"There once was a family of mice that lived in a piano...they couldn't agree on who was playing it, so they fought holy wars and ultimately killed each other off. The piano stank."
Hey my last name is also Ward :D I like the analogy, but it creates an incorrect perception. In reality, Holy wars fought by the "church" were not actual christians. The overseers were people who claimed to be Christian, but only did so for their personal gain. They did not fight because it was their "godly destiny." But really they fought for gain and twisted the bible to further advance their agenda. The bible is not at fault, just like an axe is not at fault. The person using it is at fault.
Plubus Domis wow! Let’s take the case of the crusades. One one side, you have Muslims whose holy book (and therefore alleged deity) demands the killing of non-believers at war time and strongly encourages spreading Islam by the sword. One the other side, you have a group of people who believe Jesus was the literal son of God (this is the accepted definition of Christianity, any other definition is fringe or misleading) whose religious leaders, whom they believed to be representatives of God (the popes), encourage the destruction of the ‘false religion’ Islam. This is a war predicated primarily on theology, not economic or political gains. Israel was economically weak and the Arabic Empire had far better opportunities to get wealthier. This isn’t the Iraq war where the true motive is hidden, the Crusades were almost exclusively in the name of ‘God’. Just read any history book by qualified historians and you will likely get the exact same reason.
@@louicoleman2910 catholicism is a religion all its own, its very popes and tenets are heretical to the bible, its own popes and priests being called father for example is outright heresy because only God is to be referred to as father or reverend, nevermind catholic training starting for years with pagan philosophers, my source www.creationliberty.com/articles/religioncatholic.php edit:added source.
Tristan smith true, but that doesn’t negate the crusades being holy wars. Even if the holy part was not as originally demanded, it was still religion vs religion.
@@louicoleman2910 yea not necessarily denying that, i havent really looked deeply into the economic side do cant be sure one way or the other what i do know is its a thing the catholics did, which is just about all i need to know because catholicism is heresy to begin with, also considering i know it does a thing whereby it absorbs/ed the practices of the local beliefs just like rome did i can be sure that like those things it simply rebrands and puts a jesus sticker on, it will therefore be more of the same as came before but renamed, e.g easter which is in truth a pagan fertility goddess thing, the rabbits and the eggs really should be a dead giveaway, and the list goes on and on.
This video has permanently changed the way that I see the world. I will now be unable to walk past any piano without looking for signs of mouse infestation.
This is actually a common thing for upright pianos, especially the old ones that were rarely taken care of. The mouses would literally pee *in* the piano which rusts and damages the strings.
The same goes for wise sounding adages. I remember easily accepting the adage of "The early bird gets the worm" for many years before someone in reply to another who had uttered the adage said, "Yes, but the second mouse gets the cheese".
Hope you realize that this guy didn't at all adress the real reason the piano and mice story proved god existed. The fundamental of Christian belief. "We have never observed a mechanical device appearing out of nowhere without a conscious mind creating it. We were not able to observe the beginning of the universe, but like a piano we can see every string and every hammer and mechanical operations. Since all of the observed mechanical devices were built by a mind, and we know this as indisputable fact. Why then would anyone assume the mechanical device we live in was not created by a mind but instead by itself? It Would be like finding a piano and saying... well I don't know if a Mind created it or not, it probably came about from a lot of time. After all, I didn't see it created. This type of person is considered smart now, but a few hundred years ago it was pretty obvious that God existed not because we didn't how the sun was rising but because there was a sun in the first place. Learning how something works is different from learning that it could have been made by the universe alone. When a computer does a calculation we say it's processing, and when a new star is made it happens by a process. I didn't do the calculation, but that calculation could never happen in space or time without me building the computer. God may or not make the star but he most certainly made the process. And the scientific method for knowing that Is self evident." -Daniel Dontay. Basically, everything we observe is proof god exists. Because we have never seen anything created by Nothing. And before you say we've seen quantum mechanics appear out of Nothing, I will laugh and say, we have. And we've been able to measure it and study it almost like.... it's a process. Everything is a process. argue all you want about what process, how process, who process, this process, that process. You can't rationally deny it's all a process though, and through observations no process has ever been made by itself.
@@celestialvision5073 You now have the burden of proof for a primordial mind that is responsible for the forces of nature. Get back to us when you figure that one out, or have any serious evidence that supports such an idea otherwise.
@@celestialvision5073 why do you not apply the same logic you apply to the observable universe to this hypothetical creator mind? who created this insanely complex organism capable of creating entire universes? was it just always there? did it slowly come about with enough time? in that case, why couldn't the observable universe on it's own have just always been here or was created with enough time?
Don't put a burden on me, it's your life. When I speak on god, it's a favor I do in love to try and save. When an atheist speaks on god it's for himself, cause to an atheist only the self matters, after all isn't the betterment of society better for him. Let's see... do I have to say who created God in order for my words to make sense? Let's now apply that logic to the piano, a piano was found and I think someone created it, after all time and space has never been observed to create only decay things (entropy) do I now have to figure out who created this person who built the piano? Have you ever combined those two questions in your life?! John made a paper clip. "Well, I don't think your right! after all who made John? And if it was The universe, why couldn't that same logic have made the paper clip? I think it's much more likely the force of gravity and all the laws of physics created the paper clip." -no'one but a crazy person. The fact that the creation was created by someone and not just something is like the piano, you don't have to believe that piano was created, but your pretty dumb if you claim it could have made itself. Or that the factory that made it could have made itself. Only human minds have been scientifically observed making things, and we know for a fact that the universe didn't exist forever in the past. So...
@@celestialvision5073 you missed my point entirely. in your example with john and the paperclip, the argument that is supposed to be mine is a strawman. I am not claiming that john did not create the paperclip *because* we do not know "who" created john. (???that does not logically follow.) I'm simply pointing out to you that logically it does not follow that because a human created a paperclip that therefore a human or something else created the human that created the paperclip which is what your argument essentially is. "Only human minds have been scientifically observed making things, and we know for a fact that the universe didn't exist forever in the past. So..." So.... therefore a human mind created everything else?? how exactly does that logically follow? I'm not making any claim about how the universe was created. that is something that we simply can not know, at least right now, and I have no reason to make up any stories for how the universe was created. I do not deny the possibility that there is something intelligent about the universe or that intelligence is what created the universe, but we have nothing tangible to go on so everything we could come up with would just be guessing and shooting in the dark if that makes sense. also nobody is "putting a burden" on you. by making a claim you place the burden of proof on yourself, meaning that you are the one with the responsibility to provide evidence for your claim, not the one whom you are arguing with's responsibility to prove you wrong. So I can't just make an empty claim and then challenge you to disprove it because there are things called unfalsifiable claims which are impossible to be tested as true or false.
I like the thought from Immanuel Kant, that even a nation made up of devils, would stabilize themselves once they realized it was for their own benefit.
@@littlesometin that's false. The very first human settlements didn't start because of religion, but rather by necessity. It was necessary for ancient humans to gather in order to survive from the larger predators.
@@shion275 that's not what I claimed at all, I was thinking of the rise in numbers, when it wasn't 30 people in a hunter gatherer type of group anymore, but rather 100 or 1000 or several thousand people, who are all illiterate, obviously religion did the job to keep some kind of order and organize those societies, it makes evolutionary sense
@@littlesometin Basically, humans to a degree are just like the hermit crabs. However, we don't line up so neatly since our needs aren't always easily measurable so instead we pull in different directions, sometimes ignoring the conflict of interest that causes.
@@KnightandDay33 since the spoon is larger then the bowl itself the could just dump the content in the spoon, take it to their mouth and pretend they've used the spoon, kinda like that lady who had a glass of wine stuck to the bottle and pretended she only drinks "a glass", thought the idea of idiots going to hell might be right, as, I heard, Satan hates idiots the most.
The spoon story you were told as a child reminds me of a similar one I was told when I was a few years younger... It was a secular version of one of Jesus' parables I think, the story where money and goods are being collected to give to the poor (in this version it was the king collecting for charity) and loads of wealthy people give great donations, with gold and silver and piles of food and so on, but one old lady gives a single pomegranate and the king values that donation more than all the others because that was all she had to give. I just remember listening to that story as a child and thinking "but if that old woman was so poor a pomegranate was her only possession then why on earth wasn't she on the receiving end of the king's charity, not the giving end?!" It was a flaw in the story that quite eclipsed the moral message for me.
Ah, the story "works" when Jesus says it because the old lady didn't "need" the penny because God will provide for her in the afterlife (where it matters). Eliminating the implicit religious notions highlights the absurdity.
The Spoon Story makes even less sense, when you consider, what human beings are capable of just to survive, something as simple as feeding someone else, would be done, no matter how greedy or hate-filled the people are if it meant ending their pain and suffering.
disastergirl888 The story was about the heart. If your heart is in it when you give then you’re honouring God. Everyone was showing off to look generous. But when it came down to it they were still greedy in their hearts. The lady who had close to nothing still gave. You don’t have to have a lot to give. It’s a story about generosity.
Michael de Tremaudan.. and what of the person of extreme wealth, who is in a position where effortless intervention could secure food for the hungry children and medical care for the suffering children,,, but chooses to DISREGARD the children with the poorest parents.
I actually like the subtext that the mice worship the player, while the player would be horrified and disgusted by the mice that live inside his piano. Also the story of the clockwork piano still resonated with me. Those poor mice making up a player to deal with the fact that a piano that plays itself is too difficult to comprehend and is a somewhat terrifiing notion
Exactly. If god exists, she, he or they must either be apathetic or completely disgusted by us. That's the only plausible explanation for why things sometimes work out and other times don't, why evil and calamity exists, and it's not because "god works in mysterious ways" or "free will" or "there's no good without evil" or some other stupid shit like that.
Seeing the “knowing smile” for what it truly is means freeing yourself of gullibility. People tend to trust the words of a confident man, regardless of the words.
The piano player that called for an exterminator sure sounds an awful lot like the Yahweh. "And God saw the mice and became upset that they were ruining his piano. So God called down poison gas and wiped them all out. And he cursed the piano for ten thousand generations and no mouse shall live there from time indefinite - to time indefinite . . ."
Kyle Cooksey I think the Yahweh-pianist would have also been responsible for training the mice to shit in pianos, and for putting them in the piano. Also, Yahweh-pianist might also be the exterminator, or maybe not, but the exterminator can only act with permission from the Yahweh-pianist, but even though the exterminator has been summoned to kill the mice, the Yahweh-pianist still loves them. Or something.
@@TheraminTrees I like the story of the mice who heard music, assumed it was a giant playing but never investigated the wind chime to find out. It's a classic. Well I assume it's a classic anyway, I won't bother to investigate whether it is.
I love when musically and mathematically ignorant people try and use things like this to make a point that is so COUNTER-INTUITIVE it would be like trying to use ROCKS to disprove the HARDNESS SCALE.
My award to him is that THESE are the tales I will tell my children. Not the burning bush, not the feeding of the five thousand, not the parting of the seas. If everyone gives him and others like him the same award, the insertion of rationalism into the minds of a generation of children would be the best and most productive reward anyone could wish for. Thank you so much for this.
Hi Stamp! Just saw your comment and figured I'd take a moment to let you know how much I enjoy your videos and quite a few have made it onto my favorites playlist. Good satire is a high art, mastered by few, but you wield it well! Thanks again!
"The afterlife is just a long table with bowls of infinite soup but the spoon is longer than your arm so you need teamwork to eat" My dude, just pick up the bowl and drink the soup. You're there for eternity; everyone around you will eventually get used to your bad table manners
Wait, that's bad manners? I always thought that was the normal way to eat soup (Also, why can't you just hold the spoon near the cup? Sure you'd have a massive stick going to behind you, possibly whacking people, but you'd be able to eat, right?)
@@nolategame6367 that's the normal way to eat soup from a bowl, yes. It is bad manners if the soup has something solid in it (e.g. pasta soup) or if it is served in a soup plate, rather than a bowl
They picked up the bowls? They held the spoons near the heads so the handle length didn't matter much? They lapped up the soup like dogs? They ate one another.
