A rather talented young Atheist named Zachery Kroger created a simple yet powerful video that it earning him a lot of attention and praise from the "Godless" community. I’d like to hear what my religious readers think of this video. If you’re going to comment, please note your faith if any. I think it’ll be interesting to see how opinions may or may not differ. Enjoy!
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Having watched the video and read the comments, I would like to emphasise three things.
First, the difference between atheism and agnosticism. They are very different.
In simple terms:
– Atheists believe there is no God.
– Agnostics believe that it is unknowable whether there is a God.
Second, I would like to highlight the fact that both Atheism and Agnosticism are *beliefs* too, like other religions.
Third, if being an Atheist involves a certainty that there is no God, is this not very similar in principle to being certain that there *is* a God, and does this not detract from the strength of some of Atheists’ criticisms of other Religions?
I am agnostic.
“Second, I would like to highlight the fact that both Atheism and Agnosticism are *beliefs* too, like other religions.”
Quite right. one cannot prove, nor disprove the existance (or absence for that matter) of a deity therefor both are what one believes to be true.
“Third, if being an Atheist involves a certainty that there is no God, is this not very similar in principle to being certain that there *is* a God, and does this not detract from the strength of some of Atheists’ criticisms of other Religions?”
Well, yes… and no.
Atheist generally use logics to reduce the plausibility of the existance of a deity. Religious people use tales and traditions, and feelings to “prove” to them that there is a god.
The main difference to me though is that most religious people feel a need to “save” those that do not follow their believe, and are in some way indoctrinated such that the _possibility_ that their faith being untrue absolutely doesn’t exist. Mostly atheists have found their “faith” by logics and therefor made it highly likely to them to be true, but they are the first to admit that there is no certainty.
Hello sasserstyl ,
I disagree completely with the claim that theism and atheism are equally valid view points simply because they are both beliefs. What is important is the rationale that leads one to their belief. Some irrational reasons to believe would include ‘because a book said so’, ‘because my religious leader told me so’, and ‘because my family told me so’. There are rational reasons to believe, but few take this route. I’m sure there are people who have irrational reasons to be atheist as well. I would imagine that ‘to be different’ and ‘I got mad at God when I believed’ are possibilities. But few atheists take this route.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a great illustration why not all beliefs are equal. Your argument basically says the following:
1. Theists believe there is a God (true)
2. Atheists believe there is no God (true)
3. All beliefs are equally valid (false)
Thus
4. Theism and atheism are equally valid (false)
Using the same logic:
1. Monsterist believe there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster
2. Amonsterists believe there in no Flying Spaghetti Monster
3. All beliefs are equally valid
Thus
4. Monsterism and amonsterism are equally valid
Or
4. Belief in a Flying Spaghetti Monster and Belief in no Flying Spaghetti Monster are equally valid
The falsehood of the conclusion is self evident by its absurdity. Therefore, one of the three claims must be false. Since #1 and #2 are true, #3 must be false. Not all beliefs are equally valid.
Strijker/sidfaiwu – thanks for your responses, you both make good points.
At the risk of misunderstanding you both, there is some commonality between your posts(if i understand them correctly):
Stijker implies that logic is superior to “tales and traditions”.
sidfaiwu describes how most atheists use “rational” reasons as opposed to theists who use “irrational” reasons.
Both of these arguments imply that the reasoning atheists use (wrt religion) is superior to that of theists (in general).
Unfortunately it is not possible to define “superior”. Who says that coming to a conclusion on your faith based on logic is superior to following a religion because your parents do?
To me (and I suspect to you), basing your decision on what your parents do seems silly. *But*, because we don’t know (and possibly can’t know) whether there is a God, we can’t rule out the possibility that following your parents is a better route.
Example: Girls.
I am a guy and I have spent a great deal of time over the past few years trying to understand the female psyche and how it differs to men. This is all very interesting, and mostly not important here, however it highlights my point:
Say you come home from work, your girlfriend is there and she’s crying her eyes out. She’s really upset.
What do you do?
As a guy, the logical and sensible thing is to take hold of her, calm her down, understand why she’s crying and then offer advice as to how to solve the problem.
