My number one would be "Understanding that each and every individual is able to make the logical errors, have misconceptions, wrong believes and believes in general". The attitude of us 'logical, scientific, skeptical atheists' vs 'irrational, delusional, non-scientific believers' can be found strongly in atheist communities. This is pure group bias and collective us-vs-them thinking. As said, in the video as well, each human is different and atheist's don't escape the traps of mind without introspection of thy self.
@@josiahz21 I think the problem goes deeper then tribalism. The brain processes information and when it does this it generalizes, deletes, changes information to match internal world representation. Its how our subjective word is constructed.
If that was the only concern instead of their being measurable differences between claims then I would agree with you, but that is not the case so I can not agree which in itself is an excellent representation of why folk disagree.
Or... "Do not assume that because a person has deconverted from a religion for logical, rational reasons, that they are now a logical, rational person, especially when looking in a mirror."
A friend of mine was a deep religious Person. So deep that he became a sexton. But he was gay and felt dirty, bad and other negatives. At the age of 30 he ended in a psychiatry because he wanted to end his life, because he felt as a gods mistake. A few years later, still torn apart, he ended his life in front of a train. THIS is what religion does to "others". Pls excuse my bad english, I write this from a little town in germany.
Your English is great. And that's a really sad story. It's remarkable to see that these obviously-ridiculous schools of thought (i.e. religions) are taken so seriously even in today's society.
Thats absurd to blame religion overmental illness, a bad home life or the other numerous and way more pressing variables. Even that religion shit starts with bad parents doing bad teaching. Religion didn't make a child just kill himself because he felt u perfect. Thats not even congruent with any religious teaching anywhere in the world
@@psyience3213 What the fuck are you talking about?! Being homosexual is clearly condemned in all Abrahamic religions; and therefore that person's religion was one of the causes that contributed most to his depression, and by extension his suicide, obviously.
@@psyience3213 while it is true that we won't know what may have happened to this person if they weren't indoctrinated into a religion, anyone who has spent time in Christian spaces knows the depth of shame and self loathing the church tries to instill. Being gay is a big 'indiscretion ', at least according to the bible, and we can infer that a big part of this man's struggle was at very least made worse by an unforgiving attitude about an immutable characteristic. So we maybe can't blame it all on religion, but we can sure say religion made the situation worse.
I was raised in a very loving and devout Christian family, but left the church at the age of fourteen. My parent needless to say weren't very happy with my decision, but understanding. See I was taught to always ask why, and be a critical thinker. So my parents had no one to blame but themselves. I saw a double standard in their belief system. One that was applied to their belief, and another for all the rest. I could only assume that is was a form of self delusion. No doubt beliefs are held for the placebo effect, and serve a purpose. My recognition doesn't change this. It only points it out.
I saw the double standard/special pleading before I even knew either of those were things. I didnt know others DIDN'T see them! Consequently, I didnt realize anyone sincerely believed their religion. I thought it was like a favorite color: you HAD to have one, but it didnt matter which one you picked, because it didnt matter AT ALL.
@Nil Hisit Actually they were from the south. My father was pathologist in the military , . My mom was a house wife that never learned to drive with six kids. We traveled a lot and were exposed to many different cultures. I think the only time my father ever spanked me was for calling a man a niger when I was five years old. He was taken me to get my first hair cut in Hot springs Arkansas. We were walking down the side walk when I saw a black man walking on the other side. My father pulling me into alley, and spanked me. He said don't you ever call a man a niger. You don't know that man. My father although from a very racist place had been raised by a black woman, and had picked cotton from the age of seven until he joined the military. He had only finished the sixth grade. He said that he had learned to read from a sears, and roebuck. My mother on the other hand had never gotten over her racism. I married a women from Thailand my father accepted her, but my mother never did. Like I said they were very devout, but had had life expectances that made them who they were. I wouldn't change a thing. If we all believed the same things the world .would be a awful boring place.
@@billskinner7670 Yes, we all hold unfounded beliefs. The difference is the recognition that they are unfounded. For example I believe life exist throughout the universe. I have no direct evidence to support this belief, other then that would make us the exception.
@@comeasyouare4545 That really is the important thing to understand.. It is ok to believe something as long as it is clear that you are just basically guessing or assuming.. But it is a problem when people "believe" that they know... Any Christian will claim that they know that Jesus died for their sins when they truly know that they do not... That is why they all have such difficulties with their own beliefs... They are constantly seeking better understanding because they don't understand what belief is... But then they all just hear that belief is the only way and so they just keep hanging on...
@@anotherperspective8263 I understand this. They take a belief as fact, because it is presented that way. I'm never comfortable with what I believe, because it's a lazy reality.
1:02 LMAO. Slogans are bad, but the things that he’s most known for are the ‘btw Christianity is true’, and ‘questions are not arguments’ lines. The irony is incredible.
Slogans are bad Slogans are bad. Slogans are bad! Wait a minute...🤔 *2nd attempt to post because yootoob thinks its cool to violate basic human rights via censorship. Cant wait for Congress to shut this egregious practice down.
@@skunk12 or- your initial commnet was so full of repetition it seemed to the untrained computer eye that you were maybe a bot and in fact this isn't an example of censorship, but just a glitch in the system. Can you remember what one of the key points in htisvideo was? something about malice....
@@bengreen171 it IS censorship. i didnt delete the comment nor did i give anyone permission to delete it. Trained or untrained eyes notwithstanding, someone/something else deleted it without my consent. Thats censorship. We know full-well that youtube deletes comments. The use of repetition does not give anyone else permission to remove someone's comment. Many songs use repetition in their chorus should we erase those songs? My point stands.
My only objection to the first ''mistake'' made by atheists is that while I and many others have no problem admitting religion's psychological benefits on some respects, once you give ground on the ''religion is nonsense'' point, you leave the door wide open for Peterson-style apologists to come in and advocate for accepting religion's truth claims and for believing exceptional claims without evidence on a purely utilitarian basis, throwing both reason and truth out the window. That's the pinacle of moral cowardice and intellectual dishonesty, so it's not so much religion's harmful effects that make me an antitheist, it's mostly religion's untruths that make me one. Hearing your own perspective was very interesting anyway, Mr Woodford.
But it's not like we can actually accept truth claims just because they are useful, at least, I surely can't. For example, it's handy to think of all guns as loaded, but I can't actually *believe* that all guns are loaded, because I don't control my beliefs Edit spelling
@Kevin Jackson Believing is something one decides to do. You see the evidence and decide it is either sufficient or insufficient to believe the related claim. Don't confuse your implied inability to consciously decide your beliefs with some kind of universal truth that applies to all humans.
But people like Peterson are what religions need; they cannot jump straight to "no God"; because they genuinely believe that without God they will go on a recreational murder spree. They need to take the journey one step at a time. First it is "accepting as true for utility", then they can consider "utility for the sake of utility" and maybe then "no God" isn't so scary.
Cool but knowing isn't the same as condemning it. There's also deep correlation between crime and biology, rapes happen because of high sexual drives or something. We might understand it, but need not succumb to our handicaps
@@pursuitsoflife.6119 Rape almost never has anything to do with sexual drive. There's two common drive related causes of rape. In the case of soldiers it's two fold, the intoxicating effect of victory coupled with the driving force to keep winning. That's why it's most common after hard fought battles, where winning came down to which side refused to stop. The second, what we'll call civilian rape, is a driving need to dominate and control. This can be tenuously linked to sex, but sex drive is not the perpetrating factor. Usually, however, sex is only the means, and has little or nothing to do with the objective. That's a generalisation, of course, there are other driving forces in some cases and sometimes that may be sex drive, but it's not very common.
@@jakeand9020 that's an interesting theory and I can believe the military side as the rapes can very well be associated with other atrocities like murder and torture of civilians regardless of their sex. However, the civilian rape doesn't fit into this. If it were only about control without any sexual side, there should be something equivalent towards the people of your own sex as well as women on men (the reason there is no need for the latter in military is that there used to be no women soldiers). But as far as I know nothing equivalent of rape in terms of control exists at least not in adult world (kids bullying may be related to this).
@@srelma You're looking at it from the perspective of the rapist. Jake is describing it from the perspective of the victim at least. If you ask a rapist why they raped someone, sure you can get a variety of answers. If you ask their victim why they felt violated, you'll likely get some variation on, lost control or being dominated by someone. What I wanna know, is who tf cares what the rapist thinks? If you think you're big-brain that can figure out one of the scourges of humanity that has plagued us for 100s of thousands of years, go right ahead and try to sort that out. But let me be the first to express my skepticism that you suddenly figured out what the problem is.
@@norezenable why do I wanna know what rapist thinks? Because it's human behaviour ubiquitous everywhere in the world. Knowing how human mind works has of course pure value in terms of increasing our knowledge but it also helps us to get rid of this scourge of human society. The better we understand how the human mind works, the better we can deal with the negative sides of it and minimize the adverse effects to the society. Of course the other option is just put head in the sand and just say that they are inherently "bad' or "evil" people and that's just that. That would be very American solution. That's the approach that has filled the US prisons but hasn't really lead to lower crime rates than in other developed world.
I wholeheartedly sympathize with the life experiences that led you towards atheism as I myself have followed a similar path. Having had a difficult childhood with an alcoholic father who would scream at our mother almost every other night, frequently slap us for no valid reason, and even, I later learned, sexually abused my little brother, I spent many nights praying to God, asking, begging him to help us be a happy family. On one of the worst nights of screaming, crying and praying, my father committed suicide, three days before my 12th birthday. And thus began my journey towards rationally questioning the catholic faith I was raised in, and every other supernatural belief after that, and I have become an active atheist. Even as I admit that people have the right to their supernatural blanket to help give meaning to their lives, I can never accept any pain imposed upon anybody in the name of any belief system. In short, my main philosophy is simple: try to be happy, and try to make sure other fellow humans can do the same. Or, if the second proposition is too much of an effort, to put it bluntly: Try to be happy, and try not to be an a**hole. Too often religions hinder the establishment of a peaceful existence for all humans on earth. To often division and oppression are validated by the religious. I truly think, all things considered, from here on out, we would better off without them. Not to be completely erased in a cultural and historical sense. I am too much a lover of history and mythologies to suggest such a thing. I think there is much to learn when studying our past. And I love Christmas and other holidays as a time of gathering for friends and family. But the misguided influence of religions on political and social issues should be neutralized.
As a fellow atheist, I commend your transformation about religious beliefs into a more compassionate sociological perspective. From knowledge to wisdom. Keep up the great work my friend.
@@alasdairniven6578 Nope!. I think he was all about unknown knowns. “There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.”
Mr. RR, love your videos from india. I have a request. Please make some videos on eastern and indian religions, philosophy of karma, reincarnation and how to refute / support such claims. Something on indian Gurus. Cycle of birth and rebirth, circular origin of universe with no beginning and no end etc. .. India's youtube population is huge so you get more subs also. Anyways this is a humble request towards diversification of content.
A lot of eastern religions make a case for Atheism, pantheism, logic and rationality in their very own sacred texts. I consider myself a spiritual Hindu Atheist which annoys a lot of atheists and hindus.
@Nihal Actually hinduism already have a philosophy that is "nastik nirishwarwad " which is atheism . I dont believe in gods but Iam still a hindu ( Not just geographically but culturally too ) . Are there irrational beliefs ? Yes . But I dont think anyone is forced to believe that . And the fraud gurus are definitely a problem . We need to tackle that and there is no doubt. But I think most hindus are inherently atheist . For most of the hindus religion is just festivals .
The last one is particularly relevant these days. People on both sides of lots of arguments just can't seem to be able to stop themselves at 'the person I disagree with is mistaken'. They always seem to be very very quick to accuse others of being toxic, dangerous, dishonest and grifters.
All the debates I have seen though are an atheist, asking for evidence and a bit of explanation on why theist play pick and mix with the holy scriptures. They never get an answer, just a lot of distraction. It’s not therefore disingenuous to call a person who is avoiding answering a question honestly, dishonest.
Accusing someone of being a grifter isn't as tricky cause you can always see whether the person spreads hateful ideas for free or whether there's a "please also give me your money for keeping doing that" pleading.
@@maksimbolonkin Does being a defined as a grifter depend on your ideas being 'hateful'? My guess is very few people would agree that their ideas are hateful. Most people think they're genuinely doing the right thing. My understanding of the term grifter is that it implies a certain level of them knowing what they're saying is incorrect/wrong, but saying it for money. That's very hard to prove - saying 'hateful' things and asking people to subscribe to your patreon doesn't demonstrate that.
@@col.hertford9855 My guess is that the theist doesn't believe for a second they're just giving distraction. They probably think they're answering the question well. Especially well established apologists who do debates. Now, that doesn't mean their answer actually is good, or that they're correct - but bad answers don't equal dishonesty. I have seen the kind of thing you mean though, sometimes people do seem to really squirm and wriggle with certain questions. I can't prove that they're not being dishonest, it's just much more likely that they're sincere, even if they're wrong. Generally, with dishonesty, I'm looking for a conscious willingness to deceive. That's much rarer than most people like to think of their intellectual/spiritual/political adversaries.
I had started havind doubts about islam last years' ramadan and came to the conclusion that islam was most likely false before this ramadan. And consequently , I felt the sociological effect of ramadan in all its glory this time and finally understood why religions succeeded. As my culture doesn't really treat atheists well , all I could do was pretend until financial independency. Consequently , I had to fast during ramadan , but it wasn't that hard considering I did it all those years until today. I can say for sure that the friends I made in college sharing a common iftar will stay for life. Religion is utter nonsense from a factual scientific perspective but from a sociological persepective , it has some really powerful cohesive mechanisms . I would also add that the prayer led in congregation 5 times a day also acts as a cohesive element for muslims.
In my understanding religion is more about this social bonding than about the mythology. I grew up in a Catholic majority environment, and people around me have different levels of understanding the mysteries of religion, and you could even find whole disbelief, people who don't trust the religious authorities or doctrines, etc. But they would still bond through religious practices like mass, or Christmas, or just a sense of we vs them (where them were Protestants, or communists, or whatever).
That's why I'm more in line with Alain Debottom than those of hardcore Atheist (Anti-theist),....well, dont get me wrong, the reasoning of the Four horsemen are certainly topnotch. But they often missed this point that religion arises out of the neccesity in terms of evolutionary perspective. As bad as they are,, they still provide the cohesive funtion that makes the society functional in the first place. As Alain often said, we should throw all the non sensical stuff in religion. But we must not throw the parts the make sense.
