*promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, January 17th, 2011 10:06am PST - promote requested by original submitter dystopianfuturetoday.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by vaporlock.

Why I don't care:
1) You once believed in a god.
2) You are a guy.

Wow, so he used to be a Christian guy who tried to convert people to his belief and now he's a guy who tries to convert people to his belief.

Shocking transformation.

These videos are wonderful! Its not the transformation that matters but the story he tells. Evid3nc3 is an excellent antidote to Pat Condell's ranting.

This piece is so polite and personal that I had not anticipated downvotes and cheap shots. Interesting.

I wasn't even gonna downvote it, but that music in the second vid made it soooo terribly cheesy and pseudo-emotional it made me gag.

These are very narrow minded comments for such a thoughtful piece. I sense there are deeper reasons why this video offends you; reasons that you perhaps do not feel comfortable sharing in front of a largely non-theist crowd, hence the shallow nitpicks. If you have something more substantial to say, I respectfully encourage you to say it.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

These are very narrow minded comments for such a thoughtful piece. I sense there are deeper subconscious reasons why this video offends you; reasons that you perhaps do not feel comfortable sharing in front of a largely atheist crowd, hence the use of shallow nitpicks. If you have something more substantial to say, I respectfully encourage you to say it.


How is it narrow minded to feel that the "emotional" background music doesn't fit into the video of him explaining how he had fun at christian boyscouts as a child while believing in God? It's a (not so) subtle attempt to add negativity to his narrative. That's the real cheap shot. I wouldn't have downvoted it if it wasn't for that. What's the next video going to be? Is he going to explain how he loved Christmas and believed in Santa, set to the sound of Adagio For Strings?

There's no "deeper subconscious reason" and I'm not religious at all. Also I don't get your large crowd reference (there's no crowd forming outside my house, atheist or other).

Atheist or Christian, it doesn't really matter. You can lead a good life either way, what's the big deal? And why, oh why are you so butthurt that some people don't like your video?

Personal insults? Going any further with you is pointless.

*quality storytelling. But where is part 2 of "The history of God"?

Off Topic
Had some real noir/max payne feel to it. He could do the voice-overs for the next game.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by LarsaruS.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Personal insults? Going any further with you is pointless.


Personal insults?? Why did you edit that into your comment? The only insults came from you, calling people "narrow minded".

I got nothing against you, I just don't like the video. If you can't separate the two, then that's your problem.

Definitely worth watching... but if you don't have the time, it can be condensed pretty easily:

"The more you are educated, the more you discover what is wrong with the Bible and religion"



Which is really the thing that most atheists (who have thought about their atheism rather than just being 'born into it' like a religious person) have probably found. The more you read, the more you discuss, the more you look into it, the more you find how completely bizarre it is that anyone could actually believe in the Bible.

But... those that are only ever taught by fellow believers are never challenged, are never shown the other side, are never given pause for thought that there are some glaring problems with the text they so fervently believe in.

Also, from a purely video point of view, I found these to be well made, pleasant to watch and have nice background music, I found no deep emotional play going on with it, just nicely produced video.

humanity has moments in which it discovers the edge of evolution. The transformation of our culture beyond religion is one of those places if we're to meet the challenges that face us as a species.

LOL for those people that dont like this think of it as entertainment .

Yes the music and his voice is kind of cheesy.

but at the same time i think this is more directed at christains who will be mor elikely to pay atention to something that presented like this rather than somthing thats matter of fact ,

if your an athiest that pays atention you will alredy know all the arguments and logical retardation of the bible , so as an athiest you have to enjoy this video for the story and some of the general ideas of the video rather than the specifc content.

for example the realisation that for sumone to understand or believe your position often times they have to feal that you truly understand there position before they will move to yours. this is especaily the case with something like religoin or people that have developed a simular sort of mindset that arizes from a religouse background.

I do agree with people saying that the overall thing is realy long winded and it is , he could have done a summerized video that quicly went over the key pionts , but if he did that there is a risk christains would just do that and totaly miss the piont.