Except, this isn’t what you should do (I generalise of course!)
What the girl wants is for you to listen to her, empathise and show that you understand, perhaps make her laugh, but above all be mainly passive and listen and *under no circumstances* try to solve the issue.
What this dumb (but based on reality!) example highlights is that what seems obviously the right thing to do *to you* is not *necessarily* the right thing to do.
Or put another way: what seems obviously the right way to reason about religion *to you* is not *necessarily* the right way to reason about religion.
In summary:
1. We do not/cannot know whether there is a God
2. Your “right way” is not necessarily someone elses “right way”
3. We cannot define “superior” in an objective way
Therefore, all beliefs *can* be equally valid (even though we can hypothesize that one may be right and all the others wrong).
sasserstyl
Hello again sasserstyl,
Let me clarify a part of my post. I did not say that all theists use irrational reasoning, just most of them. (I didn’t fully generalize, only partially ;) There are valid, logical arguments that support the existence of God. So the reasoning of an atheist is not always superior to that of a theist.
You are right that I claim that reason is superior to other methods of belief. You said:
“Unfortunately it is not possible to define “superiorâ€. Who says that coming to a conclusion on your faith based on logic is superior to following a religion because your parents do?”
It is possible to define “superior”. For example, suppose my parents believe the world is flat. But suppose I also sailed around the world. The rational belief is superior because the belief is based on observable evidence.
Even if you don’t think that observable evidence is the correct criterion for ranking belief, my argument still holds. I demonstrated that not all beliefs are equal. There must exist, then some criterion with which we can rank beliefs (or say that one is more valid than another). Then there must be some way of defining ‘superior’ when it comes to beliefs. Note that this does allow for the possibility of two beliefs having equal validity, but equal validity cannot be assumed, it must be demonstrated. This does leave open the possibility that atheism and theism are equally valid, but claiming that all beliefs are equally valid is not a legitimate argument.
Also, your example about coming home and finding your girlfriend crying falls apart very quickly. You are correct that an emotional response is superior to a logical response. But these are reasons for responding to a human in an emotional (and thus likely irrational) state, not reasons for believing something is true.
This is fun.
Doing or believing in something by example of your parents is always going to be logically unstable, whether or not that something is known to be true or not. Your parents may have this belief because their parents did, and their parents, etc… However at some point in the line there was the person who began this train of beliefs and came to the conclusioin under their own terms, however logical or illogical it may have been. There is really no way to know. The only real way to purue the ultimate truth is to try to observe and learn things yourself in the most objective way possible .
sidfaiwu,
Concluding that all beliefs are not equal does not help your case any since, according to your definition, equality depends on known truth or fact and NOT the type of thinking (rational vs. irrational) that lead to the belief. In other words, one could come to the conclusion that the Earth is round through irrational reasoning. For example, I could claim that God told me that the Earth was round in a dream.
So until we KNOW whether or not there is a God, both atheism an theism are equally valid. How one comes to either belief is irrelevent. Agnosticism is actually superior to both because it is relies on a known truth: we do not know if there is a god. Doesn’t matter how one comes to agnosticism. It is valid and superior either way.
Hey Matthew,
I think you misunderstand the goal of my post. It was not to show that atheism or theism is a superior belief. Sasserstyl’s original claim was that atheism and theism (and agnosticism) are equally valid because they are beliefs. This relied on the assumption that all beliefs are equally valid. My goal was to demonstrate that this underlying assumption was incorrect. I think I accomplished that. Thus there exists at least one criterion with which we can rank the validity of beliefs. I proposed, but did not conclusively demonstrate that ‘based on observable evidence’ was a likely candidate.
Atheism and theism my very well be equally valid, but it is not simply because they are both beliefs. Even under the criterion I proposed it can be argued that there is no observable evidence either way, so both theism and atheism are equally invalid. I think this is what you are saying in the second half of your post.
