I love fiction. :3

Gets the point across..but i think it could have been done better.
better and without big red bold letters telling me i'm SUPPOSED to feel
repulsed by this.

Seriously..

You can try and press morality on others to try and have them feel the same
way as you do, but don't force your view upon others.

Seriously by the 6th "You should find this repulsive" I was ready to go beat my slaves.

Um, I think that the commandments say "thou shalt not kill" - not "thou shalt not kill except in the circumstances outlined in the following subsections". I would propose the rest outlined in this video would be described as ancient societal law if one were to apply "thoughtfulness" and "intelligence" to the interpretation.

I'm certainly not trying to defend the literal and infallible application of words in the old testament by the various religions derived from it but I would argue that this guy's application of thoughtfulness and intelligence to the issue leads him down the same path to black and white conclusions and calls to action trumpeted by those he seeks to denigrate.

thou shalt not kill in the context with witch it was delivered, obviously meant for them not to kill each other, not necessarily not to kill at all ever. much of gods condemnation of these people was still viewed as perfectly ok however.

more to the point, alot of these bible thumpers who proclaim the bible and gods goodness simply want to pick and choose what parts to follow. if your going to swallow a pill like this, you have to accept the whole thing, not just what makes you all warm n fuzzy inside.

i will aggree i was rather sick of "this is repulsive" after the first 2 or 3 of em. we get the point already.

LoL the "DO YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ??" made me think of starshiptroopers for some reason...

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not into religion, but this clip looks alot like propaganda.

I feel an underlying message of contempt for believers throughout the clip

I believe "thoughtfull, intelligent people" tend to recognize it for what it is... and i for one don't approve of it as a method to create consensus, one way or the other...

Upvote so people can discuss this ( my prefered method to share opinions )

What's fun, is that this needs no commentary. Even with the sound off, just reading the verses is "repulsive" enough as it is. Now, just sit back and wait for someone to defend the verses . . . .

*circlejerk

Religion gives billions more purpose and meaning than it has harmed. Mocking minorities who take the Bible literally doesn't invalidate the core truths of the Bible or other Holy texts: communion with a Higher Power, Oneness with the Self, valuing life, etc. If humans were perfect creatures, religion and religious training even in the guise of secular values would be unnecessary. As religion is a human enterprise it is bound to be flawed. So what? What isn't?

Yeah, most major religions claim they're the Only Way...again, so what? For anyone with faith it's more likely to believe all paths are valid than none of them.

Stalin and Mao, two of the world's biggest mass murderers--were promoters of atheism. Instead of a god they made the State Almighty. Didn't turn out too well.

Believing nothing in life is greater than yourself and that you're the final authority on what's good or bad invites gullibility several magnitudes higher than the simple religious trying to live their lives with meaning.

You will never get rid of religion: it speaks to what gives life meaning, not how things work.

Congratulations on selecting verses out of context and applying them to out of context situations. Just because God saw fit to shape His chosen Hebrew people in a certain way does not mean that all those specific laws apply in the same way today. They have a very symbolic meaning in today's context, but you have to ignore the ENTIRE REST OF THE BIBLE to see them as barbaric as you argue. The Bible is not something that is meant to be taken a verse at a time!!! It is a complete work. You must read the entire thing and base your judgments of a single verse based not just on the setting, but also on the rest of the bible itself. The Laws in Deuteronomy and Leviticus were designed for their ancient Hebrew audience. It is true that they reveal what God disproves of in this generation, but Jesus has told us plainly to love the sinner and hate the sin.

I've said it before, but the Law was not provided to man to be a measuring stick for righteousness, or for wondering if you measure up to God's standards. The Law was revealed to us so that we can see that there is no way in our state that we can live up to it in full, so we must rely on the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross that relieves us from those consequences.

See, what you are outlining here is part of the oral christian tradition, but nowhere in the text of the bible itself. I have spent over a year and half now thorougly reading the bible and lots of "bible guides" with it, and as a whole, the book is overwhelmingly racist, violent, sexist, neighbour-hating and with an incosistent God. Even Jesus (most notably in the two first gospels which are very "by Jews for Jews").

I don't understand how people can believe in a god and thus be religious, but I don't understand either why anyone would put any effort in trying to convert religious people, to fight against them, even waste the time on being upset about it. Don't even know why anone would vote for this video. It's nothing more than (really bad) propaganda, not better than anything distributed in islamic countries, obviously done by total morons and I don't even care enough to watch the whole clip. That something written thousands of years ago over a course of hundreds of years is contradictory and antiquated does not really surprise, does it? It's like a clip showing that Grimm's fairy tales are *not* realistic.

