Tags for this video have been changed from 'sunday school, colbert report, god, devil, social pressure' to 'sunday school, colbert report, god, devil, social pressure, zimbardo' - edited by kronosposeidon

Dr. Zimbardo conducted one of the most well known experiments in psychology, and it's extremely unfortunate that to this day we are still failing to fully grasp the implications of his groundbreaking research. I realize that there has been some recent research that has cast doubt on the broad conclusions of his study, but I think his basic thesis is still valid. I'm guessing Dr. Milgram would agree with that.

the ending is hilarious

I hate the ending because Colbert pulls out the old "this is so funny I am busting up laughing" routine that always kills his bits.

That guy may know psychology, but he has one twisted view of Christian theology. I can't recall Colbert every actually totally putting the smackdown on a guest like that, he usually plays the joking devil's advocate to help make their point from the clips I've seen.

I wasnt going to upvote until I heard, "I teach Sunday School motherfucker".

they talk about fictional characters as if they were real, i mean really.

Keep the Youtube-hosted TDS and Colbert clips coming! We can't watch the Comedy Central site in Canada -- so, many thanks from this Canuck!

upvote, for what Calvados said.

I cant help but think Colbert didnt really pwn anyone. He really didnt prove his side. All he did was change the word "obey" to "love" and therefore it must be good and right. Very Faux News of him in a way. We go to hell cause we fall out of Gods love? You mean we dont do what he says. I mean the author i think was making an interesting point that if man was made in gods image with the hopes of being perfect then even God has to admit he fucked up. We arent perfect (which makes life worth living i might add) but of course God can never admit when he's wrong or the whole universe would implode Dogma style but with no Chris Rock. He derailed a little when he said Satan was right and God was wrong, he was trying to prove a point that if you ever disobey you will be forever damned. Satan was Gods favorite angel and yet he had no problem in making him the epitome of all evil to dwell forever in hell and as George Carlin said he has no problem sending us to hell to suffer and burn and rot for all eternity because he loves us. Colbert sounded like another individual who has been brainwashed into this manipulative concept to cover up why God punishes us for not doing exactly what he says by calling it "Love"

Hmm... Colbert seems too thoughtful to be that religious.

As with all intellectuals who are religious, he has not put his faith under scrutiny. The debate they're having here is like discussing whether Dumbledore is gay or not and what that means for the gay community - not really important. The underlying idea about authority is interesting, though.

That guy may know psychology, but he has one twisted view of Christian theology.

No, he has the right view.Christianity, like all religion, are tools of totalitarianism and blind obedience, its just coersive, lying, advanced memes for saying things like "Dont think for yourself" and "respect authority", Some people fall for this crap and think theres some advanced thinking that they are really doing, we call these people idio.. uh, religious

I'm so glad I live in a time when I'm free to say that there is no bigger waste of time or engergy than religion. Used to be someone could sincerely believe in god and I could accept that. These days, if you tell me you believe in god, you're gonna have to be one smooth operator to convince me you aren't also otherwise a thoughtless moron.

He knows nothing about psychology. I do. I do. Doctor Zimbardo is so glib.

This guy sounds like he got all his material from C.S. Lewis.

Lucifer fell before Adam was created. God knew that Lucifer would tempt Adam and Eve; it was part of the plan. God is omnipotent and knows that without evil there can be no good and no progression. If God made a mistake he would cease to be God.

If God is capable of making a mistake then he ceases to be a god.

This video is *dead due to a copyright claim by Viacom International Inc.

This published 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 arvana.

For those of us who can view CC content, and because this is dead at the moment, view it here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=149094&title=interview-philip-zimbardo

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

fixed

Deedub I have heard this explanation before and personally i think it casts an even more negative light on religion and God. If God knows all and knew Eve would be tempted because evil needs to exist then he was just setting up an elaborate scheme just to punish us in the end. "Oh here is paradise" all the while knowing that he is going to cast out his creations. Why go through this whole bipolar process of giving and taking away unless you were either sadistic or wanted to make sure people stayed in their place and obeyed. Much like the old wrathful bitter god and the new loving forgiving god supposedly being the same god. God has played this trick before with Abraham and Jobb and its a pretty sick way to make a point. I dont like being used, we are not puppets, and it seems thats all God does is use us for the purposes of loving him.