@@KezanzatheGreat Imagine working your ass off every day trying to be the bestest christian ever, going to heaven, and finding out you get a spoon glued to your hand that you can't take off. THANKS, YEGHVEGH
I'm quite sure that the preacher said that heaven and hell were "like" long tables with endless soup and long spoons etc. In that "like", so often used by priests and by Jesus himself in parables is the sense of telling people these stories. They don't tell you that heaven and hell are actually made that way, rather they push the dynamics of what you will find in heaven and hell. I find a lot of this technique in what is being called progressive churches, where they refuse a literal reading of holy texts as a sign of ignorance and it all becomes metaphorical. They usually attract more educated people than the literal strict churches do. If anything, that story has more sense in a non religious context as moral story to teach people the benefits of cooperation, out of love or out of need, the result is that everyone has food. As they say in some places: one hand washes the other hand and both together wash your face.
It's shocking how many mice in our world gleefully look forward to the day when the Big Mouse returns to destroy the piano; it allows them to blissfully shit all over the inside of the piano.
But as they covered their living space in waste, sure their Invisible Player will come any day now, the clockwork piano cycled on, until it was so dirty it became unlivable.
It's even more scary how many mice want and are excited for otherwise good and kind mice to be tortured for all eternity because they don't believe in the same invisible player as them.
If you ever see this I want you to know that I absolutely love your videos. This is one of my favorites which has influenced my personal philosophy. I’m 22 now but I saw your videos as a teenager and you helped me to change my point of view so much. Thank you and love what you do, you deserve way more views.
@@ameennasar2583 there are alot of contradictions but i think what they meant is how we used to hear stupid stories and hadiths and see them completely logical when they are obviously not.
@@lmho0254for most. It's just the realization that it's a cult with stories and myths. Of course there are many other reasons, but nothing specific that makes you cross the line or anything, it'a just the general understanding.
Wait what? That story was clearly in favor of materialism... the mice discovered more and more of their world, understanding more how it worked, while never quite having a full understanding. The next step in the story would be a mouse exploring outside the piano, discovering the human operating the hammers they already knew about.
I know right! When I heard that I saw that the framing device was that both of the young mice and the old mice were unable to determine what lie outside the piano. But the young might scared about figuring out how it worked while the old ones were dogmatic insisting and that yes it had to be this or that that was the only common factor between all of the stories the framing device itself. ... the oh now that I think about it half the point of bringing up all the different stories in the first place was that the framing device affects what conclusions are possible so don't trust stories trust what you can actually know.
What the story tried to illustrate was the that the mice first thought there was a giant invisible player making the music, and while the young mice discovered more about the piano, they dismissed the giant player theory and the old mice who believed it, unaware that there actually was a giant invisible player playing the piano
@@videohell201 but the mice knew more and more about how piano works. Old mice believed in player but had no idea how he played. Young mice discovered and learned a lot . Eventually young brave mouse will go on a valiant expedition outside the piano and prove existence of a player.
@@JM-mh1pp the story assumes the mice will never be able to see outside the piano; trying to allude to us being confined in the universe, never able to see what is outside of it and therefore the presumed creator that lives there. Weird assumption as it is way easier to exit a big box but thats what the story does
"He looked inside his precious piano, and to his horror he found it covered in mouse shit" I'd like to think humanity is the defecating mice of the space-time piano
@@horinum That's just the result of our bits and pieces wearing down with time, that everything is subject to. I'm talking about somebody coming in and breaking everything ahead of schedule.
My parents never bothered with religion. So when I was 11 or so, I decided I should go to Sunday School. But it only lasted for a couple of weeks. It was storytelling that did me in. I dared ask why, who, what, when and then why again. The Sunday School teacher became annoyed and she asked me to leave. When I got home, my mom and I laughed. Then I became a coward and declared I was an agnostic. Now I decided just to come clean and declare who I really am.
@@The_Ex_Boxing_Nerd It's more-so ignorance. The cowardice comes from presuming the possibility only because it's the status quo, but the two are really inseparable. If someone can't even reason why granting the existence of god(s) credence is ridiculous, then it will be hard for them to outright deny it. Needless to say, they are an entirely human creation made to serve human ends, so obviously there are no gods. It may be unfalsifiable, but so are the invisible pant goblins, and we both know those don't exist because I just made them up.
@@The_Ex_Boxing_Nerd I don't think they called agnostics cowardly, necessarily. They called themself cowardly for not stating their true stance, and instead using the term "agnostic" so nobody would judge them. This, of course, is not true for most agnostics. It was just the truth for them, as they weren't actually agnostic.
Yeah.... I'd suggest you write that one up... BUT Douglas Adams not only beat you to it, I'd wager he's already done better with the mice story than you ever could... ;o)
What does it say about me that my answer to the question of "What was different between Heaven and Hell?" was that the people in Heaven were smart enough to lift up their bowl and drink from it directly, bypassing the spoon altogether? That they fed each other never even occurred to me; my obvious solution was that they lifted their bowls, like people do with the last bit of milk after eating breakfast cereal. Obviously, my answer doesn't really say anything about me, except, VERY tentatively, that I might prefer self-sufficiency over reliance on others. I just wanted to point out another solution, and I do find the disparity curious.
I knew the answer was going to be because they fed each other because 1) you have to view it the way a theist would view the problem and only theists think so righteously of themselves, and 2) the way the image was setup with them sitting across from each other and the spoons being the right length to feed each other. But while I sat there picturing myself in hell with the other atheists, I saw us being smart enough to grip the spoon lower on the handle lol, or as you said, just picking the bowl up. Feeding each other works too, but it seems inefficient. You would have to take turns because I don't see how you could concentrate on shoving the spoon near someones mouth and taking a bite yourself. Sounds like a good way to lose some teeth or to spill good soup everywhere xD. In everyday life, everyone seems to prefer the selfish method of feeding themselves. I haven't seen too many christian families sitting around feeding each other.
@@eternalreign2313 "and only theists think so righteously of themselves," I must disagree. Theists do think so righteously of themselves. But others do too.
@@PvblivsAelivs I'd say anyone with an ideological agenda thinks self-rightously. Sometimes it's a religion.... sometimes it's.... ugh.... somethin' else....
An encouragement to be aware of the manipulative power of stories. A story might be good to demonstrate _our own understanding_ of the universe around us. But it is NOT good for demonstrating the universe _itself_. Viewing time: 18 minutes. ------- I'm delighted to see that TheraminTrees is still active and making videos. His continuous improvement in quality and articulacy is very much apparent in this video. Good job, TT. I enjoyed this video very much.
Eitan Blumin I say the issue in this camouflaged propaganda of Christianity is not stories, but the sinister use of them to surrender your understanding of most everything, to a group-think that substitutes fiction for fact and reality with inventions of false truths, the clearest and most damaging being in religion and politics! The bullshit in these cute and innocent stories, for me, wreaked of rancid ideas at nearly every turn, like when he just drops 'his only begotten son' into a seemingly innocent story line. And how gingerly he inserts 'his Muslim friend'. I'm not missing a beat! He suggests an innocent feigned objectivity into a scenario of multiculturalism, political correctness and suggesting equality and balance when it's actually not there. Yep, the sickness resides on both sides of the political spectrum. But where some find comfort in this deception and pretense, I do not! It angers me, especially when being thrust upon innocent and incomplete minds unable to determine the honesty from this polite chameleon of intellectual dishonesty! He further insults the intelligence of Atheists/agnostics and secular people as well as those who are merely indifferent or apathetic as though they can't find more valuable and quality allegory, analogies, fables, myths, metaphors and poetry in more legitimate and honest sources than the 'Bible' Kabbalah or Qur'an'. Yes, there are some very good bits in the holy books, cleverly inserted amongst the outright lies, distortions and the insidious attempt to usurp your intellect, your very mind! I feel the greatest freedom is your mind, more than your physical freedom because, without it, you can't secure your physical freedom so easily. I'll keep my Atheism until something compels me to view everything afresh. I find comfort in REALITY and the scientific method of determining facts and truth. I have little fear of death other than a painful one, physically or mentally. I'm able to accept nothingness as the end as most all life forms do except humans! Aren't we a pathetic lot, clinging to things we don't believe at all, as though a substitute for the feeling of security and tranquility can be provided with an invisible and magical man (thanks to George Carlin, r.i.p.) who will calm you in your fears. Ha!
Tell me something? What do you think the possibility is that Jewish rabbis inserted the Christian Gospel by encoding the message in the Alpha-Numerics of the first 10 names of the Patriarchs of Genesis?
The "mice in a piano" allegory actually just showed me how blind and stupid some people can be even when provided overwhelming evidence. Also, where would the mice get food or water if they are stuck in a piano?! Poor little mice...
How did Little Red Riding-hood not notice the wolf's tail or claws? How can all those famous clever foxes speak, and to crows nonetheless!?! How can snakes hear Harry Potter speak Parseltongue if they have no ears? Oh these lazy, scientifically uninformed, illogical, deceitful story-tellers!
@@andreab380 What the... snakes totally have ears! They look different because they're reptilian ears, but snakes aren't deaf! What is your point even supposed to be?!
@@ParaSpite Lol, I have been deceived! I had "learned" as a kid that snakes do not have ears, but I can't remember the source. Obviously I should have questioned that, my bad. My general point is that allegories and analogies are not meant to be taken literally. Some elements are just decorative, ora are just used to make the story work consistently. Some other elements constitute the core message.
Wouldn't the residents of hell be well fed as well? Let's break this down real quick. -Having an inquisitive and logical mind gets you sent to hell. -Hell is full of teachers, doctors, scientists, engineers, etc. -Someone, literally eons ago, had to have figured our that you can JUST HOLD THE SPOON CLOSER TO THE END AND USE IT NORMALLY. The shit these thiest try to push, I can't even...
And of course All the inquisitive and logically minded people are the ones who are too smart for theists, they are the ones who discover the laws of the universe that thiests tried to make up, despite me being an ambitious individual i can very well guide you towards finding out if something is real or not All you have to do is test it And people have, time and time again...
I like to imagine all the theists in this scenario up in heaven smugly feeding each other and looking like idiots, while everyone else down in hell has either broken their spoon, is holding it lower down, or has just picked up the bowl. Literally anyone within seconds of seeing that spoon would easily find some way of eating - no way would they just sit there grumpily in starvation.
Once upon a time there were 10 mice that lived in a piano, until at a certain point, one of the mice says they heard a song, and asks if the others heard it, it ends up happening that most say they heard a melody and the minority says no, after a while time, only one mouse says he wasn't hearing any melody, and he ends up being expelled from the group, and when he goes outside, he discovers that he was inside a shoebox at all times....
+DataEntity yes, except the mice never keep going and find a way to look outside the piano, so they are stuck with some story they make up or "I don't know". However the story teller's perspective is that they smuggly know what is outside the piano, even though as TT shows it could have been one of several different things presented to the audience.
Mice would HAVE to leave the piano to find food and water--frequently, and would therefore see a person playing sometimes. These stories are not close to good analogies.
I am glad for the stories that I was exposed to as a child. I grew up LDS (Mormon), but I also read lots of novels. When I re-read some of the novels I read in my childhood and early teens, I can see some of the seeds of my ideals. These ideals along with getting a firmly secular education from middle school on are what allowed me to find my way out of the cult I was brought up in. We do need to pay attention to the stories we consume, and find the ones that plant the good seeds in our mind.
@@pepijnstreng4643 my one question the entire time was, how tf did they get in there in the first place? I mean, in such a way that they then never left ever again?
I'd never heard the spoon story, but it instantly bothered me that absolutely no one at the hell table had the ingenuity to find a way around the issue of the spoon size. It wouldn't have even taken much thought. What, is it so terrible a notion to lift the bowl off the table and eat that you'd rather starve?
This is because the story demands that the hell-humans be dumber than your average rock. As soon as someone with a modicum of sense is introduced, the story falls apart. Then again, the story is stupid in its very construction, so the stupidity of the characters is only to be expected.
Honestly, a greedy conman would immadiently think of feeding the guy next to him so that he gets fed in return. Or even if they were all suicidally uncooperative (and it's some of the most uncaring people who know the value of good contacts) and the spoon handles were spiky closer to the head and the bowls glued to the table, they could, idk, lap up the stew like dogs. They'd find out a solution in, like, 10 minutes tops?
I first heard the story when I was 6 or 7 and even I as a small child thought why don't the people in hell just eat with their hands it's not like they have manners down there.
Child: Tell me a story, Daddy. Father: I wouldn't want to dull your critical processes and open you up to substantial manipulation of your real-world beliefs. How about if we study this statistical analysis of storytelling instead?
If something can prove two antagonic points, then it doesn't prove anything at all. That's a powerful logic foundation that many forget or simply don't know.
TT, the analysis is true for almost all cultures, and most children learn by listening to stories rather than having them to learn hard logic. Even children learn philosophy by reading the novel "Sophie's world".