Notice, though, that my criterion does not rely on known truth or fact. If God told me the earth is round in a dream, my belief would be invalid because the reason for my belief is not based on observable evidence. The validity of the reasoning does not affect the truth of the belief. It would be like saying 2^2 (two squared) = 4 because I added the two number I see. It is the truth, but the reasoning is false. We can also se why the reasoning is relevant. Based on my false reasoning, I would go on to conclude that 3^2 is 5!
I would argue that fundamentalists do the exact same thing. They assume the Bible is true. The Bible says that we should not kill people. Thus they arrive at an ethical truth through faulty reasoning. This reinforces their faulty reasoning. Their faulty reasoning causes them to also conclude that the earth was created 6,000 years ago in 7 days. The observable evidence (fossil records) contradicts this. Which should we believe? I say the fossil records because the reasoning behind this belief is based on observable evidence.
Does that help explain what I was trying to get at?
Hi sidfaiwu,
This gets too complicated if we cover too much at once!
I actually think there is broad agreement between us. I also think that its easy to misunderstand the term “religious beliefs”, so I’m going to define it here for the purposes of my post:
Religious beliefs refers specifically to the ideas of theism, atheism and agnosticism.
I’ll focus on a specific claim you make:
“My goal was to demonstrate that.. [the assumption that all beliefs are equally valid] ..was incorrect. I think I accomplished that. ”
I agree – but only in a specific case ;)
You use the analogy of sailing round the world:
“It is possible to define “superiorâ€. For example, suppose my parents believe the world is flat. But suppose I also sailed around the world. The rational belief is superior because the belief is based on observable evidence…” (Don’t worry, I’ll get to your next paragraph in a bit)
You’re right here, you demonstrated that, accepting a few basic facts regarding shared perception (i.e. that the world exists and that there is no trickery involved in my perception of the world and that in your example, we are certain of the validity of the claims of the person who says he sailed round the world), once you find a way of proving a theory empirically – such as proving the world round by sailing round it – *that* belief is then generally regarded as superior by most humans.
So in your example, you demonstrate how to prove that one belief is superior to another through empirical testing.
Fine.
But… it’s not possible to empirically test whether there is a God, or even anything about him/her/whatever, and so this criterion for ranking the validity of beliefs is not applicable in the religious context.
You then make the following interesting point:
“Even if you don’t think that observable evidence is the correct criterion for ranking belief, my argument still holds…”
Here you appear to accept that “observable evidence” is not the only valid criterion for forming a belief – I agree with what I infer you mean from this – one person’s “observable evidence” may not be someone else’s, and therefore empirical evidence is not the only valid criterion for forming a belief.
You then say:
“I demonstrated that not all beliefs are equal.”
Again, I agree but with a caveat:
You demonstrated that *given an accepted testing mechanism* (e.g. the presence of empirical evidence) beliefs can be tested for validity.
There is no such mechanism for belief in a God.
And therefore it’s not possible to determine which religious beliefs are more valid than others.
And therefore claiming to have more-valid religious beliefs is mere speculation.
And therefore, counter to what you say, *equal* validity has to be *assumed* and *superior* validity proven.
Until the existence of a God is proven either way all religious beliefs (by this I mean theism, atheism and agnosticism) remain equally valid.
In your last post, sidfaiwu, you begin to include more specific religious beliefs/ideas such as creationism and literalism. Many of these specific ideas should be treated separately from the “is there a god?” debate because we *can* demonstrate empirically that the earth is 5 billion years old and that dinosaurs did not live concurrently with man. In these cases I broadly agree with your “observable evidence” reasoning.
On a separate (but related) point:
Mathew, you say:
“Agnosticism is actually superior to both because it is relies on a known truth: we do not know if there is a god. Doesn’t matter how one comes to agnosticism. It is valid and superior either way. ”
Actually, it is not a known truth that we don’t/can’t know whether God exists.
I know that *I* don’t know whether God exists.
But I can’t know for sure whether *someone else*, say a born again religious person “knows” whether there is a God.
Maybe he really has some insight that I don’t.
If the religious person claims to know a God exists, we can’t prove them wrong, and so agnosticism is only as valid as all other beliefs.