*Disclaimer* I never said I agree with anything being said here, I just knew it would be an easy sift.

Doc_M - is that the Rush Limbaugh excuse tactic? "Taken out of context"?

What is the context for permitting children to be murdered?

What is the context for permitting pregnant women to be "ripped open"?

What is the context for permitting anyone being stoned to death?

What is the context for permitting anyone to own slaves?

Please Doc_M, what exactly is this "context" you speak of?

The reason people are so anti-Christianity and spend so much energy trying to shake some fuck!ng sense into Christian heads is because in north America I have to live, work, commute, and otherwise exist amongst these people. My kids will have to grow up around these people. And both me and my children deserve to be safe from violent and malicious religions, and idiots who are dumb enough to believe in them.

Throbbin, read the bible, think about what it's saying, understand it's been translated at least 5 different times. And Doc_M is right the bible is constantly being taken out of context. Both by Christians and Atheists alike. I don't see why you need to harbor such anger at people who have beliefs different from yours. It's called tolerance, you could use some.

P.S. When was the last time a "violent malicious religion" attacked you?

Gorgonheap - I have read the bible, 3 times actually, at different ages throughout my life.

Translated 5 times? Who cares? People in North America are still worshipping the english/french/spanish versions, regardless of whatever translation version they are reading.

Tolerance? The only thing I am intolerant of is intolerance. I have seen what Christianity (and other religions) has done to the people in my community. I have seen people close their minds and open their wallets, even if they couldn't afford it. I have grown up with people who were molested by "men of the cloth" who were supposedly there to help and guide them. I have read reports of known and documented child-abusing priests and pastors being shuffled off to another church in another town, protected by the church and by "god".

I have seen parents disown their children because of his/her sexual orientation. I have seen churchs foster hate and division within my community, and across the world. I have seen people who forget to think for themselves, and try to get our school boards to stop teching science and start teaching the bible in the school I used to go to. And I fear for the world my son will encounter when he grows older.

Sorry gogronheap - I have seen enough. If you agree to keep your religion to yourself, then we'll be fine. As soon as anyone tries to impose their beliefs on me or my family, thinking they have permission or even urging from a higher power, then we'll have a major problem.

And the biggest problem is, most religious folk don't even realize when they are doing it.

Any god who could ever command people to do such things is unworthy of worship. I don't care if he changed his mind, he's still evil.

"The Law was revealed to us so that we can see that there is no way in our state that we can live up to it in full, so we must rely on the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross that relieves us from those consequences." -Doc_M

Yeah, it's hard living up to the Laws that say to sell your daughters, enslave people, and kill Christians. (The old testament was for jews so the passages saying to kill those who try to convert you are instructions to kill Christians). But of course that's just mistranslations. The laws which say to stone people to death for god actually said "shake hands, hug, and apologize." Also the gospels of Jesus are actually a mistranslated recipe for baba ganoush. I tried it and it was delicious.

And I refuse to slaughter entire cities like the ancient jewish sects did so I have to worship some fictional character who's a rip-off of the older god Mithras? I'd rather worship Tom Sawyer. He's also a fictional character who came back from the dead (in a way), and all he wants from me is to paint a fence for him.

The more religious a country gets, now or in the past, the more violent it becomes (modern America, medieval Christian Europe, many middle-east countries). And once a country is very religious and follows only 1 religion it breaks into sects and they battle against each other (Iraq). Once the US becomes a religion run country it'll be as violent and backwards as any other theocracy.

"P.S. When was the last time a 'violent malicious religion' attacked you?" -gorgonheap

Do not ask us. Ask the victims:

Catholic vs Jews -- Gott mit uns (God is with us)
Christian vs Muslim -- 1095 to 1291
Muslim sect vs sect -- Iraq
Christians vs USA -- Funeral Protests

Why are those people with the strongest faith always the most violent?

Yeah, you kinda missed Gorgon's question by about a parsec. He asked when the last time a 'violent malicious religion' attacked YOU.
Gott mit uns - 1945. I doubt you were even alive.
Christian vs Muslim - 1291? Are you kidding? That's over 700 years ago!
Sect vs sect - not unless you're over there.
Christians vs USA? That's the same thing as saying every white guy is a serial killer or every black guy is going to steal your t.v.
Those fucking douche bags (That number in less than 100, by the way) DO NOT represent the vast majority of Christians. Any atheist will tell you that.