Colbert managed to satirize Abrahamic theology by accurately portraying it in the right context. Well done.

God didn't create hell. This is B.S. Hell is where you go if you chose to be without God. Colbert NAILED IT. Upvote for that.

Whoa. We have a BOOKS channel? Nice!

Going back to the earlier point in the vid, who said we're perfect? That's news to me.

>> ^Jordass:
I cant help but think Colbert didnt really pwn anyone. He really didnt prove his side. All he did was change the word "obey" to "love" and therefore it must be good and right. Very Faux News of him in a way. We go to hell cause we fall out of Gods love? You mean we dont do what he says. I mean the author i think was making an interesting point that if man was made in gods image with the hopes of being perfect then even God has to admit he fucked up. We arent perfect (which makes life worth living i might add) but of course God can never admit when he's wrong or the whole universe would implode Dogma style but with no Chris Rock. He derailed a little when he said Satan was right and God was wrong, he was trying to prove a point that if you ever disobey you will be forever damned. Satan was Gods favorite angel and yet he had no problem in making him the epitome of all evil to dwell forever in hell and as George Carlin said he has no problem sending us to hell to suffer and burn and rot for all eternity because he loves us. Colbert sounded like another individual who has been brainwashed into this manipulative concept to cover up why God punishes us for not doing exactly what he says by calling it "Love"


I know where you're coming from, but this is a basic tenet of Catholic theology, not Faux News at all. You don't "go to hell cause we fall out of God's love"... hell is the state of being when you choose NOT to love God.

You're not being SENT there. You *Choose* to go there.

What the video doesn't mention is that you're supposed to listen to your conscience, which some wise people have defined as the voice of God in your soul - but more practically, it's your sense of what's right and wrong. If you think the 'authority' is wrong, and you genuinely feel it's the morally correct thing to do (i.e., don't let the government imprison and kill your neighbour for being of a different race/creed), then you're doing the right thing by 'disobeying', because you're following a higher law, the law of goodness, not some corrupt evil thing dreamed up by psychopaths.

The logic is that Satan chose to become the epitome of evil.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:
That guy may know psychology, but he has one twisted view of Christian theology.
No, he has the right view.Christianity, like all religion, are tools of totalitarianism and blind obedience, its just coersive, lying, advanced memes for saying things like "Dont think for yourself" and "respect authority", Some people fall for this crap and think theres some advanced thinking that they are really doing, we call these people idio.. uh, religious


Seriously, this is not Jesus' teaching, nor the teaching of the Catholic Church. After all, Jesus was essentially murdered / executed for advocating disobedience to corrupt authority figures.

>> ^Jordass:
Deedub I have heard this explanation before and personally i think it casts an even more negative light on religion and God. If God knows all and knew Eve would be tempted because evil needs to exist then he was just setting up an elaborate scheme just to punish us in the end. "Oh here is paradise" all the while knowing that he is going to cast out his creations. Why go through this whole bipolar process of giving and taking away unless you were either sadistic or wanted to make sure people stayed in their place and obeyed. Much like the old wrathful bitter god and the new loving forgiving god supposedly being the same god. God has played this trick before with Abraham and Jobb and its a pretty sick way to make a point. I dont like being used, we are not puppets, and it seems thats all God does is use us for the purposes of loving him.


This mixes up cause and effect, really. Watch the Star Trek episode where, IIRC, Q forces a chick to love Riker. That's what would happen if you didn't have free will.

Organized Religion is, reduced to a raw point, a way of coping with the blowback from free will. (i.e., means of delivering salvation)

You can have a semantic argument about whether this is a "sick game" to make you love God, or an intelligent response to a messy problem, but I've made my position clear.