Ironically it kind of seperates from the rest of the world as well. Probably the reason why they think the world will be pieceful if everyone followed Islam. Also I think this religious nepotism is why most people don't like muslims in mixed populations like in India. But then again this can be said about just all religious groups. Although on a personal note muslims do take it to the next level.
@@gordonlynn8300 Over 2 billion Christians of faith, over 1.5 billion Muslims of faith and over 1.0 billion Hindus of faith. They must all be right. Seems logical to me. Faith must be better than reasonable proof.
5:11 “Even from the age of nine, I found this answer as unfalsifiable as unsatisfactory.” Just like Hitchens’ story about his teacher saying that it’s great of God to make nature so aesthetically pleasing to the human eye.
PLEASE do Karma, the evil of Indian religion. I'm from a Hindu background, and its quite frustrating to see Western atheists completely ignore the issues in the third largest religion in the world.
Do you know RPGs (role playing games)? My perspective on Karma: the character I'm playing now is punished for the things the (different) character I played last year did. Even if it was true, it would still be a bad system, because the punishment would be ineffective, too slow for the person to learn anything! Edit: If anyone is still reading here, let me give a more mainstream, SLIGHTLY less nerdy explanation/example. In 2003, Ben Affleck played Daredevil. In 2016, Ben Affleck played Batman. To my perspective, Karma is Batman being punished, or rewarded, for what Daredevil did. Batman can't learn, from the consequences of his actions, because they weren't HIS actions; they were Daredevil's. Batman doesn't even know what the actions were! One could say Ben Affleck learned. But I say, the time delay, hundreds of years for we "actual human souls", dilutes the lesson to the point of un-learnability. Also, we don't experience life as Ben Affleck, we experience it as Batman.
@@frequencyoftruth2303 so you acknowledge Stephen is trying to make a scientific truth without actually providing any scientific evidence, which is simply WRONG and hippocratic to do so?
I live in the UK (Southwest) and my experience is much different, I barely ever encounter any seriously religious people. In School we were taught about it a lot, but even though they never explicitly state whether or not the concepts are true (which had me accepting/fearing hell for a brief stint, until I told a relative about it and they laughed at me), I never knew of a single child that was admittedly religious, though it's possible they kept it to themselves - which was probably wise as I'm certain ridicule would have imminently and persistently followed. I semi-frequently work in many churches too, there are almost exclusively old people that visit for services, if there is any young person at all it is because Nan or Grandad is babysitting. These same people that turn up for the service seem very passive in their religiosity, never mentioning it themselves in our (admittedly brief) interactions. Some of the only religious people I do know are actually an off-branch of my own close family who are Jehovah's witnesses, but they are pretty much "condemned" from the rest of the family. Not _because_ they are Jehovah's witnesses, moreso that notions like not seeking medical professionals for a medical issue (particularly of children) is seen by other family members as morally reprehensible and just strange. Interesting that someone in the UK has a different experience I had assumed it was scarce all over.
JW in this form is child abuse imo. They are some of the worst stories I’ve ever heard. Here in the states there is a couple who were responsible for three of their children’s death before they went to jail.
@@josiahz21 ohwow, I just re-read your comment again, and I realize I didn’t even find the right news story! I found a different triple murder-suicide of an entire family due to JW shunning. Nobody went to jail because no one survived. There’s evidently too much of this going on. 😔
In Spain we supposedly are very religious... but that's not what i see every day. People go through the motions, celebrate the festivities, baptizes the children, but after every event no word on god or religion is ever spoken. If you question somebody about his/her beliefs, the most probable answer is 'i don't know', followed by 'maybe there is something'. People just don't think about theology, but surely they love their traditions, moreso if they imply socialising, eating and drinking a lot.
Thank you so much for this video, Stephen. Your compassion continues to be an inspiration for me. This video was right on point with some things I've been thinking lately in my own life, and brought up a few other things for me to consider as well. I'll have to go through and watch the video a second time to let them sink in. I lost my faith last year and your channel was one of the first sceptic channels I came across in my search for the truth. You made me feel validated in questioning my faith and ultimately giving up on it. So thank you. People like you bring so much hope to people like me, in their darkest moments. And it wouldn't be possible without your compassionate, steel manning, approach to theists' arguments. Before your videos I had never heard anyone argue against someone's point of view by first making the opposing argument as strong as possible. It's obvious to me now that this is the only fair and honest way of making a real argument, but you were the first person I'd ever seen do it and I was and still am deeply impressed. So from the bottom of my heart, Stephen, thank you. Thank you so much.
Please don't misunderstand my intent, but kids who get mocked for still believing in Santa Claus, the monster under the bed, etc., probably get sick of it, too.
@@YY4Me133 albeit neither monsters nor Santa Clause ever inspire, embolden or sway anyone to write, paint, build, erect, sculpt...or kill. Maybe they have, what do I know.
I’ve been an atheist since a very young age so it’s difficult to actually understand religion and the mentality that drives it as I have never got it, and thus I struggle immensely to understand theists (and yes I had religious education and had to attend church as a child, so I’m not uneducated in the ways of god, i just don’t find it plausible in the slightest). I’m really enjoying your content and that of other the respectful skeptics, it’s really helping me be more respectful when I watch debates, and think before I discount opinions out of hand. Keep up the good work!
My only religious education is one year of the most secular Sunday school possible. As a teen I thought about whether religion was true, and came to the conclusion it wasn’t. I couldn’t feel the presence of anything immaterial, like believers say they do, as hard as I tried to.
I deconverted a couple years ago, but I find myself longing for the sociological aspects of my faith more than anything else. That might have as much to do with 15 months of social distancing as anything else. Last Sunday I attended a Pentecostal religious service because I missed the experience. The doctrine is bullshit, but the experience of singing with fellow apes to an anthropomorphic projection of our highest values is not. I probably won't be doing this regularly, but I really enjoyed it last weekend.
Excellent presentation! Well thought out, well said! I specifically like #3, we all often start out any discordant intercourse with an aggressive/defensive posture, but an open mind has room to grow. Building good relationships despite differences, is far superior to the alternative.
I have a similar story and thankfully have no hard feelings towards my parents. There is a part that cannot be erased, but it can be accepted. It's even easier with the idea of lack of free will. They were also victims of their own parents in everlasting circle of religious indoctrination. I'm from Poland, we are freaks in that regard. Like Americans, but poor and more depressed, with Polish pope whom pushed our people even more into their delusions. Stories like yours helps many to withstand their life problems, because hope, and will to fight the flow is hard to find. Alcohol and religion are crippling whole nation and everyone holds you back. Don't give up fellow apes.
Thank you for sharing a little bit about your youth, I had a slightly parallel situation, the alcoholic mother we have in common, the rest struck a cord more on your thought process as a child. Though my parents were Christians, as me n my sister got older, they never forced it, and my dad encouraged us to find our own paths, and just to be good people. I've had anxiety disorder most of my life, eventually learning how to live with it, but as a child I had no idea, and a little side dish of OCD thrown in made me constantly wonder what was wrong with me. I too went to a Catholic grade school, nuns instead of priests, I often convinced myself that anytime things went wrong in my life it was my doing, maybe because I didn't pray hard enough, or do enough good deeds. It often revolved around my mother, (imagine that) and if she was going to be drunk or sober when I got home from school, usually a 50/50 shot. When sober, I was relieved, for one, that meant she was the mom that was caring, loving and almost normal, and I said my prayers or whatever correctly the day before. If drunk, not only did I have to walk on eggshells until bedtime, I would scour my brain wondering what I did wrong to piss god off. The OCD played into it often, mostly at bedtime prayers, feeling like I wasn't kneeling correctly, or hands were interlaced improperly, forcing myself to repeat the whole process. Some nights it'd be close to 45min before it was acceptable enough to finally go to sleep. That's why I made a mix of the first and third mistake you covered, as I got older and found my own path. I was so angry a myth, a lore, carried through hundreds and hundreds of generations, is implanted in the minds of children so young, and told that there is nothing more true than that belief. I couldn't imagine them not realizing the havoc created in a developing brain. As I got older and a little wiser, I accepted it was done to them too, and hard to blame them, even more difficult to break that chain, but mostly I realized that carrying that anger was more taxing on my psyche than the actual ordeal, and if I didn't shed it and leave it behind, it was going to devour me. Ok, this ape has rambled on too long. Thanks for another great video!!
"Ascribing malice when ignorance is suffice" Shouldn't it be, either, _Ascribing malice when ignorance_ -is- will _suffice,_ Or _Ascribing malice when ignorance is sufficient?_
@Pisstake Well, I hate bacon (I like my meat to actually have substantial MEAT in it!), but I sympathize with your desire to aggravate proponents of veganism. (Not all vegans, just those who won't shut up about it.) Humans have 4 different kinds of teeth. We are SUPPOSED to be omnivores. Is Alex going to start telling lions and wolves that they are committing animal cruelty?
@Antinatalism Clips Do you sweep where you walk to ensure that you don't step on any ants? You can spend your money on things you want, instead of using it to feed starving children in Africa, but you don't have to. You can spend your money on the cheapest brand, instead of taking the time to research the most cruelty free brand, and buying the more expensive choice, but you don't have to. You can turn of your AC and unplug most of the electrical devices in your home, to reduce your carbon footprint, but you don't have to. Which, I guess, are just examples of your point. The difference is, YOUR BIOLOGY says that you ARE SUPPOSED TO eat meat.
I hope for religion to become something like a mere fandom of just another work of fiction at some point. You'd go to church at Christmas just like you go to Comic Con, just to meet up with the community for all the social benefits, and then everybody goes home again, fully aware that what they've just participated in is based entirely on fiction.
There's only one way of keeping it from dominating the state and education: to work hard to eradicate it by educating people and keep their levels of religiosity to the minimum (there's no way of making everyone entirely secular).
Just because members of your doctrine don't belief them doesn't proof its falsehood. Humans derive all the time false conclusions! So people claiming to believe in said "truth", but practicing it different are just people blind to the "full picture" the doctrine holds. Things are true, regardless if everyone has a different view of it. It's falsehood should be derived from somewhere else
@@DundG The assumption that there must be some underlying truth behind religions despite their the contradictory, irrational nature, is itself a bias. Just because billions of people believe in something (or say they believe without understanding what "belief" actually means) doesn't mean there's anything in it. There's no big picture. There's nothing in there to misinterpret. None of the religious claims about reality have been arrived at by rational methods in the first place, which is why they don't deserve to be taken any more seriously than naive layman intuitions, which they essentially are.
@@AlexanderShamov Where do you read "there must be some underlying truth" in my response?! I just said that people not believing the core values, despite claiming to be part of the movement, are no proof of anything. These things are not related. The reason that some scientists did not believed atoms exist, is no indication that the theory itself is flawed. Today we know they exist because we proofed their existence by reliable methods.
@@DundG The difference is that if they think their scriptures are the word of an all powerful all knowing creator, having multiple interpretations of the text means said creator wasn't powerful or knowledgeable enough to ensure that it was written in such a way that nobody could misinterpret it is a huge hole in the claim. The story becomes indistinguishable from any other piece of fiction. This is not the case with atomic theory, the model can be validated through experiments and has predictive power in the real world whether they believe it or not
@Michael Enquist You're being disingenuous, I never made the claim that anyone believes anything, since you can clearly see an *_IF_* in front of "they believe" so no fallacy there You also just explained how my analogy is correct so thanks for that
Defining Atheism as a "Lack of Belief" is probably the biggest mistake I have seen. It is pretty obvious from people who like to actually make a positive case for our views that people do this to avoid a burden of justification. That and the definition has so many problems.
What's a better term for someone who just lacks a belief? Honest question. Linguistically it makes sense to me: theism meaning "believing in a god or gods," and the prefix a- meaning "not". There's a difference between, "I'm convinced that you're wrong and here's why," and "I am not convinced that you are right and here's why." In both cases, the 'reasons why' are justifications for the position held; however, in the former case the position held is in support of a claim, and in the latter the position held is the default (or null) position, which does not support a claim. Only a claim requires a burden of proof. Sometimes this is referred to as "hard or soft atheism," or "gnostic or agnostic atheism." I prefer anti-theist and atheist. 🤷🏼♂️ The specific terminology doesn't matter so much as the recognition that the two positions are distinct. There's also the fact that people have degrees of being convinced: a spectrum that's not captured by those two binary labels of theist and atheist. I'm not going to say that there's no hard atheists that hide in the soft position when cornered, but there is a valid position of just not knowing, a.k.a not having any belief; of withholding judgement for lack of conclusive evidence. It's a shame that both share a label. My main point is that the justifications that someone gives in support of a position of non-belief don't require a burden of proof, because they are that person's personal reasons for not believing and nothing more. It is up the the person trying to persuade them one way or the other to provide proof, and overcome that person's personal objections.
I like screwing with religious people during discussions by first defining the word "faith", admitting that it's not possible to "disprove" the existence A God, agreeing to the possibility OF a God, then telling them the only thing I have "faith" in is that no God or Gods exist.
I feel one of the biggest mistake made by some atheists is the assumption that religious people are not intelligent or are idiots and so on, Have heard people say this in the past not so much these days, other than in RUclips comments. I think we need to keep in mind that we are all humans and we're all just trying to live our lives 🙂 Good video, was very interesting 🙂
I've come to the conclusion that religious and "spiritual" people are either lazy thinkers or cowardly thinkers. They either can't think through the nonsense they were installed with in childhood or too scared to do that.
I'd somewhat agree with that. something to bare in mind is some people just genuinely aren't interested in whether said god is really whether evolution happens how the universe "begun" and so on. There is a portion of people that just don't care, A lot of very moderate religious folks will fit into that category id wager the ones that don't practice but when asked they would say I'm a [insert religion] most people are in a bubble and generally aren't exposed to different ideas through no fault of their own you can't consider a concept if you are never exposed to it.
@Frances Snowflake I didn’t claim that to be universal truth, I outlined my observations and result of reasoning. Of course there’s no rational way of extending that observation to the whole population. In the end, presented all arguments for the gods existence and their refutations, one can choose to believe in gods existence despite overwhelming evidence against it fully admitting their beliefs is unsubstantiated and more likely to be false.
About the second mistake, as you yourself put it, it only becomes a mistake if we make judgment before asking for their Own beliefs(ironically doing the same thing most theists do when confronting atheists). But if approached with care, it actually becomes a very useful tool for opening up their minds to questioning what it is they actually believe. I made good progress with my father by politely and carefully explaining aspects of his belief system which previously he hadn't fully considered or in some cases even known about.
