The Most Unapologetic Annihilation of Religion Ever
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2018
- David Silverman presents the argument for atheism/ science over religion/ faith. This is part of a huge collection of great videos by ScienceNET / jerrybber
Развлечения
For high school, I attended a 4-year seminary (studying to be a Xtian, Catholic priest - Carmelite order - the ones that wear all brown). They blamed sexily-clad women for their own rapes! They prayed for US soldiers in Vietnam but NEVER for the Vietnamese victims of US Gov aggression, mass terror and slaughter.
Upon graduation, I left Catholicism behind. Soon I added Xtianity. I studied a number of other faiths and had to reject every last one for Arrogant Sectarianism. I went back to the Bible, which I had studied for hours every day for those 4 years - and was utterly scandalized by both what it really said; and by the fact that I had it almost memorized but totally failed to see the 100% evil it contained.
That was 1967; I've been a highly moral atheist ever since - a good half-century of: heavy-duty peace-justice activism; hard work; great parenting (of atheist, highly-moral kids) & being a fine husband; being someone who puts others before self.
Pablo Novi
What a great story, I wish there were more men like you. I can only imagine how many times you were accused of not being a “true” christian, that the devil/demons had gotten to you & crap like that. Those type of arguments make my brain cells want to die off immediately.
I was born in 1967 & will turn 51 next week so it’s been more than half a century now. Thanks so much for your comment, your autobiography would be a great read ✌️😊
Thanx for the compliment. btw, as you guessed, my life was turned into a real hell on Earth. The Church authorities at the school did all of the following: 1) I had always been a straight "A" student; now my grades were being lowered; 2) I had been mildly popular; now I was not allowed any friends; 3) There was non-stop intimidation attempts.
As a result, my last period at that school just ripped my self-image and self-confidence to shreds. (The closest I ever came to suicide.) See the thing was I was far from sure about my doubts about my religion - but I became "sure" I was going to hell.
Which reminds me, the supposed "eternal truths" of the Church and its Bible were "somehow" a bit different then than now. I was born and raised by a strict Catholic mom (and a dad who left such decisions/policies entirely up to her).Back then, we were "taught" almost as much about the "Devil" and Hell as about God and Heaven. PLUS, we had the "Red Scare" - with alarm bells screaming off every noontime; seeing us huddled under our puny school-desks as "protection" from the "commie nukes".
So it was sheer torment in virtually every way. I couldn't go to "Confession" enough times a week - it was no consolation; rather it furthered the torment - because all the priests were quite familiar with the "bad apple" - and their advice was deliberately cruel and disorienting. I got more and more afraid of "everything" - because, what if I got hurt, died and hadn't been back to the confessional - the "knowledge" that I'd be burning 24 hours a day for a few trillion years haunted me.
I actually have a mostly large blank spot for what I did and what happened to me during that period - surely blocked from my conscious awareness due to the severity of it.
As to a would-be autobiography ... as I came out of religion, I simultaneously got into the Anti-Vietnam War Movement - ever so gradually "rising up the ranks" as my quantity and quality of work increased my ability to lead the work. I started writing articles/leaflets; then organizing marches and conferences/debates; then giving speeches; then traveling around the country.
The highlight? Probably the time I was sent up to Oakland, Cal as the local representative of the San Diego County Anti-War Movement. I gave a 5-minute speech - but it was the CHARACTER of the event that really blew me away. While I was up on the stage, in the back, awaiting my turn to speak; two of the top three leaders of the Black Panther Party came up to me and shook my hand; thanking me for the effort to get there and for our general work in San Diego. I was so stunned I could barely speak when it was my turn.
The park was in the shape of a very large bowl - and, from the stage, one could literally count almost everybody. I've always counted stuff; so while waiting I counted 16,000 faces/bodies - overwhelming Afro-American - besides myself, if there were any other white people there; I didn't see them. But it was the level of militancy that was stunning. The park was completely surrounded by cop cars, cop horses, other cop equipment, helicopters. But they didn't dare enter the park - the crowd would have torn them to shreds. I had had no idea, until then, of the power organized and prepared people could have.
Having participated in literally hundreds of demonstrations and marches; sometimes with as many as a million people - I can honestly say that, imo, that Oakland demonstration had to have been one of the most militant in all of U.S. history.
It ended with a speech by Bobby Seale who finished as follows, "To all this pollution, the only answer is REVOLUTION!" And 16,000 voices thundered approval. And it just went on and on and on - I felt the rush from that for days and days.