You would have been better off with something along the lines of "Sept. 11." Even still, that wasn't a direct attack against you.

The bible is riddled with ugly, contridictory things. It also has many beautiful truths and some very uplifting things to say about Mankind and our potential. Take it for what it is; Mans attempt to peer inside the mind of God. It is not the definitive work, it is a reflection of what lurks inside of us.

I'd like to skew from the topic slightly and say that I participate in discussions like these not for the sake of argument, but for the sake of debate. I don't expect to convert anyone, but I am interested in hearing how other people think and why they choose to act/live the way they do. The frustrating part is that these normally degrade into childish fights and it's pretty rare that I come away feeling I understand the faithful any better.

Since this particular conversation is already well on its way to becoming useless bickering, I feel no shame in saying that QM is a moron for bringing up Stalin and Mao Zedong again. First, mentioning 2 atheists that did a lot of evil shit says nothing about the validity of the bible or religion. Second, even if it did, citing 2 people out of the billions that have lived in the millenniums past (all six of them!) really doesn't carry much weight. If Stalin and Mao were Catholics/Jews/Presbyterians/Jehovah's Witnesses/etc, they would have been evil fucking Catholics/Jews/Presbyterians/Jehovah's Witnesses/etc. Faith does not prevent evil and atheism does not guarantee it.

There are evil, twisted religious people and there are moral, upstanding atheists. I happen to be one of the latter and I'm tired of being villainized by narrow-minded twits like you.

Well, the whole mohammed crisis was a direct attack on MY freedom of speech. An attack isn't necessarily as simple as someone hitting you over the head with a bible, or the like.

Most religions are based on spreading themselves, the mormons are an easy target for this - this can be seen as an attack on, well, freedom of religion, which is just an extension of freedom of thought (both are just in your head).

Many good things have been done in the name of religion, and I certainly don't deny its value in history, but many, many evil things have been done in the name of religion and the bible as well. Stalin may have been an atheist, but that wasn't why he did what he did, just as Hitler may have been a catholic; that wasn't why he did what he did. Suicide bombers are doing their thing, excatly because of religion. Atheists don't bomb churches, which is perhaps why they aren't heard in the US - not vocal enough (I'm not encouraging church-bombings, though).

You also hear many learned people, not just the wackos, say, "without the bible we wouldn't have any morality", which is just an absurd thought, seeing that the bible's morality is horrible, and as the video indicates, repulsive. The video's execution could have been better though, I was annoyed with it by the end.

To focus on the bible, it is all too easy to pick-and-choose passages to fit almost any need, which is a fundamental flaw in the belief of it. If you believe in the bible, then you must believe in the whole things, not just what you think is right - that fundamentally flaws the belief, because the bible is self-contradictory on many points.

obligatory "so fucking surprised this made the top 15" post

Ummm... *long?

This video has been flagged as being at least 10 minutes in length - declared long by Fjnbk.

Of course this clip is propaganda. And it's mostly correct, except that the Jesus quote was not meant to be taken literally. It's still repulsive under any reasonable interpretation because it supposes the existence of Hell, God's never-ending abu ghraib.

9/11 and everything that is happening in the middle east today is very good reason to want to persuade people to give up their supernaturalist delusions.

Every point QM raised is thorougly addressed in Dawkins' book, The God Delusion.

upvote for the discussion. Ashame to see Doc_M using such flawed and illconcieved arguements on par with the legendary wit of Quantumushroom and gorgonheap.

For those of you who want top quality discussions on all things religion go to the discussion groups on www.infidels.org

http://www.angelfire.com/co/JeffersonBible/jeffbsyl.html

why do I care to discuss this? So many reasons. One can be that one of the most fundamentalist churches here in this part of the/my country has had as an aim, and now something they have accomplished, to get "their people" into the government of the city. And they are of course members of the most hateful/racist/nationalistic parties. The selfish political parties. The elitist political parties. I care about this, so I discuss it. I also want to learn more about "them". I want to understand as much as possible about what i am "against".
I also think it is ugly to blindly defend whatever you heard first as "the truth", so for me this is a journey in questioning/understanding my own religion and not one of attacking other's religion.

whatever, when biblical christians go on about the qu'ran being barbaric, they should remember to take the plank out of their own eye first.