Statistics bringing down christianity one person at a time.
The McDonalds lawsuit facts kinda blew my mind. I'm so uninformed.

-edit-
Finished. Well worth the watch.

Wow that was an amazing (albeit long) series of videos. I would consider it to be the mother of all non-rant videos on religion. Although I've always considered myself to be an atheist, I never knew how similar my beliefs are to pantheism.

And to you flamers, why would you judge an academic video by the BGM selection?

By skipping through the parts, I have spent maybe an hour watching a total of around 40 minutes -- the overall tone made it hard to focus, so I had to view some parts twice. And now it can be conclusively said that I'm not part of his target audience. The whole Royal Ranger story, for instance, couldn't be more alien to me if it included penguins robbing a store with bananas.

OK, I think I have watched the entire (today) set of videos [last one was 3.3.3 A History of God (Part 1)?]. I thought they were excellently done, and present a path to atheism that was, frankly, more arduous than my own.

I think that by the time I was mature enough to really consider things and run the logic for myself, I had already mostly rejected my Christian upbringing. Having been brought up in it at all made that process of rejecting it slightly difficult, but it seems almost beyond imagining how difficult it would be to be a (functionally) mature yet indoctrinated human being and then to have all of this rushing at you over a short period of time as he did.

At first I was almost offended by his account of the "Professor" trying to delay his further investigation. I have tended to think considering that a key tenet of the religious process seems to be "hook 'em while they're young", any atheist that has even mild "evangelical" tendencies or would like to see atheism or even just greater acceptance of atheists spread to people other than themselves should consider no age "too early" to begin planting seeds of speculation, doubt, and rational thought.

The Professor telling this guy to hold on, live his life and be happy, and don't sweat the details until you are older goes very contrary to that. However, I can see that the sudden vacuum that resulted in this guy's world view from the abrupt loss of his faith could actually have been dangerous; might have pushed him into suicidal depression or even cult-of-personality psychosis resulting from his brief decision that he was the second coming of Christ.

Maybe there are some instances where throttling down and just giving people enough so that they can start down the path of skepticism on their own would be better -- although I bet that this guy is overall glad that he got thrown in to the deep end to sink or swim.

Well done. Extremely long, but well done. Though... I don't entirely agree that all atheists are agnostics, but I can see where he is coming from.

Well done?!? This guy is wacked both as a "Christian" and now as an "Atheist". I listened to the personal experience video (#8) where he talks about the inner voice of God. Just listen to this video and ask yourself if this guy is sane or not. I know many Bible believing Christians and they do not think the way this guy does (or rather did). If anti-religious people use these videos as a basis against religion then prepared to be ridiculed.

Great sift. I read a History of God as a teenager, and realised now that I had forgotten most of it and how interesting the history of the narrative is. I wonder if he is going to read The God Delusion.

Fitting that Yahwhe is the Hebrew god of war. Kind of puts things into place. He must be overjoyed by the permanent misery and death that festers in his kingdom. Oh, and that thing about Jesus being God? Forget that noise - if Yahweh is who he appears to be, he would have crucified that pansy ass himself - and maybe he did?

I wonder how many Jews, Muslims and to a lesser degree Christians would confess to worshipping:

YAHWEH SABAOTH - GOD OF WAR

He flat out says that part 2 might seem too emotional for people, it's just there to show Christians that he actually was one. So skip to the next part if you find the music too sappy or whatever.

^I was taken aback by that as well.

This is a brilliant set of videos. I highly suggest everyone takes the time to watch it in its entirety as it just gets more and more fascinating with each episode.

holy crap. 3hours of youtube videos...this is gotta be better than all of http://www.imdb.com/chart/top combined..

Magnificent, and utterly captivating. Those who find the early bits too dreary, just skip ahead and follow his step by step deconversion and its effects on the mind. Although, by doing so you will to some extent skip the "character investment" part of the story.

Best thing dystopianfuturetoday ever sifted? Yes. And that's saying something.