@@anotherperspective8263 people who say things like “humans are so evil. It would be better for all the other animals if they were wiped out” are seldom the first to volunteer their lives. People who say “humans are incompetent” seldom include themselves. They think they are better than other humans.
If we apply the maxim “Don’t assume bad intent.” ...and ask the question... “Does this make the perpetrators bad people?” ....to religion, because “the individuals believe they are doing the right thing” ...we would seem compelled to apply the same degree of understanding and tolerance to Nazis, Stalinists and other proponents of genocide, whether past, present or future, simply because they may not be bad people, but because they are ignorant, and simply believe they are doing the right thing?
Yes? I don't see a contradiction here. I'm not sure if you're going for shock value by summoning the nazis, but, they were indeed humans. Misguided, definitely, some even evil, but you can't cast that evil net on everyone that has ever called themselves a nazi. Perhaps they didn't know what that ideology stands for, perhaps they did but chose to ignore it because it was helpful in their context (e.g.: your entire family is prominently nazi-supporting, you grow up not even having the chance of questioning or shaping your own ideas). Point is, the context varies from case to case, from person to person. That's the point; "nazi" is pretty much the worst term to be associated with in retrospect, but you shouldn't immediately assume bad intent. Ask them first, try to understand what they actually believe, and base your responses on that instead of their supposed beliefs. If your initial suspicion is proven right through questioning, sure, then you have a solid reason to expect and assune ill intent.
The idea of a "bad person" is kind of incoherent to the ethics of this channel and the sphere of (most) public atheism. At best, it's an extremely broad and ambiguous category. It's also kind of toxic to both public discourse and rational thought. The impulse to judge a person into a moral "good" or "bad" category doesn't really achieve anything beyond a feeling of moral supremacy. It allows you to dismiss them and it allows you to stop caring about them. It allows you to justify harm against them as "deserved". It allows you to write them off. It's also not necessary for things like criminal justice. We can punish people for crime in order to deter crime instead of for some sense of revenge or deservedness. And by focusing on deterrence and rehabilitation instead of punishment we get policy that minimizes criminals instead of maximizing revenge. Why do we need to make a judgment about which people in Nazi Germany were bad? The ideology was bad because it led to bad things. The people following said ideology did greatly evil things in its name. Those people needed to be stopped badly enough that extreme violence (war) was justified. Trials needed to be held to show the world that there are consequences to such things even if you were "just following orders". I don't really know what a "bad person" would look like. People behave as their biology and environment dictate. A psychopath that murders people for fun is a profoundly sick individual. That doesn't mean they aren't dangerous or that we should accept their proclivities. It does mean that our *ideal* solution would be either preventing psychopathy or safely accommodating such people so that they can live their lives without risk to others. Simply calling them "bad" and hating them isn't particularly useful. Another example: a relatively sane, but extremely greedy individual that has no problem hurting others for their own gain. Sure you could call them "bad", but what does that achieve? Instead examine both the possible causes of their character (why is it that this person's conscience isn't stopping them) and the things that enable them. Did they grow up in an environment with an 'every man for himself' ethos? Maybe we should discourage that kind of upbringing (in the school, home, city, etc). Are they breaking the law? Maybe we should increase the effectiveness of enforcement so that it's in people's best interest to obey it. Examining the cause of bad behaviour and finding solutions is far more useful than making simplistic moral judgements of character.
About the intention stuff, I like Noam Chomsky's position: Intention does not matter, what matters is the consequence of your actions. If intention serves as justification for anything you do then anything can be justified.
Intention does not make you excused of all consequences, but it does moderate them. Comitting a crime by accident should not carry the same sentence as committing a crime intentionally.
You can’t control the consequences of your actions, just your intentions. Consider an alcoholic father who mistreated his child. If the child, having suffered, becomes an empathetic, loving man as a consequence of his rough upbringing, does that make the case for a good father?
I probably should have given more details about what I mean when I say the intention should no matter that much. I am talking about the direct consequences of your actions. The example of an abused child that turns out to be a loving man is not a good example of good parenting because the direct consequences of abuse are that person suffering, maybe depression, tons of money spent in therapy, etc. The situation that made me reach this conclusion was Operation Infinite Reach when the US attacked the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory. I don't doubt that the intention was good (eliminate a dangerous nerve gas manufacturing plant). To this date, the "proof" wasn't conclusive. The direct consequences are the shortage of medicine because this plant produced 50% of the medicine of Sudan. This is the type of intention and consequences I am talking about. The US has the resources and capacity to analyze and arrive at the conclusion that it was a terrible idea to attack a pharmaceutical manufacturing plan with flimsy evidence of wrongdoing.
@@vladimirck He is flipping the argument. If I do something with bad intention, but it turns out well for my target, do my bad intentions not matter since the outcome wad good?
Most/many atheists are also secular humanists and these are the people many apologists address their arguments to. Very few apologists argue against the simplest definition of atheism, most attach secularist interpretations into it. I guess this is why RR used this kind of definition.
@@thotslayer9914 "In the Bullshit Department, a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman. 'Cause I gotta tell you the truth, folks. When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims: religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told." George Carlin
Well done Steven....again. Daily in my work I learn how important it is to connect the current beliefs of a person with the events and context of their past. Sounds like you are familiar with this. It is indeed remarkable how the environment one develops in, can set up the neurobiological field to limited understanding. Shaping even the physical structures/components of the brain in such a way to over or under respond to stimulation. For example we have some evidence that the amygdala may be enlarged by exposure to certain kid of experiences, including news reports. Setting up the obvious; greater sensitivity, inducing more fearful responses which in turn produces a more defensive and aggressive posture. Carry on my fellow ape.
Here is one ting I have always struggled with - respect vs. accept. To me respect is something you give to people of authority like your elders or the laws of reality where you unquestioning follow ingrained rules, where as accept is that you recognize that something is just in a certain way but you might have a way to influence it if you put your mind and effort to it. Why should I respect something I don't believe in and think is false? It's just a thought.
I think people often conflate courtesy with respect. Respect is something that is earned. To respect everyone is to essentially inflate the currency. You can’t force anyone to respect you unless perhaps it is done by fear but I would argue that respect, “earned” in this fashion, isn’t truly respect. To accept something is to be convinced of a claim by sufficient evidence.
Just word play, but I have a feeling it is a US v UK usage of the word, (respect at least). Respect is to treat others how you would like to be treated, mostly with courtesy. You can respect someone and disagree with them, and/or not like them. By the same token, you may have no respect for someone in authority or an elder, but you may be obliged to follow the rules. You don't need to respect or accept the ideas you don't believe in, just the fact the other person believes them - the same way you believe something they don't. Ask yourself how you would feel if someone came in and dismissed an idea that you held firmly and meant a lot to you...Guess what - they probably feel the same way when you do it to them. I often hear "You have to earn respect", and to me it seems to be a justification to act like an arsehole. Accept just means to recognise something and know it's there. I'm not sure why you are comparing the two. You can accept someone believes something you don't without believing it yourself.
@@Cheepchipsable I'm really not comparing the two. I'm trying to distinguish the two terms as they are sometimes used erroneously. I sometime hear someone say that I must respect their believe or religion when I can't. I can accept that they have it but not respect it. That's all...
I would add a 4th mistake: assuming that being skeptical of religion and it's claims makes you "a skeptic". I can't tell you then number of times I've heard the word "skeptic/skeptical" in videos and comments from people who clearly weren't skeptical of anything other than religion. I'd see a video expressing skepticism toward a religious claim, then I'd scroll through the comments and see an anecdote of over the top stupidity from a religious person, and it would have hundreds of likes and no one questioning if it was biased, or misremembered. I've seen "skeptics" who aren't the least bit skeptical of their political ideologies. I used to call myself a skeptic, but I kept finding more and more things I hadn't questioned and got tired of examining everything. I eventually had to stop calling myself a skeptic because I realized it wasn't really true.
Skepticism is a philosophy, not a duty to examine every idea that comes into our heads. No one has the time or the energy to examine every idea, but if you think that doubt should be the default reactions to most ideas and belief should be reserved for only extraordinary ideas with extensive proof, then you're a skeptic. Skeptics regard doubt as a form of wisdom and belief as a weakness of fools, and if you have that attitude then you're a skeptic regardless of how many foolish beliefs you find within yourself.
It is very important to remember even though we have a divided political situation, the other side isn't always wrong, and our side isn't always right. We need to call out errors in judgement on our own side even more than those of the opposition since our peers are willing to do the latter much more frequently.
Really enjoyed that, thank you My favourite line of the show. "It's about listening (to an opposing view) without assuming ill intent. That is so true. For that is how we gain true wisdom in our amazing earth journey.
Biggest mistakes I've made: 1) I have assumed honesty on their part 2) I treated them as if they knew their shit 3) I thought they wanted to be consistent Most of them don't even appear to know _what_ they believe - let alone _why_ they believe.
Loved the video! The first point was one that I love to discuss. While I don't agree with the vast majority of religious ideology, I do love the social impact that like minded groups have. Any time I have found a group (religious or no) that I can share ideas with as a community has always been good for me. And I imagine it is this way for people in general. I would be completely behind a system that could cut the theology and religious practices of a religion, but keep the community aspect. It would be a ton of work, and would certainly need a shift in views, but it would be an interesting place to go. And for the third point, I also agree! I've had a number of conversations that take place in subdued and private settings that were very productive and enlightening. My discussion partner and myself both approach the conversation with the intent to listen and learn, ask questions, and above all keep it civil. Even if a sentence or phrase appears hostile, we make sure to keep the tone as calm as possible. I wish more people were interested in such discussions.
@@lhurst9550 Can’t remember. Read it somewhere. Each person’s experience is unique, so while a group will have similar beliefs they’ll never have the exact same beliefs. It’s like “the blind men describing an elephant.” It makes religious conflicts pointless.
I'm so sorry to hear about your tragic experience in your childhood (( From the age of 6 I was under control and "care" of my grandmother from dawn till dusk, because my parents had to work hard. She was a real mental abuser. She'd take all my beloved animals from me, simply because I didn't want to be what she wanted me to be. I got pretty huge trauma, that, as I realized, I didn't share even with my doctor after 2 years of therapy! And I was too curious child, so I found out about the atrocities humans commit in the age I was not suppose to know such things. That gave me lots of nightmares and sleepless nights and thoughts about poor animals who, even if they lived free life, still didn't have painkillers and would die a horrible death. But I love my parents and my animals too much to not believe in the afterlife. All those precious souls deserve evolving further, after their biological vessels are gone.
Absolutely agree that these are just mistakes made by people - and yeah, clearly these are biggies, so it's likely that atheists are going to make them too. The last one - also known as "Hanlon's Razor" - is _almost_ always true, as it is for religion as it is business, politics, etc.
I could not tell you how many times I've had to use a variant of Hanlon's Razor in conversation. The only area I've found that I use it more than religious discussions is politics. Religious leaders will sometimes cast those with differing opinions as malicious, but politicians will do this almost to the exclusion of anything else. Ironically, when they do this, they frequently demonstrate their own malicious intent rather than their opponent's.
After looking him up, the best explanation I saw for Hanlon's Razor is that it's a reasoning tool. Compared to real reasoning, such a method seems like a dollar store crescent wrench. The guy was a hack writer, there is no other way to critique his body of work; he is most known as an author for 3 westerns. Now, all laws, which are based in real philosophy that has stood the test of time, clearly state, ignorance is never an excuse - Hanlon's Razor is clearly saying otherwise. Allowing ignorance to be used as an excuse is the epitome of the definition - it's also very lazy to those who know how to apply real reasoning; then again, I can't expect an author of 3 unknown western novels to know otherwise. Hanlon's Razor is a very dim stance that had been offered for centuries before John Hanlon butchered the past sentiment to offer a submission for a joke book. No way is he a real author or philosopher when all he is known for is a sentence that wasn't isn't even an original thought. He couldn't even come up with an original joke for a Murphy's Law joke book?
@@deductivereasoning4257 Are you trying to demonstrate the point in your own writing? At what point did anyone, at any stage, anywhere in history, claim that Hanlon was a philosopher? Are you being deliberately malicious, or merely ignorant and you're simply missing the joke? :)
@@tyranneous I'm merely responding to the poster's comment about Hanlon's Razor. It's called reading comp and staying on topic and respecting the poster that started the thread that inspired/prompted me to comment. And when someone like John Hanlon gets quoted for such a statement, what is it other than philosophy? Are you going to argue that only colleges are allowed to determine what is philosophical? It is clearly now a philosophical statement that others have accepted to the point they are defining it as some sort of reasoning. Anyway, I'm tired of looking up all these useless philosophical/psychological/whatever you want to call them statements - like the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It's crap like this that keeps the world's wheels spinning in the mud. If I can rip someone's philosophy to the point no one can defend it, it means it's useless crap since I am not a formerly trained philosopher - then again, no formal training exists because that's the best way to dumb down the masses...
@@deductivereasoning4257 You mean me? I'm the poster. I find it amusing that you're trying to explain what "reading comp" is to me, yet you've failed spectacularly to actually achieve it. Hanlon's Razor was so named because he was the guy who submitted it as a joke. That's why it's not a "philosophy" - it's not a true rule in any way, which is why the poster (y'know, me) said it was _almost_ always true. Because it's NOT a rule, law, method of logical reasoning, or anything like that. Again, I don't think you mean any of this maliciously. I just think that through ignorance - perhaps in the sphere of humour - you just don't get the joke.
1. You don't need religion to work out that community is a positive thing and most communities around had worked this out long before religion. 2. One commentary I hear a lot from atheists about theists is that theists don't actually follow the doctrines of their religion...not sure why this is even in the list. 3. Do atheists assume malice? This seems like an assumption made by theists about atheists, not the other way around.
I would say I disagree with you. Sure you don't need religion to form a community but religion certainly helps. In Western countries those without religious affiliation are more likely to be lonely and suffer from depression (I need to check the exact numbers on that, but as far as I remember it is the case). I'd go as far to say that you can't have a society without religion, and that society would disintegrate if too many people became atheists. Religion is an indispensible source of social cohesion. Of course, multiple religions together tend to damage social cohesion. But a single faith having a monopoly does aid in providing people with community to an extent that almost nothing does.
