucination? I doubt a single person here sincerely believes that is the case, but I shouldn't overestimate.

Some people might not care, so as long as the fire is directed at the religious person, but I'm not of that opinion.

*No, not really; I realize this is Videosift.

Dawkins thinks he's scores when he points out, "If you'd been born in X, you'd be worshipping X's God and not Jesus." SO? If you were born in Russia, you'd speak Russian. If you were born in LA you'd speak Spanish. The universal concept of communication is not overly hindered by differences in language. So it goes with religions.

There are many religions that don't claim to be the sole pathway to God, and many of the "biggies" with time, have learned to be tolerant enough to get along with other faiths.

Even atheists have to get their morality from somewhere. Distilled delusions are still delusions.

I ask no one in particular: do you think you're "better" than that man of faith? Non-belief in deities doesn't grant one any extra IQ points, nor does it make one a more efficient thinker. Religious filtering or not, you're as subject to the laws of physics as he is. So where has Dawkins succeeded at life where the questioner has failed?

>> ^braindonut:
But, speaking from experience, when you suddenly are presented with something that questions your entire basis of reality, your entire focus in your life - that's pretty terrifying.

I know, it's like when I watched this video.

Horrifying.

Oh, and as for Dawkins, he's a snide condescending prick. I agree with him in principle about religion largely being a byproduct of the way our minds work, but I'm not so arrogant as to assume that's all there is to it. He's arrogant enough to think not only that, but that he's the only normal person in a sea of retards, and he isn't shy about treating people that way.

If you ask me, the man has clearly never gotten stoned and listened to music. Sure, there's probably some scientific explanation why that often makes you feel connected to the universe on a higher plane, but when we set aside any childish snickering about it, it's really a profound experience that matches what I hear a lot of religious people say they experience when they have some sort of brush with the divine.

My only issue with religion is it takes itself too seriously too often. If they did a little less of talking about the importance of faith (believing something fully in the absence of evidence Dawkins and I would say), and a little more of showing say, the intricacy and beauty of nature, or the importance of laughter, or the joy of sex, and maybe a little drugs and rock n' roll.

Call me a hedonist or a hippie, but I think there's a lot to feel spiritual about without needing to believe in a God or a Christ, and I think there's a lot that gets lost when you tie spirituality to dogma.

Just my two cents.

If I could downvote this I would .. just for the title.

I'd like to paint the rosy picture with you, NetRunner, it's just that from all the utter shit I've experienced dealing with (helping, actually) mostly young females obsessed with New age crap, I can't in good conscience agree with you. Really, the stuff I've seen/heard/fought with could fill volumes of blogs. It usually starts with leaving the traditional religion, maybe moving towards an eastern one and then all the nonsense about "demons" and "angels", and "chakras", and "reiki" (<-complete, utter bollocks if you ask me) comes in.
So from my experience, spirituality in the more developed world nowadays is just as bad as religion, if not worse (talking in general here, not specific cases). Nutshell: spirituality-just as bad as religious dogma

By the way, I have, in fact, never tried any narcotic substances apart from the ones in Absinthe. Anyway, the experiences this path provides aren't ones I'd ever suggest to anyone, however mesmerizing they might be.

i think there's a videosift vid that explains that absinthe doesn't really affect you any differently to other equally strong alcoholic drinks

>> ^quantumushroom:
Dawkins thinks he's scores when he points out, "If you'd been born in X, you'd be worshipping X's God and not Jesus." SO?

The point is that there are thousands of religions in the world, contradicting each other, and solely on the basis of the mutual contradictions most of them have to be wrong. For example, Islam officially denies the resurrection of Jesus and the pope denies the inspiration of Muhammad. What basis do you have for saying the story of Jesus' resurrection is more likely than the story of Muhammad? Absolutely none. Therefore, the reasonable position is to tentatively reject both stories (until solid evidence of one emerges, which will almost certainly never happen).

If you rely on "faith" you're really just relying on whatever religion you happened to be born into, which, by luck of the draw, may be among the false religions (and we can be certain that there are false religions because of the mutual contradictions between religions)

If you were choosing between the many belief-options on the basis of applying objective criteria, rather than applying whichever biases you were raised with, that would, by definition, be reason and not faith.


I ask no one in particular: do you think you're "better" than that man of faith?

ceteris paribus, less ignorance = better

>> ^budzos:
Bicycle, the old guy said he had actually "met" Jesus, which sounds like a hallucination to me.


Yes, I agree, but the root of his problem is not these hallucinations, its what causes the hallucinations that is the core problem. And in my view, it is a lifetime of self-deception and vulnerability to dogma that enables your brain to "meet jesus"

Even atheists have to get their morality from somewhere. Distilled delusions are still delusions.

Our morality comes innate, we would not be what we are without it. The details, so to speak, comes from our collective culture and philosophy and yes, religion. Religion happens to be our first, and worst, attempt at moral philosophy and pursuit of understanding.

I ask no one in particular: do you think you're "better" than that man of faith?

No. I think he's wrong, and that he reasons badly.

I ask no one in particular: do you think you're "better" than that man of faith?

yes: A child has had the opportunity to be foolish, but a man should know better.