I can support this. There is nothing wrong with being an atheist that understands a religious world view. This video has much more potential to bring people over from Christianity than anything ever put forth by the Harris, Hitch, and Dawkins crowd.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

These are very narrow minded comments for such a thoughtful piece. I sense there are deeper reasons why this video offends you; reasons that you perhaps do not feel comfortable sharing in front of a largely non-theist crowd, hence the shallow nitpicks. If you have something more substantial to say, I respectfully encourage you to say it.


LOL. Trolling hard.

I find it genuinely shallow to come away with such superficial criticisms in the face of this intelligent, complex and thoughtful story. When we overlook intellectual content and get hung up on image and production details, we fail as a culture. I'm not trolling. Everything I've said in this thread is genuine.

What surprises me is how many ex-Christians go to the other extreme and declare themselves atheists. I think it's fine for someone to believe in a god or gods of their choosing, and to worship those entities in their own way, on their own time. I recognised elements of control that various churches use to enlist the compliance of their congregation, so it is religion in general that I find uncomfortable. Personally I don't believe in a god as such, fate or chance are about the closest things I can approximate to some influence outside of our perception.

Basically what I'm saying is that if I can go from one extreme to being agnostic and at least open to the idea of there being some sort of entity we don't yet understand then why don't more religious people find the middle ground of agnosticism?

@Reefie - Agnosticism is not a middle ground. Agnosticism is the belief that it is impossible to have knowledge of the existence of God. Unfortunately, the definition is changing in popular culture do to the sheer stubborn ignorance of people who keep using the term incorrectly as some sort of non-committal stance.

A rational person would not believe in something if there was insufficient evidence to support it. Therefor, when used correctly, an agnostic is an atheist.

But even if one sees oneself as uncommitted in either for or against the existence of God, that person is still an atheist. An Atheist is anyone who is not a Theist, defined as someone who believes in God.

If you are skeptical of religion, you are an atheist. It is NOT an extreme position as you and so many others wish describe. That is simply a crude, yet effective, way to marginalize those who recognize what atheism actually is.

@MaxWilder ... I think your definition of an agnostic requires improvement Agnostics do not declare that it is impossible to have knowledge of the existence of a god. Agnostics accept that we currently do not have the means to prove the existence of any gods. We do not declare it 'impossible'!

You should take a look at Huxley's work, in particular this quote which sums up agnosticism very well:

"I neither affirm nor deny the immortality of man. I see no reason for believing it, but, on the other hand, I have no means of disproving it. I have no a priori objections to the doctrine. No man who has to deal daily and hourly with nature can trouble himself about a priori difficulties. Give me such evidence as would justify me in believing in anything else, and I will believe that. Why should I not? It is not half so wonderful as the conservation of force or the indestructibility of matter..."

When you have two extremes (blind religion and atheism) then agnosticism is most definitely the middle ground. The next closest thing to middle ground would be Zen Bhuddism.

As for your belief that anyone who is not religious is atheist, wow - I'm gobsmacked that you would attempt to belittle the situation so excessively. It's almost like you're one of the religious high and mightys who is determined to brand anyone who isn't on the same team as "one of those evil schemin' atheists" when in fact there is absolutely nothing wrong with being atheist, agnostic, or just free spirited. An agnostic can have beliefs, therefore it is _impossible_ to declare all agnostics as atheists; also given that atheism is an absolute stance versus the open-mindedness of an agnostic approach I am not convinced that even agnostics without beliefs should be branded as atheists.

Strong atheism = I believe gods DO NOT exist.
Weak atheism = I don't believe in gods.
Agnosticism = The existence of gods is unknown or unknowable.

I don't see much practical difference between weak atheism and agnosticism. Neither believe in gods. Neither are closed to the possibility that gods could possibly exist. The differences are semantic. Tomato vs. Tomahto

@Reefie - Your statements would be absolutely true if the popular use of the words "atheist" and "agnostic" were correct. Unfortunately they are not. As with many people who take up this discussion, you have your definitions wrong. You are proceeding from a false understanding of what an atheist is. It is not an extreme position. It is a neutral position. As dft says above, there is a category of atheism called Strong Atheism, who do have an extreme position, but those people are rare.

