This is awesome - To take it even further...

Justifing actions as unquestionable dictates from god, combined with heaven providing reward rather than consequence from death ... Actually by passes the natural imperitive to protect other humans!

You could argue that without religion the world would live in harmony with more morality as there would be no reason to kill, torture, or abuse anyone who your god judged to be inferior.

Sure there will always be those who hurt others for greed or power - but belief in god has never stopped those people - more othen actually - gave others reason to help them.

hmmmmmm strong in some points weak in others. I'd like to see a revision where he doesn't claim that an overly violent species is going to have trouble maintaining a high population. It's a benefit that these animals don't die when fighting for territory, food, or to mate, because later on down the road, they may end up being the stronger one in the fight. If they were eliminated from the gene pool, altogether, that may allow for an even weaker individual to get its share of animal pussy and reproduce. I don't think natural selection has to do with large populations so much as it has to do with the survival of a population.

I was taking a math class a few years back and we did parametric graphs involving predator vs prey populations showing how that when as one was declining, the other was increasing, and at a certain point, those growth patterns would reverse. The reason I bring this up is because I'm bored at work AND because I want to point out that a healthy size of a population of a certain species is more of a balancing act than it is an effort to gain the highest number possible. So, you wouldn't want a certain predator populating so much they eat their food supply and eliminate it from their area altogether because that would be a very bad thing for the success of this species' survival. What we have are measures to ensure not every one is breeding whenever they want, they have to earn it in the case of the Mexican lizard guys. In fact, if the guy who loses this fight, can't win at all, he's of no use to the species. You could kill him and it'd make only a slight positive difference in your competition for food. But I guess nature can be fair sometimes in giving everybody a chance to get in where he fits in .

True, there are some broad generalizations in the video that are being a little distorted to prove a point.

There are plenty of contradicting 'law of the jungle' behaviours.

While penguins mate for life and appreciate their children, female spiders kill and eat the male after mating, some bird species have two eggs as backup and let only one chick survive.
Some bird species will raise another's chicks, while it's also quite common for birds to kill all the chicks of another species to steal the nest.
Lions as a pride family, cooperate as a social unit, in yet a new male lion will kill and eat the cubs of any other male to secure his line when he becomes the alpha male.

In many species the alpha male only gets to that position by maiming, killing, or at the least exiling both the previous alpha and any younger challengers.

It's not morality, regardless of religion, for both people and animals it's about power.
The lizards don't kill each other because they are evenly matched if they both poison each other it would be suicide. But given the chance to kill the offspring of the rival without fear of retribution - the weak get crushed.

A far more thoughtful, insightful, and methodical treatise on this subject is found in C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity".

see, your logic fails to explain contradictions.
but when i say jesus made them that way, it's perfectly logical and acceptable.
therefore, god wins.

There are lots of unique examples of altruism in nature, but not every animal or living thing displays altruism. The only ones that display altruism do so because it benefits the species in the long run. Just because altruism can exist without manmade laws doesn't mean it always does.

If you took a step farther back, you would see that religion and laws are a part of nature in the sense that they're a part of culture, and we require culture to survive. Of course that's very different than saying any of the religions are right.

It's more strange to suggest that religion was unnecessary for our survival. If it wasn't necessary, it would not have existed (and persisted). Whether it's necessary for our future survival is another topic. It's not yet as vestigial as our tailbones, and in any case, it needs to shrink naturally just as our tailbones did while we adapt to its absence.

>> ^Lodurr:
There are lots of unique examples of altruism in nature, but not every animal or living thing displays altruism. The only ones that display altruism do so because it benefits the species in the long run. Just because altruism can exist without manmade laws doesn't mean it always does.
If you took a step farther back, you would see that religion and laws are a part of nature in the sense that they're a part of culture, and we require culture to survive. Of course that's very different than saying any of the religions are right.
It's more strange to suggest that religion was unnecessary for our survival. If it wasn't necessary, it would not have existed (and persisted). Whether it's necessary for our future survival is another topic. It's not yet as vestigial as our tailbones, and in any case, it needs to shrink naturally just as our tailbones did while we adapt to its absence.


Just because something is beneficial doesn't mean it will develop in every species. Adding gills to humans would certainly benefit us, for example. Not having gills wasn't enough of a problem to wipe us out, is all.

Religion's existence doesn't prove its necessity, either. As a form of control it might have been beneficial to society in general. You can do something illegal and potentially get away with it, but you can't hide from God so it's a more effective deterrent than any legal system. That doesn't guarantee that we wouldn't have made it with just laws, though.

>> ^mxxcon:
see, your logic fails to explain contradictions.
but when i say jesus made them that way, it's perfectly logical and acceptable.
therefore, god wins.


Therefore God Wins is going to be the name of my Christian rock band, if I ever start one.

Upvote for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory clip

>> ^Crunchy:
Upvote for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory clip


Looked like there were lasers tho.

ontopic:
I want to tell you about the most wonderful place in the world: Doggie heaven.
In doggie heaven, there are mountains of bones, and you can't turn around
without sniffing another dog's butt!

Bart: Is there a doggie hell?
Homer: Well... Of course, there couldn't be a heaven if there weren't a hell.
Bart: Who's in there?
Homer: Oh, uh... Hitler's dog... and that dog Nixon had, what's his name,
um, Chester...
Lisa: [annoyed] Checkers.
Homer: Yeah! One of the Lassies is in there, too. The mean one!
The one that mauled Jimmy!

Mexican Wrestling Lizards! This clip features extensive grappling of *Mexican Lizards!* A M A Z I N G

>> ^xxovercastxx:
Religion's existence doesn't prove its necessity, either. As a form of control it might have been beneficial to society in general. You can do something illegal and potentially get away with it, but you can't hide from God so it's a more effective deterrent than any legal system. That doesn't guarantee that we wouldn't have made it with just laws, though.


There's also the case to be made that religion may have had no effect on survival at all, in which case the presence of an ability to believe wouldn't have been rooted out or especially promoted - just spread.