I can't speak for anyone else, but I've definitely missed your elegance and art for explaining concepts like this, that drive whole new understandings into people welcome back
I feel like the heaven and hell spoon story was less about trying to convince people that's what heaven and hell actually are and more just an analogy for cooperation and mutual benefit through teamwork
I consider myself an atheist, but I kind of actually agree with the first story's purpose of displaying the futility of understanding absolutely everything. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep looking. Certain things like how the universe was "created" or how it "began" I think are futile unless/until we figure out how travel back in time, but we can still observe how it works right now. There will always be unknowns though, no matter how long and hard we look. Suggesting we shouldn't even bother trying to look and see for ourselves though is just stupid. If we can get outside the "piano" to see what's going on, we should. And the idea that this would anger the "player" is retarded when we're constantly told how much this "player" wants to have a "relationship" with us.
not to mention the barest flaw of all: the player exists and there's evidence that the player exists. A mouse could go outside the piano and physically see and touch the player. If the mice eventually continued to explore the workings of the piano and discovered the player, that wouldn't invalidate their previous discoveries at all. In fact, they'd have a stronger understanding of their world than the ones who just luckily guessed the player-- wait. I've just realized something even more confounding. If the mice are inside the piano, and have not been outside of it, how do they know that it's a musical instrument that is played? How would they be able to conceptualize a player without knowing the function of a piano? this is a whole mess of an analogy
Ah, it feels good hearing your voice again. I hope you have a wonderful holiday and a great coming year. Also hope for more videos. Because.. well, I do enjoy them
Wow, I wish I had found your channel years ago. I've been binge watching a lot of your videos and I have to say that there is so much that I appreciate about them - not least of which is the compassionate, considerate, and well-thought out way in which you address topics. When I watch your videos I'm reminded of Anthony Magnabosco and his approach of street epistemology. I think we need more people who, like you, can discuss what they think on a topic without pushing those with dissenting views away. I used to talk about and to religious folk in a condescending way thinking myself better than them just because I've studied the religious arguments and I don't hold an unsubstantiated belief in a deity - it was a point of pride to me that I hadn't been fooled like they had. Eventually, though, I realized that going around and challenging theists belligerently, leaving snarky comments at them and so on was not only unhelpful, it was also rude and unnecessary. We should be able to talk about these things with one another like humans, even if we have differing views - and simply insulting others or dismissing them out of hand does nothing to further any argument. I want to believe things that are true, and I want everyone to live the best sort of life they can. I'm proud of my development as a person, but I owe it to people like you and Anthony for showing a better way to talk about these things. I realize that that's not completely on the point of the video so I will just add that it was actually surprising to me how easily I was fooled by the stories. I actually grew up going to religious schools and I loved mass for the entertaining stories that the priests would share with us. I always wonder what sort of fallacious beliefs I'm still carrying around that have slipped, undetected, into my thought process. Anyway, thank you for your contributions - your videos are simply excellent! :)
Rallei_LoL I agree with all that you said. I just found this channel today, but I have been following AM since Aug 2018. I absolutely love SE and how it can show the flaws of someone’s thinking to them in a non-confrontational way. However, I do think ridicule has it’s place in tearing down the normalization of un-evidenced beliefs. I’m still trying to find a comprehensive explanation of how I can do that, without burning bridges with people in my life. I think, if anyone could show me how, it would be on this channel. Still searching...
I cannot put into words how much I appreciate this channel. Thank you for everything you are doing. Every sentence in your videos is a lesson in thinking on it's own.
Long time no see. These all show me that I have always been right in my lack of belief in a deity. Thank you for doing all the hard work to put in out in a form a dummy like me can understand.
Most religipus tales encourages prejudices, but not all of them are bad. The spoon tale is accually good, it is not talking about some kind of moral superiority beyond logic, but explains the simple fact that cooperation can benefit the whole group. "Some times a cigarette is just a cigarrette" Yet i understand your prejudices against religious tales, i can't even imagine what you have suffered or what you've been throu. Your videos are great, and of big help for me and for many people :)
When I was religious, I'm a recovering religaholic, I believed every word because a so called ordained preacher on stage said it. Now that I'm recovering from soul and mental abuse I see that at face value: Those are ways of thought. Who gave the answer about "feeding each other" is a pure heart who values sharing. The next life is going to require sharing to be fed. That is also someone who has experienced the war and misery of what happens in a room full of those who do not share or do not think or problem solve. If it was said that because in heaven someone was smart enough to break the damn spoon and eat themselves or use their hands then then they would have been correct. Their next life would require problem solving by breaking rules to be fed. If they said because in hell everyone sat and waited for an idea or for someone to tell them what to do, they would be correct in stating that hell is a place of inaction. The fact of the matter is we all find ourselves in hell at some moment in time then our choice on eating brings us unto heaven. However if we make a mistake or fail in our own judgment we find ourselves in hell again. Such is consciousness; self actualization. Change the world by changing yourself and your own behavior. If the child answered because they evolved past the need to use spoons but couldn't explain how that's where the middle ground is: the manifestation of a fork. You see (uc) fork. Basically the preacher was saying in heaven or hell we all get screwed. We can have good sex. We can have great sex or we can have sex that isn't all that much fun for any at the table. That being said: learn how to cook If the meal is enjoyable then it is wise not to fork it up and eat shit.
+RA30st08 Ah yes, but, that would require people to initiate critical thinking. And we all know that isn't what our social system is all about, don't we.
I never knew there was a mouse adaptation of the cave allegory and also never conceived it would be used in favor of remaining in the cave… I really enjoy the way you break down the concepts/issues in each of your videos. Very well done as always. I love this channel
And this is why I work to create a story which expresses ideals of critical thought and expressing one’s own self over the selves others will feed you. “Learn to accept yourself before others do it for you.”
Here's another version of the mice in the piano. Once, there was a family of mice who lived in a piano. Whenever the piano player played, the music would fill their little universe. The mice were comforted by the idea of a single massive player. They saw the hammers and the strings, and thought that perhaps the force which moved them could be explained by a single massive being, rather than many. (No one had really decided which version was true.) One day, the mice went exploring and found a little hole in the side of the piano. "Look, a world of light!" they cried. "Surely it must be heaven..." But when one of the mice went through the hole, she was immediately spotted by the musician's cat. Not knowing what a cat was, the mouse did not act afraid, and was attacked. Taken by surprise, the mouse cried out to the giant player for help against this mysterious villainous creature. But the player, lost in the reverie of making his music, didn't hear the mouse's cries for help. The musician later found the body of the mouse beneath the piano and went exploring, wondering where it came from. At the same time, purely by happenstance, another of the mice happened to look outside through the hole, wondering where the first mouse had gone. It saw the player, and the player saw the mouse. The mouse screamed and ran, horrified by the thought of this giant monster it had worshipped as a divine being its entire life, whose appearance turned out to be something entirely other than expected. The player screamed, too, and ran for the phone, looking up the best mousetraps available in the area - catch-em-alive traps, because while they certainly didn't like mice at all, they also didn't want to kill them. The player caught the mice and relocated them, putting them out in a barn where they could live. And while they adapted to life in the barn relatively quickly, none of the other mice living in the barn ever did believe their fantasy story about a giant box filled with sound, a massive, all-powerful player, and the Great Move which had so uprooted them. If you're finding meaning in this, please let me know. This was just a random idea coming from an atheist. The possibilities are endless for playing with stories like these. Thanks for another awesome video! :D
The more logical you make an illogical analogy, the more questions you end up creating for your audience. I think that's the best way I can sum up my feelings towards this story.
I just found your channel and I'm in love after two videos. Excellent work! I genuinely appreciate this perspective delivered in the format you've chosen.
With the spoon story, everyone can feed themselves. Just hold the spoon very close to the cup part. Why did no one in heaven or hell ever think of that? Maybe everyone loses their ability to think logically when they join a religion? Edit: I laughed so hard at the funeral march. Poor mice. Maybe one day there would have been a mouse Darwin, mouse Galileo or some other amazing mind who could have helped them understand how exactly that music was played.
Terry Pratchett in his _Discworld_ novels frequently made reference to 'Narrativium' - some ethereal substance which gave life and a certain impact to stories passed on person to person. Sadly passed on now, Terry will be fondly remembered.
Stories are a powerful tool,use writing wisely and it can cultivate empathy, understanding,and peace between people and ideas that rarely interact.Use it badly and a story can start wars
Oh man. I remember hearing the spoon one as a kid and my thought was "Why don't they just hold the spoon from halfway down, Then they'd be able to bring it to their own mouth." The trick would be not to wack other people...
I heard the mice inside the piano story at the beginning of the video and immediately thought "the mice have no good reason to believe the pianist existed and the ones who believe the pianist did exist just so happened to be correct by coincidence, not because they had actually investigated and had evidence to back up their claim." If in fact there is a God, I don't want to just believe despite a lack of evidence and then be correct by coincidence, I want to withhold belief until such evidence is presented.
This is the right way to solve the narrative without shitting on storytelling as an artform and tradition... Seriously, we don't have to burn down every piece of human nature and culture to step beyond it, and I'm speaking directly at post-modernism 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 The reason why the mice knew about the strings was because of greater understanding of their universe... They would have eventually understood what was outside the piano, why they were in the piano and why it made such noises every now and then... They would even be able to reproduce the same phenomenon at their scale eventually... Also, you never closed your quotation marks
I must admit that I don't know how to find happiness or what is enough, but I am enough. This video helped me think of the stories we tell ourselves on achieving happiness, belonging, and prosperity in the complicated and confusing world we live in. It never feels easier, but we slowly get better if we allow ourselves the chance to improve and question our understanding. That is mainly why I've decided to reach out like this, to help 'you' towards reaching understand and acceptance of ourselves. Reach out to question your understanding but also examine it within yourself. Don't trust people who say they have the answer to age old question's and continue to live your life. I am uncertainly and confidently declaring this.
So the dead in heaven and hell need to eat? The spoon story is actually designed to appeal to one's fear for survival in the here and now. Specifically, the story creates a new neural link between the region of the brain that processes threats to survival (right amygdala) and the part of the brain that records the feelings associated with new memories (satisfaction for realizing that one just gained an important piece of wisdom to better ensure survival, in the hippocampus), before they are sent to long-term storage (prefrontal cortex). The lesson learned by the listener is that to survive, one must adopt the traits listed (group cooperation). Then, whenever the brain is faced with a situation involving those behavioural traits, it recalls not only the traits, but the feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction associated with them. It's Pavlovian conditioning!
Speaking of Pavlovian conditioning is reductive and unscientific. Reception of information in stories is obviously not only linked to primal instinctive drives. There are several layers of mediation due to one's understanding of expressive modes, such as allegory, other related pieces of information (from the socially accepted way of eating a stew to other religious images), the tone, position, authority, disposotion of the speaker, and the context and cultural background in which it is narrated (e.g. telling it to a bunch of sadistic bigots who think all unbelievers should be actively punished will certainly elicit different responses than telling it to humanitarians, secular or religious, who already believe in the intrinsic value of cooperation)...
Even after leaving a Xtian cult years ago I find myself 'caught in act' when flipping channels and I stumble upon a TV preacher. Few minutes in and I snap out of it but it starts as curiosity. As an atheist, I think we are all susceptible merely because it's part of our makeup. When we watch movies or read books we are captivated sometimes by ideas but more often than not, by whatever emotions the narrative invokes. Religious stories are stories with an agenda.
Religious or secular; theist or atheist, you too are susceptible to the power of "stories". This weakness is not one rooted in a particular set of beliefs, but rather in the human organism itself. If you have convinced yourself that you are immune to the power of "stories" and "narratives" simply because you have dispensed with religion, then you are already snared by at least one myth, and almost certain to be snared by more. After all, don't the various followers of this or that religion pride themselves on not being "duped" by the religious stories of those other "false" religions? Even now there are secular narratives that are as baseless as any religious dogma, which are defended from critical examination, scientific inquiry, and the most mundane disagreement with the fervor of a medieval inquisitor. Ideologies dominate secular thought regarding a host of social, economic, historical, and biological topics to which even reasoned and objective dissent is as _verbotten_ as any _"heresy"_ of ages past. Test and vet the stories you indulge for truthfulness. Because truth is what determines whether a story is "good" or not, and truth is the only story worth believing in.
Very true. Almost everyone tells themselves stories about the motivations and beliefs of other human beings around them, which can be just as or even more destructive to one's happiness and personal relationships as stories about god(s) are.