From Oxford Dictionaries
- Agnostic: a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God.
- Atheist: a person who does not believe in the existence of God or gods
- Theism: belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures

If you read the definitions carefully and consider the origin of the words, it becomes clear that agnosticism is actually a more extreme position than atheism (not counting Strong Atheism). Agnostics have a belief. That belief happens to be that nothing is known or can be known, but it is a belief none the less. Atheists simply hold no beliefs, which is a neutral position. Atheism is simply a lack of theism.

Your quote from Huxley describes a typical atheist. One who thinks "I have no reason to believe, so I will live my life without thinking about it too much unless someone shows me some evidence." There are also those who have given it more thought who hold an opinion such as "I have to assume it is not true until such a time as somebody comes up with real supporting evidence, but I seriously doubt that will ever happen."

While you are correct that it is possible for an agnostic to have beliefs, it is hard for me to believe there are many people so irrational that they will hold beliefs while knowing there is no evidence for it. Therefor I say again, the vast majority of self-proclaimed agnostics are actually atheists who simply fear or mis-understand the word.

I was also gobsmacked when I learned the proper use of these words. I hope this discussion is of similar value to you.

@dystopianfuturetoday

Somebody needs to doublepromote and quality this sift.

Strangely enough this guy follows my journey fairly close. Although, my belief in my faith ended quite a bit quicker and I didn't have the "psychotic" disconnect in my thoughts; thinking one half of me was God (the reverent, introspective, inner voice we all use when not active doing something -- before sleep, for example). But, I never had people in my life that actively tried to create these schizophrenic/psychotic leanings and learnings (except "The Holy Ghost/Spirit"; it was taught to be a feeling of what was right or wrong -- I'm guessing they never understood that our instincts are much closer to that relation than the previous inclination and require no supernatural interventions).

I also had to realize that the education they had (elders or older; secondly, older people get a courtesy from me still, but only as it applies to practical experience and "common sense" wisdom -- anything supernatural or distinctly at odds with facts will be discarded, quickly) greatly differed if only for the sure fact that my schooling was in an age of far more known and it's dissemination was far more readily available. It had also had time to be distilled into easier to understand methodology, for example: high school courses, that in my parents high school years would've been a college or university class.

This is very well done and very articulate. I've never understood the inability to be able to put your faith, for a moment, to the side and weigh with equal fervor: fact versus what you've been told (all of which is hearsay of hearsay...). If your faith or your God is so fragile that it cannot withstand a few worthless scientists "testing you" then it's not worth having anyway.

If your faith forces you to run away from these talks at the mere mention of it, I will guarantee to you that one day, when you need it, your faith will fail you. Some lose their faith from this, without even talking or looking at contradictory information.

Very well done and a great find @dystopianfuturetoday. The sift is better with this. How about a new call (must be invoked by four people or so and it only affects the channel(s) it belongs to; except for the first week it's invoked): *doublequality or as I would like *permanentquality ...

>> ^spaceman:

Why I don't care:
1) You once believed in a god.
2) You are a guy.


@spaceman| The reason why the rest of us watch and listen to "just some guy; who believed in God":

The only reason you can type your sentence is from/due-to "other" men. Religion in all forms is from "other" men (unless you claim to hear voices or a physical divinity; but, please, not as an affront to you, make sure you're not psychotic or schizophrenic before telling us your interesting story as that is the case almost always; same with drug use; same with some other illnesses: narcolepsy, sleep walking, night terrors/sleep paralysis, and many other sleep related issues and all nervous system illnesses). Only a few things below talk more about what you said.
--------------------------
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A little more to add to the conversation. Hopefully, this gets it all out as it will be fairly long, but the video is hard to reply to in a short manner. I hope this covers a large extent of what I wish to say about this very well done video witness/testimony.


One set of values you can research and witness to it's validity on your own, as he has done. Science also allows for this methodology, using the well known precept of "The Scientific Method".

A quick example is that many people of faith, even Evid3nc3, talks of feeling "x" with their "hearts" and knowing "x" with their "soul". In science there is nothing more than a simple, yet complicated, physical processes. It's all a creation and manifestation in your brain; if you think you "feel" something with your heart you're causing minor self-hysteria to the extent of creating a minor hallucination.