In summary:
1. Theism, Atheism, and Agnosticism are equally valid beliefs.
2. The “Is there a God?” debate should be treated separately from other religious “ideas”.
3. The validity of many religious ideas depends on your perspective on any given empirical evidence.
Finally, it’s OK to have different beliefs about religious ideas but these differences should never be used as an excuse to commit acts that are viewed by the wider community as detrimental.
hmm… I’ve got a lot on my hands at the moment, that’s why I’ve been silent the last couple of days. After monday I might have a bit time to join in again. I’ll bring the tea and cookies then cos I do find this an interresting discussion, and I can’t say that about most religious discussions cos most end up with
“There is a god cos the bible says so”
versus
“The bible is the first fictional roman known to man”
etc ;)
Cya in a few days guys :)
Hello sasserstyl,
I think you are right in that there is broad agreement between us. The topic of the validity of beliefs is a very interesting one to me because I have not fully formed an opinion on the matter. By discussing this topic with you and others, I will be better equipped to form and defend my opinions. Also, as per your suggestion, I’ll stay on topic wrt the (non)belief in God.
It still seems that atheism and theism are equally valid simply because they are not testable beliefs. I think that atheists might have a point that lack of evidence is evidence of lacking. I’ll try to form a structured argument around t it makes it easier for me to understand and easier for me to demonstrate my objection.
1. Atheism and theism are not testable
2. All beliefs that are not testable are equally valid
Thus
3. Atheism and theism are equally valid
I’m I understanding you correctly? If I am, then we can equate many beliefs with either atheism or theism. Consider, again, the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM). I know the FSM was designed as a parody of intelligent design (a separate topic), but it can be useful here is well. Suppose the FSM is invisible, silent, and intangible. In fact, suppose it has all the properties necessary that it cannot be sensed by us or any of our scientific equipment. In other words, there is no evidence confirming or denying the existence of the FSM. Then:
1. Belief in the FSM (monsterism) and belief in the non-existence of the FSM (amonsterism) are not testable
2. All beliefs that are not testable are equally valid
Thus
3. Monsterism and amonsterism are equally valid
We can use the same argument to demonstrate for the validity of belief in many things; from elves who live in the forest and are perfect at hiding their existence to my invisible friend, Pete. Belief in these things just doesn’t seem as valid. I don’t believe in elves in the forest because there is no evidence for the existence of such elves. The lack of evidence suggests the lack of existence.
PS See you soon, Strijker. Don’t forget the tea!
Hi sidfaiwu,
This is interesting for me because prior to this discussion I hadn’t really put much thought into the validity of different beliefs. I actually had subconciously come to the conculsion that Mathew did; that agnosticism was the more valid belief.
However, this exchange has forced me to think it through and I now think that theism, atheism and agnosticism are equally valid, and it is the other “stuff” that should be the focus of any criticism I may have (e.g. creationism, or members of a religion having a superiority complex).
In response to your question, yes, you understand me correctly.
In your example, I am happy to accept that Monsterism and amonsterism can and *should* be treated as equally valid. But, that doesn’t preclude the fact that one of the beliefs might be more valid – we just dont have the means to determine which one it is.
However, reading your post got me thinking:
Your “invisible friend” example made me realise that belief validity is *contextual*.
Running with the invisibe friend idea, I may have an ongoing mental experience of having an invisible friend.
My experience should (and likely will) lead me to believe then that “My invisible friend exists”.
However, no-one else will experience my invisible friend (it’s in my head!), so the most valid belief system for them is “The Invisible friend doesn’t exist”.
Both “everyone else”, and I, have evidence – but it is different and so we reach different (but equally valid) conclusions.
I think this can be applied to religious beliefs.
The more I think about this, the more I realise it’s not belief in a God that bothers me, it’s specific aspects of the doctrine of organised religions that does.
…and continuing with this thought:
Organised Religions gerneally have base of written work from which they draw.
When you read anything, you interpret the text according to your worldview (this is unavoidable).
Your world-view defines your moral/ethical standards.
So although currently there appears to be a “battle” between “the West” and “the relgion of Islam”, I think the battle is between moral and ethical standards, rather than religion.
Example:
Say hypothetically (because I haven’t read it!) say the Qur’an has a piece of text discussing a “war against infidels”.