Tens of millions of innocent Americans? I don't know one "innocent" person...we've all got our beautiful and fascinating "sins".

hi this is my first time posting anything on the shift i see the vids from blusenes links : )

i up voted this couse there is a lot of propaganda from the other side so why not from both and because any church will tell you that the bible is the words of god so if these are things that are written in it, then how can they be wrong ? dose that mean that god can be wrong or that he is wrong? and if you need to go to school to understand and interpret the bible properly then that means it was written by god for a select group of people..?

i think that the bible was made up by people thats why its so crazy and if you really read it you will see that the biggest sin is insubordination example - in sodom and gomorrah lots wife turns to a pillar of salt for looking back at the cities other then that she did nothing wrong wtf she got the same punishment aka death for looking back as the sinners in the cities..

its all sort of funny to me..

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion"

That sentence has been quoted quite often. But not often enough.

I'm gonna jump in with a comment here -
Not all the verses in the bible are supposed to be from God. A lot of the tests are letters from people to other people, like "The letter from Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians." So alot of what is in there is from man to man, not God to man.

lol. I love you too qruel.

I'm not voting for this one, and not even watching it (not that it will make any difference).

I am sick and tired of people arguing against the bible as if the bible is worth arguing against.

Anyone who expounds religious apologetics on the web is a troll. Don't feed the trolls by engaging their "debate".

The bible is besides the point for Atheists. What Theist, especially Theocrats, do is always the real issue.

dgandhi, I can see your point. It's like arguing whether my imaginary friend has red or green hair - not really an issue, because it's an imaginary friend.

The bible is more important than that, however, because so many religious people, obviously, base their lives upon it.

Regardless of accuracy or tact or any of that..I voted for and like this video simply because there are Christian's on local radio that do this exact same thing with Islam and devote an hour a day to it. I always wanted to show them you can do the exact same out of context manipulation with their book and see how they felt about it.

If only this was on the radio and not a venue where those whacko reactionaries wont hear it.

You're an idiot...and I don't believe in the bible either.

Yawneth.

This video will not be very useful for converting the already "converted" atheists/non theists, obviously. This video is aimed at those still holding onto their delusions (again the word delusion simply being an erroneous belief in something without evidence) or perhaps the people who don't quite know what to think, so that earnest curiosity and honest inquiry may take hold in an individual. It may sound like propaganda to some in it's tone and presentation BUT everything mentioned therein rings true on some level despite the annoying style it's done in. Even so, the issue of tolerance for those whose religion (in the cases where this is true) does not affect you is something many combative atheists could humbly strive for.

A sense of pity, compassion, and understanding, as most of us atheists at one time or another were in the exact same predicament under the throes of blissful (or maybe fearful?) religious ignorance, instead of intense loathing and hate is in order...this is not giving religion a "free pass" but knowing when to recognize the difference between purely destructive religiosity and the seemingly innocent, harmless, live-and-let-live kind. Making that distinction is another complex debate in itself...

I thought the video was poorly done. For the second argument, he said something about killing unbelievers, but the verses he quoted said nothing about believing in God. He should have given more context than the half verses he quoted.

Including the saying by Jesus was ridiculous. It was like the guy was making a parody of his own video within his video. The statement was obvious exaggeration to make a point.

There are plenty of other things in the Bible to criticize.

OK, that was an utter waste of time.

KILL THE HEATHENS

The arguments are out of context and that combined with the perception not to tell the whole story of God's redemptive plan can absolutely make the Bible look evil.

Honestly you could make it look like the Bible tells us it is OK to pick people off from the roof tops with a rifle if you took the right verses out of context.

*downvote for me

On a lighter note. I like how all the lurkers decided to sign up for VS just to have an opinion on their soap boxes. There's more "P's" in here then a farmer's field!

^ I guess you've never seen the Sift's all time top video.

What this video points out is one elegent fact, the bible is a fable. If the right parts or summed whole are looked at from a very skeptical eye it makes for a nice grouping of moral stories. But the fact that religions power is a real thing affecting the world around us shows that it's not that innocent. In my opinion if you want to preach about how great and innocent religious text is make sure to point out that it's either all written by man, hence not perfect (and not literal), or disregard it entirely or you subject yourself to believing in a contradiction.

I happen to be one of the latter and I'm tired of being villainized by narrow-minded twits like you.

>>> Villanized? Are there villains in the chess club?

*promote

jwray cannot promote this post because jwray does not have enough Power Points. (You can always purchase more Power Points.)

This video is great.

*kill

Permanently discarding this video - kill requested by submitter MarineGunrock.