I still think your playing semantics krupo saying that one "chooses" to go to hell by choosing not to "love" god. Again i cant help think that means obey him. The bible is very clear that if the rules arent followed you will go to hell so there really isnt a choice if you dont want to go. The freewill problem has always vexed me because its clear what choice god wants you to make, not making is eternal damnation but gives you free will which by all motivations you're pushed not to use it. The penalty is hell. I do like how you brought up conscience. To listen to your gut in a sense because i can relate to that in many ways. The only problem with that is when you get millions of people following the same religion and all of their guts are saying different things. So you're inevitably going to come into conflict of "im right you're wrong". Thats why ideally (though it never seems to work out) all religion should remain personal. That way if god is in your soul and speaking to you no one else can tell you its wrong and what it "should" be saying. Its the "organized" part of organized religion that I have a serious problem with.

Sift of the year.

Glad to see something that's not so atheistic in the top 15.

Kinda related but not. There is quite a noble and ongoing effort to translate the Bible into LOLcat(aka kitty pidgin). You CAN haz now & seez it kthxbai. Ceiling Cat be with you...

Too bad they got so sidetracked on the religion/Lucifer BS...just a couple sentences on the core concepts.

Dr. Zhivago or whatever his name is looks like he could be Satan lol

I'm amazed that no one's pointed out yet that the whole "Satan as a fallen angel" story is actually popular fiction mostly taken from Dante's "Inferno" and Milton's "Paradise Lost." It has very little Biblical basis, though people who want to believe the legend often twist interpretations of certain verses in the Bible (2 Cor. 4:4) to make it fit.

I think it's too bad they got caught up in this faux-theological debate, because Zimbardo's and Milgram's experiments clearly show that "evil" is something we are all capable of under the right conditions. I think if they had talked more about that, Colbert and Zimbardo would have agreed that determining whether the authority that you're obeying is acting ethically or not is extremely difficult when you're forced to make on-the-spot decisions. Like Zimbardo said, you need to be critical of why you're doing what you're ordered or expected to do. Otherwise you may wind up engaging in behaviors that seem rational at the time but in hindsight turn out to have horrific consequences.

Generally speaking, most people think the same way, therefore their consciences will tell them to do the same things.

You run into trouble in the 'grey' areas where the Right Choice isn't necessarily obvious. It's sort of where life gets interesting.

In theory organized religion reduces the conflicting opinions on the grey areas factor, but even within and amongst religions you sometimes get disagreement.

But it's important not to get stuck in the weeds when you're enjoying the forest - the vast majority of religions and their rules boil down to "be good to others and share the love", so the differences are generally cosmetic.

It's like the ~3% of DNA that separates us from animals that also rubs against various peoples' belief systems causing the Stupidities unfortunately.

>> ^Jordass:
I do like how you brought up conscience. To listen to your gut in a sense because i can relate to that in many ways. The only problem with that is when you get millions of people following the same religion and all of their guts are saying different things. So you're inevitably going to come into conflict of "im right you're wrong". Thats why ideally (though it never seems to work out) all religion should remain personal. That way if god is in your soul and speaking to you no one else can tell you its wrong and what it "should" be saying. Its the "organized" part of organized religion that I have a serious problem with.

*dead

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 eric3579.

Awarding eric3579 with one Power Point for fixing this video's dead embed code.

*length=5:23

The duration of this video has been updated from unknown to 5:23 - length declared by eric3579.

Not to resurrect an extremely old thread, but I happened to stumble upon this old clip, and after having read some of the comments, felt compelled to say this about Hell: that it basically invalidates its own existence insofar as 'nothingness' can be a place.

First, we recall that the Bible makes numerous references to God being omnipresent and omnibenevolent.
Second, as discussed above, we see that Christian dogma says Hell is the absence of God (and His love, since for all intents and purposes they're the same thing, being all-good and everywhere).
So, that means that Hell is a place where God isn't, and God is in every possible place simultaneously, the old throwbacks to pantheism. Therefore, Hell is nothingness.

As an atheist, I think that when I die, my consciousness goes into 'nothingness' anyway- so there's essentially no difference for me in dying and going to Hell and dying in a universe without God.