A Muslim might read that and, using his worldview, interpret that he should take up arms against the West.
Yet another Muslim, with a different worldview will interpret is as meaning that he should merely proselytise.
So the “battle” is one of worldviews, *not* religions. And I submit that a strong determinant of whether someone will seek to kill people is their ethical and moral context.
So I say, fuck missiles/UAVs/Jets. The way to win the war is to educate and debate with those who hold different worldviews so that they can be more closely aligned, reducing friction and improving understanding.
If I were the President of the US!
Hi sasserstyl,
I think I understand your point of view. I’m glad our conversation helped you to solidify your thoughts. All beliefs that are not testable or have no evidence are equivalent in your eyes, but testable beliefs are only as valid as the evidence that supports that belief. Also, it seems that, like me, you disapprove the use of non-testable beliefs to support immoral actions. Thus it is these actions that we should focus our efforts on preventing.
Denying homosexuals rights (for example) is bad enough. Justifying it based on a belief that “that’s what God wants” is worse since the opposite belief is equally as valid. I agree completely.
I still disagree that all non-testable beliefs are equivalent. I believe that consistent lack of evidence is evidence of lacking. But this is a fine point that is ultimately irrelevant to us since ethics, not epistemology, is our common goal here.
Still it was a fun discussion which I am more than willing to continue if you or others are interested.
Athiest
I take some issue with people asting as if this video is supposed to convince Christain fundementaliss of anything. This doesn’t say much about Christianity to me, but more about the idea of Americanism. Particularly with that insane Bush quote.
This isn’t a criticism of Christianity or a piece of Athiest propoganda, but more a commentary. “Well gee, I guess these people just aren’t good enough to be American.” It puts into context some of the most over-quoted Bible lines.
Fools, vile, do no good. They don’t suggest to me that Christians think we’re stupid or evil, but that we’re not contributing anything to society and are unable to contribute anything worthwhile simply because we lack faith in a god.
Somehow, it is unAmerican to no believe in a god, we don’t really deserve citizenship, it’s been magnanimously bestowed upon us.
I spent many years in an obnoxiously Christian area, and the ammount of flack I got was incredible. American public school, I had teachers calling me stupid for not believing in god.
This isn’t about what the Bible or may not actually man (since it is open to much interpretation) but about the levels and kinds of dogma as well as the attitude preached to someone who is athiest.
Do I think the Bible says I’m stupid? No. But apparently many of my elementary and middle school teachers thought it was an excuse to say I was.
And here I thought being American meant the ability to choose your beliefs, not be ridiculed and belittled for the lack of them.
Im am a catholic and while I find the video strong, it is misleading. First off most criminals are atheists agnostics BEFORE they are in jail, after they are incarcerated they only hope and thing they can turn to is God, because they know they are gonna die soon or be forever there. People need to seriously take this into perspective. In fact many drug addicts, criminals, conmen, that Ive talked to(ex of course) were hard nosed athiests and darwinists before they landed in prison. This here shows that when a person is truely hopeless they only have one true thing to turn to, God.
Theres a saying that goes:
“Its easy to be an athiest when life is good
Its easy to be an athiest when things are going well for you
“But its VERY HARD to be athiest lying in your deathbed knowing your gonna die soon
Its very hard to be an athiest wondering “What if there is a god maybe”
Its very hard to be an athiest when that happens”
Hard hitting words in my view. The inventions and genuises in the video I have respect for. But remember life on the earth is VERY short. All these inventions don’t mean anything when your near death thinking about your family and children and grandchildren. They are just outer, external lifeless things. Inventions are great and help the world, of course.. But they should not be the CENTRAL point of belief. Because there is no point in that and is self futile.
Remember a light bulb or a PH.D professor does not replicate the truely wonderful things in life like Love, emotion, birth, children, family, guilt, and self nuturing. What its like when a mother holds her baby, or a father plays ball with his son. No invention can compare to those truely unique things. And thats why the Bible is saying. You are what you are by what you have inside and in your soul, than what you create or how much fame and money you can make.