I think Dawkins ended up just repeating himself, but the questioner was essentially asking a moral, rather than factual, question. If we take away religion, is the world and everything we do here still Good? He's asking for a new metanarrative.

I was kind of dissatisfied by that answer. I mean it could have been dealt with on a bigger scale.

>> ^quantumushroom:
I ask no one in particular: do you think you're "better" than that man of faith?

jwray addressed this point with 'less ignorance = better', but I think this is precisely the cold, logical answer that turns me off on Dawkin's and many vocal atheists.

Religion isn't about logical resolve to investigate the unknown, or even about knowledge in general. It sounds bad to say it like that, and on the surface its purported to be (Q:'Who made us?', A:'God did; don't piss him off.'), but it truly isn't.

Religion is about community, its about sharing and understanding concerns and desires, its about maintaining a resolve to respect others and respect yourself in the face of considerable challenges, and in a way its abstractly about the entire human experience, from art to discovery to war to friendship, etc.. Admittedly religion does invade realms in which logical inquiry would be better suited to deliver an accurate response, and even demands followers to disregard logical explanations at times, but I implore you to not write-off religion by defining it under what it does most poorly.

I am not a religious man (I am a PhD candidate in a scientific field, if you were curious), but I'm increasingly concerned with an anti-religious sentiment that has sprung up in the last decade among well-educated young people, presumably in response to some of the anti-atheism or anti-intellectualism (judgmental Christians in some parts of the U.S are a dime a dozen). Religion is not to blame for the widening of the education gap in America. Religion is not a dementia that drives normal people to hallucinations. The Bible does say 'the truth shall set you free' after relating a bunch of tall tales. But its far more nuanced and far less easily defined than many atheists recognize.

And as an educated, fairly rational human, I think its much more logical to see religion not as some cultural nuisance to be eliminated, but instead as a symbol of a significant part of the human experience... after all, we're all stuck here living on a little planet orbiting a relatively small star in a possibly infinite universe, but we still have the audacity to laugh at TV shows ostensibly about nothing, help our elderly neighbors maintain their lawns, or simply have the decency not to wear revealing clothing when you're unattractive by cultural norms. Whats logical about all that?

... in other words, to a certain degree, when looked at in a certain light,...

I THINK QUANTUMUSHROOM HAS A GOOD POINT.

(spoken through clenched teeth)

>> ^bamdrew:
>> ^quantumushroom:
Religion is about community, its about sharing and understanding concerns and desires, its about maintaining a resolve to respect others and respect yourself in the face of considerable challenges, and in a way its abstractly about the entire human experience, from art to discovery to war to friendship, etc.

None of that needs to have anything to do with believing that you can ask for magical favors from an invisible being. There are plenty of atheist / nonreligous organizations that do similar social outreach, notably secular humanism.

If the flat earth society had a great social outreach program that still wouldn't justify promoting the idea that the earth is flat.

The debate Dawkins incites appears to be more about atheism vs religion or treating science as a religion itself which he parades around as being better then every other religion. I've been lost as to why this man's diatribe against all religions other then his own, dominates the Science channel, and why it seems to be the only debate allowed here.

>> ^jwray:
None of that needs to have anything to do with believing that you can ask for magical favors from an invisible being. There are plenty of atheist / nonreligous organizations that do similar social outreach, notably secular humanism.
If the flat earth society had a great social outreach program that still wouldn't justify promoting the idea that the earth is flat.


I'll try to be more clear; I'm arguing that the point of religion is not to promote one doctrine over another. That would be like saying the point of forming a soccer team is to move a ball around a field into a net without your hands while another team does the same (its oversimplifying, is what I'm saying). The point is the community, the point is the sharing of concerns, values, knowledge, tradition, etc.. Could these points be addressed in the absence of dogma? Sure, but it may be useful to think of the evolutionary value (or alternatively the source) of shared belief in this social animal.

What I'm saying basically is this; its to the detriment of your own knowledge of the complexity of the human and inter-human experience to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' by falsely defining religion as being no greater than the sum of its mystical tales, and staunchly ignoring not only the real human value of shared religions but also the ridiculousness of logically dissecting something that is very infrequently valued for its logic. If you must I again direct you to thinking about the evolutionary origins of religion for some insight.

A final note: 'do you think you're better than that man of faith?' My own belief is that knowledge is power. To the extent that more power is better(!), greater knowledge makes a greater man. But was Einstein or Jesus Christ better than this man of faith? Or, for my fellow atheists, is any animal in this Godless universe truly greater or more important than any other?

bamdrew: "What I'm saying basically is this; its to the detriment of your own knowledge of the complexity of the human and inter-human experience to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' by falsely defining religion as being no greater than the sum of its mystical tales, and staunchly ignoring not only the real human value of shared religions but also the ridiculousness of logically dissecting something that is very infrequently valued for its logic. If you must I again direct you to thinking about the evolutionary origins of religion for some insight."