The "soul" is called the(primarily in psychology, neuroscience, and neurology; there are many other terms that try to mean "you"; typically, in grossly inaccurate ways, such as: ghosts, "psychic" remote viewing, many religions use of the magical-energy-divine soul, etc...) psyche which is typically (starting from the outer-functions and moving into core-functions) sensory systems, language center, feelings, memory, and then the key-piece the neo-cortex. So it must be understood that your brain does a lot of things still baffling (mostly the mechanics or mechanisms of function and chemistry), but the overall picture is fairly clear.

But, the brain is not a floating energy source, nor is it an absolute definition at any given point or time. Depending on how and where you look at the brain the very concept of you is different. It more akin to superposition of an electron or a kaleidoscope; the definition of you is not concrete until measured and even then you are already not what was measured.

Even from what little we do know, belief plays a central role in how our neo-cortex makes decisions and operates (even with memory and other functions, which is why we do make many mistakes as it's due to how our brain physically commits to anything it must or will do; it's perhaps the single best reason to show why, "To err is human; to forgive, divine."; you don't understand the human condition if you cannot forgive...). Could this translate into a bigger picture; our connected neurons telling us to accept faith and belief, sometimes, because that is what it does at the small scale?

*Offtopic Look up articles, books, and videos (look at TED for Marvin Minsky, Jeff Hawkins, Craig Venter, Jonathan Haidt and others --some of which are here on the sift-- related topics on there like the Mind, AI, facial-pattern-contextual-semantics-divergent-cat vs. dog software based Recognition, and then other media pertaining to 'Artificial Intelligence') or if you want to know strictly about how the brain works and makes it's decisions, look for a type of setup called a "hierarchical structure"; also known as a pyramid or pyramid scheme. One cell makes a decision based off of the accumulations of "guesses" the other millions of cells connected to it made; these cells are fundamentally the foundation for that setup, but the neurons are more flexible than that as each can be a parent and also part of the "foundation" structure, making the brain a fantastic structure. With time this becomes accurate (this occurs in less than a few milliseconds), although our vision, for an example, is horrifically distorted and wrong, if you could look at one "frame" based on a few cells. Only a small fraction of the frame would be correct; literally it would be as though your senses got one pixel correct in a 1080p image. Yet, repeat this millions of times with different data sets each round (and this is done as said above, fast) you get an accurate picture; or at the least 20/20-to about one-arc minute (the resolution for the human eye, on average).

One set you can't test, we call that belief or faith. "What is the reasoning for taking the leap of faith?", this is what you have to defend at this point. If faith is your only defense, I will (like many others will) assume you haven't looked into your own faith enough yet or you even refuse to look out of fear of being wrong. If you do not understand the topic you must be willing to ask for help as he did or you'll be a slave to your willful decision of ignorance, to the extent that you feel compelled to defend them, but you never convince anyone except yourself--and for yourself it is only because of the rote-righteous indignation.

If it's true it should withstand all scrutiny. Unless truth isn't your ultimate goal. Then, for us and many others there is no reason to follow your faith. Usually, this type of merit and defense are directly related to age due to learning this all when you're a child and devoid of an intense ability to decipher, attribute values, connect, and draw in a belief (if with some facts and proof you could call it a hypothesis).

It's all from men... I'm wagering you're dismissing this flippantly due to religion; if not what exactly is your point, as I truly would like to know why and where this claim of non-relativistic knowledge comes from, without a woman or man?

Also, if it has to do with his belief in being mistaken for believing in God that's a moot point as we have all erred in life. I know of no person that has reliably been able to "claim divinity", other than Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, etc... But, we also know now that mental illness and other factors can account for any manic or psychotic leanings. We also know magicians (or magister, proper) have been around A LONG TIME.