Mike,
“Im am a catholic and while I find the video strong, it is misleading. First off most criminals are atheists agnostics BEFORE they are in jail, after they are incarcerated they only hope and thing they can turn to is God, because they know they are gonna die soon or be forever there.”
Do you have any statistics to support this? And how do explain the fact that many, if not most criminals continue a life of crime AFTER getting out of prison? Are they no longer Christian then?
“In fact many drug addicts, criminals, conmen, that Ive talked to(ex of course) were hard nosed athiests and darwinists before they landed in prison.”
ROFL! Ya, I’m sure they were “darwinists.” I’m sure they spent a lot of time chatting with their criminal buddies about natural selection and and quoting from “The Origin of Species.”
You pretty much lost all credibility right there.
“Theres a saying that goes:
“Its easy to be an athiest when life is good
Its easy to be an athiest when things are going well for you
“But its VERY HARD to be athiest lying in your deathbed knowing your gonna die soon
Its very hard to be an athiest wondering “What if there is a god maybeâ€
Its very hard to be an athiest when that happens—
Ok, but what about all those people who LOSE faith when really bad stuff happens? Stuff that makes a loving God seem so unrealistic.
“Remember a light bulb or a PH.D professor does not replicate the truely wonderful things in life like Love, emotion, birth, children, family, guilt, and self nuturing.”
Heh, leave it to a Catholic to include “guilt” in a list of life’s truely wonderful things. :-)
“Theres a saying that goes:
“Its easy to be an athiest when life is good
Its easy to be an athiest when things are going well for you
“But its VERY HARD to be athiest lying in your deathbed knowing your gonna die soon
Its very hard to be an athiest wondering “What if there is a god maybeâ€
Its very hard to be an athiest when that happens—
There’s also a saying that goes, “that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Just because it feels good to believe that theres a god and humans are special doesn’t make it right, and it certainly doesn’t make it true, or likely.
“Hard hitting words in my view. The inventions and genuises in the video I have respect for. But remember life on the earth is VERY short. All these inventions don’t mean anything when your near death thinking about your family and children and grandchildren. They are just outer, external lifeless things. Inventions are great and help the world, of course.. But they should not be the CENTRAL point of belief. Because there is no point in that and is self futile. ”
And when these foolish godless men find ways to extend your existence to the point where you don’t need to panic about death to justify your beliefs, where will your faith lie? There’s another saying “The hard work of one does more than the prayer of millions.”
well this lil clip left me wide jawwed. ..im kinda confused with my religon since im catholic, and still feelin atheist, so i just dotn talk about my religion. . . @.@
This is the perfect place for a person that is confused about their beliefs. I do believe a few of us went from being active members of an organized religion to adopting the non-theist and non-revalistic religions and philosophies. Here you can question your beliefs in a public forum and have both sides respond with all the opinions on it you could ever need.
Christian
I fail to see how 2,000 people who were involved in a survey at the University of Minnesota represent how I feel about one darned thing.
I know that I don’t have a beef with any of the people in that video.
In closing, I certainly don’t agree with a president who declares that any legal, law abiding resident of the United States isn’t a citizen.
stupid religion broke my post :/
To those who don’t think that Atheists can feel relaxed on their death bed… I would say to you they have the option of looking at time as either cyclic or continuing… in the continuing version then a restoration of life is possible… given a long enough length of time EVERYTHING will happen, this being the case its completely plausible for someone exactly the same as said atheist in memories, looks, behavior and ability to be born some day be it millions, trillions or gazillions of years from now…
OR
The cycle thingy means that eventually the universe collapses and then BAMS! again and the aforementioned atheist gets to do everything all over Weeee! Anchorman was way funnier the 2nd time anyhow…
Im no atheist but I think being left in that situation is much better as its plausible and very provable where as God and heaven is umm not :P
Cheers!
Oh right as for the ‘fools’ comments, It matters not how the word was perceived by the author of the video. The statement remains the same all those people listed are fools in the eyes of the supposed “god”. Thats how the religion demands you view them.
