*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 1:25pm PST - promote requested by Issykitty.

Bravo, bravo.

I had a bit of a tear there at the end. Upvote for ideological tolerance.

HD here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAIpRRZvnJg&fmt=18

http://geek.videosift.com/talk/Change-Your-YouTube-Embeds-From-Low-Res-to-Higher-Res

this makes me want to try my hand at furniture buidling. time too clean out the garage!

We all know there is but one cupboard design and all others are just lies to push you into the arms of evil!

Wouldn't it be nice if spreading tolerance was as easy as opening an Ikea catalog?

wow. this was so shitty.....
shitty shitty shitty. if you are trying to use metaphors to comment on the idiocies of standardized religion, it helps not to be transparent as balls. "you'll burn forever" Jezus FuCKING CHRIST! i hope whoever made this gets a cupboard shoved up their ass.

Looks like face-your-manga finally got into making how-to videos.

^ That's amazing Captain P...you can react angrily to a video about tolerance and peacefully respecting peoples beliefs. Ironic really.

Really defensive? but both islamic and christian standardized religions often suggest hell is the punishment for not conformity to the relevant book.


Either a relgion is rewarding or punishing

a)the cupboards are rewarding and useful to hold things... in which case it doesn't matter where the drawers are or what colour they are.

or b) there is a punishment and consequence for having the draws in the wrong place. i.e. you go to hell.

keep your own cupboards to thy selves...

I'm happy enough to live without any drawers. I just wish strangers would stop trying to drag me off to Ikea!

Seriously though, this was nothing less than an excellently made advert for christianity, and no one realises it!

Seriously! The first guy he met with a different cupboard? Horizontal black and white. That's right, he places BLACK (devil) and WHITE (god) on the same level! They both show up at Sanjeev's house wearing identical suits, clearly indicating overtones of the sterile perfection in "Equilibrium". He's got a microwave on his dressing table, clearly used to torture small animals. He tells Sanjeev that "if you want you can borrow my manual" and what does Sanjeev do? That's right, he flips out, starts talking in tongues, he's clearly possessed by some sort of demon.

He goes round to his uncle's and he sees a purple drawer. The colour of the tempest, bringing disarray and wild commotion into his life. It's clearly the colour of the dreaded gay. Calling up his nephew to play football? Sounds like a paedophile to me.

So he builds his own cupboard, and we see the inevitable result - he has become such a twisted terrible person that people are disgusted by his presence. Shunned by his own family and strangers on the street he takes to mindless acts of violence. He experiments with cupboards, makes a deformed monstrosity which the devil compells him to destroy and finally settles on a cupboard with all the colours OF THE GAY FLAG. He puts his own cupboard on a public walkway to try and advertise his travesty to others, and when someone trips over his cupboard, he kicks theirs into a river. Vandal. Probably raped one of those girls too.

Eventually the sad ending to the story, he begins to disregard and disrespect his parents even more, he's beyond help. They probably got him a little starter cupboard set from matalan but he didn't care. You can clearly see him locking them in a devilish prison made from their own cupboards at 6:56. They become old and die in this prison and never see the light of day again. He keeps a picture of them on his GAY CUPBOARD for ever more, torturing their restless souls which were never allowed to find peace.

Then he showed all of his gay friends.

Christianity, guys, it fucking works.

>> ^Hyperdrive:
I'm happy enough to live without any drawers.

er... just don't go out in public without 'em, k?

His drawers with "ALL BULLSHiT" written on 'em had me giggling.

Good riddance to Sanjay, ungrateful prick!

rofl at people downvoting my "this video is pro christianity" comment, that's absolutely hilarious to me

Some people don't seem to understand satire. Or maybe it's because it's not that funny.

M'eh - it's merely one more in a long line of typical Videosift poor quality self-justification screeds. "Boo hoo hoo. Woe is me. I live in such an intolerant world and I'm the only one who is patient, kind, understanding, and tolerant... Everyone else is a jerk because they aren't as enlightened as I am." Pretty easy to do when you have the power to paint everyone else any way you want, and to paint yourself as the hero. Yawn. Peddle your propoganda elsewhither.

Winstonfield Pennypacker spoke in class today.

