Help me remove my delusions thread

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Help me remove my delusions thread

This thread is an accompaniment to a bulletin we are sending out on myspace. This is a place where theists can come and ask questions that are left over after they've watched this video. This thread is NOT a debate thread. No debate is permitted in this thread. This thread is for the benefit of those who watch this video, but still have underlying questions about why they would abandon their beliefs. If you are a theist, and have not critically examined your faith, please do so. If you have questions that you can't find the answers to, or theistic arguments that you would like to have debunked, please present them in this thread, we're here to help. (all comments that incite debate will be moved)

Please post this video and message on myspace in a bulletin, the following is the html code to use that will post the video and direct people to this thread:


thatkidthom
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?

The first part of this video makes you guys sound like a bunch of idiots...

Especially to an ex-mormon.


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thatkidthom wrote:The first

thatkidthom wrote:
The first part of this video makes you guys sound like a bunch of idiots...

You mean the guy who made the video?

So do you still believe in god?


thatkidthom
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I stopped believing in god a

I stopped believing in god a long while ago.

I just saying to post something like this that has inaccuracies as simple and pronunciation massive figures in that religion isn't going to convince anyone we all know that Christians are tards and they're rebuttal to their video would be "OMG OMG OMG WTF! They didn't even say his name right how can they be right?!"

It just looks bad, especially when the video comes off being so snotty.


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thatkidthom wrote:I just

thatkidthom wrote:
I just saying to post something like this that has inaccuracies as simple and pronunciation massive figures in that religion isn't going to convince anyone we all know that Christians are tards and they're rebuttal to their video would be "OMG OMG OMG WTF! They didn't even say his name right how can they be right?!"

So someone needs to be able to pronounce a word correctly in order to debunk it? If the viewer isn't intelligent enough to realize that some people attain knowledge through reading, where pronounciations aren't heard, then we're not likely going to help them anyway.

The real issue here isn't the pronounciation of a word but the vailidity of those "facts" and in this case I think the video does a fine job in showing Christians just how delusional they are. It's time for them to overcome their delusions, humanity knows better now.


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This kind of il-logic runs

This kind of il-logic runs deep in our society, and I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Christianity inadvertently teaches this kind of logical fallacy. By forcing people to use logical fallacies to defend god, Christianity is essentially ensuring the persistence of these arguments in other arenas... political, for instance.

Anyway, the idea is that since this dude didn't pronounce the word right, his whole argument is crap. The flip side of that is that if a Christian (or president, for a political example) were to, I don't know, mispronounce a word or twelve, people would point out that it only adds to his credibility, because he's a simple, straightforward man of the people, and that a simple thing like a mispronunciation shouldn't diminish the truth of his argument.

Double standards! That's the only way you can justify god's existence. Once you learn it, it's easy to slip into that pattern of argument in everyday life.

Herein is one of the dangers of allowing irrational thought into your life!

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Hambydammit wrote: The

Hambydammit wrote:

The flip side of that is that if a Christian (or president, for a political example) were to, I don't know, mispronounce a word or twelve, people would point out that it only adds to his credibility, because he's a simple, straightforward man of the people, and that a simple thing like a mispronunciation shouldn't diminish the truth of his argument.

Oh jeez, so true, I didn't even think of that. LOL


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thatkidthom wrote:I stopped

thatkidthom wrote:
I stopped believing in god a long while ago.

I just saying to post something like this that has inaccuracies as simple and pronunciation massive figures in that religion isn't going to convince anyone we all know that Christians are tards and they're rebuttal to their video would be "OMG OMG OMG WTF! They didn't even say his name right how can they be right?!"

It just looks bad, especially when the video comes off being so snotty.

Religious people will look for any rationalization to cling to their religion. But this video is good and it will produce some doubt.

I have a few minor complaints.

1) The video states that we are 100% certain that these other religions are false. I'd just say that we just don't believe them and leave out the certainty.

2) The video implies that once you drop religion, you'll be sane or normal. There's no such promise that that is true... religion is a delusion, but freeing yourself from one delusion doesn't guarentee sanity.

3) And this leads me to point 3: there are other delusions other than religion - pyramid schemes are just one example. There are also other examples to be found in politics, etc. It's likely that everyone stands within one bubble of delusion, if not several.

But the idea for the video is good.

PS is it pronounced MORE-oni?

This video is awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WHf5HFDk10

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Quote:PS is it pronounced

Quote:
PS is it pronounced MORE-oni?

Yes that it’s the correct pronunciation and the religion refers to Joe as Joseph Smith.

Also it states that there is no evidence of the great civilizations that the Book of Mormon speaks of but from my understanding most of the book takes place in central, and S. America. And we've all seen the massive Aztec, and other various cultures cities.