I think that at the end of the day we can all say that “fool” has a negative conitation that being the case anyone who follows the bible feels as though they are better then all people listed in the video… simple as that, it shows the ridiculousness of the claim. I know a ton of Christian’s that will have done less for their fellow man then any of the listed scholars… though Im not going as far as to say the same about the actors… I mean common they dont happen to be special, just lucky people who caught a break
atheist.
I get it, a lot of scientists are atheists. But you could do the same about christians or muslims or jews or buddists, and come up with quotes from those very atheists damning what they do with equal pith.
The underlying issue is that of course among the liberal middle classes atheism is popular, them also being the least likely group to go to jail, but this is atheisms failure. These scientific-rationalists, Dwarkins and the rest, have done nothing to persuade the vast majority of people that atheism has anything to offer except the truth. Noone cares for the truth if it doesn’t help them live better lives. So far atheists are offering nothing but nihilism.
Hang on, did he miss out Richard Feynman?
I am atheist, and I also feel that all religion is bad for the human race. If anyone has any doubts, I would refer them to the current situation in the middle east, where people are industriously killing each other over MICROSCOPIC differences in their common islamic “faith”. In the US, it has been a source of divisiveness in our political system, resulting in a war in Iraq, that had ZERO justification, aside from Bush’s desire to one-up his dad.
Also, those who believe that old saw about “there are no atheists in foxholes”, think again. I was in combat and have had direct experience of “incoming” artillery, and was and still atheist. My dogtags, (which I still have) read “Rel. Pref.: Atheist”
Gentle Giants, that’s what the brilliant people in this video are.
The simplicity of the video and the absolutely perfect background music please me enormously. One must remember, some people need to be spoonfed the truth. Plus, in matters of deep importance, which this IS, understatement can be much more powerful than exaggeration. “Just the facts, Ma’am,” is a pretty good rule of thumb.
Congratulations, Zachery!
And thanks for this Atheist Passion experience.
Asatru Pagan Priest… with Agnostic/Atheist leanings.
This video had a side effect of letting me know alot of people I like’s relgious veiws, including a few of the scientists that inspired me to take science as a career. Thanks for letting us see this, and thanks for been a voice of reason in an age of stupidity, at the dawn of the second dark age of humanity.
Zachary: From another atheist — great video! I have been an atheist for 40 years, ever since I was a junior in high school and read 2 books by Ayn Rand: “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged.” I look forward to seeing more of your work.
The “simple” question I would like to ask everyone is: “How does something (physical or otherwise)come from NOTHING?” Obviously there is now “something” since we are having this discussion, but how is that possible? How did all that we now know and experience begin? I mean you can say, “Well, because way back when this happened, i.e., cosmic explosion, etc.” Well, how did that come about? Seriously, think about it, at some point, as you think about cause and effect, “something” must have ALWAYS existed for there now to be our conscious existence. Now if that “something” always existed and eventually caused our consciousness, would “it” not also have consciousness? So if “it” always existed and possesses consciousness, could it also be described as God?
“‘How does something (physical or otherwise)come from NOTHING?’”
I’ll ask the same thing that gets asked every single time, without fail: what about God?
“Now if that “something†always existed and eventually caused our consciousness, would “it†not also have consciousness?”
Not necessarily.
Hello McBride,
Though Snurp ably addressed your question, I’d like to add a couple of possibilities and thoughts.
“How does something (physical or otherwise)come from NOTHING?”
Perhaps it simply can happen and we have no idea how. Ignorance of where existence comes from does not force one to assume a conscious cause. Perhaps something never comes from nothing. Perhaps the past is infinite. Perhaps time is circular and the end state of all things is equivalent to the first state of all things. All these possibilities require no consciousness at all. We really don’t know.
Even if one concludes that the First Cause is God, this leads one to Deism at best. This is certainly no reason to accept one of the major religions.
i’m agnostic leaning towards atheist. it is extremely annoying how stereotypical people are. atheists arent evil because they have different views. its worse than the crap between republicans and democrats. why cant you look a little deeper? and the “fool” dilema is all point of view. but how do you people really know what they meant? i find it insulting. i know plenty of atheists who are smarter than most christians and vice versa. IT DOESN”T MATTER!!!
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