It really amazes me those who can actually take offense at this.

As long as there is a set of cupboards there for those of use who believe in no divine being, count me in for cupboard building.

As much as I think organized religion is a horrendous thing that brings nothing but harm to the world, I really do not care one jot what people chose to believe in. As long as their believes don't require or permit them to hurt others, then have at it.

This video says just let everyone be for god's sake. If someone believes that the canyons and rivers were created by a giant snake sliding around eons ago... go for it. It's only when it's forced on others, when the belief in something like that as being fact, with nothing to back it up is then pushed as needing to be taught in schools as fact. THAT is wrong. What should be taught in schools is what we have leaned by observation and experiment.

I WANT my kids to have religious education, but I want it to be a broad based, discussion style of learning where they find out about as many of the world's religions as possible, find out about where they come from, who practices them, what they believe. I want my kids to really know about religion because it is such a powerful force in the world. But I want them to know just how many ones there are and how, really, when it comes down to it, at the core, they really say the same thing, it's just people who have twisted the meanings into other, hateful things.

Cupboards aren't harmless. Constructed from the wrong materials they can constitute a fire hazard. Poorly placed they can obstruct passage. With sharp corners they can harm children. Assembled carelessly they can collapse. If unstable, they can fall on people.

All cupboards should follow correct design principles.

This video says just let everyone be for god's sake.

No - this video says, "My parents, Sanjay, and pretty much everyone but ME is a stupid, intolerant jackass. And also I am a genius because I was able to build a definitive shelf from the manual that no one else could. Oh - and I'm going to pretend I'm the only understanding person I ever met that says we should be OK with all shelves." It is a pandering, arrogant little video that says very little except how petty and self-aggrandizing the person who made it is. Then it tries to slap a little lipstick on the pig by doing what most intolerant people do and sugar-coat the bias by giving a cute little message at the end.

Know what? How about the author dumps the pettiness, the bias, and the self-aggrandizement altogether? What does it add to the message? Nothing. Jack-diddly-squat. You can chop out the first 7:30 seconds of this vid and just go with the last 30 seconds and get everything of value. The entire first 7:30 is arrogant, self-congratulatory garbage that takes a semi-decent message and craps all over it with a mountain of the author's blatant anti-parent's religion baggage.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
M'eh - it's merely one more in a long line of typical Videosift poor quality self-justification screeds. "Boo hoo hoo. Woe is me. I live in such an intolerant world and I'm the only one who is patient, kind, understanding, and tolerant... Everyone else is a jerk because they aren't as enlightened as I am." Pretty easy to do when you have the power to paint everyone else any way you want, and to paint yourself as the hero. Yawn. Peddle your propoganda elsewhither.

Actually, this is pretty much the story of how I became disenchanted with the church. The details vary, but the basic plot and feelings are the same. I'm really glad to have seen it because it's a very common experience, yet one that is underrepresented. The quality is also very, very high.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
This video says just let everyone be for god's sake.
No - this video says, "My parents, Sanjay, and pretty much everyone but ME is a stupid, intolerant jackass. And also I am a genius because I was able to build a definitive shelf from the manual that no one else could. Oh - and I'm going to pretend I'm the only understanding person I ever met that says we should be OK with all shelves." It is a pandering, arrogant little video that says very little except how petty and self-aggrandizing the person who made it is. Then it tries to slap a little lipstick on the pig by doing what most intolerant people do and sugar-coat the bias by giving a cute little message at the end.
Know what? How about the author dumps the pettiness, the bias, and the self-aggrandizement altogether? What does it add to the message? Nothing. Jack-diddly-squat. You can chop out the first 7:30 seconds of this vid and just go with the last 30 seconds and get everything of value. The entire first 7:30 is arrogant, self-congratulatory garbage that takes a semi-decent message and craps all over it with a mountain of the author's blatant anti-parent's religion baggage.


Actually, it never represented his friend Sanjay as being intolerant. At that point, HE was the one being intolerant, trying to force off his own religious beliefs onto his friend, who understandably got upset when somebody tried to tell him how wrong his beliefs were. His uncle wasn't shows as intolerant either. This video isn't saying necessarily that religion is wrong, but it IS saying that being close-minded and hateful because of religion is wrong.