Bravo. You didn't watch the video. How did I catch you? You just repeated back at TT exactly what he just said about how you should look at stories as though it was YOUR idea.
daemonCaptrix I started writing at my comment at 13 minutes into the vid. So if I missed something, it was because I was commenting on what I had already seen and heard. Of course you're free to believe whatever it is that you have decided _in advance_ about me that you like. How could it be otherwise?
Brutally unwavering logic. I love this channel. It is the bitter taste that accentuates every other flavour in the palette. As an 'Enlightened Theist' aka 'ET', which I am considered among 'believers' and 'otherwise committed' alike, I reside in a vacuum of delightful possibilities. Freedom, My choice, My responsibility.
Then another day, a mouse went outside the piano. When she returned, she further clarified how the music was made. The hammers were linked to keys on the piano, and a man outside was hitting them rhythmically with his fingers. The question was resolved, and the giant invisible rat pianist hypothesis finally died out. The end.
Nobody believed the mouse, then when they were shown the way to the pianist - the pianist noticed the gathering group of mice, that his piano was infested with mice - he called the exterminators the same day. By knowing Too Much, you had doomed us all! didn't you catch its deeper mea- yeah stories can be pulled all sorts of ways to convey whatever you like 🤡💋
@@TheDoomerBlox dammit, I was hoping for a good ending… lol. yeah, I bet some theists would definitely argue that knowing too much and questioning God as the almighty is sin enough.
@@thesleepydot The Good Ending is that listening to authority, disconnected from the individual's reality by distance and (usually) negligence or downright malice ("saving face") - is a surefire way to get into trouble. The most reliable tale is the one occuring right in front of your eyes, and the most trustworthy course of action is the one your non-stupid nature gives you in accordance to what's unfolding before you. Naturally, some are more stupid in nature than others, but so natural selection goes.
God: Welcome to hell you can have as much soup as you want, just like in heaven Me: How is this suffering *God proceeds to pull out comically large spoon*
When I think of that fairy tale 'the girl with the matchsticks', I'm thinking: silly bint, you have matches, grab some wood, plenty of wood in scandinavia, make a fire, don't die from the cold...
i like the one about the clockwork piano. the mice will never know where the music came from, but it makes them happy anyway. they're not upset that they don't know, and it's almost sad that the listener does know and can't tell them. melancholy.
Firstly I have to say I love your animation It is crisp and clear and refreshingly new. Now back to point. Since giving up my belief system I spent a long time analizing it from start to finish and where I did stand with in it and where I stand now. Your video covers all the hurdles I had to take on. You have covered them all in this super video and have come to the same conclusion as I did. All this would be ok but I spent a large part of my life fighting this belief system that was indoctrinated on to me from birth. It is an agonizing journey to wrench oneself from it. This I feel was all time wasted when I should have been trying to enjoy my life and make life better for those around me. Instead, loved ones had to watch as this whole journey changed me. I hope that the change is for the better. I try desperately to live a good moral life and try to be kind to people and those I love. I want to be better than I was. I feel embarrassed with the opinions that I once held as a believer. What I am trying to say that it was an unnecessary life event and I should not have had to travel it, had reason and good judgement prevailed. If I had of been raised secular all this would have been necessary. But those were different times and they did not know all that we know now. That is why I am a strident anti theist. I would not wish this mental journey on anyone else if it could be avoided. What little time we have to exist it should be spent enjoying ourselves as best we can and helping others. It saddens me that even my sons will have to watch on while the world rips itself apart with religion. When they should be dealing with bigger issues of trying to make the planet more comfortable and liveable for everyone on it, rather than killing each other and doing harm to each other of a god. These stories have done so much harm that they should carry a government health warning.
Thanks for your message, I myself have been there. It's totally hellish to understand that I was mentally and emotionally like 13 years old in my thirties, I couldn't grow because of the pressure. Since then I have grown. I'm now 50 and I feel like I have waste my life on bullshit.
Hahahaha as you were telling it, I thought the mouse story was a good example of the success of scientific inquiry. "Smart mice, of course there'll always be a few of us that cling onto their comforting magical stories" I thought
When I was in my youth group when I was a young child, we were always encouraged to tell how we felt god within our lives and describe how we had felt his love, I said it because it was expected of me, I never questioned it I just did it automatically
Hell is actually quite a controversial topic in religious discourse. Many "true" Christians when you bring it up like to say that it's wrong and that in reality Hell is a representation of an eternal state of suffering brought by the doing of sinful acts instead of a real place with fire in which you are supposed to burn. Some of them even claim that Hell never existed in the Bible at all and that if you believe in a God vs Satan model you are no different than a pagan. This is the origin of stories similar to the one mentioned in the video about the soup. The ironic thing however about this whole debate regarding Hell is that it doesn't matter whether the concept that we know today existed in the original Bible or was invented at a much later time by the church, what matters is that this story was integrated into the minds of the public and continues to be used as an instrument of influence even today.
Cut to me, sitting at a table in hell, a hand reaching for the spoon in front of me in slow motion and landing close to the bowl of the spoon. I look pointedly into the eyes of the man opposite me to establish dominance and take in the shock on his face. "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king." I maintain eye contact while shoveling food into my face and that was how I beat the devil, true story.
As much as I loved listening to these perspectives, because they help me think, we cannot forget than anthropologically, humans adapt on three levels: chemically, genetically, and culturally. When our body uses lactic acid to produce muscle mass, it's chemical. When you get inheritable traits from your parents, it's genetic. And when you learn to make a fire by rubbing sticks together, you're adapting culturally. I honestly know people who have a, "I'm only looking out for number 1 attitude." They cooperate with no one. These cultural myths permeate the brain, because culture can often override biology. Humans are genetically predisposed to cooperate, except when culture has convinced an individual that they'll always get the short stick. Then they start to refrain from cooperating with anyone. And though this may seem like a powerplay at the time, it actually only serves to isolate the individual further -- making them powerless. Cultural parables bring us back to what we already know. If you want to achieve power, you have to work together with someone. That being said, they're filled with plot holes. an intelligent individual should be able to gleam both the wisdom, and the fallacy. You used a maze story, for example. Why can't we just walk through the maze, with an axe/chainsaw, chopping it down. Your story has a pre-drawn conclusion. Everything you've stated in this video, must be applied to your own story. That's your point, but the lesson learned from the story is still beneficial, and maybe it'll become a cultural allegory?
Good material for a course in critical thinking. In my last five years of working, I returned to teaching, and this became my favorite course. My own take on this is that stories make it easier to accept something you want to believe in the first place. If you resist the religious teaching, you'll find flaws in the analogy created by each story.
the first question the spoon story gave me was "why don't these idiots just take the spoon closer to the feeding end or just lift up the damn bowl?? are they physically prohibited to do so?"
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"There once was a family of mice that lived in a piano...they couldn't agree on who was playing it, so they fought holy wars and ultimately killed each other off. The piano stank."
Hey my last name is also Ward :D
I like the analogy, but it creates an incorrect perception.
In reality, Holy wars fought by the "church" were not actual christians. The overseers were people who claimed to be Christian, but only did so for their personal gain.
They did not fight because it was their "godly destiny." But really they fought for gain and twisted the bible to further advance their agenda.
The bible is not at fault, just like an axe is not at fault. The person using it is at fault.
Plubus Domis wow! Let’s take the case of the crusades. One one side, you have Muslims whose holy book (and therefore alleged deity) demands the killing of non-believers at war time and strongly encourages spreading Islam by the sword. One the other side, you have a group of people who believe Jesus was the literal son of God (this is the accepted definition of Christianity, any other definition is fringe or misleading) whose religious leaders, whom they believed to be representatives of God (the popes), encourage the destruction of the ‘false religion’ Islam.
This is a war predicated primarily on theology, not economic or political gains. Israel was economically weak and the Arabic Empire had far better opportunities to get wealthier. This isn’t the Iraq war where the true motive is hidden, the Crusades were almost exclusively in the name of ‘God’. Just read any history book by qualified historians and you will likely get the exact same reason.
@@louicoleman2910 catholicism is a religion all its own, its very popes and tenets are heretical to the bible, its own popes and priests being called father for example is outright heresy because only God is to be referred to as father or reverend,
nevermind catholic training starting for years with pagan philosophers,
my source www.creationliberty.com/articles/religioncatholic.php
edit:added source.
Tristan smith true, but that doesn’t negate the crusades being holy wars. Even if the holy part was not as originally demanded, it was still religion vs religion.
@@louicoleman2910 yea not necessarily denying that, i havent really looked deeply into the economic side do cant be sure one way or the other what i do know is its a thing the catholics did, which is just about all i need to know because catholicism is heresy to begin with,
also considering i know it does a thing whereby it absorbs/ed the practices of the local beliefs just like rome did i can be sure that like those things it simply rebrands and puts a jesus sticker on, it will therefore be more of the same as came before but renamed, e.g easter which is in truth a pagan fertility goddess thing, the rabbits and the eggs really should be a dead giveaway, and the list goes on and on.
This video has permanently changed the way that I see the world. I will now be unable to walk past any piano without looking for signs of mouse infestation.
Get a keyboard.
Mine has light-up keys.
This is actually a common thing for upright pianos, especially the old ones that were rarely taken care of. The mouses would literally pee *in* the piano which rusts and damages the strings.
VOISART “he saw it was covered in mouse shit”
Love it
I have three of them wish me luck
The same goes for wise sounding adages. I remember easily accepting the adage of "The early bird gets the worm" for many years before someone in reply to another who had uttered the adage said, "Yes, but the second mouse gets the cheese".
Hope you realize that this guy didn't at all adress the real reason the piano and mice story proved god existed. The fundamental of Christian belief. "We have never observed a mechanical device appearing out of nowhere without a conscious mind creating it. We were not able to observe the beginning of the universe, but like a piano we can see every string and every hammer and mechanical operations. Since all of the observed mechanical devices were built by a mind, and we know this as indisputable fact. Why then would anyone assume the mechanical device we live in was not created by a mind but instead by itself? It Would be like finding a piano and saying... well I don't know if a Mind created it or not, it probably came about from a lot of time. After all, I didn't see it created. This type of person is considered smart now, but a few hundred years ago it was pretty obvious that God existed not because we didn't how the sun was rising but because there was a sun in the first place. Learning how something works is different from learning that it could have been made by the universe alone. When a computer does a calculation we say it's processing, and when a new star is made it happens by a process. I didn't do the calculation, but that calculation could never happen in space or time without me building the computer. God may or not make the star but he most certainly made the process. And the scientific method for knowing that Is self evident." -Daniel Dontay. Basically, everything we observe is proof god exists. Because we have never seen anything created by Nothing. And before you say we've seen quantum mechanics appear out of Nothing, I will laugh and say, we have. And we've been able to measure it and study it almost like.... it's a process.
Everything is a process. argue all you want about what process, how process, who process, this process, that process. You can't rationally deny it's all a process though, and through observations no process has ever been made by itself.
@@celestialvision5073 You now have the burden of proof for a primordial mind that is responsible for the forces of nature. Get back to us when you figure that one out, or have any serious evidence that supports such an idea otherwise.
@@celestialvision5073 why do you not apply the same logic you apply to the observable universe to this hypothetical creator mind? who created this insanely complex organism capable of creating entire universes? was it just always there? did it slowly come about with enough time? in that case, why couldn't the observable universe on it's own have just always been here or was created with enough time?
Don't put a burden on me, it's your life. When I speak on god, it's a favor I do in love to try and save. When an atheist speaks on god it's for himself, cause to an atheist only the self matters, after all isn't the betterment of society better for him.
Let's see... do I have to say who created God in order for my words to make sense? Let's now apply that logic to the piano, a piano was found and I think someone created it, after all time and space has never been observed to create only decay things (entropy) do I now have to figure out who created this person who built the piano? Have you ever combined those two questions in your life?! John made a paper clip. "Well, I don't think your right! after all who made John? And if it was The universe, why couldn't that same logic have made the paper clip? I think it's much more likely the force of gravity and all the laws of physics created the paper clip." -no'one but a crazy person.
The fact that the creation was created by someone and not just something is like the piano, you don't have to believe that piano was created, but your pretty dumb if you claim it could have made itself. Or that the factory that made it could have made itself.
Only human minds have been scientifically observed making things, and we know for a fact that the universe didn't exist forever in the past. So...