🤔 Indeed. Do I detect In Steven’s approach a soupçon of apologetics defending atheism? By ‘defining’ atheism into near invisibility he leaves open a space for theists to enter, as with Capturing Christianity and many others. I, on the other hand, stand firm as a determined atheist without any concern for the prattling of theists of any stripe. Non sense is just that, however it is dressed up in linguistic verbiage. Hypocrisy in any human circumstances remains just that, as with theists who profess adherence to a faith on high days and holi (holy) days but lapse from them in between. As for malice, that is to be considered by results. I do not act from malice, as I see it as a vile and inhumane emotion. However, much malicious harm has been committed by theists against entire peoples on the basis f their being ‘alt-religionists’ and thus less than worthy of respect. Consider the current situation in Myanmar between militant Buddhists and Rohingya people. What theism and theists do is to set up exclusive sects that place themselves above the Others of society. Consider the treatment of apostates as a case in point. No, Steven, I am not going to amend my stance as an atheist just because deluded religionists find atheism a serious challenge to their nonsense.
@@sirmeowthelibrarycat You make it seem like people treating other people poorly is solely because religion divides us. Pre civil rights era black people were mostly Christian, as were the white supremacists. Division between human populations will always exist. Regardless of religion. Chimpanzees haven't been proved to have belief in God, but they brutalize chimpanzees of other tribes. Any difference between people will always result in division, and difference will always exist.
I found this very useful. I’ve gone into different comment sections under religious videos and made statements that were perhaps underpinned by a notion of bad intent, rather than focusing on the offending aspect of the religion (often anti-LGBTQ bias). This video has made me rethink my M.O. and the purpose of my commenting in the first place. Am I simply trolling?
@Michael Enquist "there are lots of resources on how to set up such an interaction and there are many organizations, formal and informal, that facilitate such discussions" Please elaborate on that !
My siblings and I haven't had children (for various reasons) although not caused by anti-natalism. However, I can understand why people hold anti-natal ideas. The world is overpopulated and getting to the limits of its carrying capacity. Over the next two centuries the population here on Earth needs to fall to no more than a billion people.
Really sorry to hear about your childhood dude. That's awful. You seem to have come out of it as a wonderful human making a superb and important contribution to humanity. I applaud you.
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.” ― Steven Weinberg
I think a big and common mistake atheists make is to waste too much time and attention on this subject. Personally, I think you've beaten this dead horse long enough and should turn your attention to other things. In particular the invitation from the Nations of Sanity project to discuss and debate their assertions regarding morality, law and the concept of rights and freedom should be seriously considered. But any time you venture into philosophical territory or touch other subjects I think your content is more interesting than the religion vs atheism thing. I may be in a minority on this as talking about atheism has proven the most popular choice in this recent poll (hence this video) but my opinion, for what it's worth, is that it would be more interesting to see you take on these moral claims.
Nicely done. Thoughts on each item - 1. Unfortunately, religion was once the best explanation for the universe that humans had at the time in their quest for meaning. Simply dismissing anyone's spiritual beliefs will not help in swaying their opinion. 2. "Theistic Individuality" is a real thing, much like bio-individuality. Bottom line: No two people have the exact same beliefs and we need to remember that. 3. Never forget that they are our fellow apes and are trying their best to do what they think is right. Ignorance is not evil. I struggle at times to keep my cool because I am keenly aware of all the harm religion has caused throughout history, but I must remember that the person I am speaking to hasn't burnt any witches or sat with the Spanish Inquisition. Usually, they are someone who was indoctrinated from a young age (as was I...) and raised with a specific spiritual mindset. It helps me to remind me that they are human... like me.
Completely disagree with number 1. Just because something had a non-religious origin that was co-opted, or because a practice also coincidentally serves a beneficial purpose does not mean that the practice is not bullshit. Wasn't it Douglas Adams who talked about the religion of people who jumped because far back in history their ancestors used to jump over snakes. Yes, the origin may have been valid, but once you move from function to mere symbolism, it becomes ridiculous.
Great vid. In some cases is really difficult to say if what is the intent of something at all. I surely made that mistake many times, but usually I try not to say anything about someone's intent, rather what it could be, or what evidence there is for anything and have them explain themselves. If bad intent or something similar is in course the person will possibly show by the way they behave and respond. Ultimately we can never say what the intentions of someone is anyways and the truth of a matter rarely changes by someone's intent.
@Frances Snowflake languages are constantly evolving and what will be acceptable - or even the norm - in the future is not necessarily correct right now.
Hey seriously guys, I need someone to help me from going crazy. I came up with a couple arguments against the bible and attributes of god contradictions. I have been using the most/maximal just and most/maximally merciful mainly and I just cannot get any theist to answer the 4 questions at the bottom about the example above it. I ask the question why dont you answer the 4 questions after their response. Then say its really telling if you just cant answer those 4 questions you know or are you trying to hide something? I am REALLY trying to get them to answer those questions but after probably 150 responses now I still cannot do it. Is there something wrong in my argument or is it hard to understand? I cant answer that question myself and so far they cant seem to understand my argument even though I have tried to make it as clear as I can. PLEASE HELP LOL. Just let me know if this is wrong or if you got any ideas on how I could improve it. How can allah/god be most/maximally just and most/maximally merciful at the same time when by definition of most, just and mercy, make that as impossible as a married bachelor? I will now give the full argument.
premise 1 in order for one to be defined as most merciful, they must never punish any wrongdoings and always forgive them. If they even punish one person, they lose the title of most merciful as the possibility of someone else never punishing one person would take that title away. premise 2 In order for one to be defined as most just, they must always punish any wrongdoings. If they do not punish even one wrongdoer, the possibility of someone who punishes every wrong doing would take that away. premise 3 One cannot be most merciful and most just at the same time as they cannot punish every wrongdoer and forgive without punishment every wrongdoer. Its the same as a married bachelor is not possible by definition.
conclusion God cannot be most just and most merciful at the same time. Now I will give an example. There are 4 judges and 10 guilty criminals. Judge #1 orders punishment for all 10 criminals and does not forgive without punishment a single one. Judge #2 forgives without punishment all 10 criminals. Judge #3 forgives without punishment 9 of them and punishes 1 of them. Judge #4 punishes 9 of them and forgives without punishment 1 of them. Which judge is the most just? Which judge is the most merciful? Is judge #3 either most merciful or most just? Is judge #4 most merciful or most just?
Your example is flawed. There isn't enough information given to know about the circumstances. You should state "10 guilty criminals who committed the same crime". Next, you need to describe the reasons why these 10 people committed the crime. Finally, you need to explain why judges 3 and 4 didn't punish the ones who were found guilty. The example works as it's a nuanced question and will cause people to actually think about their answers.
@@aralornwolf3140"Your example is flawed. There isn't enough information given to know about the circumstances. You should state "10 guilty criminals who committed the same crime". I dont see why any of that information is needed once I say 10 guilty criminals. But if you want it ok. They were all caught red handed with tons of evidence pointing towards them for stealing. Why do you see not having the information about case and why these people were guilty and what they were guilty of as a flaw in my example? I cannot just say these were guilty people and talk about the punishment or non punishment contradiction my argument is about?
That isn't what "most" means. If I eat the "most" cake, how much cake do I have to eat? I only have to eat sufficient so that I have eaten more than the next person. If I've got the most money, I only have to have a penny more than the next richest person. Also, your premise 3 and conclusion are tautologous. You don't need it. All you've done is reiterate your reasoning. Just state the conclusion. But fix "most" first or it won't follow anyway. And remember that in the Abrahamic faiths, all sinners have a chance to enter Paradise, and what could be more merciful than that?
@@RustyWalker "That isn't what "most" means. " greatest in amount, quantity, or degree. the greatest amount or quantity. forming the superlative of adjectives and adverbs, especially those of more than one syllable. to the greatest extent. Those are the definitions of most. The reason I say most is because that is the word the quran uses. I say maximally to christians as some of them say god is maximally good. What do you think it means when the quran says allah the most merciful or allah the most just? "If I eat the "most" cake, how much cake do I have to eat?" The most cake from everyone at a party? The most cake of anyone alive? the most cake of anyone ever? I would have to know not only how much cake you ate, but of the others as well to be able to answer that question. In order to show you ate the greatest amount or quantity, we have to compare it to something. Are you saying a quran or theist is just saying most/maximally as in more then anyone else? I mean maybe some, but over 140 responses is does not seem like many take it that way. When william lane craige talks about those kind of attributes of god, its not just more then anyone else, its not even possible for anything to be more, maximally. "Also, your premise 3 and conclusion are tautologous. You don't need it. All you've done is reiterate your reasoning. Just state the conclusion." Yep, that is true. I think I am just trying so hard to give understanding of the idea. They often go onto some tangent that does not apply like they did not understand. Like saying it takes away free will, got that one a few times. I might try that out.
The fact that religion might result in some interesting ideas, or socially powerful rituals doesn't stop it from being nonsense. Observing a few isolated effects or ideas coming from religious beliefs that are often in of themselves not exclusively religious, does nothing to detract from the fact that at the heart of that religion is often a claim about the universe that is either unfalsafable or simply incoherent with reality. And therefore nonsense. As others pointed out, I think it is wrong to allow charitable inroads to belief systems that offer very little (if anything) in terms of ideas that can't be reach through secular means, but which are full of nonsensical, immoral and occasional harmful tenet. I think you are over-thinking here and should remember what Bill Hicks once said: "It's a piece of shit - walk away."
Don’t know why no one on RUclips is able to spell “tenet”. Is it autocorrect or something? Generally, it is muddled up with “tenant”. But, tenants are something very different that you should avoid having, if possible.
@@petyrbaelish1216 No they aren't. They are carefully programmed applications that create a fictional environment for users to interact with and make no claim to be "how the real world works." Being fictional isn't nonsense. Making a demonstrably false claim is.
is one of them 'commenting before watching the whole video'? I can't wait to find out.
I see what you did there lol. 🤓
so meta!
This
Well? Was it? I haven't watched the video yet, but I want to know.
The suspense is killing me!
My number one would be "Understanding that each and every individual is able to make the logical errors, have misconceptions, wrong believes and believes in general". The attitude of us 'logical, scientific, skeptical atheists' vs 'irrational, delusional, non-scientific believers' can be found strongly in atheist communities. This is pure group bias and collective us-vs-them thinking. As said, in the video as well, each human is different and atheist's don't escape the traps of mind without introspection of thy self.
Very true and very important. I wish more of us realised that.
Tribalism runs deep in our dna. Sometimes I wish there were a magic set of words I could use to help people understand we are slaves to our biology.
@@josiahz21 I think the problem goes deeper then tribalism. The brain processes information and when it does this it generalizes, deletes, changes information to match internal world representation. Its how our subjective word is constructed.
If that was the only concern instead of their being measurable differences between claims then I would agree with you, but that is not the case so I can not agree which in itself is an excellent representation of why folk disagree.
Or...
"Do not assume that because a person has deconverted from a religion for logical, rational reasons, that they are now a logical, rational person, especially when looking in a mirror."
I’m an atheist & a photographer too, I love capturing religious festivals.
I always bring my camera to the zoo as well!
@@stylis666 you a$$h0le 😂😂😂 why didn’t I come up with this ?
The festivals where you capture religious people in a corral and boo them? I love them too!
@@stylis666 Naked animals without model release are preferable over naked human in the river Ganges.
Omggggg same
A friend of mine was a deep religious Person. So deep that he became a sexton. But he was gay and felt dirty, bad and other negatives. At the age of 30 he ended in a psychiatry because he wanted to end his life, because he felt as a gods mistake. A few years later, still torn apart, he ended his life in front of a train. THIS is what religion does to "others". Pls excuse my bad english, I write this from a little town in germany.
Your little town in Germany must have excelent English teachers. I'm really sorry for your friend, that's incredibly sad.
Your English is great. And that's a really sad story. It's remarkable to see that these obviously-ridiculous schools of thought (i.e. religions) are taken so seriously even in today's society.
Thats absurd to blame religion overmental illness, a bad home life or the other numerous and way more pressing variables. Even that religion shit starts with bad parents doing bad teaching. Religion didn't make a child just kill himself because he felt u perfect. Thats not even congruent with any religious teaching anywhere in the world
@@psyience3213 What the fuck are you talking about?! Being homosexual is clearly condemned in all Abrahamic religions; and therefore that person's religion was one of the causes that contributed most to his depression, and by extension his suicide, obviously.
@@psyience3213 while it is true that we won't know what may have happened to this person if they weren't indoctrinated into a religion, anyone who has spent time in Christian spaces knows the depth of shame and self loathing the church tries to instill. Being gay is a big 'indiscretion ', at least according to the bible, and we can infer that a big part of this man's struggle was at very least made worse by an unforgiving attitude about an immutable characteristic. So we maybe can't blame it all on religion, but we can sure say religion made the situation worse.
Really sorry to hear about the messed up stuff that happened in your childhood. I can relate in some ways. Sounds really tough
I'd have to agree.
"I needed to understand how the world works so I could survive it." ❤️
Religion won't do it like direct experience.
Apparently, you need to act like them if everybody the same in town
I was raised in a very loving and devout Christian family, but left the church at the age of fourteen. My parent needless to say weren't very happy with my decision, but understanding. See I was taught to always ask why, and be a critical thinker. So my parents had no one to blame but themselves. I saw a double standard in their belief system. One that was applied to their belief, and another for all the rest. I could only assume that is was a form of self delusion. No doubt beliefs are held for the placebo effect, and serve a purpose. My recognition doesn't change this. It only points it out.
I saw the double standard/special pleading before I even knew either of those were things. I didnt know others DIDN'T see them! Consequently, I didnt realize anyone sincerely believed their religion. I thought it was like a favorite color: you HAD to have one, but it didnt matter which one you picked, because it didnt matter AT ALL.
@Nil Hisit Actually they were from the south. My father was pathologist in the military , . My mom was a house wife that never learned to drive with six kids. We traveled a lot and were exposed to many different cultures. I think the only time my father ever spanked me was for calling a man a niger when I was five years old. He was taken me to get my first hair cut in Hot springs Arkansas. We were walking down the side walk when I saw a black man walking on the other side. My father pulling me into alley, and spanked me. He said don't you ever call a man a niger. You don't know that man. My father although from a very racist place had been raised by a black woman, and had picked cotton from the age of seven until he joined the military. He had only finished the sixth grade. He said that he had learned to read from a sears, and roebuck. My mother on the other hand had never gotten over her racism. I married a women from Thailand my father accepted her, but my mother never did. Like I said they were very devout, but had had life expectances that made them who they were. I wouldn't change a thing. If we all believed the same things the world .would be a awful boring place.