FAKE!

If you choose to believe in a creator God then there can be only one God. You cannot say you believe in God then choose to say that someone else's God is also a God. So if you believe in God then there is only one manual - his will for people. If you don't follow it then you are disobeying his word.

Of course you can choose not to believe in a God, or choose to believe in some other type of God. However, I will continue to believe that my God is the one and only God. I will not ram my beliefs down your throat but I will not accept your God as legitimate even if he makes you feel good. I will calmly tell you my beliefs if you choose to listen. This is how I practice tolerance... you can choose what you believe and I will not persecute you for choosing something contrary to what I believe in. However, my beliefs are founded on his manual and they are not wavering.

I don't take offense to the video, I simply don't agree with it.

BTW, organized religion fails us because people bring in tradition and their own cultural beliefs into religion. If people followed Biblical principles (or whatever manual you really want to follow), then we wouldn't have the religious issues we have today. For example, the mess that the Catholic church has with priests abusing children is because the Catholic church doesn't allow the priests to marry. If the Catholic church followed their own Bible they would allow them to Marry. Second Timothy specifically mentions that Bishops should "be the husband of one wife". It's tradition that dictates that priests can't marry.

>> ^maximillian:
BTW, organized religion fails us because people bring in tradition and their own cultural beliefs into religion. If people followed Biblical principles (or whatever manual you really want to follow), then we wouldn't have the religious issues we have today.


What you said is dangerously close to saying "If everyone believed in the same thing I do then there wouldn't be a problem."

I agree with you that if everyone shared the same principles regardless of differences in religious beliefs, we wouldn't have the religious issues we have today (I'm assuming that is what you meant). Unfortunately, principles and religious beliefs are so intertwined for some religions that to question one is to question the other. Neither group is willing to work towards common ground because to do so would be against their god.

>> ^CaptainPlanet:
wow. this was so shitty.....
shitty shitty shitty. if you are trying to use metaphors to comment on the idiocies of standardized religion, it helps not to be transparent as balls. "you'll burn forever" Jezus FuCKING CHRIST! i hope whoever made this gets a cupboard shoved up their ass.


Clearly CaptainPlanet hasn't watched the video, "Metaphors, anger management and you."

>> ^maximillian:
For example, the mess that the Catholic church has with priests abusing children is because the Catholic church doesn't allow the priests to marry. If the Catholic church followed their own Bible they would allow them to Marry.


So you're saying the sole reason priests are molesting/raping children is because they can't marry? That is the saddest excuse I've ever heard. Those priests did those things cause they chose to and for no other reason.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
This video says just let everyone be for god's sake.
No - this video says, "My parents, Sanjay, and pretty much everyone but ME is a stupid, intolerant jackass. And also I am a genius because I was able to build a definitive shelf from the manual that no one else could. Oh - and I'm going to pretend I'm the only understanding person I ever met that says we should be OK with all shelves." It is a pandering, arrogant little video that says very little except how petty and self-aggrandizing the person who made it is. Then it tries to slap a little lipstick on the pig by doing what most intolerant people do and sugar-coat the bias by giving a cute little message at the end.
Know what? How about the author dumps the pettiness, the bias, and the self-aggrandizement altogether? What does it add to the message? Nothing. Jack-diddly-squat. You can chop out the first 7:30 seconds of this vid and just go with the last 30 seconds and get everything of value. The entire first 7:30 is arrogant, self-congratulatory garbage that takes a semi-decent message and craps all over it with a mountain of the author's blatant anti-parent's religion baggage.


The point was showing that different people were picking and choosing the parts of the manual they wanted because they liked the way it went together. The real shelf couldn't support its own weight (without the manuals to hold it up) and even had the letters to spell out "All Bulls**t" if you cared to look.

Overall, I think it was a pretty well made video.

I think whatever decent message it might have had got inundated by a sea of bias and prejudice. That really is the problem with many of the atheists and agnosts out there. They want to say "we should all tolerate each other"? That's fine. But they don't do that. They can't help themselves. The second they start to give the nice "let's all get along message" they feel strongly compelled to justify it with "here's why religion sucks", "this is how believers are so mean", "see how people of faith are hypocrites" crap in ratios of 10 to 1. This vid is a great example. 1 part of "let's all get along" and 13 parts of "here's why everyone I met in my life was such a jerk". 13 parts bellyaching and whining. 1 part nice message. Pardon me while I vomit.