@@celestialvision5073 you missed my point entirely. in your example with john and the paperclip, the argument that is supposed to be mine is a strawman. I am not claiming that john did not create the paperclip *because* we do not know "who" created john. (???that does not logically follow.) I'm simply pointing out to you that logically it does not follow that because a human created a paperclip that therefore a human or something else created the human that created the paperclip which is what your argument essentially is. "Only human minds have been scientifically observed making things, and we know for a fact that the universe didn't exist forever in the past. So..." So.... therefore a human mind created everything else?? how exactly does that logically follow?
I'm not making any claim about how the universe was created. that is something that we simply can not know, at least right now, and I have no reason to make up any stories for how the universe was created. I do not deny the possibility that there is something intelligent about the universe or that intelligence is what created the universe, but we have nothing tangible to go on so everything we could come up with would just be guessing and shooting in the dark if that makes sense.
also nobody is "putting a burden" on you. by making a claim you place the burden of proof on yourself, meaning that you are the one with the responsibility to provide evidence for your claim, not the one whom you are arguing with's responsibility to prove you wrong. So I can't just make an empty claim and then challenge you to disprove it because there are things called unfalsifiable claims which are impossible to be tested as true or false.
6:27 "It's perhaps worth noting at this point that a knowing smile doesn't actually require knowledge, just a mouth"
That's such a powerful line
I like the thought from Immanuel Kant, that even a nation made up of devils, would stabilize themselves once they realized it was for their own benefit.
Yeah but the world didn't start with Kant. Something needed to exist to organize all those people before him and religion did the job.
@@littlesometin that's false. The very first human settlements didn't start because of religion, but rather by necessity. It was necessary for ancient humans to gather in order to survive from the larger predators.
@@shion275 kinda like chimps, orangutans...
@@shion275 that's not what I claimed at all, I was thinking of the rise in numbers, when it wasn't 30 people in a hunter gatherer type of group anymore, but rather 100 or 1000 or several thousand people, who are all illiterate, obviously religion did the job to keep some kind of order and organize those societies, it makes evolutionary sense
@@littlesometin
Basically, humans to a degree are just like the hermit crabs.
However, we don't line up so neatly since our needs aren't always easily measurable so instead we pull in different directions, sometimes ignoring the conflict of interest that causes.
“To his horror, his piano was covered in mouse shit” I laughed way too hard
who needs noah and the ark, thats the best story
I died when I heard the funeral march
Imaru Lewis seems we should be worship the exterminator in hopes he won’t spray us. All hail the raid canister!
Me, too! 🤣
@Imaru Lewis They already are....
Forget the spoons. Eat directly out of the bowls.
@@KnightandDay33 since the spoon is larger then the bowl itself the could just dump the content in the spoon, take it to their mouth and pretend they've used the spoon, kinda like that lady who had a glass of wine stuck to the bottle and pretended she only drinks "a glass", thought the idea of idiots going to hell might be right, as, I heard, Satan hates idiots the most.
Buttchug the hell soup.
@@bonogiamboni4830 Let’s start a band. Buttchug The Hell Soup shall be our name.
@@gido9467 fuck yeah. Maybe we'll get a sponsorship deal with Gamer Supps. Those orphanages were just the beginning.
Or just grab the front bit of the spoon and wave the back bit around behind yourself.
The spoon story you were told as a child reminds me of a similar one I was told when I was a few years younger... It was a secular version of one of Jesus' parables I think, the story where money and goods are being collected to give to the poor (in this version it was the king collecting for charity) and loads of wealthy people give great donations, with gold and silver and piles of food and so on, but one old lady gives a single pomegranate and the king values that donation more than all the others because that was all she had to give. I just remember listening to that story as a child and thinking "but if that old woman was so poor a pomegranate was her only possession then why on earth wasn't she on the receiving end of the king's charity, not the giving end?!" It was a flaw in the story that quite eclipsed the moral message for me.
Ah, the story "works" when Jesus says it because the old lady didn't "need" the penny because God will provide for her in the afterlife (where it matters). Eliminating the implicit religious notions highlights the absurdity.
The Spoon Story makes even less sense, when you consider, what human beings are capable of just to survive, something as simple as feeding someone else, would be done, no matter how greedy or hate-filled the people are if it meant ending their pain and suffering.
disastergirl888 The story was about the heart. If your heart is in it when you give then you’re honouring God. Everyone was showing off to look generous. But when it came down to it they were still greedy in their hearts. The lady who had close to nothing still gave.
You don’t have to have a lot to give.
It’s a story about generosity.
Michael de Tremaudan.. and what of the person of extreme wealth, who is in a position where effortless intervention could secure food for the hungry children and medical care for the suffering children,,, but chooses to DISREGARD the children with the poorest parents.
@@reasonablespeculation3893 those people are operating outside of God's will.
I actually like the subtext that the mice worship the player, while the player would be horrified and disgusted by the mice that live inside his piano. Also the story of the clockwork piano still resonated with me.
Those poor mice making up a player to deal with the fact that a piano that plays itself is too difficult to comprehend and is a somewhat terrifiing notion
I got chills when he told that story ngl
Exactly. If god exists, she, he or they must either be apathetic or completely disgusted by us. That's the only plausible explanation for why things sometimes work out and other times don't, why evil and calamity exists, and it's not because "god works in mysterious ways" or "free will" or "there's no good without evil" or some other stupid shit like that.
religious people: frantically trying to find ways to use huge spoons
logical people: eat straight from the bowl
"Comically large spoon"
@@delphic7716 “It’s only a mouthful I promise” *literally eats it all in one mouthful.*
What happens if you eat the whole bowl?
More logical people: don't hold the spoon by the far end of it
Crazy people: hold the bowl and eat the spoon
"A knowing smile doesn't actually require knowledge - just a mouth". This made me laugh audibly for some time.
As did "suicidally uncooperative cartoon characters".
Seeing the “knowing smile” for what it truly is means freeing yourself of gullibility.
People tend to trust the words of a confident man, regardless of the words.
Dumbledore
*IF THAT MADE YOU LAUGH AUDIBLY YOU MUST BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE THAT GETS FREE DRINKS at the COMEDY CLUB*
@@thetruthchannel349 I don't know what your comment is on about, but it made me laugh audibly.
The piano player that called for an exterminator sure sounds an awful lot like the Yahweh. "And God saw the mice and became upset that they were ruining his piano. So God called down poison gas and wiped them all out. And he cursed the piano for ten thousand generations and no mouse shall live there from time indefinite - to time indefinite . . ."
Yes - it was very much in mind when I wrote that part ;8)
Kyle Cooksey
I think the Yahweh-pianist would have also been responsible for training the mice to shit in pianos, and for putting them in the piano. Also, Yahweh-pianist might also be the exterminator, or maybe not, but the exterminator can only act with permission from the Yahweh-pianist, but even though the exterminator has been summoned to kill the mice, the Yahweh-pianist still loves them. Or something.
@@TheraminTrees I like the story of the mice who heard music, assumed it was a giant playing but never investigated the wind chime to find out. It's a classic. Well I assume it's a classic anyway, I won't bother to investigate whether it is.
#Indeed
#PayAttention
#SpeakPowerToPower
#SpeakTruthToShame
I love when musically and mathematically ignorant people try and use things like this to make a point that is so COUNTER-INTUITIVE it would be like trying to use ROCKS to disprove the HARDNESS SCALE.
::looks around frantically for an award of some kind to give this video.... Several, in fact.
Awesome video
My award to him is that THESE are the tales I will tell my children. Not the burning bush, not the feeding of the five thousand, not the parting of the seas. If everyone gives him and others like him the same award, the insertion of rationalism into the minds of a generation of children would be the best and most productive reward anyone could wish for. Thank you so much for this.
Why thank you ;8) By the way, beautiful channel.
TheraminTrees when great minds meet... gosh both your channels are so amazing, bravo theramin you win the internet again
Hi Stamp! Just saw your comment and figured I'd take a moment to let you know how much I enjoy your videos and quite a few have made it onto my favorites playlist. Good satire is a high art, mastered by few, but you wield it well! Thanks again!
"The afterlife is just a long table with bowls of infinite soup but the spoon is longer than your arm so you need teamwork to eat"
My dude, just pick up the bowl and drink the soup. You're there for eternity; everyone around you will eventually get used to your bad table manners
Wait, that's bad manners? I always thought that was the normal way to eat soup
(Also, why can't you just hold the spoon near the cup? Sure you'd have a massive stick going to behind you, possibly whacking people, but you'd be able to eat, right?)
@@nolategame6367 it’s the normal way to drink miso soup but the bowl is pretty small compared to western soup bowls so eh
@@nolategame6367 that's the normal way to eat soup from a bowl, yes. It is bad manners if the soup has something solid in it (e.g. pasta soup) or if it is served in a soup plate, rather than a bowl
They picked up the bowls?
They held the spoons near the heads so the handle length didn't matter much?
They lapped up the soup like dogs?
They ate one another.
They ate the spoons. Truly heaven.
😂🤣😂
@@higurro then they ate bowl
@@KezanzatheGreat
Imagine working your ass off every day trying to be the bestest christian ever, going to heaven, and finding out you get a spoon glued to your hand that you can't take off. THANKS, YEGHVEGH
I'm quite sure that the preacher said that heaven and hell were "like" long tables with endless soup and long spoons etc. In that "like", so often used by priests and by Jesus himself in parables is the sense of telling people these stories. They don't tell you that heaven and hell are actually made that way, rather they push the dynamics of what you will find in heaven and hell.
I find a lot of this technique in what is being called progressive churches, where they refuse a literal reading of holy texts as a sign of ignorance and it all becomes metaphorical. They usually attract more educated people than the literal strict churches do.
If anything, that story has more sense in a non religious context as moral story to teach people the benefits of cooperation, out of love or out of need, the result is that everyone has food. As they say in some places: one hand washes the other hand and both together wash your face.
It's shocking how many mice in our world gleefully look forward to the day when the Big Mouse returns to destroy the piano; it allows them to blissfully shit all over the inside of the piano.
Exactly.
⚡️🌪🌊🔥
Lol
But as they covered their living space in waste, sure their Invisible Player will come any day now, the clockwork piano cycled on, until it was so dirty it became unlivable.
It's even more scary how many mice want and are excited for otherwise good and kind mice to be tortured for all eternity because they don't believe in the same invisible player as them.
If you ever see this I want you to know that I absolutely love your videos. This is one of my favorites which has influenced my personal philosophy. I’m 22 now but I saw your videos as a teenager and you helped me to change my point of view so much. Thank you and love what you do, you deserve way more views.
Yeah video's like these really helped me in those first months after losing my faith. I was lost and didn't really know what to do or think.
I'm a former Muslim and I was genuinely surprised at how difficult it was to find the flaw in that story. incredible video
What are the contradictions in Islamic scriptures that made you convert?
Would be interested in hearing what made you leave 🤔
@@lmho0254 lack of sufficient evidence
@@ameennasar2583 there are alot of contradictions but i think what they meant is how we used to hear stupid stories and hadiths and see them completely logical when they are obviously not.
@@lmho0254for most. It's just the realization that it's a cult with stories and myths.
Of course there are many other reasons, but nothing specific that makes you cross the line or anything, it'a just the general understanding.
Wait what?
That story was clearly in favor of materialism... the mice discovered more and more of their world, understanding more how it worked, while never quite having a full understanding. The next step in the story would be a mouse exploring outside the piano, discovering the human operating the hammers they already knew about.
I know right! When I heard that I saw that the framing device was that both of the young mice and the old mice were unable to determine what lie outside the piano. But the young might scared about figuring out how it worked while the old ones were dogmatic insisting and that yes it had to be this or that that was the only common factor between all of the stories the framing device itself.
... the oh now that I think about it half the point of bringing up all the different stories in the first place was that the framing device affects what conclusions are possible so don't trust stories trust what you can actually know.
Damned autocorrect
What the story tried to illustrate was the that the mice first thought there was a giant invisible player making the music, and while the young mice discovered more about the piano, they dismissed the giant player theory and the old mice who believed it, unaware that there actually was a giant invisible player playing the piano
@@videohell201 but the mice knew more and more about how piano works. Old mice believed in player but had no idea how he played. Young mice discovered and learned a lot . Eventually young brave mouse will go on a valiant expedition outside the piano and prove existence of a player.
@@JM-mh1pp the story assumes the mice will never be able to see outside the piano; trying to allude to us being confined in the universe, never able to see what is outside of it and therefore the presumed creator that lives there. Weird assumption as it is way easier to exit a big box but thats what the story does
"He looked inside his precious piano, and to his horror he found it covered in mouse shit"
I'd like to think humanity is the defecating mice of the space-time piano
We absolutely are, and it's lovely.