There is certainly value in religion, but not in faith. Organized religion has "blessed" us with beautiful works of art and the study of religion as a means of social control is very interesting. I believe that faith is detrimental to our society because it is flat out stupid and deluded.

quantummushroom: "do you think you're "better" than that man of faith?"
"Better" encompasses a bit to much. I do not know what skills this person has, but I can say this, on the particular point of religion I am not deluded and he is. I suppose you could call that "better" if you wanted. If all other things are equal, then YES: faith is strictly worse than no faith

>> ^EDD:
So from my experience, spirituality in the more developed world nowadays is just as bad as religion, if not worse (talking in general here, not specific cases). Nutshell: spirituality-just as bad as religious dogma
By the way, I have, in fact, never tried any narcotic substances apart from the ones in Absinthe. Anyway, the experiences this path provides aren't ones I'd ever suggest to anyone, however mesmerizing they might be.


I'm no New Age fan, either. That's a full-blown religion in its own right, with dogmatic aspects to it. My mom is into New Age stuff, and my dad was somethings of a Dawkins-ish atheist.

I feel like I split the difference. I guess agnostic is probably the right term for me. I don't generally subscribe to any given religion, but I try to be respectful of those who do. I tend to think that if I wasn't such a cynical person, I might easily wind up being religious.

As for my mention of drugs, I definitely want to clarify that I'm not recommending people do drugs, and not trying to conflate drugs and religion as being somehow equivalent. They're dangerous, and watching some of the spacier videos on the 'sift can evoke the same sort of feeling. And the 'sift is still legal in all 50 states!

I noticed my comment before got downvoted -- I'm a bit surprised at that, but I guess this is a touchy subject, and I did just kinda rattle that out while I was sleep-addled. If I offended anyone with what I said, I apologize.

... in other words, to a certain degree, when looked at in a certain light,...

I THINK QUANTUMUSHROOM HAS A GOOD POINT.

(spoken through clenched teeth)

I have to be careful whom I praise, it can be bad for their rep, but bamdrew has done an exemplary job in this sift explaining another facet of this debate, and many other responses were excellent as well.

>> ^gwiz665:
I believe that faith is detrimental to our society because it is flat out stupid and deluded.
...
If all other things are equal, then YES: faith is strictly worse than no faith


There are plenty of stupid and deluded things that are detrimental to our society; for instance, I drink a lot of beer (with other grad students, no-less!). I could give more serious examples... anyhow, you see where I'm going with this... I think you backpedaled too far AND I think you are still expecting too much patterned, logical behavior from a dynamic organism in a complex, chaotic environment. What I was alluding to earlier was that I see irony in the evolutionary biologist (Dawkins) railing against something that definitely evolved with us (religion).

Last thing I'll say; you might want to step back and think about what you're arguing against now. All great stories are all about faith. In the face of unspeakable odds, and after repeatedly questioning their will to continue, character X overcomes the obstacles and achieves some level of greatness.


Oh, and thank QM. I sincerely appreciate your appreciation.

*nochannel *Wtf *Religion *British *Cult *Science

*promote

This video has been removed from all channels (Woohoo, Science, Religion) due to invalid channel assignment - nochannel invoked by gwiz665. Please review the FAQ to learn about appropriate channel assignments.

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 9:50pm PDT - promote requested by gwiz665.

Adding video to channels (British, Cult, Religion, Science, Wtf) - requested by gwiz665.

And ya, *woohoo for the last bit.

Adding video to channels (Woohoo) - requested by gwiz665.

Quantummushroom,
“The point is that there are thousands of religions in the world, contradicting each other, and solely on the basis of the mutual contradictions most of them have to be wrong.”
You’re conclusion is indeed correct!

If all the religions have their origin from the Creator, [proof for a Creator, see my blog: bloganders.blogspot.com (left menu)) it implies that the contradictions betweens the religions reflect a self-contradicting Creator.

No eminent scientist represents that our perfectly-orderly universe can be explained ex nihilo without a Prime Cause.

Being logically consistent (orderly), the universe must mirror its Prime Cause / Singularity-Creator—Who must be Perfectly Orderly; i.e. Perfect. Therefore, no intelligent person can ignore that our purpose and challenge in life is learning how we, as imperfect humans, may successfully relate to a Perfect Singularity-Creatorwithout our co-mingling, which transcends the timespace of this dimensional physical universe, becoming an imperfection to the Perfect Singularity-Creator
An orderly Creator necessarily had an Intelligent Purpose in creating this universe and us within it and, being Just and Orderly, necessarily placed an explanation, a "Life's Instruction Manual," within the reach of His subjects—humankind.

It defies the orderliness (logic / mathematics) of both the universe and Perfection of its Creator to assert that humanity was (contrary to His Tor•âh′ , see below) without any means of rapproachment until millennia after the first couple in recorded history as well as millennia after Abraham, Moses and the prophets. Therefore, theCreator's "Life's Instruction Manual" has been available to man at least since the beginning of recorded history. The only enduring document of this kind is the Tor•âh′ —which, interestingly, translates to "Instruction" (not "law" as popularly alleged). [Source and more extensive reasoning: www.netzarim.co.il]

Religions that contradict with Torah cannot therefore describe a religion from the Creator.

Anders Branderud

4 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.