>> ^Flood:
>>
What you said is dangerously close to saying "If everyone believed in the same thing I do then there wouldn't be a problem."


Not everyone believing in the same thing... everyone accepting a universal standard. As the video puts it... a manual that is accepted as without error. I don't want to get into a debate on which Bible is without error. However, I will postulate the following... if one chooses to believe by faith in a true creator God then one must also believe that God communicates his wishes to people. This is called the Bible. This is the standard. One should put aside cultural and traditional practices of religion and follow the "standard".

Or again, one can choose not to believe in a God at all, and choose to follow cultural norms and local laws. However, again, if one chooses to believe in a God at all then one must follow God's will and not man's.

You winston, are precisely why most agnostics / atheists feel the way they do. because whether you want to believe it or not, your so called "attitude" is the way the majority of the religious world sees them/us. as of right now, america actually has a better chance of electing a gay man/woman to president then an atheist/agnostic. america. in which over 90% of the country they can't even marry. but they still have a better chance of being elected.

yes the general population of atheists/agnostics would simply like tolerance at the very least between all religions, but we *are* human. having to face hateful bile like yours constantly will naturally bring a portion of them to the forefront to throw your own words back at you. which of course you dont like, so you respond in kind yet again.

theres nothing arrogant about the first 7:30 of this, thats simply you putting your own bias on top of it. the majority of this video is almost exactly how every person who doesn't stay with they're parents religion ends up feeling/reacting. as said before, there are variances, but the core of the story is usually the same for anyone who realizes that just because you are taught a specific belief doesn't mean thats all there is to it.

>> ^SSIops
So you're saying the sole reason priests are molesting/raping children is because they can't marry? That is the saddest excuse I've ever heard. Those priests did those things cause they chose to and for no other reason.


It's not the sole excuse but it is a big part of it. Man is made to enjoy sexual pleasure. Some people simply cannot control themselves and will find whatever avenue to release their sexual tension. The apostle Paul warned against this and said that "it is better to marry than to burn."

If celibacy isn't a cause then why do we not see so many abusive priests (or whatever the spiritual leader is called) in protestant religions in equal percentages as that seen in the Catholic church? I am sure there are some, but it's a drastically different percentage.

technically speaking both sides of the priest molestation are right.
man evolved to enjoy sex, and to a certain degree even need it, or at least some relative alternative. by remaining celibate these priests are pushing the boundaries of withholding an instinct, in this case one of the most base and important ones. (from an evolutionary standpoint) and some people, one way or another will not be able to restrain that instinct.

it still comes back to choice however. if a priest really can't hold back his instinctual urge to procreate or release in some way, he has a choice. to do so by one method or another, or to leave the priesthoood and pursue a non-celibate life. every priest has that choice. however, due to the training and the immense amount of pressure placed upon them once they donned the priesthood, the 2nd choice sometimes doesn't even occur to them. so they end up making the worst decision of them all. to ensure their own short term relief at the cost of another human beings self-esteem, well being, and mental/physical health.

I don't want to get into a debate on which Bible is without error. However, I will postulate the following... if one chooses to believe by faith in a true creator God then one must also believe that God communicates his wishes to people. This is called the Bible. This is the standard. One should put aside cultural and traditional practices of religion and follow the "standard".
Or again, one can choose not to believe in a God at all, and choose to follow cultural norms and local laws. However, again, if one chooses to believe in a God at all then one must follow God's will and not man's.


So if the objective is to have everyone believe that the bible is flawless and should be followed to the word, then which bible should we use? God has been telling a lot of different people a lot of different stuff. Why is your god correct and everyone else's god incorrect? You can't simply dismiss this question just because "I don't want to discuss it." This is of critical importance to your argument.

>> ^boksinx:
keep your own cupboards to thy selves...


