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pwned,god delusion,hallucination,fundamentalism Dawkins tells a kid that there is no Santa Claus (2 min)
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metaphors FTW
So what you're saying is all kids are stupid by nature?
In my view, this man is suffering from addiction, conviction and self-deception, its a complex cocktail of faith-based reasoning that poisons his mind. He has, in short, lost his own ability to reason clearly, and distance himself from his own train of thought. Crucial questions like "What if I'm wrong?" or "Do I really know I'm right?" or "How do I know this?" seems to have escaped him entirely.
>> ^Bleedingsnowman:
Yeah, I can't upvote this because I just feel sorry for the poor sucker. I guess I'm a softy.
Bicycle, the old guy said he had actually "met" Jesus, which sounds like a hallucination to me.
Or a dream.
Some people might not care, so as long as the fire is directed at the religious person, but I'm not of that opinion.
*No, not really; I realize this is Videosift.
There are many religions that don't claim to be the sole pathway to God, and many of the "biggies" with time, have learned to be tolerant enough to get along with other faiths.
Even atheists have to get their morality from somewhere. Distilled delusions are still delusions.
I ask no one in particular: do you think you're "better" than that man of faith? Non-belief in deities doesn't grant one any extra IQ points, nor does it make one a more efficient thinker. Religious filtering or not, you're as subject to the laws of physics as he is. So where has Dawkins succeeded at life where the questioner has failed?
But, speaking from experience, when you suddenly are presented with something that questions your entire basis of reality, your entire focus in your life - that's pretty terrifying.
I know, it's like when I watched this video.
Horrifying.
If you ask me, the man has clearly never gotten stoned and listened to music. Sure, there's probably some scientific explanation why that often makes you feel connected to the universe on a higher plane, but when we set aside any childish snickering about it, it's really a profound experience that matches what I hear a lot of religious people say they experience when they have some sort of brush with the divine.
My only issue with religion is it takes itself too seriously too often. If they did a little less of talking about the importance of faith (believing something fully in the absence of evidence Dawkins and I would say), and a little more of showing say, the intricacy and beauty of nature, or the importance of laughter, or the joy of sex, and maybe a little drugs and rock n' roll.
Call me a hedonist or a hippie, but I think there's a lot to feel spiritual about without needing to believe in a God or a Christ, and I think there's a lot that gets lost when you tie spirituality to dogma.
Just my two cents.
So from my experience, spirituality in the more developed world nowadays is just as bad as religion, if not worse (talking in general here, not specific cases). Nutshell: spirituality-just as bad as religious dogma
By the way, I have, in fact, never tried any narcotic substances apart from the ones in Absinthe. Anyway, the experiences this path provides aren't ones I'd ever suggest to anyone, however mesmerizing they might be.
Dawkins thinks he's scores when he points out, "If you'd been born in X, you'd be worshipping X's God and not Jesus." SO?
The point is that there are thousands of religions in the world, contradicting each other, and solely on the basis of the mutual contradictions most of them have to be wrong. For example, Islam officially denies the resurrection of Jesus and the pope denies the inspiration of Muhammad. What basis do you have for saying the story of Jesus' resurrection is more likely than the story of Muhammad? Absolutely none. Therefore, the reasonable position is to tentatively reject both stories (until solid evidence of one emerges, which will almost certainly never happen).
If you rely on "faith" you're really just relying on whatever religion you happened to be born into, which, by luck of the draw, may be among the false religions (and we can be certain that there are false religions because of the mutual contradictions between religions)
If you were choosing between the many belief-options on the basis of applying objective criteria, rather than applying whichever biases you were raised with, that would, by definition, be reason and not faith.
I ask no one in particular: do you think you're "better" than that man of faith?
ceteris paribus, less ignorance = better
Bicycle, the old guy said he had actually "met" Jesus, which sounds like a hallucination to me.
Yes, I agree, but the root of his problem is not these hallucinations, its what causes the hallucinations that is the core problem. And in my view, it is a lifetime of self-deception and vulnerability to dogma that enables your brain to "meet jesus"
Our morality comes innate, we would not be what we are without it. The details, so to speak, comes from our collective culture and philosophy and yes, religion. Religion happens to be our first, and worst, attempt at moral philosophy and pursuit of understanding.
I ask no one in particular: do you think you're "better" than that man of faith?