Eventually, thru contacts I made there, I ended up in Mexico City sometime later. As an invited guest/observer/participant, I attended some important conferences and organizing meetings - which led up to a demonstration a "bit" different than the Oakland one had been.
There was a million people packed into "Zocalo" the central plaza of the whole country of Mexico. The level of militancy was off the charts. And then, the police attacked en masse. We were chased all over the place. A large contingent of us ended up gathered at the Monument to Benito Juarez - which "civil war" broke out. The masses had had enough and started fighting back - throwing bricks and whatever was at hand.
Word had spread all over the city of the police attack, and 10s of thousands of mostly young people poured into the City's center. A couple of hours later, the people had started routing the police (something I wouldn't have imagined if I hadn't of lived it). The cops were chased all over the City - and "got their fare share of abuse".
The brutal reprisals followed; but met with ferocious resistance. The battles went on for weeks.
Yes, my autobiography might be interesting. lol
Pablo Novi
Wow, just wow. Your experiences in Oakland & Mexico City sound so powerful. You must of come home a new man. What the church did to you was unforgivable. It amazes me that they could think of themselves as holy or moral after they screwed with your mind. Makes my blood boil. I’m from Australia & luckily for me, my parents weren’t very religious. I was christened & went to Sunday School but it was religion lite. Never prayed & I can honestly say that I don’t remember any conversation about god growing up. To me, hell as not a real place although I thought heaven was.
Isn’t it strange that when you realise that yes, I’m an atheist that there is that last thing that your rational mind struggles with. Your fear of going to an actual hell must of been terrifying for you. It’s amazing the human mind finds a way to cope with such terror & confusion. How could anyone think that scaring people especially children with the concept that hell is real be a good thing? I’m shaking my head no so much it’s hard to type!
My thing that I found very hard to let go of was that there is no afterlife. The idea that my conscienceness just stopped upon death frightened me. Some wise words from a fellow RUclips atheist eventually put my mind at ease when he asked me to think of death as the same “place” I was before I was born. RUclips & the internet has been a powerful tool for me. It’s hard to believe that everyday life has changed so much with technology. Kids having mobile phones & online access makes us sound old if you mention to someone under 25 that we didn’t have computers, let alone mobile phones growing up. I remember my mind being blown when we got our first colour TV!
Again, thanks for leaving your comment. Your life experiences have really woke up my mind & I’ll be unlikely to forget it for a very long time. Hope you & your family have a lovely weekend. Cheers ✌️😊
Please permit to MORE FAIRLY explain what happened - somehow I left out 2 or 3 "minor" details. The high school seminary I attended was a boarding school - so I didn't see my family (or old friends) for 9 months a year - thus the punishment of being isolated at school was extra severe - it wasn't just during "school hours"; but 24 hours a day, 9 months a year. My family would visit once a year and I was so humiliated I didn't say a word about what was happening to me - and, so, naturally, could receive no sorely-needed compassion from them.
I could have sworn I typed a 2nd paragraph that is no longer there - please DO NOT try to tell me its old age stomping on my butt - I ain't hearing that ...
truth! lol
Anyway, my problems at that school were because (as I mentioned in the "missing paragraph") I spoke out against them blaming rape victims for having gotten raped; and, especially, when it was my turn to lead the mis-Mass prayers, I innocently replacedd the usual: "For all our fighting men in Vietnam, we pray to the Lord" (followed by the congregation saying, "Lord, hear our prayer!" - you gotta use strong language with "him" to even get his attention! and you gotta beg him/her/it/them to do what they already decided to do/not-do.)
I replaced those words with, "For EVERYONE fighting and dying in Vietnam, we pray to the Lord". THIS WAS MY "UNPARDONABLE SIN"!
I thought to myself, "It can't be that god takes sides in human wars?" AND "How can it be that god always takes OUR SIDE in wars???"
The more they stomped on me for "my sin"; the more they, unintentionally, provoked me to further investigate what was really going on in Vietnam - both what the US was doing (breaking all records in history of mass-slaughter and bomb-dropping) AND what the Vietnamese poor and working people were doing - STANDING UP AGAINST / FIGHTING AGAINST THE #1 GREATEST KILLING MACHINE IN HISTORY .... AND ...
WINNING!!!