@@billskinner7670 Yes, we all hold unfounded beliefs. The difference is the recognition that they are unfounded. For example I believe life exist throughout the universe. I have no direct evidence to support this belief, other then that would make us the exception.
@@comeasyouare4545 That really is the important thing to understand.. It is ok to believe something as long as it is clear that you are just basically guessing or assuming.. But it is a problem when people "believe" that they know... Any Christian will claim that they know that Jesus died for their sins when they truly know that they do not... That is why they all have such difficulties with their own beliefs... They are constantly seeking better understanding because they don't understand what belief is... But then they all just hear that belief is the only way and so they just keep hanging on...
@@anotherperspective8263 I understand this. They take a belief as fact, because it is presented that way. I'm never comfortable with what I believe, because it's a lazy reality.
1:02 LMAO. Slogans are bad, but the things that he’s most known for are the ‘btw Christianity is true’, and ‘questions are not arguments’ lines. The irony is incredible.
spot on mate.
Slogans are bad
Slogans are bad.
Slogans are bad!
Wait a minute...🤔
*2nd attempt to post because yootoob thinks its cool to violate basic human rights via censorship. Cant wait for Congress to shut this egregious practice down.
@@skunk12
or- your initial commnet was so full of repetition it seemed to the untrained computer eye that you were maybe a bot and in fact this isn't an example of censorship, but just a glitch in the system. Can you remember what one of the key points in htisvideo was? something about malice....
@@bengreen171 it IS censorship.
i didnt delete the comment nor did i give anyone permission to delete it.
Trained or untrained eyes notwithstanding, someone/something else deleted it without my consent. Thats censorship.
We know full-well that youtube deletes comments.
The use of repetition does not give anyone else permission to remove someone's comment. Many songs use repetition in their chorus should we erase those songs?
My point stands.
@@skunk12 oh no there is definitely some shadow working for censoring my thought! Come on mate, don't be silly with this censorship thing 🌷🌷
My only objection to the first ''mistake'' made by atheists is that while I and many others have no problem admitting religion's psychological benefits on some respects, once you give ground on the ''religion is nonsense'' point, you leave the door wide open for Peterson-style apologists to come in and advocate for accepting religion's truth claims and for believing exceptional claims without evidence on a purely utilitarian basis, throwing both reason and truth out the window.
That's the pinacle of moral cowardice and intellectual dishonesty, so it's not so much religion's harmful effects that make me an antitheist, it's mostly religion's untruths that make me one.
Hearing your own perspective was very interesting anyway, Mr Woodford.
But it's not like we can actually accept truth claims just because they are useful, at least, I surely can't. For example, it's handy to think of all guns as loaded, but I can't actually *believe* that all guns are loaded, because I don't control my beliefs
Edit spelling
@Kevin Jackson Believing is something one decides to do. You see the evidence and decide it is either sufficient or insufficient to believe the related claim. Don't confuse your implied inability to consciously decide your beliefs with some kind of universal truth that applies to all humans.
But people like Peterson are what religions need; they cannot jump straight to "no God"; because they genuinely believe that without God they will go on a recreational murder spree. They need to take the journey one step at a time.
First it is "accepting as true for utility", then they can consider "utility for the sake of utility" and maybe then "no God" isn't so scary.
@@jayjeckel You're *literally* 100% wrong.
@@zacheryeckard3051 Right back at ya.
“Those people who treat politics and morality separately will never understand either of them” -J. J. Rousseau
Cool but knowing isn't the same as condemning it. There's also deep correlation between crime and biology, rapes happen because of high sexual drives or something. We might understand it, but need not succumb to our handicaps
@@pursuitsoflife.6119 Rape almost never has anything to do with sexual drive. There's two common drive related causes of rape. In the case of soldiers it's two fold, the intoxicating effect of victory coupled with the driving force to keep winning. That's why it's most common after hard fought battles, where winning came down to which side refused to stop.
The second, what we'll call civilian rape, is a driving need to dominate and control. This can be tenuously linked to sex, but sex drive is not the perpetrating factor. Usually, however, sex is only the means, and has little or nothing to do with the objective.
That's a generalisation, of course, there are other driving forces in some cases and sometimes that may be sex drive, but it's not very common.
@@jakeand9020 that's an interesting theory and I can believe the military side as the rapes can very well be associated with other atrocities like murder and torture of civilians regardless of their sex.
However, the civilian rape doesn't fit into this. If it were only about control without any sexual side, there should be something equivalent towards the people of your own sex as well as women on men (the reason there is no need for the latter in military is that there used to be no women soldiers). But as far as I know nothing equivalent of rape in terms of control exists at least not in adult world (kids bullying may be related to this).
@@srelma You're looking at it from the perspective of the rapist.
Jake is describing it from the perspective of the victim at least.
If you ask a rapist why they raped someone, sure you can get a variety of answers.
If you ask their victim why they felt violated, you'll likely get some variation on, lost control or being dominated by someone.
What I wanna know, is who tf cares what the rapist thinks? If you think you're big-brain that can figure out one of the scourges of humanity that has plagued us for 100s of thousands of years, go right ahead and try to sort that out. But let me be the first to express my skepticism that you suddenly figured out what the problem is.
@@norezenable why do I wanna know what rapist thinks? Because it's human behaviour ubiquitous everywhere in the world. Knowing how human mind works has of course pure value in terms of increasing our knowledge but it also helps us to get rid of this scourge of human society.
The better we understand how the human mind works, the better we can deal with the negative sides of it and minimize the adverse effects to the society.
Of course the other option is just put head in the sand and just say that they are inherently "bad' or "evil" people and that's just that. That would be very American solution. That's the approach that has filled the US prisons but hasn't really lead to lower crime rates than in other developed world.
I wholeheartedly sympathize with the life experiences that led you towards atheism as I myself have followed a similar path. Having had a difficult childhood with an alcoholic father who would scream at our mother almost every other night, frequently slap us for no valid reason, and even, I later learned, sexually abused my little brother, I spent many nights praying to God, asking, begging him to help us be a happy family. On one of the worst nights of screaming, crying and praying, my father committed suicide, three days before my 12th birthday. And thus began my journey towards rationally questioning the catholic faith I was raised in, and every other supernatural belief after that, and I have become an active atheist. Even as I admit that people have the right to their supernatural blanket to help give meaning to their lives, I can never accept any pain imposed upon anybody in the name of any belief system. In short, my main philosophy is simple: try to be happy, and try to make sure other fellow humans can do the same. Or, if the second proposition is too much of an effort, to put it bluntly: Try to be happy, and try not to be an a**hole. Too often religions hinder the establishment of a peaceful existence for all humans on earth. To often division and oppression are validated by the religious. I truly think, all things considered, from here on out, we would better off without them. Not to be completely erased in a cultural and historical sense. I am too much a lover of history and mythologies to suggest such a thing. I think there is much to learn when studying our past. And I love Christmas and other holidays as a time of gathering for friends and family. But the misguided influence of religions on political and social issues should be neutralized.
As a fellow atheist, I commend your transformation about religious beliefs into a more compassionate sociological perspective. From knowledge to wisdom. Keep up the great work my friend.
As a atheist I see, and acknowledge my Ignorance. Confucius: "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”
Wasn't that Rumsfeld?
@@alasdairniven6578 Nope!. I think he was all about unknown knowns. “There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don't know.”
@@comeasyouare4545 true.
@@stereoheart.806 I see you're a gamer. That explains your comment.
@@comeasyouare4545 great
Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. However, any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
Mr. RR, love your videos from india. I have a request. Please make some videos on eastern and indian religions, philosophy of karma, reincarnation and how to refute / support such claims. Something on indian Gurus. Cycle of birth and rebirth, circular origin of universe with no beginning and no end etc. .. India's youtube population is huge so you get more subs also. Anyways this is a humble request towards diversification of content.
I agree. I would like him to touch eastern religious ideas too.
What a great idea 💡
A lot of eastern religions make a case for Atheism, pantheism, logic and rationality in their very own sacred texts. I consider myself a spiritual Hindu Atheist which annoys a lot of atheists and hindus.
@@tnmygrwl What exactly spiritual hindu atheist means ??
@Nihal Actually hinduism already have a philosophy that is "nastik nirishwarwad " which is atheism . I dont believe in gods but Iam still a hindu ( Not just geographically but culturally too ) . Are there irrational beliefs ? Yes . But I dont think anyone is forced to believe that . And the fraud gurus are definitely a problem . We need to tackle that and there is no doubt. But I think most hindus are inherently atheist . For most of the hindus religion is just festivals .
The last one is particularly relevant these days. People on both sides of lots of arguments just can't seem to be able to stop themselves at 'the person I disagree with is mistaken'. They always seem to be very very quick to accuse others of being toxic, dangerous, dishonest and grifters.
It easier to use ad-homonmy attacks to detract from someone that is proving your point moot and frankly wrong.
All the debates I have seen though are an atheist, asking for evidence and a bit of explanation on why theist play pick and mix with the holy scriptures. They never get an answer, just a lot of distraction. It’s not therefore disingenuous to call a person who is avoiding answering a question honestly, dishonest.
Accusing someone of being a grifter isn't as tricky cause you can always see whether the person spreads hateful ideas for free or whether there's a "please also give me your money for keeping doing that" pleading.
@@maksimbolonkin Does being a defined as a grifter depend on your ideas being 'hateful'? My guess is very few people would agree that their ideas are hateful. Most people think they're genuinely doing the right thing. My understanding of the term grifter is that it implies a certain level of them knowing what they're saying is incorrect/wrong, but saying it for money. That's very hard to prove - saying 'hateful' things and asking people to subscribe to your patreon doesn't demonstrate that.
@@col.hertford9855 My guess is that the theist doesn't believe for a second they're just giving distraction. They probably think they're answering the question well. Especially well established apologists who do debates. Now, that doesn't mean their answer actually is good, or that they're correct - but bad answers don't equal dishonesty. I have seen the kind of thing you mean though, sometimes people do seem to really squirm and wriggle with certain questions. I can't prove that they're not being dishonest, it's just much more likely that they're sincere, even if they're wrong. Generally, with dishonesty, I'm looking for a conscious willingness to deceive. That's much rarer than most people like to think of their intellectual/spiritual/political adversaries.
"Never underestimate human fallibility"
But this human sentence right here isn't even human.
And gullibility
I had started havind doubts about islam last years' ramadan and came to the conclusion that islam was most likely false before this ramadan.
And consequently , I felt the sociological effect of ramadan in all its glory this time and finally understood why religions succeeded.
As my culture doesn't really treat atheists well , all I could do was pretend until financial independency. Consequently , I had to fast during ramadan , but it wasn't that hard considering I did it all those years until today. I can say for sure that the friends I made in college sharing a common iftar will stay for life. Religion is utter nonsense from a factual scientific perspective but from a sociological persepective , it has some really powerful cohesive mechanisms . I would also add that the prayer led in congregation 5 times a day also acts as a cohesive element for muslims.
yay, a fellow murtad
Religion has and will always be used to control the mentally weak and feeble. No matter it's form.
In my understanding religion is more about this social bonding than about the mythology. I grew up in a Catholic majority environment, and people around me have different levels of understanding the mysteries of religion, and you could even find whole disbelief, people who don't trust the religious authorities or doctrines, etc. But they would still bond through religious practices like mass, or Christmas, or just a sense of we vs them (where them were Protestants, or communists, or whatever).
That's why I'm more in line with Alain Debottom than those of hardcore Atheist (Anti-theist),....well, dont get me wrong, the reasoning of the Four horsemen are certainly topnotch. But they often missed this point that religion arises out of the neccesity in terms of evolutionary perspective. As bad as they are,, they still provide the cohesive funtion that makes the society functional in the first place.
As Alain often said, we should throw all the non sensical stuff in religion. But we must not throw the parts the make sense.
Ironically it kind of seperates from the rest of the world as well. Probably the reason why they think the world will be pieceful if everyone followed Islam. Also I think this religious nepotism is why most people don't like muslims in mixed populations like in India. But then again this can be said about just all religious groups. Although on a personal note muslims do take it to the next level.
"btw, christianity is true"
~christian
only to you and your religion.
@@gordonlynn8300 Over 2 billion Christians of faith, over 1.5 billion Muslims of faith and over 1.0 billion Hindus of faith. They must all be right. Seems logical to me. Faith must be better than reasonable proof.
@@jimwallington437 indeed,.you dont need a proof if you have a faith
I laughed out loud so much at this
@@pepejulianonziema69 You are saying that I need no proof that religious people are delusional. I just need faith?
5:11 “Even from the age of nine, I found this answer as unfalsifiable as unsatisfactory.” Just like Hitchens’ story about his teacher saying that it’s great of God to make nature so aesthetically pleasing to the human eye.
PLEASE do Karma, the evil of Indian religion. I'm from a Hindu background, and its quite frustrating to see Western atheists completely ignore the issues in the third largest religion in the world.
Probably because the majority of us don't know much about it
Do you know RPGs (role playing games)? My perspective on Karma: the character I'm playing now is punished for the things the (different) character I played last year did. Even if it was true, it would still be a bad system, because the punishment would be ineffective, too slow for the person to learn anything!
Edit: If anyone is still reading here, let me give a more mainstream, SLIGHTLY less nerdy explanation/example.
In 2003, Ben Affleck played Daredevil. In 2016, Ben Affleck played Batman. To my perspective, Karma is Batman being punished, or rewarded, for what Daredevil did. Batman can't learn, from the consequences of his actions, because they weren't HIS actions; they were Daredevil's. Batman doesn't even know what the actions were! One could say Ben Affleck learned. But I say, the time delay, hundreds of years for we "actual human souls", dilutes the lesson to the point of un-learnability. Also, we don't experience life as Ben Affleck, we experience it as Batman.
How are Atheists ignoring the Hindu? You folks worship gods I'm convinced do not exist. What more is there to know?
Hindu religion is not very relevant for Western atheists, because they mostly come from a christian or a secular background.
@@MadNotAngry Reincarnation and karma. Lots of atheists who don't believe in any of the Gods believe this too.
Just saying "it's true" doesn't make it any true than accepting absurdity just because someone said so.
Same goes for saying it's not.
@@frequencyoftruth2303 well one claim is supernatural which is very very ....unlikely.