I upvoted cos I thought you said

Keep your own cupboards to they sHelves

It's impossible to live by the bible because it contradicts itself hundreds of times. The OT is full of god-commanded genocides and commandments that people be put to death for paltry crimes like talking back to their parents or working on the Sabbath. A lot of what the bible actually says is totally incompatible with other parts of the bible.

While I'm not religious, the way I was taught it growing up is that the OT laws were a sort of incomplete set of laws, and the higher/complete law was given by Christ etc.

You winston, are precisely why most agnostics / atheists feel the way they do.

I never knew my powers were so far-reaching. I clearly need to start directing my incredible influence over atheists and agnosts to more personally profitable venues. "Yoooou will giiiive me aaaaall your moooooney..."

having to face hateful bile like yours constantly will naturally bring a portion of them to the forefront to throw your own words back at you.

I'm a critic of entertainment - not of philosophy. This vid sucks as entertainment because it is 92.86% bellyaching and 7.14% vaguely OK message. Epic fail.

Regardless I judge people by thier deeds. Look at Videosift objectively. Only about 000.1% of the vids are 'Theists attacking Atheism' About 30% are 'Athiests attacking Theism'. Therefore, being an objective analyst I have no choice but to draw the inevitable conclusion that Athists are intolerant, hateful, bigoted, and cruel to others who do not believe in what they believe in. In the words of one of the worlds great philosophers - "Physicians, heal thyselves."

the majority of this video is almost exactly how every person who doesn't stay with they're parents religion ends up feeling/reacting.

I'd say it is a one-sided presentation embelleshed and exaggerated to a degree that is not distinguishable from fiction. I bet the parents, Sanjay, and everyone else who was so grossly caracatured in the video would tell a very different story. But there it is. Most of the stories of this nature cannot get the author's desired point across without misrepresenting other points of view.

This video is superb. Very good analogy.

Oh yeah, FACT: A person's level of intelligence is directly linked to the probability that they believe in god.

Care to guess which way the correlation works?

>> Pennypacker
000.1%

WHOAH, 000.1 PERCENT? GOOD GRAVY, SON!

On a more serious response, there are intolerant athiests just as there are intolerant theists, life goes on, and you should stop being a total jackass just because there's a video talking about how somebody was stifled by their parents trying to force religion and close-mindedness on them, and then they realized "hey let's just try to respect other people's beliefs as long as they're not hurting anyone else."

I prefer PZ Myers' "Planet of the hats", but this was pretty cool

WHOAH, 000.1 PERCENT? GOOD GRAVY, SON!

Hmm - yeah in retrospect this is probably an overstatement. The percentage of 'Theist attacking Athiest' videos on the Sift isn't that large.

there are intolerant athiests just as there are intolerant theists

Truer words were never spoken. What would be helpful to the Atheist presentation of their cause would be if they did not so stolidly pretend that they somehow are not 'intolerant' when they post treacle like this vid.

The vid claims to wonder, "why can't we all just celebrate the rich variety of shelves?" while at the same time it roundly condemns and lampoons his parents, his friends, and others for having chosen a particular set of shelves. It claims to want to celebrate diversity and freedom, while actively mocking others for having exercised it in ways the author personally did not agree with. It is hypocrisy most blatant, and utterly negates the supposed message the video is claiming to try and communicate.

Actually, I was commenting on the fact that 000.1% is really just 0.1%, so it made no sense to have the extra zeros on front, but carry on, my good sir.

Disclaimer: I'm not intolerant, just an asshole.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

The vid claims to wonder, "why can't we all just celebrate the rich variety of shelves?" while at the same time it roundly condemns and lampoons his parents, his friends, and others for having chosen a particular set of shelves. It claims to want to celebrate diversity and freedom, while actively mocking others for having exercised it in ways the author personally did not agree with. It is hypocrisy most blatant, and utterly negates the supposed message the video is claiming to try and communicate.


No it doesn't. It never condemns them at all, what it condemns is his parent's closed mindedness. Their telling him to shut up when he tries to express his thoughts, their punishing him for thinking. THAT is what it is showing. IT NEVER condemns them for having their beliefs. It also IN NO WAY condemns Sanjeev. What it is showing there is how annoyed someone can be if you say to them 'Hey, what you believe is completely wrong', and to try to then force on said person that your beliefs are the only beliefs that are correct.