I didn't start off wanting to learn anything negative about my country at all. But, the worse they (the Catholic Church) treated me, the more important negative stuff I learned about US history. The more important negative stuff I learned about US history, the more scandalized I became about the Catholic Church's unbridled "patriotic" BROWN-NOSING to it.
The very last thing I imagined or would ever have wanted to learn was that "my" Church was 100% a TOOL of "my" US Gov (owned and operated by the American super-rich). But there was now, for me, no denying both facts; the US Empire has been and is THE WORST empire humankind has ever suffered under - and the Catholic Church serves as one of its most key (ideological) weapons.
I lost "my" religion and "my" false sense of patriotism (to a country that never represented its vast majority) simultaneously.
kerryn67, you say, "Pablo Novi
Wow, just wow. Your experiences in Oakland & Mexico City sound so powerful. You must of come home a new man. "
First off, you're trying to steel MY favorite exclamation, "Wow, just wow." (I also sometimes spell it, "Whoa, just whoa!") LOL
Second off, YES those experiences were totally powerful - being "shocked and awed" into becoming aware of the real rules of the game!.
Thirdly (off? or on? ... hmm), I did "come home a new man." Experiences like that - you can't erase, you can't ignore, you can't forget - they just echo around in your head, reverberating - what the BLEEP did I just go thru???
In Oakland, if the police had used SOP and provoked something (through one of their agents provocateur), civil war WOULD have broken out. In Mexico, it actually DID break out. I was LITERALLY in the middle of a hailstorm of billy clubs VS Molotov Cocktails. Dead people were "materializing" all around me. 100s and 100s of people all over the place waiting in pain while waiting to, hopefully, be taken to the hospital (rather than be collected up and disappeared after being tortured to death). The utter cowardness of the super-heavily-armed-&-protected police VS the utter courage of the vastly out-gunned, out-experienced (mostly) youth (in two separate countries ... this fact, that it happened in two separate, very different countries (the US and then Mexico) HAD TO MEAN that we non-rich people, were way more the same than different; that our situations and challenges were essentially one and the same AND against the same BEAST - (American-make) capitalism.
How many MONTHS did I spend trying to figure out wtf had just happened? AND, then I asked myself THE QUESTION: "Given that this is REAL LIFE how come you believed TOTALLY in some peace-love FAIRY-TALE???" ... Whatever (typical, American) arrogance I had as ideological baggage ... I was totally stripped of such nonsense.
What a humbling experience.
P.S. Seems to me this discussion is supposed to be about religion, right? So, how can I explain the above "rant"? Oh yeah ... lol. The next day, in Mexico City, the super-powerful Catholic Church came out in response to the ALMOST unprecedented mass violence. How did they show their "righteousness"? How did they show us, "God is Love"? They condemned the youth, the rebels, the righteous (who ONLY fought back in self-defense) - and, by not saying a word against it - implied their 100% approval of and servitude to the ultra-violence of the State. WHAT A TOOL !
savage. and true. i would like to add that while religion provides empty promises for a better tomorrow, science provides proof of a better today and tomorrow
It is difficult if not impossible to sit down and have a casual discussion with religionists about atheism and a secular way of life (and change their mind!) because of their *deep emotional attachment* to religion, many having been forcibly and/or unknowingly indoctrinated as children when the neuropsychiatric system was most susceptible. As adults, this attachment, reinforced by rituals (religion from religare, “to bind,” L.), traditions, and family/peer pressures, often times is lifelong and beyond rationality and reason.
After talking to a staunch believer, evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne said, *“Religion had immunized him….”*
Ray W
Looking back I remember the first atheist I tried to argue with. He had arguments that I couldn't answer and perspectives that I had never considered. He was also a nice helpful guy which went against what I had been taught about non believers. I went home to my mother who had done most of my indoctrination and had kept me isolated from the rest of the world. Instead of giving me counter arguments she made it clear that I was somehow at fault and was upset with me and wouldn't talk about any of the things the atheist had said. That was in 1988 and I never got to talk to that atheist again. Today I'd like to thank him.
Even before that I think that my family could tell that I was on the path to atheism because I wanted to get to the truth of things and I liked watching shows like NOVA on PBS. That atheist had a big impact in my life just by presenting arguments and being nice. You are right that you can't just sit down and present arguments and change the mind of a religious person. What you can do is not be like PZ Myers who is a total jerk. Say something like I just can't buy these things or else I'd follow your religion. If you can prove these things then I'll join up. Be nice and send them off looking for answers that you know they won't find like that guy did to me. A persons mind changes when they are alone laying in bed sorting out the events of the day not when face to face with an adversary.