No. I think he's wrong, and that he reasons badly.
yes: A child has had the opportunity to be foolish, but a man should know better.
I ask no one in particular: do you think you're "better" than that man of faith?
jwray addressed this point with 'less ignorance = better', but I think this is precisely the cold, logical answer that turns me off on Dawkin's and many vocal atheists.
Religion isn't about logical resolve to investigate the unknown, or even about knowledge in general. It sounds bad to say it like that, and on the surface its purported to be (Q:'Who made us?', A:'God did; don't piss him off.'), but it truly isn't.
Religion is about community, its about sharing and understanding concerns and desires, its about maintaining a resolve to respect others and respect yourself in the face of considerable challenges, and in a way its abstractly about the entire human experience, from art to discovery to war to friendship, etc.. Admittedly religion does invade realms in which logical inquiry would be better suited to deliver an accurate response, and even demands followers to disregard logical explanations at times, but I implore you to not write-off religion by defining it under what it does most poorly.
I am not a religious man (I am a PhD candidate in a scientific field, if you were curious), but I'm increasingly concerned with an anti-religious sentiment that has sprung up in the last decade among well-educated young people, presumably in response to some of the anti-atheism or anti-intellectualism (judgmental Christians in some parts of the U.S are a dime a dozen). Religion is not to blame for the widening of the education gap in America. Religion is not a dementia that drives normal people to hallucinations. The Bible does say 'the truth shall set you free' after relating a bunch of tall tales. But its far more nuanced and far less easily defined than many atheists recognize.
And as an educated, fairly rational human, I think its much more logical to see religion not as some cultural nuisance to be eliminated, but instead as a symbol of a significant part of the human experience... after all, we're all stuck here living on a little planet orbiting a relatively small star in a possibly infinite universe, but we still have the audacity to laugh at TV shows ostensibly about nothing, help our elderly neighbors maintain their lawns, or simply have the decency not to wear revealing clothing when you're unattractive by cultural norms. Whats logical about all that?
I THINK QUANTUMUSHROOM HAS A GOOD POINT.
(spoken through clenched teeth)
>> ^quantumushroom:
Religion is about community, its about sharing and understanding concerns and desires, its about maintaining a resolve to respect others and respect yourself in the face of considerable challenges, and in a way its abstractly about the entire human experience, from art to discovery to war to friendship, etc.
None of that needs to have anything to do with believing that you can ask for magical favors from an invisible being. There are plenty of atheist / nonreligous organizations that do similar social outreach, notably secular humanism.
If the flat earth society had a great social outreach program that still wouldn't justify promoting the idea that the earth is flat.
None of that needs to have anything to do with believing that you can ask for magical favors from an invisible being. There are plenty of atheist / nonreligous organizations that do similar social outreach, notably secular humanism.
If the flat earth society had a great social outreach program that still wouldn't justify promoting the idea that the earth is flat.
I'll try to be more clear; I'm arguing that the point of religion is not to promote one doctrine over another. That would be like saying the point of forming a soccer team is to move a ball around a field into a net without your hands while another team does the same (its oversimplifying, is what I'm saying). The point is the community, the point is the sharing of concerns, values, knowledge, tradition, etc.. Could these points be addressed in the absence of dogma? Sure, but it may be useful to think of the evolutionary value (or alternatively the source) of shared belief in this social animal.
What I'm saying basically is this; its to the detriment of your own knowledge of the complexity of the human and inter-human experience to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' by falsely defining religion as being no greater than the sum of its mystical tales, and staunchly ignoring not only the real human value of shared religions but also the ridiculousness of logically dissecting something that is very infrequently valued for its logic. If you must I again direct you to thinking about the evolutionary origins of religion for some insight.
A final note: 'do you think you're better than that man of faith?' My own belief is that knowledge is power. To the extent that more power is better(!), greater knowledge makes a greater man. But was Einstein or Jesus Christ better than this man of faith? Or, for my fellow atheists, is any animal in this Godless universe truly greater or more important than any other?
There is certainly value in religion, but not in faith. Organized religion has "blessed" us with beautiful works of art and the study of religion as a means of social control is very interesting. I believe that faith is detrimental to our society because it is flat out stupid and deluded.
quantummushroom: "do you think you're "better" than that man of faith?"