So you have come at this video with a preconceived notion of what it will be and then saw what you wanted to. You don't get it at all. They never say anyone is foolish for believing what they do, for their particular set of shelves, what they show is how harmful and closed minded it is to put down and discount someone purely based on their beliefs in some higher power.

Now... you have an issue with Atheists trying to stand up for SCIENCE... in almost every video you see you will see that what us Atheists are standing up for is Science. NOT whether you believe in something or not, but these people who choose to believe in the Bible, and then try to force what is written in there onto people who instead have actually learned how the world and the things in it work. DO NOT try to tell us that evolution is wrong, when it is obviously and demonstratively correct. DO NOT try to tell us that man and dinosaurs lived together and that the T-Rex lived on plants as THAT IS WRONG.

Debate all you like about things we do not know (the existence of a divine being), but do not try to use bullshit to pull the wool over people's eyes about scientific fact. THAT, and the condemning people for not believing in YOUR god is what gets Atheists going

I wish I could award quality to a comment, because Spoco just let out a shining chunk of gold.

No it doesn't. It never condemns them at all, what it condemns is his parent's closed mindedness.

A typical attempt to deflect responsibility. The fact remains that the video DOES strongly condemn all persons except the author himself as closed minded, intolerant, and jerks - and places the root responsibility on the 'manual' and everyone else's own ineptidute at reading it. That's a condemnation of the persons, no matter how much you may wish to pretend otherwise. Think about what you just said. "It doesn't condemn THEM... It condemns THIER closed mindedness"? Please illuminate how you can not condemn a person for THIER closed mindedness?

They never say anyone is foolish for believing what they do

In a word - baloney. It doesn't blatantly call them jerks, fools, and bastards - but the denotation is crystal clear. I reject the posit that a video in which people are protrayed so grotesquely negative and does nothing but cast them in a derogatory light can be interpreted as anything but calling them foolish in all but word.

Now... you have an issue with Atheists trying to stand up for SCIENCE...

I request that you cite where I did so. If you cannot then you are merely projecting your own bias onto me. I'll save you the time. There is no such quote. You cannot find it because I didn't say it. Take that hot air and blow up some other balloon with it.

Good God, do I have to downvote every single comment you post, mister Pennypacker? I feel like Ant, except I'm downvoting for stupidity and not because I'm offended.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
No it doesn't. It never condemns them at all, what it condemns is his parent's closed mindedness.
A typical attempt to deflect responsibility. The fact remains that the video DOES strongly condemn all persons except the author himself as closed minded, intolerant, and jerks - and places the root responsibility on the 'manual' and everyone else's own ineptidute at reading it. That's a condemnation of the persons, no matter how much you may wish to pretend otherwise. Think about what you just said. "It doesn't condemn THEM... It condemns THIER closed mindedness"? Please illuminate how you can not condemn a person for THIER closed mindedness?
They never say anyone is foolish for believing what they do
In a word - baloney. It doesn't blatantly call them jerks, fools, and bastards - but the denotation is crystal clear. I reject the posit that a video in which people are protrayed so grotesquely negative and does nothing but cast them in a derogatory light can be interpreted as anything but calling them foolish in all but word.
Now... you have an issue with Atheists trying to stand up for SCIENCE...
I request that you cite where I did so. If you cannot then you are merely projecting your own bias onto me. I'll save you the time. There is no such quote. You cannot find it because I didn't say it. Take that hot air and blow up some other balloon with it.


*sigh*

The ONLY people that the video condemns are the parents and the two girls at the park. The parents NOT because of what they believe but because THEY punish and berate their child for thinking differently to them. The child reads the manual and discovers that his parents are following only portions of it, and that others are following portions of theirs. Therefore he decides that he will just follow his own way. He never condemns his parents for believing what they do, THEY condemn HIM for not just accepting what he's told.


Me saying you have an issue with Atheists standing up for science is based on the fact that 95% of 'atheist' videos are just that, standing up against religious people attacking science and trying to force creationism etc. onto the school system. So while you didn't say that you have an issue with Atheists standing up for science you apparently do because that's what the vast majority of said videos are.