@@frequencyoftruth2303 so you acknowledge Stephen is trying to make a scientific truth without actually providing any scientific evidence, which is simply WRONG and hippocratic to do so?
@@gordonlynn8300 That depends on what you know allot has been hidden from us this is a fact.
I live in the UK (Southwest) and my experience is much different, I barely ever encounter any seriously religious people. In School we were taught about it a lot, but even though they never explicitly state whether or not the concepts are true (which had me accepting/fearing hell for a brief stint, until I told a relative about it and they laughed at me), I never knew of a single child that was admittedly religious, though it's possible they kept it to themselves - which was probably wise as I'm certain ridicule would have imminently and persistently followed. I semi-frequently work in many churches too, there are almost exclusively old people that visit for services, if there is any young person at all it is because Nan or Grandad is babysitting. These same people that turn up for the service seem very passive in their religiosity, never mentioning it themselves in our (admittedly brief) interactions.
Some of the only religious people I do know are actually an off-branch of my own close family who are Jehovah's witnesses, but they are pretty much "condemned" from the rest of the family. Not _because_ they are Jehovah's witnesses, moreso that notions like not seeking medical professionals for a medical issue (particularly of children) is seen by other family members as morally reprehensible and just strange.
Interesting that someone in the UK has a different experience I had assumed it was scarce all over.
JW in this form is child abuse imo. They are some of the worst stories I’ve ever heard. Here in the states there is a couple who were responsible for three of their children’s death before they went to jail.
@@josiahz21 it absolutely is
@@josiahz21 ohwow, I just re-read your comment again, and I realize I didn’t even find the right news story! I found a different triple murder-suicide of an entire family due to JW shunning. Nobody went to jail because no one survived. There’s evidently too much of this going on. 😔
@@Emiliapocalypse a sucker is born every minute, but thankfully the internet is making it harder for religions like this to spread.
In Spain we supposedly are very religious... but that's not what i see every day. People go through the motions, celebrate the festivities, baptizes the children, but after every event no word on god or religion is ever spoken. If you question somebody about his/her beliefs, the most probable answer is 'i don't know', followed by 'maybe there is something'. People just don't think about theology, but surely they love their traditions, moreso if they imply socialising, eating and drinking a lot.
Thank you so much for this video, Stephen. Your compassion continues to be an inspiration for me. This video was right on point with some things I've been thinking lately in my own life, and brought up a few other things for me to consider as well. I'll have to go through and watch the video a second time to let them sink in.
I lost my faith last year and your channel was one of the first sceptic channels I came across in my search for the truth. You made me feel validated in questioning my faith and ultimately giving up on it. So thank you. People like you bring so much hope to people like me, in their darkest moments. And it wouldn't be possible without your compassionate, steel manning, approach to theists' arguments. Before your videos I had never heard anyone argue against someone's point of view by first making the opposing argument as strong as possible. It's obvious to me now that this is the only fair and honest way of making a real argument, but you were the first person I'd ever seen do it and I was and still am deeply impressed.
So from the bottom of my heart, Stephen, thank you. Thank you so much.
As a theist am sick of religious people condemning atheist. Likewise, I am tired of the mockery in my deep profound belief.
Please don't misunderstand my intent, but kids who get mocked for still believing in Santa Claus, the monster under the bed, etc., probably get sick of it, too.
@@YY4Me133 albeit neither monsters nor Santa Clause ever inspire, embolden or sway anyone to write, paint, build, erect, sculpt...or kill. Maybe they have, what do I know.
I’ve been an atheist since a very young age so it’s difficult to actually understand religion and the mentality that drives it as I have never got it, and thus I struggle immensely to understand theists (and yes I had religious education and had to attend church as a child, so I’m not uneducated in the ways of god, i just don’t find it plausible in the slightest). I’m really enjoying your content and that of other the respectful skeptics, it’s really helping me be more respectful when I watch debates, and think before I discount opinions out of hand. Keep up the good work!
My experience was similar to yours. It was all so OBVIOUSLY not true that I didnt realize ANYONE sincerely believed ANY of it!
My only religious education is one year of the most secular Sunday school possible. As a teen I thought about whether religion was true, and came to the conclusion it wasn’t. I couldn’t feel the presence of anything immaterial, like believers say they do, as hard as I tried to.
If God decided to appear it would end the debate and spoil the fun.
I deconverted a couple years ago, but I find myself longing for the sociological aspects of my faith more than anything else. That might have as much to do with 15 months of social distancing as anything else. Last Sunday I attended a Pentecostal religious service because I missed the experience. The doctrine is bullshit, but the experience of singing with fellow apes to an anthropomorphic projection of our highest values is not. I probably won't be doing this regularly, but I really enjoyed it last weekend.
You got me on the second one Steven haha. Thank you very much for making the video as I know better now.
Last time I was this early, Ayesha wasn't even married to Muhammad (and that's saying a lot)
Excellent presentation! Well thought out, well said! I specifically like #3, we all often start out any discordant intercourse with an aggressive/defensive posture, but an open mind has room to grow. Building good relationships despite differences, is far superior to the alternative.
I have a similar story and thankfully have no hard feelings towards my parents. There is a part that cannot be erased, but it can be accepted. It's even easier with the idea of lack of free will. They were also victims of their own parents in everlasting circle of religious indoctrination. I'm from Poland, we are freaks in that regard. Like Americans, but poor and more depressed, with Polish pope whom pushed our people even more into their delusions. Stories like yours helps many to withstand their life problems, because hope, and will to fight the flow is hard to find. Alcohol and religion are crippling whole nation and everyone holds you back. Don't give up fellow apes.
aww
If there is no free will and your parents were victims and then made you a victim, then why aren't you doing what they did?..
@KT YB How could lack of free will help with anything?.. If you don't have free will then you have no choice or control of how you process trama...
@KT YB Literally, lack of free will can not possibly help anything... There is only one option so help is nonexistent...
@KT YB The parent comment was for the original poster.... But now you have me boggled... How could it be helpful to you, if help is nonexistent?..
Thank you for sharing a little bit about your youth, I had a slightly parallel situation, the alcoholic mother we have in common, the rest struck a cord more on your thought process as a child. Though my parents were Christians, as me n my sister got older, they never forced it, and my dad encouraged us to find our own paths, and just to be good people. I've had anxiety disorder most of my life, eventually learning how to live with it, but as a child I had no idea, and a little side dish of OCD thrown in made me constantly wonder what was wrong with me.
I too went to a Catholic grade school, nuns instead of priests, I often convinced myself that anytime things went wrong in my life it was my doing, maybe because I didn't pray hard enough, or do enough good deeds. It often revolved around my mother, (imagine that) and if she was going to be drunk or sober when I got home from school, usually a 50/50 shot. When sober, I was relieved, for one, that meant she was the mom that was caring, loving and almost normal, and I said my prayers or whatever correctly the day before. If drunk, not only did I have to walk on eggshells until bedtime, I would scour my brain wondering what I did wrong to piss god off.
The OCD played into it often, mostly at bedtime prayers, feeling like I wasn't kneeling correctly, or hands were interlaced improperly, forcing myself to repeat the whole process. Some nights it'd be close to 45min before it was acceptable enough to finally go to sleep. That's why I made a mix of the first and third mistake you covered, as I got older and found my own path. I was so angry a myth, a lore, carried through hundreds and hundreds of generations, is implanted in the minds of children so young, and told that there is nothing more true than that belief. I couldn't imagine them not realizing the havoc created in a developing brain. As I got older and a little wiser, I accepted it was done to them too, and hard to blame them, even more difficult to break that chain, but mostly I realized that carrying that anger was more taxing on my psyche than the actual ordeal, and if I didn't shed it and leave it behind, it was going to devour me. Ok, this ape has rambled on too long. Thanks for another great video!!
"Ascribing malice when ignorance is suffice"
Shouldn't it be, either,
_Ascribing malice when ignorance_ -is- will _suffice,_
Or _Ascribing malice when ignorance is sufficient?_
maybe the is was meant to be a does
How about..... ""Don't ascribe to religious doctrine what is inherent in human nature"?.....'>......
it was being meta, and stylistically fun
Enlightening, as usual. Thank you !
I'm an atheist but I appreciate the Georgian Orthodox church for giving us so much culture.
I love Georgia. A certain Georgian Orthodox Church is one of the most beautiful and memorable places I’ve ever been.
I just realized I’m looking at that very church in my profile picture!
Well if it wasn't there, something else would have developed and you would be appreciating that.
@@Cheepchipsable yeah makes sense,
Oh btw, I'd love to see you talk about Veganism with Alex, he's been doing an amazing job talking about his cause
@Pisstake Well, I hate bacon (I like my meat to actually have substantial MEAT in it!), but I sympathize with your desire to aggravate proponents of veganism. (Not all vegans, just those who won't shut up about it.)
Humans have 4 different kinds of teeth. We are SUPPOSED to be omnivores. Is Alex going to start telling lions and wolves that they are committing animal cruelty?
@Antinatalism Clips Do you sweep where you walk to ensure that you don't step on any ants?
You can spend your money on things you want, instead of using it to feed starving children in Africa, but you don't have to.
You can spend your money on the cheapest brand, instead of taking the time to research the most cruelty free brand, and buying the more expensive choice, but you don't have to.
You can turn of your AC and unplug most of the electrical devices in your home, to reduce your carbon footprint, but you don't have to.
Which, I guess, are just examples of your point.
The difference is, YOUR BIOLOGY says that you ARE SUPPOSED TO eat meat.
I hope for religion to become something like a mere fandom of just another work of fiction at some point. You'd go to church at Christmas just like you go to Comic Con, just to meet up with the community for all the social benefits, and then everybody goes home again, fully aware that what they've just participated in is based entirely on fiction.
Love you, RR.
Keep up the outstanding work.
I literally got an ad for the church I used to be in after the video.
Many eye opening points as usual. Well done.
Religion exists. So we must consider it somehow. So we must understand it and not let it to dominate the state and education.
There's only one way of keeping it from dominating the state and education: to work hard to eradicate it by educating people and keep their levels of religiosity to the minimum (there's no way of making everyone entirely secular).
@@maksimbolonkin dude, you just described a perfect way of making everyone entirely secular imo.
IMO the fact that an individual’s belief can vary so much from doctrinal teaching is just more evidence of the fallibility for their belief system.
Just because members of your doctrine don't belief them doesn't proof its falsehood. Humans derive all the time false conclusions! So people claiming to believe in said "truth", but practicing it different are just people blind to the "full picture" the doctrine holds.
Things are true, regardless if everyone has a different view of it. It's falsehood should be derived from somewhere else
@@DundG The assumption that there must be some underlying truth behind religions despite their the contradictory, irrational nature, is itself a bias. Just because billions of people believe in something (or say they believe without understanding what "belief" actually means) doesn't mean there's anything in it. There's no big picture. There's nothing in there to misinterpret. None of the religious claims about reality have been arrived at by rational methods in the first place, which is why they don't deserve to be taken any more seriously than naive layman intuitions, which they essentially are.
@@AlexanderShamov Where do you read "there must be some underlying truth" in my response?! I just said that people not believing the core values, despite claiming to be part of the movement, are no proof of anything. These things are not related.
The reason that some scientists did not believed atoms exist, is no indication that the theory itself is flawed. Today we know they exist because we proofed their existence by reliable methods.
@@DundG The difference is that if they think their scriptures are the word of an all powerful all knowing creator, having multiple interpretations of the text means said creator wasn't powerful or knowledgeable enough to ensure that it was written in such a way that nobody could misinterpret it is a huge hole in the claim. The story becomes indistinguishable from any other piece of fiction.
This is not the case with atomic theory, the model can be validated through experiments and has predictive power in the real world whether they believe it or not
@Michael Enquist You're being disingenuous, I never made the claim that anyone believes anything, since you can clearly see an *_IF_* in front of "they believe" so no fallacy there
You also just explained how my analogy is correct so thanks for that
Defining Atheism as a "Lack of Belief" is probably the biggest mistake I have seen. It is pretty obvious from people who like to actually make a positive case for our views that people do this to avoid a burden of justification.
That and the definition has so many problems.
What's a better term for someone who just lacks a belief? Honest question. Linguistically it makes sense to me: theism meaning "believing in a god or gods," and the prefix a- meaning "not".
There's a difference between, "I'm convinced that you're wrong and here's why," and "I am not convinced that you are right and here's why." In both cases, the 'reasons why' are justifications for the position held; however, in the former case the position held is in support of a claim, and in the latter the position held is the default (or null) position, which does not support a claim. Only a claim requires a burden of proof. Sometimes this is referred to as "hard or soft atheism," or "gnostic or agnostic atheism." I prefer anti-theist and atheist. 🤷🏼♂️ The specific terminology doesn't matter so much as the recognition that the two positions are distinct. There's also the fact that people have degrees of being convinced: a spectrum that's not captured by those two binary labels of theist and atheist.
I'm not going to say that there's no hard atheists that hide in the soft position when cornered, but there is a valid position of just not knowing, a.k.a not having any belief; of withholding judgement for lack of conclusive evidence. It's a shame that both share a label.
My main point is that the justifications that someone gives in support of a position of non-belief don't require a burden of proof, because they are that person's personal reasons for not believing and nothing more. It is up the the person trying to persuade them one way or the other to provide proof, and overcome that person's personal objections.
I like screwing with religious people during discussions by first defining the word "faith", admitting that it's not possible to "disprove" the existence A God, agreeing to the possibility OF a God, then telling them the only thing I have "faith" in is that no God or Gods exist.
I feel one of the biggest mistake made by some atheists is the assumption that religious people are not intelligent or are idiots and so on,
Have heard people say this in the past not so much these days, other than in RUclips comments.
I think we need to keep in mind that we are all humans and we're all just trying to live our lives 🙂
Good video, was very interesting 🙂
I've come to the conclusion that religious and "spiritual" people are either lazy thinkers or cowardly thinkers. They either can't think through the nonsense they were installed with in childhood or too scared to do that.
I'd somewhat agree with that.
something to bare in mind is some people just genuinely aren't interested in whether said god is really whether evolution happens how the universe "begun" and so on. There is a portion of people that just don't care,
A lot of very moderate religious folks will fit into that category id wager the ones that don't practice but when asked they would say I'm a [insert religion] most people are in a bubble and generally aren't exposed to different ideas through no fault of their own you can't consider a concept if you are never exposed to it.
@@PsychoticEwok That group of people in bubbles who sincerely don't get exposed to other ideas in the age of the internet must be slim to none.