David is an eloquent advocate for atheism and is a skilled author on the topic.
Thanks for your energetic activism, Mr. Silverman.
Old Uncle Bob
Haven’t seen him do any talks or debates for awhile. Is he still the president of the American Atheists? He’s one of my favourite speakers on atheism.
@@kerryn6714 He no longer is.
Ham Sandwich
That’s a shame, he was great.
David Silverman destroys Religion in a few sentences like Hitch and other brilliant Atheists!
Holy shit "There are more denominations of Christianity than there are sentences in the Bible" Wow!!!
It really says something that brutal destruction of religion often goes hand in hand with beautiful advocacy of science.
Almost as if they have opposite goals and methods...
David Silverman is an excellent speaker!
He is up there with Hitch and Seth Andrews for me!
He's wearing a Christmas tie, lol.
To reference that scene from Friday: "DAYUMMMMM!!!!"
When David says it's a lie, what does that Presuppose? It presupposes that he knows what is true, right?
love is the solution to everything
I still don’t know exactly why Dave was ostracized from American Atheists. I’ve seen accusations of money stuff and sexual harassment things, but the details are elusive.
I see more of madness than brilliance in this man,i became more of a fool by watching this video,this is a definition of an angry atheists
Angry but right
This reminds me of a philhellens video, if you want to destroy religion. ATTACK ITS WEAK SPOT. *DO NOT target God, attack the very idea of Supernatural* and you'll destroy religion without even trying.
The supernatural is real my friend. How would you explain the many documented cases of ghost sightings, the paranormal and other unexplainable phenomenon?
Spot on. Thank you.
I love to say this to any deeply religious (evangelicals, you can apply here):
Has there ever been a person who was extremely close to you and you absolutely KNOW THEY LOVE YOU --- without restraints of any kind?
Invariably, they [adults] all say "Yes."
Then I ask them: _Have you received your Hallmark invitation card yet? If so, show it to me._
Being evangelicals and not understanding what reality truly is, they also invariably ask me, "What are you talking about?"
Then I reply: *_Your invitation to "heaven" --- after all, if they truly loved you, then I would surmise they must want you to be with them so they're sure to invite you to be with them. Am I right?_*
*They NEVER produce any physical invitation to "heaven".*
It’s in every hotel room. Gideon Buybull.
for whatever reason, God wants us Christians to die on Earth before we go to Heaven. I suppose it's for the same reason that he created the universe, which is something we do not know
@@vtuberterrifier484 jesus, you f* religious idiots continue to spout off the most ridiculous bullshit without fail. It's no wonder all true polls point out that non-believers know more about the bible than you f* idiots.
i want to know where is the original video where this clip is taken from. I want to see the whole thing.
It's from the debate between David Silverman and Frank Turek.
ruclips.net/video/LYRIXAEogLY/видео.html
I bet he cleaned Frank's clock.
The original video has been Removed⁉️
Booom!!!!!habout that theist???🤣
May I point out some additional logic that atheists are not considering? If life after death is real, the only way to know is within our own minds. Human beings can focus on both meditation and telepathy simultaneously. Meditation is NOT about achieving complete mental silence within for indefinite periods of time. Meditation is about watching and listening within ONLY. Like a movie or radio. If life after death is real, and if psychic mediums are real, it is discovered with meditation and focusing on telepathy. I personally hear voices within, and I know without any doubt that these voices are not my own thoughts or schizophrenia. They are messages from “another place”. Maybe another dimension of reality? Any real person will not force ideology or beliefs on other people. They will simply share ideas, and share respect and humility socially.
the big bang created time and space which mean something that then existed outside of time and space created the universe, and perhaps thats not God but I don't know what else it could be. what else could create the God Particles that created Time and Space?
🥳👏🏻🫶🏻
He’s so hot 🥵❤️🔥🤤💘
LOL, this guy is an atheist but doesn't even know the definition of that word. This guy seems angry, typical atheistic mentality. So many errors in one video. Probably a record.
If you only knew how dumb you sounded. People like you aren't even deserving of explainations of how wrong you are. Go be ignorant elswhere.
Try to bone up on your logic and critical thinking skills, Romeo. Once you realize that all religions cannot be right, you may just realize that they can all be wrong.
Maybe you could put up where the video is wrong.