This one is one of the few that is attacking the other problem with religious folk, that being their self righteousness and hatred of those who don't believe as they do.

NONE OF US CAN BE SURE AT ALL on questions of God etc. So to assume that you 'know' that you're right and others are wrong is SO... SO arrogant and vile. That's what this video is trying to get across (and you're missing entirely): As no-one can prove the existence or not, or form or not, or teachings or not of any one or more divine beings, then while you may have chosen to believe that things are way X, damn well let others chose to believe that things are way Y.

However, these beliefs in X or Y, and that A book or B book has the rules for life SHOULD NOT have a baring on how countries are run. Countries and laws and how we treat each other should be based on mutual respect, common understanding, caring for all and embracing differences. If religion could keep its hands off such things, then no-one would have an issue with it.

You are justifying intolerance because you are sympathetic to it's message. It is a normal response. But in the end this vid (and others like it) berates people for how they think, talk, believe, and act while at the same time trying to say people should be able to think, talk, believe, and act as they wish. It tries to have its rhetorical cake and eat it too.

Reverse the situation. Now the video was about a pair of Atheist parents who told thier kid, "All shelves are good". The kid looks at thier shelves and says, "These are rickety, and won't hold up over time. Hey - wow - these Jesus-shelves are GREAT! Can I use them instead?" Atheist parents tell thier kid, "No, Jesus shelves are based on stories." But the kid says, "I like them and they make me happy." Now the camera pans out on the poor kid with a sad face and the parents with MEAN faces saying, "People that use Jesus shelves are self-deluded and hurt people. You can't have them."

You might say to yourself, "What an inaccurate and biased way to present Atheists!" <big knowing smile> Mmmmmmyeeeees! That's what I'm trying to tell you. If the only way to convey the message is to be stilted, biased, and unfair then what does it say about the messenger?

So while you didn't say that you have an issue with Atheists standing up for science you apparently do because that's what the vast majority of said videos are.

You thought wrong. Stand up for science all you want. No skin off my nose. Science is great. It makes cool stuff for my room.

This one is one of the few that is attacking the other problem with religious folk, that being their self righteousness and hatred of those who don't believe as they do.

It is rather unfortunate that it's central message was undermined by the fact that the author is doing the exact same thing - just the other way around. As I said before, if that was the only message he wanted to convey then he should have just used the last 30 seconds of the vid. Everything else is a biased bloviation no better than an O'Rielly rant.

then while you may have chosen to believe that things are way X, damn well let others chose to believe that things are way Y.

I do. Believe how, where, or what you may. I really don't see how any theist is preventing you from 'damn well believing' anything you want unless you live in Iran or something.

Countries and laws and how we treat each other should be based on mutual respect, common understanding, caring for all and embracing differences. If religion could keep its hands off such things, then no-one would have an issue with it.

Human morality and the resulting secular laws based on those moralities are based are deeply rooted in religious belief. You wish to wave a wand and change that, but it is how it is. What people perceive as right and wrong structures how they govern behavior, and how they reward or punish it. Unless your intent is to ban religion entirely, you are just going to have to accept the reality that Theists (the bulk of the planet's population) are going to hold positions of power, authority, and governance. You'll also have to accept that thier concept of what is and isn't 'good' is going to come with them.

>> ^Retroboy:
>> ^Hyperdrive:
I'm happy enough to live without any drawers.

er... just don't go out in public without 'em, k?
It's quite invigorating, once you get used to the funny looks.

those moralities are based are deeply rooted in religious belief.

This reminds me, what are the FOUR first of the Ten Commandments all about again?

Oh yea, keeping your shelves in order, isnt it?

So, if you, God forbid, have your morality "deeply rooted" in religion, you should be an excellent target for this video. If you are an atheist, and have a secular understanding of morality, we have no commandments that says "Thou shalt have NO gods" or any nonsense like that. We do have one important one tho "Thou shall keep thy religion to thyself"

As they say: Dont preach in my school, and I wont think in your church.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
...But in the end this vid (and others like it) berates people for how they think, talk, believe, and act while at the same time trying to say people should be able to think, talk, believe, and act as they wish...