@Frances Snowflake I didn’t claim that to be universal truth, I outlined my observations and result of reasoning. Of course there’s no rational way of extending that observation to the whole population. In the end, presented all arguments for the gods existence and their refutations, one can choose to believe in gods existence despite overwhelming evidence against it fully admitting their beliefs is unsubstantiated and more likely to be false.
@Frances Snowflake likely implies probabilistic reasoning
About the second mistake, as you yourself put it, it only becomes a mistake if we make judgment before asking for their Own beliefs(ironically doing the same thing most theists do when confronting atheists). But if approached with care, it actually becomes a very useful tool for opening up their minds to questioning what it is they actually believe.
I made good progress with my father by politely and carefully explaining aspects of his belief system which previously he hadn't fully considered or in some cases even known about.
True, I too feel that that's one of the straightforward ways to point out inconsistency be practice and text/command.
Great talk. Full of kindness and understanding to others. This has changed my attitude towards religious people.
i've known for a while now that humans most common trait, is incompetence
Funny I think the same about others who think they are better.
Lol i've seen so much incompetence everywhere it literally gave me hope to accomplish my life
@@frequencyoftruth2303 Your response doesn't even make sense...
@@anotherperspective8263 Then read it again, it cannot be more clear.
@@anotherperspective8263 people who say things like “humans are so evil. It would be better for all the other animals if they were wiped out” are seldom the first to volunteer their lives. People who say “humans are incompetent” seldom include themselves. They think they are better than other humans.
Amazing as always. Thank you for continually clarifying things for me, consistently inspiring me, and constantly making me think...
This is great!
I am amazed at how far you have come given your tough childhood. I enjoy your videos. Thank you for giving me food for thought.
If we apply the maxim “Don’t assume bad intent.” ...and ask the question... “Does this make the perpetrators bad people?” ....to religion, because “the individuals believe they are doing the right thing” ...we would seem compelled to apply the same degree of understanding and tolerance to Nazis, Stalinists and other proponents of genocide, whether past, present or future, simply because they may not be bad people, but because they are ignorant, and simply believe they are doing the right thing?
Yes? I don't see a contradiction here. I'm not sure if you're going for shock value by summoning the nazis, but, they were indeed humans. Misguided, definitely, some even evil, but you can't cast that evil net on everyone that has ever called themselves a nazi. Perhaps they didn't know what that ideology stands for, perhaps they did but chose to ignore it because it was helpful in their context (e.g.: your entire family is prominently nazi-supporting, you grow up not even having the chance of questioning or shaping your own ideas). Point is, the context varies from case to case, from person to person. That's the point; "nazi" is pretty much the worst term to be associated with in retrospect, but you shouldn't immediately assume bad intent. Ask them first, try to understand what they actually believe, and base your responses on that instead of their supposed beliefs. If your initial suspicion is proven right through questioning, sure, then you have a solid reason to expect and assune ill intent.
The idea of a "bad person" is kind of incoherent to the ethics of this channel and the sphere of (most) public atheism. At best, it's an extremely broad and ambiguous category. It's also kind of toxic to both public discourse and rational thought.
The impulse to judge a person into a moral "good" or "bad" category doesn't really achieve anything beyond a feeling of moral supremacy. It allows you to dismiss them and it allows you to stop caring about them. It allows you to justify harm against them as "deserved". It allows you to write them off.
It's also not necessary for things like criminal justice. We can punish people for crime in order to deter crime instead of for some sense of revenge or deservedness. And by focusing on deterrence and rehabilitation instead of punishment we get policy that minimizes criminals instead of maximizing revenge.
Why do we need to make a judgment about which people in Nazi Germany were bad? The ideology was bad because it led to bad things. The people following said ideology did greatly evil things in its name. Those people needed to be stopped badly enough that extreme violence (war) was justified. Trials needed to be held to show the world that there are consequences to such things even if you were "just following orders".
I don't really know what a "bad person" would look like. People behave as their biology and environment dictate. A psychopath that murders people for fun is a profoundly sick individual. That doesn't mean they aren't dangerous or that we should accept their proclivities. It does mean that our *ideal* solution would be either preventing psychopathy or safely accommodating such people so that they can live their lives without risk to others. Simply calling them "bad" and hating them isn't particularly useful.
Another example: a relatively sane, but extremely greedy individual that has no problem hurting others for their own gain. Sure you could call them "bad", but what does that achieve? Instead examine both the possible causes of their character (why is it that this person's conscience isn't stopping them) and the things that enable them. Did they grow up in an environment with an 'every man for himself' ethos? Maybe we should discourage that kind of upbringing (in the school, home, city, etc). Are they breaking the law? Maybe we should increase the effectiveness of enforcement so that it's in people's best interest to obey it. Examining the cause of bad behaviour and finding solutions is far more useful than making simplistic moral judgements of character.
By the way, thank you for your channel, your videos and discussions are very enjoyable and I appreciate them a great deal.
About the intention stuff, I like Noam Chomsky's position: Intention does not matter, what matters is the consequence of your actions. If intention serves as justification for anything you do then anything can be justified.
Intention does not make you excused of all consequences, but it does moderate them. Comitting a crime by accident should not carry the same sentence as committing a crime intentionally.
You can’t control the consequences of your actions, just your intentions.
Consider an alcoholic father who mistreated his child. If the child, having suffered, becomes an empathetic, loving man as a consequence of his rough upbringing, does that make the case for a good father?
I probably should have given more details about what I mean when I say the intention should no matter that much. I am talking about the direct consequences of your actions. The example of an abused child that turns out to be a loving man is not a good example of good parenting because the direct consequences of abuse are that person suffering, maybe depression, tons of money spent in therapy, etc.
The situation that made me reach this conclusion was Operation Infinite Reach when the US attacked the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory. I don't doubt that the intention was good (eliminate a dangerous nerve gas manufacturing plant). To this date, the "proof" wasn't conclusive. The direct consequences are the shortage of medicine because this plant produced 50% of the medicine of Sudan. This is the type of intention and consequences I am talking about. The US has the resources and capacity to analyze and arrive at the conclusion that it was a terrible idea to attack a pharmaceutical manufacturing plan with flimsy evidence of wrongdoing.
@@vladimirck He is flipping the argument. If I do something with bad intention, but it turns out well for my target, do my bad intentions not matter since the outcome wad good?
This is amazing insight. Thank you for sharing.
your 1st Point in your definition of Atheists you'd refer to is actually secular humanists.
Most/many atheists are also secular humanists and these are the people many apologists address their arguments to. Very few apologists argue against the simplest definition of atheism, most attach secularist interpretations into it. I guess this is why RR used this kind of definition.
Thank you for a well thought out and reasoned argument.
"A businessman cant hold a candle to a clergyman."
@@thotslayer9914 "In the Bullshit Department, a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman. 'Cause I gotta tell you the truth, folks. When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims: religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told." George Carlin
Well done Steven....again. Daily in my work I learn how important it is to connect the current beliefs of a person with the events and context of their past. Sounds like you are familiar with this. It is indeed remarkable how the environment one develops in, can set up the neurobiological field to limited understanding. Shaping even the physical structures/components of the brain in such a way to over or under respond to stimulation. For example we have some evidence that the amygdala may be enlarged by exposure to certain kid of experiences, including news reports. Setting up the obvious; greater sensitivity, inducing more fearful responses which in turn produces a more defensive and aggressive posture.
Carry on my fellow ape.
Here is one ting I have always struggled with - respect vs. accept. To me respect is something you give to people of authority like your elders or the laws of reality where you unquestioning follow ingrained rules, where as accept is that you recognize that something is just in a certain way but you might have a way to influence it if you put your mind and effort to it. Why should I respect something I don't believe in and think is false? It's just a thought.
This is exactly my thoughs.
I think people often conflate courtesy with respect. Respect is something that is earned. To respect everyone is to essentially inflate the currency. You can’t force anyone to respect you unless perhaps it is done by fear but I would argue that respect, “earned” in this fashion, isn’t truly respect. To accept something is to be convinced of a claim by sufficient evidence.
@@thotslayer9914 Gesundheit - I think. I don’t understand - sorry!
Just word play, but I have a feeling it is a US v UK usage of the word, (respect at least).
Respect is to treat others how you would like to be treated, mostly with courtesy.
You can respect someone and disagree with them, and/or not like them.
By the same token, you may have no respect for someone in authority or an elder, but you may be obliged to follow the rules.
You don't need to respect or accept the ideas you don't believe in, just the fact the other person believes them - the same way you believe something they don't.
Ask yourself how you would feel if someone came in and dismissed an idea that you held firmly and meant a lot to you...Guess what - they probably feel the same way when you do it to them.
I often hear "You have to earn respect", and to me it seems to be a justification to act like an arsehole.
Accept just means to recognise something and know it's there.
I'm not sure why you are comparing the two. You can accept someone believes something you don't without believing it yourself.
@@Cheepchipsable I'm really not comparing the two. I'm trying to distinguish the two terms as they are sometimes used erroneously. I sometime hear someone say that I must respect their believe or religion when I can't. I can accept that they have it but not respect it. That's all...
You said you'd cover the top three, but I'd be really interested in 4 and 5 as well. So please do cover them as well :D
I would add a 4th mistake: assuming that being skeptical of religion and it's claims makes you "a skeptic". I can't tell you then number of times I've heard the word "skeptic/skeptical" in videos and comments from people who clearly weren't skeptical of anything other than religion. I'd see a video expressing skepticism toward a religious claim, then I'd scroll through the comments and see an anecdote of over the top stupidity from a religious person, and it would have hundreds of likes and no one questioning if it was biased, or misremembered. I've seen "skeptics" who aren't the least bit skeptical of their political ideologies. I used to call myself a skeptic, but I kept finding more and more things I hadn't questioned and got tired of examining everything. I eventually had to stop calling myself a skeptic because I realized it wasn't really true.
Skepticism is a philosophy, not a duty to examine every idea that comes into our heads. No one has the time or the energy to examine every idea, but if you think that doubt should be the default reactions to most ideas and belief should be reserved for only extraordinary ideas with extensive proof, then you're a skeptic. Skeptics regard doubt as a form of wisdom and belief as a weakness of fools, and if you have that attitude then you're a skeptic regardless of how many foolish beliefs you find within yourself.
It is very important to remember even though we have a divided political situation, the other side isn't always wrong, and our side isn't always right. We need to call out errors in judgement on our own side even more than those of the opposition since our peers are willing to do the latter much more frequently.
Well said, the Carlin quote was perfectly placed.
Extraordinary beards require extraordinary men
*extraordinary grooming
fixed that for you :)
@@Horseofhope Extraordinary grooming require extraordinary men
Bravo, as always!
I find RR’s voice strangely soothing
Really enjoyed that, thank you
My favourite line of the show. "It's about listening (to an opposing view) without assuming ill intent. That is so true. For that is how we gain true wisdom in our amazing earth journey.
Biggest mistakes I've made:
1) I have assumed honesty on their part
2) I treated them as if they knew their shit
3) I thought they wanted to be consistent
Most of them don't even appear to know _what_ they believe - let alone _why_ they believe.
Atheist is the most confusing terminology, "they dont what they are not even what they are not."
@@samanthacanales9102
You can always ask, if you really want to know.
Loved the video! The first point was one that I love to discuss. While I don't agree with the vast majority of religious ideology, I do love the social impact that like minded groups have. Any time I have found a group (religious or no) that I can share ideas with as a community has always been good for me. And I imagine it is this way for people in general. I would be completely behind a system that could cut the theology and religious practices of a religion, but keep the community aspect. It would be a ton of work, and would certainly need a shift in views, but it would be an interesting place to go.
And for the third point, I also agree! I've had a number of conversations that take place in subdued and private settings that were very productive and enlightening. My discussion partner and myself both approach the conversation with the intent to listen and learn, ask questions, and above all keep it civil. Even if a sentence or phrase appears hostile, we make sure to keep the tone as calm as possible. I wish more people were interested in such discussions.
"When ignorance /is/ suffice"
Is that correct? should it not be when ignorance will suffice???
I assume you're not being malicious....
Thanks for these valuable insights. I made all 3 mistakes. I will try to do better.
“There will always be the same number of religions as there are people on Earth.”
Who are you quoting?
@@lhurst9550 Can’t remember. Read it somewhere.
Each person’s experience is unique, so while a group will have similar beliefs they’ll never have the exact same beliefs. It’s like “the blind men describing an elephant.” It makes religious conflicts pointless.
How spectacularly well done. If everyone will adopt this level of thoughtfulness, our work is essentially complete.
Drew and Alex on a vegan adventure? ❤️
...harshest cliffhanger of 2021 so far! 😆
I'm so sorry to hear about your tragic experience in your childhood ((
From the age of 6 I was under control and "care" of my grandmother from dawn till dusk, because my parents had to work hard. She was a real mental abuser. She'd take all my beloved animals from me, simply because I didn't want to be what she wanted me to be. I got pretty huge trauma, that, as I realized, I didn't share even with my doctor after 2 years of therapy! And I was too curious child, so I found out about the atrocities humans commit in the age I was not suppose to know such things. That gave me lots of nightmares and sleepless nights and thoughts about poor animals who, even if they lived free life, still didn't have painkillers and would die a horrible death.
But I love my parents and my animals too much to not believe in the afterlife. All those precious souls deserve evolving further, after their biological vessels are gone.
I know this wasn’t your point in bringing it up, but I’m sorry you had to go through the things you did as a child. ❤️
Excellent video mate 👏
Absolutely agree that these are just mistakes made by people - and yeah, clearly these are biggies, so it's likely that atheists are going to make them too.
The last one - also known as "Hanlon's Razor" - is _almost_ always true, as it is for religion as it is business, politics, etc.
I could not tell you how many times I've had to use a variant of Hanlon's Razor in conversation. The only area I've found that I use it more than religious discussions is politics. Religious leaders will sometimes cast those with differing opinions as malicious, but politicians will do this almost to the exclusion of anything else. Ironically, when they do this, they frequently demonstrate their own malicious intent rather than their opponent's.
After looking him up, the best explanation I saw for Hanlon's Razor is that it's a reasoning tool. Compared to real reasoning, such a method seems like a dollar store crescent wrench. The guy was a hack writer, there is no other way to critique his body of work; he is most known as an author for 3 westerns.