Plus, as Arthur C. Clarke put it, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.". Which then one must ask another question, "Can divinity itself ever be established as being magic only?". This is then rounded up by a statement from Larry Niven (sometimes called Niven's Law(s)), "Any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is indistinguishable from technology.". These collide and distinctly form a conclusion about divinity and any of it's powers (descriptive magic or divinity and it's "how to use it" manual are indefensibly getting closer in each step to being more akin to physics; plus the Christian God hates magic, which begs the question, "Why do you need a God, if we can exact the same effects?"):

Divinity can only hope to use advanced knowledge and technology in a collusion to bring about one standpoint alone: "divinity" if described by God in any kind of ruleset (some of it is in the bible, already) stands on a rigorously tested and time shown: shaky ground.

Men would be gods whether God existed or not.

(P.S.: only the beginning and some bits here and there are for you, @spaceman. The rest is for our vestibule.)

Again I must add that this is a great find @dystopianfuturetoday.
You're doing yourself a great disservice not watching it (or all of it as the case may be).

@MaxWilder I don't think Thomas Huxley would appreciate you calling him a typical atheist, he coined the term agnostic to summarise his stance because he felt that the definition of an atheist did not apply to himself!

Thanks for the clarification of definitions. I've deliberately taken some time to read up and improve personal knowledge, and one thing I've found is that most atheists and agnostics have variations in their definition of the words, to the point that some agnostics are really atheists and some atheists are really agnostics. Looking at the origins and evolution of the words yields a different picture though, and I do find it interesting how the definition of atheist has evolved over the last 200 years. Agnosticism on the other hand is fairly straightforward since it was invented recently enough by Huxley for us to have a good indication of what he intended. Although the dictionary definiton of agnosticism may have changed slightly since Huxley's time I feel my own viewpoint has enough similarity to his that I am happy to use his original definition and explanations of the word.

Sorry it took me a while to reply, wanted to absorb more info on the subject before getting back to you

@Reefie - Here's another Huxley quote: "I have never had the least sympathy with the a priori reasons against orthodoxy, and I have by nature and disposition the greatest possible antipathy to all the atheistic and infidel school. Nevertheless I know that I am, in spite of myself, exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can see, is justified in calling, atheist and infidel."

Huxley was running into the same problem that continues happening to this day. When you self-identify as an atheist, people assume that means you *believe* there is no God. His use of the term Agnostic is more to refine what sort of atheist one is, rather than differentiate one's self from atheism entirely.

In his day, it may have been uncommon for a person to comfortably take a neutral stance and say "I don't know." But today, there are a great many who simply do not make religion part of there lives, and don't think about it much otherwise. From his use of the phrase "the atheistic and infidel school", one might infer that the mentality of "if you're not for us then you're against us" was strong at the time. Perhaps before he began using the term agnostic, it was painfully difficult to explain that you simply didn't believe, as opposed to having faith to the contrary. Today this is not so common. When polls are taken about the religious inclinations of Americans today, the category of "non-believer" is just as big, if not bigger than the category of "atheist". (It drives me crazy knowing that the two mean the same thing.) So while he may not have been a typical atheist in his day, I believe he would be considered a typical atheist today.

I would be curious to know what you found out about how the word atheist has been used over the years. To me it is a fairly straightforward combination of the prefix a- and the word theist, therefor meaning "not a theist". It bothers me greatly that people continue to make assumptions that I have a belief that there is no such thing as God. I believe that the Judeo-Christian God does not exist, based on logic, reason and experience. But, as Huxley might have said, I have no a priori objections to the existence of a God in general. I am open to new evidence or lines of reasoning.

As an aside, I think the problem may arise from the fact that Christians tend to hold a Christian-centric worldview. To them, if I do not believe that *their* God exists, then I must perforce believe that *no* God exists, since there is only their God. It is likely true of all monotheists. This has always struck me as absurd, and is part of the reason I feel compelled to discuss this topic so frequently and thoroughly. You can see evidence of this when they ask "Then what do you think started the universe?" Well, even if I did believe that an omnipotent supernatural being started the universe, why would that mean that the God of the Bible was the one that did it? It could be that the Universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. How arrogant and ignorant to think that since the universe exists, that their book must be true. </rant>