The narrator sounds like Morpheus, from The Matrix. So... when do I take the Red pill?

He does have a good voice for the work, no doubt about that. Looks the part too though somewhat different in style.

Moving this video to drattus's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

The first video makes two mistakes.

First, it implies that something like Creationism is endemic to religions other than Christianity. While something like Creationism has made inroads into Islam, I'm unaware of it being anything like a major question for any other religions.

Second, it fails to mention that Creationism has been criticized from the early days of Christian history. Philosopher and theologian Saint Augustine, for example, argued against it in the 4th century both in his famous autobiography The Confessions (which is still assigned reading in colleges; I had to read it three times in the coursework of a degree in philosophy) and in his less well known work On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis.

On the first point, HadouKen24, the script is linked from the video page itself so we can read it. The reference I find says the following.

Creationists may side with western Abrahamic religions, (being the Judeo-Christian/Islamic mythos) in which there are conflicting versions of the same tales. Or creationists may belong to one of many eastern religions where the sacred stories of creation are much older, completely different, and dedicated to other gods and pantheons. But in every case, the proposed "creator" is supernatural, meaning that it is not a part of perceptible reality.

As far as it being endemic to eastern religions I don't know, but I'm not sure he says they have to be endemic so much as there, that's where the roots go for some. For most the roots are in the Abrahamic religions which are the joint roots of the Judeo-Christian/Islamic mythos. Maybe I missed the part you mean but I don't see a problem there.

On the second point you'd have to visit the link I posted in the description which describes what the particular segment is intended to argue. In this case it was "My personal rant against one of foremost falsehoods of the creationism movement; the idea that accepting evolution is tantamount to declaring atheism, or that one need be creationist to be Christian".

He never suggested they were all like that, in fact the whole point of the video is that they are NOT. Each video confronts a specific aspect of support for creationism. It's not an attack on religion itself. The fact that other aspects of the Christian religion don't support creationism isn't a mistake he made, it supports his point. You can be Christian and still think that's all nonsense.

Like this one does. http://www.youtube.com/user/djarm67 Check out his playlist collection. The reason a lot of us care isn't to take a wack at religion, it's because of things like the following video try to explain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnC7Nwqw5Dg

It isn't sifted so if anyone wants it I don't care.
Post edited slightly for punctuation and to remove irrelevant rant

To make sure I was right here I did a quick bit of research. Aron had it right best I can tell.

Hindu. Multiple gods each with different aspects or roles, the role of Brahma (not to be confused with Brahman) was the creator God. lots of variation within the religion though and some Hindus are considered to be atheist. Second link covers that part.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahm%C4%81
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism

Sikhism. Sikhs believe that before creation, all that existed was God and his hukam (will or order).[9] When God willed, the entire cosmos was created. From these beginnings, God nurtured "enticement and attachment" to māyā, or the human perception of reality.[10]

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

There are others as well but rather than write a book I just wanted to point out what he was probably considering when he said that. We're not all that familiar with some of these, but yes, they are there. And others besides.

But to consider those the same thing as "Creationism" is a huge mistake. Creationism is the result of an overly literal--indeed, a scientific-- interpretation of Genesis. Creationism is the notion that the Creation account given in Genesis is true in exactly the same sense that scientific statements are.

Non-Creationist Christians--like Hindus and Sikhs--understand that the story is not intended, and never was intended, to convey that sort of message. The intent of the tale of Brahma's creation of the world is not to convey facts, but to help direct the spiritual practice of the listener.

I think we're just reading it a little different. Yes, con-creationist Christians, just like non-creationists of any other stripe, know that those stories aren't real. Those aren't the people this video is about. I'll refer you again to the description of the video segment itself. That's the context the arguments are to be taken in. There are some 15 segments in all, way too many to have listed the descriptions here, each cover a different aspect of the debate. This one was "My personal rant against one of foremost falsehoods of the creationism movement; the idea that accepting evolution is tantamount to declaring atheism, or that one need be creationist to be Christian".

The only ones it's intended to confront are those of any stripe who do believe it. The rest is to be taken in that context.

Personally I don't see any interpretation of Genesis that could be considered "scientific". Scientific examinations of what little evidence there is sure, a city was there or something, or an old script found, but how in the world would you go about testing it past the simple geography stuff? The following page describes the scientific method. To me if it can't pass that test then it's a hypothesis at best, and probably not even that in most cases. Confusing that with science is part of what I'd like to see end. http://teacher.pas.rochester.edu/phy_labs/appendixe/appendixe.html

When I first ran across this stuff I tended to take it the same way that you seem to but that was a mistaken impression. There are committed Christians such as djarm67 who I linked above who are just as pissed about this stuff as I am and actually more involved than I've ever been, for many of the same reasons that I care. It's a scam that's hurting all of us. Visit his page and read his description of who he is and such. The religion aside that's how a lot of us approach the issue, even if it might not seem like it at first for those who are used to a different debate.

Peace

My point is that there is nothing like Creationism in most religions--Christianity, and to a lesser extent Judaism and Islam are the only religions I'm aware of which have this problem. Most other religions are far more sophisticated in their understanding of religious myth and scripture. It's inaccurate and disrespectful to ascribe something like Creationism to them.

Personally I don't see any interpretation of Genesis that could be considered "scientific".


What I mean to say is that they read Genesis the way one reads a science textbook. One approaches the conclusions of a scientific discourse in a different way than one approaches fiction, poetry, myth (contrary to popular belief, many ancient peoples like the Greeks did not take their myths to be straightforward fact), or even history and biography. Approaching Genesis this way is an obvious mistake on textual interpretation grounds alone, even aside from the tremendous scientific evidence that such an interpretation would clearly be wrong about the world.

Fair enough, we're just approaching it from different angles. The religious debate isn't something that I normally enjoy or do but a few weeks ago I ran across a couple of decent kids who had their heads filled with lies from one of these groups. Pissed me off that they did that to them so I'm approaching it from that angle and I'd think that's more or less what AronRa intended as well. At least that's the way I took it. Maybe it could have been said better though.

It still isn't a debate I plan on doing, I'm mostly interested in defending science from them. The religious aspect is incidental to the lies.

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This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by RFlagg.

Let's see if I can fix it now, since I can't edit the details section... at the very least somebody can help using this:
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