Best of Youtube / Google Video

[SimpatiK]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

I rewatched the video. His concern is not that he cannot criticize religion, which how we have framed the debate, but that he cannot insult religion. So, we have twisted the terms. I actually agree that one does not have the right to insult religion, and insulting religion should not be condoned by society. This is different from saying that one does not have the right to criticize religion. These are two very different positions, with insulting a religion being an emotional argument. These religious folks should have the right to freedom of religion, and he should have the right to freedom from Christianity and Islam. Their freedom of religion should be protected from malicious insults.

He opens the video by saying to those "mainly Christian and Muslims" who say that he cannot insult their religion. I, of course, believe he does not have this right. Then he begins to make really general statements about religions. He makes religious people sound as though they are judgmental or that they all agree with some sort of guiding, coercive evangelicalism as their goal. He appears to be more concerned, not really with all religious folks, but rather evangelical folks who wish to propagate their religion.
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I think part of the problem is that we are treating this as some well thought out statement on religion. It just appears to be him ranting about religion. If he stated that his concern was more for those who used religion to support homophobia, then I think that is different argument. Even then one does not have the right to necessarily insult homophobia in religion, but one has the moral duty to criticize it, and make sure that these religious principles do not infiltrate governmental policies in secular governments.

Religious people often take criticism as insults. This video is just a bitchslap to everyone who's been whining about the rest of his videos.

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

Some religious people often take criticism as insults. Jesus. It is called not generalizing.
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For example, drawing the Prophet Muhammad is an insult to some Muslims, not a criticism. Telling Native Peoples that their religion is backwards is an insult, it is imperialism, not a criticism.

[SimpatiK]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEtfdzNAE74

As for militant atheism, it is needed as long as religion exist. We someone to point out the obvious.

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

Wow, that video just made me entirely rethink all my years of academic training, and that everything I knew is wrong. Mind = blown. Could you send me some of your tracts so that I might learn more about the light and be converted to your way of life?
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I love that militant atheists use the same systems of thought as Christian missionaries and evangelical.
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Alright, enough with this thread. Critical thinking went out the door some time ago.
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Okay, too good not to post. From the front page of Reddit:

[Knifeboy]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

I believe that there is no reason to deride someone for being a militant atheist if they grew up in a society that pushes religion on people. If someone has been bullied all their life for being an atheist, I can't really blaim them for being vigilant.





Luckily, I grew up in Denmark. And religion is a non-issue in my day to day life

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

It depends on how we understand bullied. I think that if the person was GLBTQI and religious voices used their religion as a weapon, then I understand militant atheism as a survival mechanism. However, the vast majority of white, normally middle-to-upper class, males crying about atheism as an oppressed group...come on. I will cry for you after I get recognition for Native land rights, or after racism stops being such a problem.

[Knifeboy]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

Do tell me how often are you approached by atheists in real life that try to convert you?

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

I politely say thank you, and tell them that I would like to enjoy eating my meal in quiet or I keep walking away.
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It is the same tact I take with evangelical Christians. However, I do normally invite the Muslims to eat with me or to have tea, because Islam fascinates me.

[FeebleFables]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

I believe I said unbelief forms a religion, not religion.

how does unbelief form a religion? (not religion)

And, evil is a moral/theological term. I am pretty sure those who were experimented on at Tuskegee would call that evil in the name of science. Immoral does not exactly cover the horrors of that event.

I'm sure some might, but they'd be wrong, since one cannot perform an 'evil' act in the name of (method-of-gathering-knowledge). Science is neither moral nor immoral, just like mathematics is neither moral nor immoral. Serial killers don't commit evils in the name of algebra. Immoral EXACTLY covers the horrors of that event, because the horrors were perpetrated by the twisted ideologies of human beings. It has nothing to do with the methods by which they carry out their immoral acts. to say otherwise is scapegoating, and diverts attention away from where it should be: the immoral perpetrators.

I see you are still using religion in its more archaic definition that posits religion requiring metaphysics. From a religious studies perspective, atheism can be and is studied as a form of religion.

I see you are still using a definition of religion how it best suits you for the argument at hand.
From a personal perspective, you (or anyone) can feel free to study atheism however you want, from a logical perspective, the onus is on you to prove that atheism is a form of religion, given that the definition is agreed upon.