Very telling
I really don't know why you would like to think that, especially because that implies something will come to kill you for doing so.
@@romanscum5678 I mean, that would line up with how we always die at the end, either by old age or through other means.
@@horinum That's just the result of our bits and pieces wearing down with time, that everything is subject to. I'm talking about somebody coming in and breaking everything ahead of schedule.
My parents never bothered with religion. So when I was 11 or so, I decided I should go to Sunday School. But it only lasted for a couple of weeks. It was storytelling that did me in. I dared ask why, who, what, when and then why again. The Sunday School teacher became annoyed and she asked me to leave. When I got home, my mom and I laughed. Then I became a coward and declared I was an agnostic. Now I decided just to come clean and declare who I really am.
What's wrong with being agnostic?
I don’t know what is cowardly about admitting that we cannot know for certain wether or not there is a god(s) or not, but you do you.
@@The_Ex_Boxing_Nerd It's more-so ignorance. The cowardice comes from presuming the possibility only because it's the status quo, but the two are really inseparable. If someone can't even reason why granting the existence of god(s) credence is ridiculous, then it will be hard for them to outright deny it. Needless to say, they are an entirely human creation made to serve human ends, so obviously there are no gods. It may be unfalsifiable, but so are the invisible pant goblins, and we both know those don't exist because I just made them up.
@@scorpiotech123 your family tried to kill you?
@@The_Ex_Boxing_Nerd I don't think they called agnostics cowardly, necessarily. They called themself cowardly for not stating their true stance, and instead using the term "agnostic" so nobody would judge them. This, of course, is not true for most agnostics. It was just the truth for them, as they weren't actually agnostic.
LMAO, I bursted into laughter at "he immediately called the exterminators"
Laughed at the mouse shit part
Followed immediately by a rendition of the funeral march, just perfect.
10:00 PM: I should get to sleep now, so that I can wake up refreshed tomorrow, ready for a productive day.
2:00 AM: c l o t h e d f e t u s.
Hahaha 🤣🤣🤣
13:01 - the passive aggressive "didn't you get the story? didn't you comprehend its deeper meaning?" sent chills down my spine
I don't know if people realize this, but the narrator told you a story. A story confirming his belief about stories.
Good point.😊
I'm wondering why the guy didn't notice he had some really smart mice. He could have made a lot of money with a talking mice touring show.
lol, I think they spoke mouse.
@@stephenwaldron4213 🤫🤫k@k’kmmm🤫🤫🤭🤭🤫🤫😑🤫😑🤫🤫🤫🤫🤫😥🥶🥶🤫🥵😥🙁🙁🙁😩☹️🙁🙁😩🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺😰🥺🥺🥺🥺😰🥺🥵💁♀️💁♀️😆😁😁😯😯😆😉😊😉😊😊💁♀️💁♀️💁♀️🧂⚾️🧂🧂nnmmm🏸🥏🏸🏸🏸⚾️🏸🏸⚾️🏸🏸🥏🏸⚾️🏉🥢🥢🥢🥢🏉🥢🏉🥢🥢🏈🏉🥢🏉🥢🏉🥢🏉🥢🥢🏉🥢🏉🥢🏉🏉🏉🏉🥢🏉🏉🏉🏉⚾️⚾️🥢🥢⚾️⚾️🍴⚾️⚾️⚾️⚾️🥢⚾️⚾️⚾️🥢🍴🥢🥢🏉⚾️🥢⚾️🥢🥢🥢🥢🍴🧂🍴⚾️⚾️🥢🥢🥢🥢🍹🥢🍴🥢🍴🥢🍴🍹🤣🙁🤣🤣🤣🤣😥🐨🐽
Yeah.... I'd suggest you write that one up... BUT Douglas Adams not only beat you to it, I'd wager he's already done better with the mice story than you ever could... ;o)
What does it say about me that my answer to the question of "What was different between Heaven and Hell?" was that the people in Heaven were smart enough to lift up their bowl and drink from it directly, bypassing the spoon altogether? That they fed each other never even occurred to me; my obvious solution was that they lifted their bowls, like people do with the last bit of milk after eating breakfast cereal. Obviously, my answer doesn't really say anything about me, except, VERY tentatively, that I might prefer self-sufficiency over reliance on others. I just wanted to point out another solution, and I do find the disparity curious.
+Aria DiMezzo Me, I'd have said "Hold the spoon in the middle and try not to poke out each others eyes"
+Werrf1 They could also break the spoon in half over their knees creating a shorter spoon. They could also order pizza instead.
I knew the answer was going to be because they fed each other because 1) you have to view it the way a theist would view the problem and only theists think so righteously of themselves, and 2) the way the image was setup with them sitting across from each other and the spoons being the right length to feed each other. But while I sat there picturing myself in hell with the other atheists, I saw us being smart enough to grip the spoon lower on the handle lol, or as you said, just picking the bowl up. Feeding each other works too, but it seems inefficient. You would have to take turns because I don't see how you could concentrate on shoving the spoon near someones mouth and taking a bite yourself. Sounds like a good way to lose some teeth or to spill good soup everywhere xD. In everyday life, everyone seems to prefer the selfish method of feeding themselves. I haven't seen too many christian families sitting around feeding each other.
@@eternalreign2313
"and only theists think so righteously of themselves,"
I must disagree. Theists do think so righteously of themselves. But others do too.
@@PvblivsAelivs I'd say anyone with an ideological agenda thinks self-rightously.
Sometimes it's a religion.... sometimes it's.... ugh.... somethin' else....
An encouragement to be aware of the manipulative power of stories.
A story might be good to demonstrate _our own understanding_ of the universe around us.
But it is NOT good for demonstrating the universe _itself_.
Viewing time: 18 minutes.
-------
I'm delighted to see that TheraminTrees is still active and making videos.
His continuous improvement in quality and articulacy is very much apparent in this video.
Good job, TT.
I enjoyed this video very much.
Eitan Blumin I say the issue in this camouflaged propaganda of Christianity is not stories, but the sinister use of them to surrender your understanding of most everything, to a group-think that substitutes fiction for fact and reality with inventions of false truths, the clearest and most damaging being in religion and politics!
The bullshit in these cute and innocent stories, for me, wreaked of rancid ideas at nearly every turn, like when he just drops 'his only begotten son' into a seemingly innocent story line. And how gingerly he inserts 'his Muslim friend'. I'm not missing a beat!
He suggests an innocent feigned objectivity into a scenario of
multiculturalism, political correctness and suggesting equality and balance when it's actually not there. Yep, the sickness resides on both sides of the political spectrum. But where some find comfort in this deception and pretense, I do not! It angers me, especially when being thrust upon innocent and incomplete minds unable to determine the honesty from this polite chameleon of intellectual dishonesty!
He further insults the intelligence of Atheists/agnostics and secular people as well as those who are merely indifferent or apathetic as though they can't find more valuable and quality allegory, analogies, fables, myths, metaphors and poetry in more legitimate and honest sources than the 'Bible' Kabbalah or Qur'an'. Yes, there are some very good bits in the holy books, cleverly inserted amongst the outright lies, distortions and the insidious attempt to usurp your intellect, your very mind!
I feel the greatest freedom is your mind, more than your physical freedom because, without it, you can't secure your physical freedom so easily. I'll keep my Atheism until something compels me to view everything afresh. I find comfort in REALITY and the scientific method of determining facts and truth. I have little fear of death other than a painful one, physically or mentally. I'm able to accept nothingness as the end as most all life forms do except humans! Aren't we a pathetic lot, clinging to things we don't believe at all, as though a substitute for the feeling of security and tranquility can be provided with an invisible and magical man (thanks to George Carlin, r.i.p.) who will calm you in your fears. Ha!
James Preston Thomas what are you on about, brother? I get the feeling you're talking about a completely different video...
Tell me something? What do you think the possibility is that Jewish rabbis inserted the Christian Gospel by encoding the message in the Alpha-Numerics of the first 10 names of the Patriarchs of Genesis?
"A knowing smile doesn't require knowledge, it just requires a *mouth."*
😂🤣 This put a smile on *my* mouth.
I mean I wouldn't trust the authority of someone who's incapable of comprehending the idea of gripping a spoon by a point closer to the drop anyway.
The notion that minor tweaks to the same story can produce diametrically opposite morals was crystalized very well in this video.
The "mice in a piano" allegory actually just showed me how blind and stupid some people can be even when provided overwhelming evidence.
Also, where would the mice get food or water if they are stuck in a piano?! Poor little mice...
How did Little Red Riding-hood not notice the wolf's tail or claws? How can all those famous clever foxes speak, and to crows nonetheless!?! How can snakes hear Harry Potter speak Parseltongue if they have no ears?
Oh these lazy, scientifically uninformed, illogical, deceitful story-tellers!
@@andreab380
What the... snakes totally have ears! They look different because they're reptilian ears, but snakes aren't deaf!
What is your point even supposed to be?!
@@ParaSpite Lol, I have been deceived! I had "learned" as a kid that snakes do not have ears, but I can't remember the source. Obviously I should have questioned that, my bad.
My general point is that allegories and analogies are not meant to be taken literally. Some elements are just decorative, ora are just used to make the story work consistently. Some other elements constitute the core message.
@@ParaSpite did you know that dinosaurs used to have big elephant ears... It's just hard to tell bc they didn't have bones
@@imiguifurr
Proof or you're lying.
Wouldn't the residents of hell be well fed as well?
Let's break this down real quick.
-Having an inquisitive and logical mind gets you sent to hell.
-Hell is full of teachers, doctors, scientists, engineers, etc.
-Someone, literally eons ago, had to have figured our that you can JUST HOLD THE SPOON CLOSER TO THE END AND USE IT NORMALLY.
The shit these thiest try to push, I can't even...
But remember, only the 'stupid, god-hating' atheists go to hell for being too stupid to not hate God.
You know, feck it. I live in squalor; I WILL EAT THE SOUP WITH MY DAMN HANDS!
WHAT'RE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT, EH?
And of course
All the inquisitive and logically minded people are the ones who are too smart for theists, they are the ones who discover the laws of the universe that thiests tried to make up, despite me being an ambitious individual i can very well guide you towards finding out if something is real or not
All you have to do is test it
And people have, time and time again...
I like to imagine all the theists in this scenario up in heaven smugly feeding each other and looking like idiots, while everyone else down in hell has either broken their spoon, is holding it lower down, or has just picked up the bowl. Literally anyone within seconds of seeing that spoon would easily find some way of eating - no way would they just sit there grumpily in starvation.
Actually, I would estimate that hell is full of the mentally handicapped, if this story of long spoons being too much for people is to be believed.
"A knowing smile doesn't require knowledge, just a mouth,"
-Theramin Trees
Once upon a time there were 10 mice that lived in a piano, until at a certain point, one of the mice says they heard a song, and asks if the others heard it, it ends up happening that most say they heard a melody and the minority says no, after a while time, only one mouse says he wasn't hearing any melody, and he ends up being expelled from the group, and when he goes outside, he discovers that he was inside a shoebox at all times....
Oddly enough, all the "mice in the piano" stories seemed to be about scientific inquiry to me.
+DataEntity Hence the point of the clip... :D
+DataEntity yes, except the mice never keep going and find a way to look outside the piano, so they are stuck with some story they make up or "I don't know". However the story teller's perspective is that they smuggly know what is outside the piano, even though as TT shows it could have been one of several different things presented to the audience.
+DanDare2050 They also never challenged the notion that the universe was a piano.
Mice would HAVE to leave the piano to find food and water--frequently, and would therefore see a person playing sometimes. These stories are not close to good analogies.
/except for those few that continued to believe that orginal/olden idea(story)
I am glad for the stories that I was exposed to as a child. I grew up LDS (Mormon), but I also read lots of novels.
When I re-read some of the novels I read in my childhood and early teens, I can see some of the seeds of my ideals. These ideals along with getting a firmly secular education from middle school on are what allowed me to find my way out of the cult I was brought up in.
We do need to pay attention to the stories we consume, and find the ones that plant the good seeds in our mind.
7:10 why dont the people in hell just use their hands or grab it closer to the spoon bowl (the part that you put the food in)
Hell seems to be for the stupid ;)
I'm never inviting you to my house with those manners
They should build a ladder with the spoons and steal Heaven's soup too
Jared Nations
That is my favorite suggestion
What, are you crazy ? That would be an awful breach of etiquette ! They may be sinners but they aren't savages !