Now, all laws, which are based in real philosophy that has stood the test of time, clearly state, ignorance is never an excuse - Hanlon's Razor is clearly saying otherwise. Allowing ignorance to be used as an excuse is the epitome of the definition - it's also very lazy to those who know how to apply real reasoning; then again, I can't expect an author of 3 unknown western novels to know otherwise.
Hanlon's Razor is a very dim stance that had been offered for centuries before John Hanlon butchered the past sentiment to offer a submission for a joke book. No way is he a real author or philosopher when all he is known for is a sentence that wasn't isn't even an original thought. He couldn't even come up with an original joke for a Murphy's Law joke book?
@@deductivereasoning4257 Are you trying to demonstrate the point in your own writing?
At what point did anyone, at any stage, anywhere in history, claim that Hanlon was a philosopher? Are you being deliberately malicious, or merely ignorant and you're simply missing the joke? :)
@@tyranneous I'm merely responding to the poster's comment about Hanlon's Razor. It's called reading comp and staying on topic and respecting the poster that started the thread that inspired/prompted me to comment.
And when someone like John Hanlon gets quoted for such a statement, what is it other than philosophy? Are you going to argue that only colleges are allowed to determine what is philosophical? It is clearly now a philosophical statement that others have accepted to the point they are defining it as some sort of reasoning.
Anyway, I'm tired of looking up all these useless philosophical/psychological/whatever you want to call them statements - like the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
It's crap like this that keeps the world's wheels spinning in the mud. If I can rip someone's philosophy to the point no one can defend it, it means it's useless crap since I am not a formerly trained philosopher - then again, no formal training exists because that's the best way to dumb down the masses...
@@deductivereasoning4257 You mean me? I'm the poster. I find it amusing that you're trying to explain what "reading comp" is to me, yet you've failed spectacularly to actually achieve it.
Hanlon's Razor was so named because he was the guy who submitted it as a joke. That's why it's not a "philosophy" - it's not a true rule in any way, which is why the poster (y'know, me) said it was _almost_ always true. Because it's NOT a rule, law, method of logical reasoning, or anything like that.
Again, I don't think you mean any of this maliciously. I just think that through ignorance - perhaps in the sphere of humour - you just don't get the joke.
Been a while since I’ve watched you. The whole Ragnar Lothbrok look you’ve got going is pretty good man.
1. You don't need religion to work out that community is a positive thing and most communities around had worked this out long before religion. 2. One commentary I hear a lot from atheists about theists is that theists don't actually follow the doctrines of their religion...not sure why this is even in the list. 3. Do atheists assume malice? This seems like an assumption made by theists about atheists, not the other way around.
I would say I disagree with you. Sure you don't need religion to form a community but religion certainly helps. In Western countries those without religious affiliation are more likely to be lonely and suffer from depression (I need to check the exact numbers on that, but as far as I remember it is the case). I'd go as far to say that you can't have a society without religion, and that society would disintegrate if too many people became atheists. Religion is an indispensible source of social cohesion. Of course, multiple religions together tend to damage social cohesion. But a single faith having a monopoly does aid in providing people with community to an extent that almost nothing does.
Which communities didnt have some sort of religious or spiritual practice?
🤔 Indeed. Do I detect In Steven’s approach a soupçon of apologetics defending atheism? By ‘defining’ atheism into near invisibility he leaves open a space for theists to enter, as with Capturing Christianity and many others. I, on the other hand, stand firm as a determined atheist without any concern for the prattling of theists of any stripe. Non sense is just that, however it is dressed up in linguistic verbiage. Hypocrisy in any human circumstances remains just that, as with theists who profess adherence to a faith on high days and holi (holy) days but lapse from them in between. As for malice, that is to be considered by results. I do not act from malice, as I see it as a vile and inhumane emotion. However, much malicious harm has been committed by theists against entire peoples on the basis f their being ‘alt-religionists’ and thus less than worthy of respect. Consider the current situation in Myanmar between militant Buddhists and Rohingya people. What theism and theists do is to set up exclusive sects that place themselves above the Others of society. Consider the treatment of apostates as a case in point. No, Steven, I am not going to amend my stance as an atheist just because deluded religionists find atheism a serious challenge to their nonsense.
@@sirmeowthelibrarycat You make it seem like people treating other people poorly is solely because religion divides us. Pre civil rights era black people were mostly Christian, as were the white supremacists. Division between human populations will always exist. Regardless of religion. Chimpanzees haven't been proved to have belief in God, but they brutalize chimpanzees of other tribes. Any difference between people will always result in division, and difference will always exist.
@@sirmeowthelibrarycat indeed. You seem like a self- important person who I’d never want to talk to at a party. Indeed.
I found this very useful. I’ve gone into different comment sections under religious videos and made statements that were perhaps underpinned by a notion of bad intent, rather than focusing on the offending aspect of the religion (often anti-LGBTQ bias). This video has made me rethink my M.O. and the purpose of my commenting in the first place. Am I simply trolling?
Maybe not INTENTIONALLY, but effectively. So now, you get to apply Hanlon's razor to yourself!
I would like to change the nature of public debate, or at least offer a different kind, where the goal is to collaborate instead of conflict
@Michael Enquist "there are lots of resources on how to set up such an interaction and there are many organizations, formal and informal, that facilitate such discussions" Please elaborate on that !
@@vernerdeterre Not only did he not elaborate, he deleted his comment!
Great video, once again!
I wonder what do you think about anti-natalism?
Same
What is anti-natlism?
@@hyperatoms8919 It's a belief that states Having kids is is immoral
@@smirk6154 It is only immoral if you bring them into the world without first asking their permission.
My siblings and I haven't had children (for various reasons) although not caused by anti-natalism. However, I can understand why people hold anti-natal ideas. The world is overpopulated and getting to the limits of its carrying capacity.
Over the next two centuries the population here on Earth needs to fall to no more than a billion people.
Really sorry to hear about your childhood dude. That's awful. You seem to have come out of it as a wonderful human making a superb and important contribution to humanity. I applaud you.
“With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
― Steven Weinberg
When he started talking about his childhood, I just wanted to reach through the screen and give him a hug. We love you, RR!
Wait, wait, you can't leave on such a cliffhanger. I want to hear more about this panatlantic vegan adventure
15:00 omg i remember watching that presentation! i loved it
I think a big and common mistake atheists make is to waste too much time and attention on this subject. Personally, I think you've beaten this dead horse long enough and should turn your attention to other things. In particular the invitation from the Nations of Sanity project to discuss and debate their assertions regarding morality, law and the concept of rights and freedom should be seriously considered. But any time you venture into philosophical territory or touch other subjects I think your content is more interesting than the religion vs atheism thing.
I may be in a minority on this as talking about atheism has proven the most popular choice in this recent poll (hence this video) but my opinion, for what it's worth, is that it would be more interesting to see you take on these moral claims.
Nicely done.
Thoughts on each item -
1. Unfortunately, religion was once the best explanation for the universe that humans had at the time in their quest for meaning.
Simply dismissing anyone's spiritual beliefs will not help in swaying their opinion.
2. "Theistic Individuality" is a real thing, much like bio-individuality.
Bottom line: No two people have the exact same beliefs and we need to remember that.
3. Never forget that they are our fellow apes and are trying their best to do what they think is right.
Ignorance is not evil.
I struggle at times to keep my cool because I am keenly aware of all the harm religion has caused throughout history, but I must remember that the person I am speaking to hasn't burnt any witches or sat with the Spanish Inquisition.
Usually, they are someone who was indoctrinated from a young age (as was I...) and raised with a specific spiritual mindset.
It helps me to remind me that they are human... like me.
Completely disagree with number 1. Just because something had a non-religious origin that was co-opted, or because a practice also coincidentally serves a beneficial purpose does not mean that the practice is not bullshit. Wasn't it Douglas Adams who talked about the religion of people who jumped because far back in history their ancestors used to jump over snakes. Yes, the origin may have been valid, but once you move from function to mere symbolism, it becomes ridiculous.
You are doing a good job. Thank you for making this meaningful video which humanize our condition at large. Kind of like Krishnamurti.
pedalstooling? That was a damp squid. Try turning it off and on again.
Your name is Maurice Moss, is it not?
@@RustyWalker
yes M'love.
Great vid. In some cases is really difficult to say if what is the intent of something at all. I surely made that mistake many times, but usually I try not to say anything about someone's intent, rather what it could be, or what evidence there is for anything and have them explain themselves. If bad intent or something similar is in course the person will possibly show by the way they behave and respond. Ultimately we can never say what the intentions of someone is anyways and the truth of a matter rarely changes by someone's intent.
You sound sick. I hope you’re doing well :(
Great video,. Always looking forward to new ones.
8:26 "has went"? Should have been "has gone" right? Sorry, I'm the grammar police 😅
It's OK....he's from Portsmouth. 🤣
@@jacketrussell 😄
@Frances Snowflake languages are constantly evolving and what will be acceptable - or even the norm - in the future is not necessarily correct right now.
I like your movie voice ;) Great, well researched contribution, thank you!
Hey seriously guys, I need someone to help me from going crazy. I came up with a couple arguments against the bible and attributes of god contradictions. I have been using the most/maximal just and most/maximally merciful mainly and I just cannot get any theist to answer the 4 questions at the bottom about the example above it. I ask the question why dont you answer the 4 questions after their response. Then say its really telling if you just cant answer those 4 questions you know or are you trying to hide something? I am REALLY trying to get them to answer those questions but after probably 150 responses now I still cannot do it.
Is there something wrong in my argument or is it hard to understand? I cant answer that question myself and so far they cant seem to understand my argument even though I have tried to make it as clear as I can. PLEASE HELP LOL. Just let me know if this is wrong or if you got any ideas on how I could improve it.
How can allah/god be most/maximally just and most/maximally merciful at the same time when by definition of most, just and mercy, make that as impossible as a married bachelor? I will now give the full argument.
premise 1 in order for one to be defined as most merciful, they must never punish any wrongdoings and always forgive them. If they even punish one person, they lose the title of most merciful as the possibility of someone else never punishing one person would take that title away.
premise 2 In order for one to be defined as most just, they must always punish any wrongdoings. If they do not punish even one wrongdoer, the possibility of someone who punishes every wrong doing would take that away.
premise 3 One cannot be most merciful and most just at the same time as they cannot punish every wrongdoer and forgive without punishment every wrongdoer. Its the same as a married bachelor is not possible by definition.
conclusion God cannot be most just and most merciful at the same time.
Now I will give an example. There are 4 judges and 10 guilty criminals. Judge #1 orders punishment for all 10 criminals and does not forgive without punishment a single one. Judge #2 forgives without punishment all 10 criminals. Judge #3 forgives without punishment 9 of them and punishes 1 of them. Judge #4 punishes 9 of them and forgives without punishment 1 of them.
Which judge is the most just? Which judge is the most merciful? Is judge #3 either most merciful or most just? Is judge #4 most merciful or most just?
Your example is flawed. There isn't enough information given to know about the circumstances. You should state "10 guilty criminals who committed the same crime". Next, you need to describe the reasons why these 10 people committed the crime. Finally, you need to explain why judges 3 and 4 didn't punish the ones who were found guilty.
The example works as it's a nuanced question and will cause people to actually think about their answers.
@@aralornwolf3140"Your example is flawed. There isn't enough information given to know about the circumstances. You should state "10 guilty criminals who committed the same crime".
I dont see why any of that information is needed once I say 10 guilty criminals. But if you want it ok. They were all caught red handed with tons of evidence pointing towards them for stealing.
Why do you see not having the information about case and why these people were guilty and what they were guilty of as a flaw in my example? I cannot just say these were guilty people and talk about the punishment or non punishment contradiction my argument is about?
That isn't what "most" means. If I eat the "most" cake, how much cake do I have to eat? I only have to eat sufficient so that I have eaten more than the next person. If I've got the most money, I only have to have a penny more than the next richest person.
Also, your premise 3 and conclusion are tautologous. You don't need it. All you've done is reiterate your reasoning. Just state the conclusion.
But fix "most" first or it won't follow anyway.
And remember that in the Abrahamic faiths, all sinners have a chance to enter Paradise, and what could be more merciful than that?
@@RustyWalker "That isn't what "most" means. "
greatest in amount, quantity, or degree. the greatest amount or quantity. forming the superlative of adjectives and adverbs, especially those of more than one syllable. to the greatest extent. Those are the definitions of most. The reason I say most is because that is the word the quran uses. I say maximally to christians as some of them say god is maximally good.
What do you think it means when the quran says allah the most merciful or allah the most just?
"If I eat the "most" cake, how much cake do I have to eat?"
The most cake from everyone at a party? The most cake of anyone alive? the most cake of anyone ever? I would have to know not only how much cake you ate, but of the others as well to be able to answer that question. In order to show you ate the greatest amount or quantity, we have to compare it to something. Are you saying a quran or theist is just saying most/maximally as in more then anyone else? I mean maybe some, but over 140 responses is does not seem like many take it that way. When william lane craige talks about those kind of attributes of god, its not just more then anyone else, its not even possible for anything to be more, maximally.
"Also, your premise 3 and conclusion are tautologous. You don't need it. All you've done is reiterate your reasoning. Just state the conclusion."
Yep, that is true. I think I am just trying so hard to give understanding of the idea. They often go onto some tangent that does not apply like they did not understand. Like saying it takes away free will, got that one a few times. I might try that out.
@@macmac1022 There you go. You've used my point to find that it's more ambiguous than you initially realised.
The fact that religion might result in some interesting ideas, or socially powerful rituals doesn't stop it from being nonsense. Observing a few isolated effects or ideas coming from religious beliefs that are often in of themselves not exclusively religious, does nothing to detract from the fact that at the heart of that religion is often a claim about the universe that is either unfalsafable or simply incoherent with reality. And therefore nonsense.
As others pointed out, I think it is wrong to allow charitable inroads to belief systems that offer very little (if anything) in terms of ideas that can't be reach through secular means, but which are full of nonsensical, immoral and occasional harmful tenet.
I think you are over-thinking here and should remember what Bill Hicks once said: "It's a piece of shit - walk away."
Don’t know why no one on RUclips is able to spell “tenet”. Is it autocorrect or something? Generally, it is muddled up with “tenant”. But, tenants are something very different that you should avoid having, if possible.
Videogames are nonsense, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying them.
@@roqsteady5290 Cheerfully corrected.
@@petyrbaelish1216 No they aren't. They are carefully programmed applications that create a fictional environment for users to interact with and make no claim to be "how the real world works."
Being fictional isn't nonsense. Making a demonstrably false claim is.
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