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

I am using a definition of religion based on the academic study of religion. I am sorry you are hostile to this. This conversation will go nowhere with you.
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Wait, it wasn't wrong for them to experiment on African Americans at Tuskegee? That was not an immoral experiment? Even science has ethics, and Tuskegee was a clear violation of ethics.

[FeebleFables]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

I am using a definition of religion based on the academic study of religion. I am sorry you are hostile to this. This conversation will go nowhere with you.

No, you are choosing ONE definition out of many for what is decidedly a nebulous term. But you are correct, the conversation will go nowhere with me until the borders of the debate are set in stone.

Wait, it wasn't wrong for them to experiment on African Americans at Tuskegee? That was not an immoral experiment? Even science has ethics, and Tuskegee was a clear violation of ethics.

I think it was wrong. I think it was immoral. scienTISTS have ethics, or in this case lack there-of. science itself cannot make decisions either way. Just like mathematics.

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

Oh, so you are conversant in religious studies now? Somehow I highly doubt this. I am using the major definition that is currently popular in the academic study of religions. Certainly, evangelical scholars would probably share your definition, but they are currently in the minority in the academy. I think you are clearly speaking from ignorance here.

Science may not have a ethical system, and neither does religion as a category. The problem is not religion, but certain religious people. It is an important distinction. Which is the problem with this guy's video. Sure there are specific sects of specific religious groups that have an ethical system, just like certain scientists have ethics, but these religious groups derive their understanding from a very specific ideological construction of their understanding of religion.
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I mean, I don't walk into a science lecture presuming that I know more about science than the academic. Nor do I presume the authority to write on matters of science without any real training in it, like Dawkins writes about religion. However, for whatever reason I cannot really fathom, people who do not spend one moment critically engaging religion from the perspective of religious studies, nor even reading a salient text produced by that field, feel as though they have more knowledge than those who have spent years in this field. I suppose this is what a scientist feels like when Albert Mohler weighs in on why Intelligent Design is vastly superior to evolution.

[FeebleFables]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

Oh, so you are conversant in religious studies now? Somehow I highly doubt this. I am using the major definition that is currently popular in the academic study of religions. Certainly, evangelical scholars would probably share your definition, but they are currently in the minority in the academy. I think you are clearly speaking from ignorance here.

I don't give 1 shit about religious studies, nor should I. I am conversant in logic and reason, and when discussing the differences of theism and atheism, I will be using logic and reason. You can personally use whatever definition of religion your religious studies grant you, I don't give a 2nd shit. But unless your definition of religion is: "a state of being" we are NOT going to agree that unbelief is a form of religion. And for the very reason that I am an atheist, I don't give a 3rd shit whether any of your academic theists agree with me or not.

I mean, I don't walk into a science lecture presuming that I know more about science than the academic. Nor do I presume the authority to write on matters of science without any real training in it, like Dawkins writes about religion. However, for whatever reason I cannot really fathom, people who do not spend one moment critically engaging religion from the perspective of religious studies, nor even reading a salient text produced by that field, feel as though they have more knowledge than those who have spent years in this field. I suppose this is what a scientist feels like when Albert Mohler weighs in on why Intelligent Design is vastly superior to evolution.

aha, but see, we're not talking about theism or any internal aspects thereof, knock yourself out discussing that with your professors. here we're talking about atheism, and I guess more specifically separation FROM theism, something you've admitted you know little about.
If you want to start a conversation about the morality of jesus's teachings in the new testament, for example, I'll be the first to bow out and walk away, giving you the whole floor.

[And we'll just put a happy little bush over here.]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

A fundamentalist is a fundamentalist regardless of system. One can be a Christian one, a Muslim one, or even an Atheistic one.

Lulz at the idea of me being a theist.
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Pity, though, that you wont move beyond your ignorance and insularity. Atheist arguments informed by religious studies are a lot more intriguing and convincing.

[SimpatiK]

Re: Best of Youtube / Google Video

How does one go about being a atheistic fundamentalist? Is there a holy book of atheism I'm supposed to base my life around? The God Delusion perhaps? I haven't even read that through. I don't think it's relevant to argue about gods existence or unexistence because no one ever wins that discussion. It's more interesting to look at the effect religion has upon people and it has done way more harm than good. That goes for every organized religion that likes to enforce their rules upon people.