I agree with him.

Christians have done similar things to me before. Once it was a "friend" who pulled this weird guilt-trip Jesus thing on me. A few times it was some new faces in my dive bar who were obviously proselytizing. Once it was a "non-religious" play at a Baptist church on Cape Cod, and sure as shit one of the guys pidgeon-holed me and told me how I needed to be saved.

On a related but different note, another friend of mine won't shut up about abortion, and it's gotten to the point where I'd rather avoid him than hang out with him, and he's like a brother to me.

They all have this strange need to force me to think like they do.

The man sure does like to slap his legs.

^Holy crap. I read the comment first and saw the video later, once the leg slapping commenced it is impossible to let it go. How many times was that?

I can't hardly blame him.

It's like being invited to an award ceremony, and you tell them you're a vegan, and all they serve for supper is roast beef.

It's just really thoughtless.

Whatevs...Penn is kinda being a baby. Like his young impressionable mind never knew of such evil things. It's just a prayer, he knows Christians exist, and he knows they're often pious, presumptuous, pricks. So get over it and stop acting butt-hurt.

And it's not like the analogy you had with the vegan and roast beef. Penn and Teller didn't go hungry because the group didn't cater to their preferences, they just had to listen to some bullshit.

but *promote anyway

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 4:15am PDT - promote requested by rottenseed.

As an atheist, I'm honored when people pray in my presence -- IF THEY ASK ME FIRST. Despite having no religion and no belief in supernatural powers, I understand that a lot of people do and that these beliefs are personal and powerful factors in their lives. If they want to share that with me in the form of a prayer, even knowing that I don't share their belief, I am totally touched and honored they respect me that much.

>> ^rottenseed:

And it's not like the analogy you had with the vegan and roast beef.

Yeah, it is like that. It's just like that.

You missed the point that an analogy is not a literal description.

You missed the point that when you invite somebody to your house or place of gathering as a guest of honor--knowing damn good and well that they are uncomfortable with something--and then you go ahead and do exactly that, right in their faces, for a prolonged period of time, it is at the very least thoughtless, if not simply insulting.

I bet the Christians weren't uncomfortable or even slightly insulted by him NOT praying.

I'm all for searching your own path in the Universe, but if we can learn anything from (the mistakes of) Christianity, it's you don't fuck with other people's beliefs.

I find DEVOUT atheists are as bad as devout religious people. They BOTH look on each other as something to stamp out, and the root cause of all evil in the world. Both extremes are incredibly naive.

The BEST we can hope for is universal tolerance.

>> ^rottenseed:
Whatevs...Penn is kinda being a baby. Like his young impressionable mind never knew of such evil things. It's just a prayer, he knows Christians exist, and he knows they're often pious, presumptuous, pricks. So get over it and stop acting butt-hurt.

So as long as he knows they are pricks, it's all right to let it go? The point is he knows they aren't intentionally pricks (at least this group wasn't), just completely thoughtless because they are a massive majority. The video is intended to try to get those kind of people to reflect on their actions more.


>> ^Payback:
I bet the Christians weren't uncomfortable or even slightly insulted by him NOT praying.

Oh come on! It was an award ceremony honoring them that wasn't remotely related to Christianity, that they had assured them wouldn't be religious at all in nature. They have as much theoretical right to be uncomfortable with them not praying as they have right to be offended that there are other religions in the world, that is, none at all.

>> ^rougy:
>> ^rottenseed:
And it's not like the analogy you had with the vegan and roast beef.
Yeah, it is like that. It's just like that.
You missed the point that an analogy is not a literal description.
You missed the point that when you invite somebody to your house or place of gathering as a guest of honor--knowing damn good and well that they are uncomfortable with something--and then you go ahead and do exactly that, right in their faces, for a prolonged period of time, it is at the very least thoughtless, if not simply insulting.

Well if I told them "look, we promise nobody will eat any meat whatsoever" and they got there and everybody was eating meat, that's one thing. However, if they came over, and I had vegan meals prepared as an option for vegans, but the other guests could eat their choice of meat products, why would the vegan get offended?