Wow, I was thinking of the mice thing like "if they KEPT looking, they'd eventually get a complete answer", but you went and turned it into Cthulhu!
I feel like the story implies that the mice cannot leave the piano
@@pepijnstreng4643 But that is an assumption, and with enough chewing the mice may be able to escape
@@person8064 But it's the entire point of the metaphor.
@@pepijnstreng4643 my one question the entire time was, how tf did they get in there in the first place? I mean, in such a way that they then never left ever again?
@@comradewindowsill4253 That’s not in the story, so it's not really relevant. That’s how stories work.
The environmental message of the last story is that the mice have to clean up after themselves or the exterminator will be called.
I'd never heard the spoon story, but it instantly bothered me that absolutely no one at the hell table had the ingenuity to find a way around the issue of the spoon size. It wouldn't have even taken much thought. What, is it so terrible a notion to lift the bowl off the table and eat that you'd rather starve?
This is because the story demands that the hell-humans be dumber than your average rock. As soon as someone with a modicum of sense is introduced, the story falls apart. Then again, the story is stupid in its very construction, so the stupidity of the characters is only to be expected.
Outside the box thinking is very much a science thingy, and that's a no no here in this sermon.
@@MMMmyshawarma
Gripping the spoon closer to the head is not out-of-the-box thinking, though. People do that all the time with normal spoons.
Honestly, a greedy conman would immadiently think of feeding the guy next to him so that he gets fed in return. Or even if they were all suicidally uncooperative (and it's some of the most uncaring people who know the value of good contacts) and the spoon handles were spiky closer to the head and the bowls glued to the table, they could, idk, lap up the stew like dogs. They'd find out a solution in, like, 10 minutes tops?
I first heard the story when I was 6 or 7 and even I as a small child thought why don't the people in hell just eat with their hands it's not like they have manners down there.
Child: Tell me a story, Daddy.
Father: I wouldn't want to dull your critical processes and open you up to substantial manipulation of your real-world beliefs. How about if we study this statistical analysis of storytelling instead?
Agreed. This is how science has made people lose our humanity
That was not what you were supposed to gather from that 💀
W father
Thanks dad
Stoopid
If something can prove two antagonic points, then it doesn't prove anything at all. That's a powerful logic foundation that many forget or simply don't know.
TT, the analysis is true for almost all cultures, and most children learn by listening to stories rather than having them to learn hard logic. Even children learn philosophy by reading the novel "Sophie's world".
Sophie's world is the greatest book I've read on philosophy.
A bit overrated.
True, Sophie's World was my introduction to philosophy last year and I'm 20. Regular philosophy text was a little hard to swallow for me
You can apply this whole analysis on how conspirationists justify their theories.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I've definitely missed your elegance and art for explaining concepts like this, that drive whole new understandings into people
welcome back
Thank you ;8)
I feel like the heaven and hell spoon story was less about trying to convince people that's what heaven and hell actually are and more just an analogy for cooperation and mutual benefit through teamwork
It was originally some like, Asian proverb or something. Stolen by the speaker and twisted to fit his needs
Yeah, it was never intended as a proposition to theologically change the perspective of heaven and hell for Christianity...
There is a reason why we talk about "willing suspension of disbelief". This is great to enjoy a story, not so much tp understand the real world.
I consider myself an atheist, but I kind of actually agree with the first story's purpose of displaying the futility of understanding absolutely everything. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep looking. Certain things like how the universe was "created" or how it "began" I think are futile unless/until we figure out how travel back in time, but we can still observe how it works right now. There will always be unknowns though, no matter how long and hard we look.
Suggesting we shouldn't even bother trying to look and see for ourselves though is just stupid. If we can get outside the "piano" to see what's going on, we should. And the idea that this would anger the "player" is retarded when we're constantly told how much this "player" wants to have a "relationship" with us.
not to mention the barest flaw of all: the player exists and there's evidence that the player exists. A mouse could go outside the piano and physically see and touch the player. If the mice eventually continued to explore the workings of the piano and discovered the player, that wouldn't invalidate their previous discoveries at all. In fact, they'd have a stronger understanding of their world than the ones who just luckily guessed the player--
wait. I've just realized something even more confounding. If the mice are inside the piano, and have not been outside of it, how do they know that it's a musical instrument that is played? How would they be able to conceptualize a player without knowing the function of a piano?
this is a whole mess of an analogy
Ah, it feels good hearing your voice again. I hope you have a wonderful holiday and a great coming year. Also hope for more videos. Because.. well, I do enjoy them
Thank you. All the best.
TheraminTrees yes, please, more videos!
Wow, I wish I had found your channel years ago. I've been binge watching a lot of your videos and I have to say that there is so much that I appreciate about them - not least of which is the compassionate, considerate, and well-thought out way in which you address topics. When I watch your videos I'm reminded of Anthony Magnabosco and his approach of street epistemology. I think we need more people who, like you, can discuss what they think on a topic without pushing those with dissenting views away.
I used to talk about and to religious folk in a condescending way thinking myself better than them just because I've studied the religious arguments and I don't hold an unsubstantiated belief in a deity - it was a point of pride to me that I hadn't been fooled like they had. Eventually, though, I realized that going around and challenging theists belligerently, leaving snarky comments at them and so on was not only unhelpful, it was also rude and unnecessary. We should be able to talk about these things with one another like humans, even if we have differing views - and simply insulting others or dismissing them out of hand does nothing to further any argument. I want to believe things that are true, and I want everyone to live the best sort of life they can. I'm proud of my development as a person, but I owe it to people like you and Anthony for showing a better way to talk about these things.
I realize that that's not completely on the point of the video so I will just add that it was actually surprising to me how easily I was fooled by the stories. I actually grew up going to religious schools and I loved mass for the entertaining stories that the priests would share with us. I always wonder what sort of fallacious beliefs I'm still carrying around that have slipped, undetected, into my thought process.
Anyway, thank you for your contributions - your videos are simply excellent! :)
Rallei_LoL I agree with all that you said.
I just found this channel today, but I have been following AM since Aug 2018.
I absolutely love SE and how it can show the flaws of someone’s thinking to them in a non-confrontational way.
However, I do think ridicule has it’s place in tearing down the normalization of un-evidenced beliefs.
I’m still trying to find a comprehensive explanation of how I can do that, without burning bridges with people in my life.
I think, if anyone could show me how, it would be on this channel.
Still searching...
13:32
I was not prepared at all for Theramin Trees to swear, holy shit.
I cannot put into words how much I appreciate this channel. Thank you for everything you are doing. Every sentence in your videos is a lesson in thinking on it's own.
A fine presentation, Mr Trees! Welcome back :)
I've probably said this already, but this is one of the most beautiful and best written videos I've seen for ages. Thank you!
Long time no see.
These all show me that I have always been right in my lack of belief in a deity.
Thank you for doing all the hard work to put in out in a form a dummy like me can understand.
Most religipus tales encourages prejudices, but not all of them are bad. The spoon tale is accually good, it is not talking about some kind of moral superiority beyond logic, but explains the simple fact that cooperation can benefit the whole group. "Some times a cigarette is just a cigarrette" Yet i understand your prejudices against religious tales, i can't even imagine what you have suffered or what you've been throu. Your videos are great, and of big help for me and for many people :)
When I was religious, I'm a recovering religaholic, I believed every word because a so called ordained preacher on stage said it.
Now that I'm recovering from soul and mental abuse I see that at face value:
Those are ways of thought.
Who gave the answer about "feeding each other" is a pure heart who values sharing. The next life is going to require sharing to be fed. That is also someone who has experienced the war and misery of what happens in a room full of those who do not share or do not think or problem solve.
If it was said that because in heaven someone was smart enough to break the damn spoon and eat themselves or use their hands then then they would have been correct. Their next life would require problem solving by breaking rules to be fed.
If they said because in hell everyone sat and waited for an idea or for someone to tell them what to do, they would be correct in stating that hell is a place of inaction.
The fact of the matter is we all find ourselves in hell at some moment in time then our choice on eating brings us unto heaven. However if we make a mistake or fail in our own judgment we find ourselves in hell again.
Such is consciousness; self actualization. Change the world by changing yourself and your own behavior.
If the child answered because they evolved past the need to use spoons but couldn't explain how that's where the middle ground is: the manifestation of a fork.
You see (uc) fork.
Basically the preacher was saying in heaven or hell we all get screwed.
We can have good sex. We can have great sex or we can have sex that isn't all that much fun for any at the table.
That being said: learn how to cook
If the meal is enjoyable then it is wise not to fork it up and eat shit.
Not even 20,000 views in about 4 months.....shameful. These videos should be mandatory viewing or every human at least once a week!
+RA30st08
Ah yes, but, that would require people to initiate critical thinking.
And we all know that isn't what our social system is all about, don't we.
Agree!
Yes! Every Sunday!
... there are also books, dude.
Take Off Your Blinkers And critical clicking.
We also need way more critical clicking.
Wonderful! I recall as a child asking whether the pianist, on hearing the scratching of the mice in his piano, went out and bought some mouse traps.
Oh my, a new TheraminTrees video as a Christmas present! Happy holidays to you too!
I never knew there was a mouse adaptation of the cave allegory and also never conceived it would be used in favor of remaining in the cave… I really enjoy the way you break down the concepts/issues in each of your videos. Very well done as always. I love this channel
And this is why I work to create a story which expresses ideals of critical thought and expressing one’s own self over the selves others will feed you. “Learn to accept yourself before others do it for you.”
Here's another version of the mice in the piano.
Once, there was a family of mice who lived in a piano. Whenever the piano player played, the music would fill their little universe.
The mice were comforted by the idea of a single massive player. They saw the hammers and the strings, and thought that perhaps the force which moved them could be explained by a single massive being, rather than many. (No one had really decided which version was true.)
One day, the mice went exploring and found a little hole in the side of the piano. "Look, a world of light!" they cried. "Surely it must be heaven..."
But when one of the mice went through the hole, she was immediately spotted by the musician's cat. Not knowing what a cat was, the mouse did not act afraid, and was attacked. Taken by surprise, the mouse cried out to the giant player for help against this mysterious villainous creature. But the player, lost in the reverie of making his music, didn't hear the mouse's cries for help.
The musician later found the body of the mouse beneath the piano and went exploring, wondering where it came from. At the same time, purely by happenstance, another of the mice happened to look outside through the hole, wondering where the first mouse had gone. It saw the player, and the player saw the mouse. The mouse screamed and ran, horrified by the thought of this giant monster it had worshipped as a divine being its entire life, whose appearance turned out to be something entirely other than expected. The player screamed, too, and ran for the phone, looking up the best mousetraps available in the area - catch-em-alive traps, because while they certainly didn't like mice at all, they also didn't want to kill them.
The player caught the mice and relocated them, putting them out in a barn where they could live. And while they adapted to life in the barn relatively quickly, none of the other mice living in the barn ever did believe their fantasy story about a giant box filled with sound, a massive, all-powerful player, and the Great Move which had so uprooted them.
If you're finding meaning in this, please let me know. This was just a random idea coming from an atheist.
The possibilities are endless for playing with stories like these. Thanks for another awesome video! :D
You made me upvote a story in which an adorable mouse died horribly.
I hate you. (No, not really.)
I just like the story. Nothing else to say, sorry about that.
I love this!
The more logical you make an illogical analogy, the more questions you end up creating for your audience.
I think that's the best way I can sum up my feelings towards this story.
I just found your channel and I'm in love after two videos. Excellent work! I genuinely appreciate this perspective delivered in the format you've chosen.
This video has encouraged me to be skeptical of whether THAT MANY mice actually live in pianos.
I have two little mice in my piano. They help clean the piano strings. And I give them cheese in return.
"because if you believe these things , i guarantee ya , someone's been telling stories"
*chills*
This is the most consistently thought provoking and intelligent channel I have ever found. Bravo sir
My last piano lesson was today...you evil bastard. Now the mice won't enjoy hearing a broken rendition of "Row Your Boat" anymore.
With the spoon story, everyone can feed themselves. Just hold the spoon very close to the cup part. Why did no one in heaven or hell ever think of that? Maybe everyone loses their ability to think logically when they join a religion?
Edit: I laughed so hard at the funeral march. Poor mice. Maybe one day there would have been a mouse Darwin, mouse Galileo or some other amazing mind who could have helped them understand how exactly that music was played.