Correct me if I'm wrong - it seems that your argument in the first statement here is saying that the video is contradictory because it berates the parents / others for their point of view (which is that they want their child to follow what they say without questioning it, and that they are unwilling to consider anything besides what they currently believe until the end of the video). Is that right?

Well, you have an interesting point. The video does, indeed, do what you're claiming.

This leads to an incredibly interesting topic of discussion - what do you do with someone whose moral code differs from your own / society's? In most of society today we tend to put these people in jail or in psych wards. In past societies, people have been excommunicated, killed, berated, dealt with hospitably and have fought against society to try to get it to recognize their views.

I don't know if this is an American video or not, but in America the right to the pursuit of happiness is guaranteed. There's a problem with that, though! The child in this video and the parents have conflicting moral codes which preclude each other from pursuing happiness while they live together. There's a difference between what the child is doing, however, and what the parents are doing. The parents' moral code requires them to attempt to force the child to change which prevents him from being able to pursue happiness. On the other hand, the child's moral code simply doesn't mesh with the parents' - but he's not attempting to force them into anything.

There is a flaw with the parents' moral code which goes against the right to the pursuit of happiness of others. There is no such flaw in the child's moral code.



Human morality and the resulting secular laws based on those moralities are based are deeply rooted in religious belief. You wish to wave a wand and change that, but it is how it is. What people perceive as right and wrong structures how they govern behavior, and how they reward or punish it. Unless your intent is to ban religion entirely, you are just going to have to accept the reality that Theists (the bulk of the planet's population) are going to hold positions of power, authority, and governance. You'll also have to accept that thier concept of what is and isn't 'good' is going to come with them.



Human morality has existed for a long time - longer than religion (depending on your definition of religion), and it has changed a lot over that time. There are still people in the world for whom it is morally OK to kill others, even to rape or eat other humans. There are videos on the sift which prove this (see the "we rape to get good magic" video - too lazy to get a link). Religion has certainly developed moral ideas, but it's not the root of all morality.

Personally, I believe that morality came about the same way most other things came about - out of need. Early humans probably found that they fared better by cooperating with people similar to themselves rather than fighting those people, so that became their moral code. This is why some cultures have moral codes that are questionable to other cultures - they've developed differently and have had different needs resulting in different lifestyles and different moral codes.

Theists are a majority of human population (though I believe that the percentage is declining - I have no proof to back that up, though). I believe (hope?) that most non-theists have no problem with people being theists, and they can accept that theists have their own concept what is good and bad, right and wrong. The problem occurs when one group attempts to impose restrictions on the other's ability to pursue happiness. Both the religious and the non-religious are guilty of this.

This video doesn't explicitly state that the parents / girls at the lake who tend to be the aggressors represent Christianity or any particular religion, but it also doesn't try very hard to avoid that implication (a book as an instruction manual is a very strong symbol easily identified with the bible). It seems to be a critique of violent intolerance, but it could have done a better job of being nonviolent itself by simply saying "It's OK for the parents to be unaccepting of others' beliefs as long as they do so in a way that doesn't prevent the others from pursuing their own happiness".


Man, that was a freaking dissertation.

tl;dr version:

Pennypacker is right that the video is intolerant. It's intolerant of violent intolerance, which leads to confusion over conflicting moral codes.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 4:14pm PST - promote requested by fissionchips.

The Conservative Cult hates self empowering videos.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
I think whatever decent message it might have had got inundated by a sea of bias and prejudice. That really is the problem with many of the atheists and agnosts out there. They want to say "we should all tolerate each other"? That's fine. But they don't do that. They can't help themselves. The second they start to give the nice "let's all get along message" they feel strongly compelled to justify it with "here's why religion sucks", "this is how believers are so mean", "see how people of faith are hypocrites" crap in ratios of 10 to 1. This vid is a great example. 1 part of "let's all get along" and 13 parts of "here's why everyone I met in my life was such a jerk". 13 parts bellyaching and whining. 1 part nice message. Pardon me while I vomit.


Reading your comments here and elsewhere, you really appear to be acting in a manner consistent with someone who has some serious insecurity issues. You are getting defensive quickly and reading a whole lot into things that aren't really there. I don't think you are meaning to, but you're pretty much making the video's point.