Nobody forced them to pray, nor did the words of the prayer hurt anybody. It's just complaints from bleeding heart pussies. "But you didn't think about the people who had neck injuries and couldn't bow their heads during the moment of silence or the people with tourettes that can't control how silent they are or aren't." It's all just babies acting like babies. You can't please all the people all of the time, so maybe people need to stop having such precious, delicate feelings.

I don't think he was trying to complain or point fingers or even necessarily make a point. I think he was just telling a story about an awkward situation.

A somewhat similar story, which did bother me a little, was my grandfather's funeral. Now, grandpa was officially catholic, but he didn't practice. I don't know if he believed or not because I never heard him say a word about it either way. Whatever he believed, he was clearly not a very religious man, so when the priest spent more time talking about Jesus at his funeral than the man we were burying, it put me off a bit. This was no mystery to the priest, either, as he even mentioned that he had only met my grandpa 2-3 times whereas grandma was at mass every week.

>> ^rottenseed:
You can't please all the people all of the time, so maybe people need to stop having such precious, delicate feelings.


That's one way of looking at it: if they don't like it, piss on 'em.

*****

Penn: “Is there anything religious there whatsoever.”
Them: “No.”
Penn: “Then the guy starts talking 'Oh, Heavenly Father' and all of this....”

That's just plain shitty.

I'm an atheist. That said, as long as people are respectful of me, I don't know that I'm bothered by them going about their business in front of me.

There's one comment that Penn makes which I'm not sure I agree with which was his statement about if they had invited a muslim they wouldn't pray in front of them... I'm not sure about that assumption. In fact, I'm fairly certain that they would have prayed in front of pretty much anyone.

I don't think it is somehow different for atheists than it would be for any other religion. The one thing I definitely have to agree with was the bait-and-switch they did. They specifically said it wasn't in any way religious and then started to pray... that's pretty shitty.

Rottenseed-


Well if I told them "look, we promise nobody will eat any meat whatsoever" and they got there and everybody was eating meat, that's one thing. However, if they came over, and I had vegan meals prepared as an option for vegans, but the other guests could eat their choice of meat products, why would the vegan get offended?
Nobody forced them to pray, nor did the words of the prayer hurt anybody. It's just complaints from bleeding heart pussies. "But you didn't think about the people who had neck injuries and couldn't bow their heads during the moment of silence or the people with tourettes that can't control how silent they are or aren't." It's all just babies acting like babies. You can't please all the people all of the time, so maybe people need to stop having such precious, delicate feelings.


OK, it's really more like they were well known, quite vocal vegans and were invited to dinner and were told there would be no animals or animal products served, then they got there and found that most everyone WAS eating meat, and they had a big slab of roast beef slapped in their face. True, no one forced them to eat animal, but it would be intentionally and obviously insulting, just like this was.
These people would be enraged if Penn (or another person of intellect) went to a church during service and interrupted with a sermon about the non-existence of invisible friends and the dangers of being stupid enough to believe in them. (this BTW is the best way to stop Jehovah's Witnesses from bothering you... go to their temple during service and interrupt them to tell them the good news about the non-existence of God/Jebus and the foolishness and dangerousness of religion).
Where is your church Rottenseed? I wish to attend and see how much of a baby you are when anti/non- religion is repeatedly brought to your religious event (just as these people forced their religion onto a non-religious event honoring well known, vocal, anti religious people) making it impossible for you to hold any religious event without hearing about how idiotic your beliefs are. That goes for ALL of those who believe it's OK to spout your belief system at others when it's not requested, wanted, or appropriate. If you really believe what you've said, you'll invite me and all other atheists to your church to have our say every sermon. If there's no invite forthcoming, I'll have to assume that you, like most "religious" people, don't really believe what you say and rarely if ever do what you preach.
Non-theists have NO public place of refuge from the teeming religious masses, it's time the religinuts get back some of what they've been throwing.
Christians are the biggest babies, that's why then need an invisible friend to hold their hand their entire life and threaten them with eternal horrors if they don't follow the "rules" (because they can't just be good for goodness sake, they require constant supervision and a threat of punishment for not being good or they can't bring themselves to do it, indeed they can't do it even with the threat of never-ending punishment, just like a 2 year old).

boohoo penn.