Darwin was Anglican, and Galileo was Catholic.
@@gabrielg2395so...?
Terry Pratchett in his _Discworld_ novels frequently made reference to 'Narrativium' - some ethereal substance which gave life and a certain impact to stories passed on person to person. Sadly passed on now, Terry will be fondly remembered.
Stories are a powerful tool,use writing wisely and it can cultivate empathy, understanding,and peace between people and ideas that rarely interact.Use it badly and a story can start wars
Absolutely mind-blowing. I've been a slave to incoherent stories for most of my life. I'm starting to see how much of myself was molded by them now.
Oh man. I remember hearing the spoon one as a kid and my thought was "Why don't they just hold the spoon from halfway down, Then they'd be able to bring it to their own mouth." The trick would be not to wack other people...
The table is wide enough to make this unlikely. Just be somewhat careful and you'll be fine.
Outside of just providing thoughtful material. I also just really love the atmosphere of these videos.
I heard the mice inside the piano story at the beginning of the video and immediately thought "the mice have no good reason to believe the pianist existed and the ones who believe the pianist did exist just so happened to be correct by coincidence, not because they had actually investigated and had evidence to back up their claim." If in fact there is a God, I don't want to just believe despite a lack of evidence and then be correct by coincidence, I want to withhold belief until such evidence is presented.
This is the right way to solve the narrative without shitting on storytelling as an artform and tradition... Seriously, we don't have to burn down every piece of human nature and culture to step beyond it, and I'm speaking directly at post-modernism 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
The reason why the mice knew about the strings was because of greater understanding of their universe... They would have eventually understood what was outside the piano, why they were in the piano and why it made such noises every now and then... They would even be able to reproduce the same phenomenon at their scale eventually...
Also, you never closed your quotation marks
I must admit that I don't know how to find happiness or what is enough, but I am enough. This video helped me think of the stories we tell ourselves on achieving happiness, belonging, and prosperity in the complicated and confusing world we live in. It never feels easier, but we slowly get better if we allow ourselves the chance to improve and question our understanding. That is mainly why I've decided to reach out like this, to help 'you' towards reaching understand and acceptance of ourselves. Reach out to question your understanding but also examine it within yourself. Don't trust people who say they have the answer to age old question's and continue to live your life. I am uncertainly and confidently declaring this.
Just your video titles are impressive and fascinating enough.....never seen such accurate, direct , wise titles
So the dead in heaven and hell need to eat?
The spoon story is actually designed to appeal to one's fear for survival in the here and now.
Specifically, the story creates a new neural link between the region of the brain that processes threats to survival (right amygdala) and the part of the brain that records the feelings associated with new memories (satisfaction for realizing that one just gained an important piece of wisdom to better ensure survival, in the hippocampus), before they are sent to long-term storage (prefrontal cortex).
The lesson learned by the listener is that to survive, one must adopt the traits listed (group cooperation).
Then, whenever the brain is faced with a situation involving those behavioural traits, it recalls not only the traits, but the feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction associated with them.
It's Pavlovian conditioning!
Speaking of Pavlovian conditioning is reductive and unscientific. Reception of information in stories is obviously not only linked to primal instinctive drives. There are several layers of mediation due to one's understanding of expressive modes, such as allegory, other related pieces of information (from the socially accepted way of eating a stew to other religious images), the tone, position, authority, disposotion of the speaker, and the context and cultural background in which it is narrated (e.g. telling it to a bunch of sadistic bigots who think all unbelievers should be actively punished will certainly elicit different responses than telling it to humanitarians, secular or religious, who already believe in the intrinsic value of cooperation)...
As for stories being based on the "here and now', well duh?
Even after leaving a Xtian cult years ago I find myself 'caught in act' when flipping channels and I stumble upon a TV preacher. Few minutes in and I snap out of it but it starts as curiosity. As an atheist, I think we are all susceptible merely because it's part of our makeup. When we watch movies or read books we are captivated sometimes by ideas but more often than not, by whatever emotions the narrative invokes. Religious stories are stories with an agenda.
Religious or secular; theist or atheist, you too are susceptible to the power of "stories". This weakness is not one rooted in a particular set of beliefs, but rather in the human organism itself. If you have convinced yourself that you are immune to the power of "stories" and "narratives" simply because you have dispensed with religion, then you are already snared by at least one myth, and almost certain to be snared by more.
After all, don't the various followers of this or that religion pride themselves on not being "duped" by the religious stories of those other "false" religions?
Even now there are secular narratives that are as baseless as any religious dogma, which are defended from critical examination, scientific inquiry, and the most mundane disagreement with the fervor of a medieval inquisitor. Ideologies dominate secular thought regarding a host of social, economic, historical, and biological topics to which even reasoned and objective dissent is as _verbotten_ as any _"heresy"_ of ages past.
Test and vet the stories you indulge for truthfulness. Because truth is what determines whether a story is "good" or not, and truth is the only story worth believing in.
Very true. Almost everyone tells themselves stories about the motivations and beliefs of other human beings around them, which can be just as or even more destructive to one's happiness and personal relationships as stories about god(s) are.
Bravo. You didn't watch the video. How did I catch you? You just repeated back at TT exactly what he just said about how you should look at stories as though it was YOUR idea.
daemonCaptrix
I started writing at my comment at 13 minutes into the vid. So if I missed something, it was because I was commenting on what I had already seen and heard.
Of course you're free to believe whatever it is that you have decided _in advance_ about me that you like. How could it be otherwise?
Please, enlighten me by actually citing the examples you are referring to. Thank you.
***** "Even now there are secular narratives that are as baseless as any religious dogma" such as?
can’t believe i discovered this channel now only. incredible content with the most calming narrator. thank you.
calming? he talks in most arrogant way possible
Brutally unwavering logic.
I love this channel. It is the bitter taste that accentuates every other flavour in the palette.
As an 'Enlightened Theist' aka 'ET', which I am considered among 'believers' and 'otherwise committed' alike, I reside in a vacuum of delightful possibilities.
Freedom, My choice, My responsibility.
Same
Then another day, a mouse went outside the piano. When she returned, she further clarified how the music was made. The hammers were linked to keys on the piano, and a man outside was hitting them rhythmically with his fingers. The question was resolved, and the giant invisible rat pianist hypothesis finally died out. The end.
Nobody believed the mouse, then when they were shown the way to the pianist - the pianist noticed the gathering group of mice, that his piano was infested with mice - he called the exterminators the same day.
By knowing Too Much, you had doomed us all!
didn't you catch its deeper mea- yeah stories can be pulled all sorts of ways to convey whatever you like 🤡💋
@@TheDoomerBlox dammit, I was hoping for a good ending… lol. yeah, I bet some theists would definitely argue that knowing too much and questioning God as the almighty is sin enough.
@@thesleepydot The Good Ending is that listening to authority, disconnected from the individual's reality by distance and (usually) negligence or downright malice ("saving face") - is a surefire way to get into trouble.
The most reliable tale is the one occuring right in front of your eyes, and the most trustworthy course of action is the one your non-stupid nature gives you in accordance to what's unfolding before you.
Naturally, some are more stupid in nature than others, but so natural selection goes.
God: Welcome to hell you can have as much soup as you want, just like in heaven
Me: How is this suffering
*God proceeds to pull out comically large spoon*
When I think of that fairy tale 'the girl with the matchsticks', I'm thinking: silly bint, you have matches, grab some wood, plenty of wood in scandinavia, make a fire, don't die from the cold...
Did you actually expect rational thinking from a child half-dead?
i like the one about the clockwork piano. the mice will never know where the music came from, but it makes them happy anyway. they're not upset that they don't know, and it's almost sad that the listener does know and can't tell them. melancholy.
These videos are good for reflection, relaxation and truth. Thank you Theramintrees.
A story is an exploration of human experience, not an inquiry of reality. Absolutely amazing videos, thank you so much
Firstly I have to say I love your animation It is crisp and clear and refreshingly new.
Now back to point. Since giving up my belief system I spent a long time analizing it from start to finish and where I did stand with in it and where I stand now. Your video covers all the hurdles I had to take on. You have covered them all in this super video and have come to the same conclusion as I did.
All this would be ok but I spent a large part of my life fighting this belief system that was indoctrinated on to me from birth. It is an agonizing journey to wrench oneself from it. This I feel was all time wasted when I should have been trying to enjoy my life and make life better for those around me. Instead, loved ones had to watch as this whole journey changed me. I hope that the change is for the better. I try desperately to live a good moral life and try to be kind to people and those I love.
I want to be better than I was. I feel embarrassed with the opinions that I once held as a believer. What I am trying to say that it was an unnecessary life event and I should not have had to travel it, had reason and good judgement prevailed. If I had of been raised secular all this would have been necessary. But those were different times and they did not know all that we know now.
That is why I am a strident anti theist. I would not wish this mental journey on anyone else if it could be avoided. What little time we have to exist it should be spent enjoying ourselves as best we can and helping others. It saddens me that even my sons will have to watch on while the world rips itself apart with religion. When they should be dealing with bigger issues of trying to make the planet more comfortable and liveable for everyone on it, rather than killing each other and doing harm to each other of a god.
These stories have done so much harm that they should carry a government health warning.
Thanks for your message, I myself have been there. It's totally hellish to understand that I was mentally and emotionally like 13 years old in my thirties, I couldn't grow because of the pressure. Since then I have grown. I'm now 50 and I feel like I have waste my life on bullshit.
Hahahaha as you were telling it, I thought the mouse story was a good example of the success of scientific inquiry.
"Smart mice, of course there'll always be a few of us that cling onto their comforting magical stories" I thought
When I was in my youth group when I was a young child, we were always encouraged to tell how we felt god within our lives and describe how we had felt his love, I said it because it was expected of me, I never questioned it I just did it automatically
Hell is actually quite a controversial topic in religious discourse. Many "true" Christians when you bring it up like to say that it's wrong and that in reality Hell is a representation of an eternal state of suffering brought by the doing of sinful acts instead of a real place with fire in which you are supposed to burn. Some of them even claim that Hell never existed in the Bible at all and that if you believe in a God vs Satan model you are no different than a pagan. This is the origin of stories similar to the one mentioned in the video about the soup. The ironic thing however about this whole debate regarding Hell is that it doesn't matter whether the concept that we know today existed in the original Bible or was invented at a much later time by the church, what matters is that this story was integrated into the minds of the public and continues to be used as an instrument of influence even today.
A masterpiece. This channel is a work of art...
Cut to me, sitting at a table in hell, a hand reaching for the spoon in front of me in slow motion and landing close to the bowl of the spoon. I look pointedly into the eyes of the man opposite me to establish dominance and take in the shock on his face. "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king." I maintain eye contact while shoveling food into my face and that was how I beat the devil, true story.
Why is your energy just Johnny from the folktale song The Devil Went Down to Georgia lmao
You never fail to amaze. Bravo, bravo.
Cheers
As much as I loved listening to these perspectives, because they help me think, we cannot forget than anthropologically, humans adapt on three levels: chemically, genetically, and culturally. When our body uses lactic acid to produce muscle mass, it's chemical. When you get inheritable traits from your parents, it's genetic. And when you learn to make a fire by rubbing sticks together, you're adapting culturally.
I honestly know people who have a, "I'm only looking out for number 1 attitude." They cooperate with no one. These cultural myths permeate the brain, because culture can often override biology. Humans are genetically predisposed to cooperate, except when culture has convinced an individual that they'll always get the short stick. Then they start to refrain from cooperating with anyone. And though this may seem like a powerplay at the time, it actually only serves to isolate the individual further -- making them powerless. Cultural parables bring us back to what we already know. If you want to achieve power, you have to work together with someone.
That being said, they're filled with plot holes. an intelligent individual should be able to gleam both the wisdom, and the fallacy. You used a maze story, for example. Why can't we just walk through the maze, with an axe/chainsaw, chopping it down. Your story has a pre-drawn conclusion. Everything you've stated in this video, must be applied to your own story. That's your point, but the lesson learned from the story is still beneficial, and maybe it'll become a cultural allegory?
The best thing is that you _did_ use stories in order to illustrate your point
Good material for a course in critical thinking. In my last five years of working, I returned to teaching, and this became my favorite course. My own take on this is that stories make it easier to accept something you want to believe in the first place. If you resist the religious teaching, you'll find flaws in the analogy created by each story.
the first question the spoon story gave me was "why don't these idiots just take the spoon closer to the feeding end or just lift up the damn bowl?? are they physically prohibited to do so?"