"Better" encompasses a bit to much. I do not know what skills this person has, but I can say this, on the particular point of religion I am not deluded and he is. I suppose you could call that "better" if you wanted. If all other things are equal, then YES: faith is strictly worse than no faith
So from my experience, spirituality in the more developed world nowadays is just as bad as religion, if not worse (talking in general here, not specific cases). Nutshell: spirituality-just as bad as religious dogma
By the way, I have, in fact, never tried any narcotic substances apart from the ones in Absinthe. Anyway, the experiences this path provides aren't ones I'd ever suggest to anyone, however mesmerizing they might be.
I'm no New Age fan, either. That's a full-blown religion in its own right, with dogmatic aspects to it. My mom is into New Age stuff, and my dad was somethings of a Dawkins-ish atheist.
I feel like I split the difference. I guess agnostic is probably the right term for me. I don't generally subscribe to any given religion, but I try to be respectful of those who do. I tend to think that if I wasn't such a cynical person, I might easily wind up being religious.
As for my mention of drugs, I definitely want to clarify that I'm not recommending people do drugs, and not trying to conflate drugs and religion as being somehow equivalent. They're dangerous, and watching some of the spacier videos on the 'sift can evoke the same sort of feeling. And the 'sift is still legal in all 50 states!
I noticed my comment before got downvoted -- I'm a bit surprised at that, but I guess this is a touchy subject, and I did just kinda rattle that out while I was sleep-addled. If I offended anyone with what I said, I apologize.
I THINK QUANTUMUSHROOM HAS A GOOD POINT.
(spoken through clenched teeth)
I have to be careful whom I praise, it can be bad for their rep, but bamdrew has done an exemplary job in this sift explaining another facet of this debate, and many other responses were excellent as well.
I believe that faith is detrimental to our society because it is flat out stupid and deluded.
...
If all other things are equal, then YES: faith is strictly worse than no faith
There are plenty of stupid and deluded things that are detrimental to our society; for instance, I drink a lot of beer (with other grad students, no-less!). I could give more serious examples... anyhow, you see where I'm going with this... I think you backpedaled too far AND I think you are still expecting too much patterned, logical behavior from a dynamic organism in a complex, chaotic environment. What I was alluding to earlier was that I see irony in the evolutionary biologist (Dawkins) railing against something that definitely evolved with us (religion).
Last thing I'll say; you might want to step back and think about what you're arguing against now. All great stories are all about faith. In the face of unspeakable odds, and after repeatedly questioning their will to continue, character X overcomes the obstacles and achieves some level of greatness.
Oh, and thank QM. I sincerely appreciate your appreciation.
*promote
Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 9:50pm PDT - promote requested by gwiz665.
Adding video to channels (British, Cult, Religion, Science, Wtf) - requested by gwiz665.
“The point is that there are thousands of religions in the world, contradicting each other, and solely on the basis of the mutual contradictions most of them have to be wrong.”
You’re conclusion is indeed correct!
If all the religions have their origin from the Creator, [proof for a Creator, see my blog: bloganders.blogspot.com (left menu)) it implies that the contradictions betweens the religions reflect a self-contradicting Creator.
No eminent scientist represents that our perfectly-orderly universe can be explained ex nihilo without a Prime Cause.
Being logically consistent (orderly), the universe must mirror its Prime Cause / Singularity-Creator—Who must be Perfectly Orderly; i.e. Perfect. Therefore, no intelligent person can ignore that our purpose and challenge in life is learning how we, as imperfect humans, may successfully relate to a Perfect Singularity-Creatorwithout our co-mingling, which transcends the timespace of this dimensional physical universe, becoming an imperfection to the Perfect Singularity-Creator
An orderly Creator necessarily had an Intelligent Purpose in creating this universe and us within it and, being Just and Orderly, necessarily placed an explanation, a "Life's Instruction Manual," within the reach of His subjects—humankind.
It defies the orderliness (logic / mathematics) of both the universe and Perfection of its Creator to assert that humanity was (contrary to His Tor•âh′ , see below) without any means of rapproachment until millennia after the first couple in recorded history as well as millennia after Abraham, Moses and the prophets. Therefore, theCreator's "Life's Instruction Manual" has been available to man at least since the beginning of recorded history. The only enduring document of this kind is the Tor•âh′ —which, interestingly, translates to "Instruction" (not "law" as popularly alleged). [Source and more extensive reasoning: www.netzarim.co.il]
Religions that contradict with Torah cannot therefore describe a religion from the Creator.
Anders Branderud