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todangst wrote: Religious

todangst wrote:

Religious people will look for any rationalization to cling to their religion. But this video is good and it will produce some doubt.

I have a few minor complaints.

1) The video states that we are 100% certain that these other religions are false. I'd just say that we just don't believe them and leave out the certainty.

2) The video implies that once you drop religion, you'll be sane or normal. There's no such promise that that is true... religion is a delusion, but freeing yourself from one delusion doesn't guarentee sanity.

3) And this leads me to point 3: there are other delusions other than religion - pyramid schemes are just one example. There are also other examples to be found in politics, etc. It's likely that everyone stands within one bubble of delusion, if not several.

I agree with everything you said.

Quote:
This video is awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WHf5HFDk10

He was given a gift subscription to RRS several months back when I first saw him for his efforts in the field. I wanted him on the show, but never heard back from him.


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thatkidthom wrote:Quote:PS

thatkidthom wrote:
Quote:
PS is it pronounced MORE-oni?

Yes that it’s the correct pronunciation and the religion refers to Joe as Joseph Smith.

Good. Thanks. That's how I've been saying it. I have two friends who are/were mormons, but they are so nice that if I said it wrong, they might not correct me.

Quote:

Also it states that there is no evidence of the great civilizations that the Book of Mormon speaks of but from my understanding most of the book takes place in central, and S. America. And we've all seen the massive Aztec, and other various cultures cities.

Yes. Of course, there's no reason to hold that these Indian groups were Jews, but there is 'some' possible evidence for the claim for the reason you've given here.

It would be better to say that there's no artifacts that appear to represent the claims in the book of mormonism... what we see is better explained as the artifact of Indians, not ancient jews.

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Sapient wrote:todangst

Sapient wrote:
todangst wrote:
This video is awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WHf5HFDk10

He was given a gift subscription to RRS several months back when I first saw him for his efforts in the field. I wanted him on the show, but never heard back from him.

Damn! I was going to ask if he was going to be a guest next.... I'll try to write him to thank him for his video, he's quite cool... he rips these guys to shreds and he's not even giving them his full attention....

"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'


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Todangst, I agree with your

Todangst,

I agree with your criticisms.

Like I was saying about a president who shall remain nameless, there's a double standard, and like it or not, we (atheists) get the short end of the double standard stick.

If a Christian makes an error, it just shows how much they need God's love, and if they say something completely stupid, they get praised for having the courage to stand up for Jesus. People look at them and say, "Isn't that adorable that Jesus loves even the dumb-dumbs!"

If an atheist slightly misstates something, or uses a word with a not-quite-precise meaning, he immediately gets labeled an idiot unworthy of our attention, and his error is used as a proof that atheism is wrong.

Sad but true -- we are held to very high standards, and we should always choose our words carefully.

Oddly enough, the Southpark episode with Richard Dawkins falling in love with Ms. Garrison seems to be going toward the point that eliminating religion from the world wouldn't solve all of man's problems. We'll see next week. What I'm afraid is that their point is going to be that with or without religion, people will still kill each other. As we all know, this misses the obvious point that while things would not be perfect without religion, there's a damn good chance they would be better.

We'll see.

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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You guys should check out

You guys should check out his new video on praying to milk.


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Sapient wrote:He was given a

Sapient wrote:
He was given a gift subscription to RRS several months back when I first saw him for his efforts in the field. I wanted him on the show, but never heard back from him.

If you look at his account then you can see that he watches the Infidel Guy. Perhaps he'll go on Reggie's show?


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Too bad no christians are

Too bad no christians are going to have their minds changed after seeing this =/ Everything said here is rational, but we already know that doesn't mean much to Christians when it comes to some of the crazier beliefs they hold.

We won't deconvert people like this. We have to appeal to their hearts as well as their minds. They are emotionally attached to religion, and a rational arguement won't fix that alone. We need to win the emotional arguement too, and this video is far to polarizing and insulting to Christians for them to even consider leaving their beliefs.

Sigh... but how I love to insult them!

The Enlightenment wounded the beast, but the killing blow has yet to land...


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I'm not ready with it yet,

I'm not ready with it yet, but I've been working on an essay for a couple of weeks now dealing with exactly what you're talking about. In it, I ask quite a few questions, and answer some of them... For instance:

1) Is logic a useful tool in de-converting theists?
2) Why do people stay in religions despite every logical reason to leave?
3) What kinds of tools do atheists have to counteract the mechanisms that hold theists to their beliefs?
4) What do churches have the atheists don't?
5) How far should atheists go to try to spread atheism?

Some of these are matters of opinion, but questions 1, 2, and 4, specifically, have real answers, and I'm doing my best to find some of them.

These questions might belong in their own post, but I would welcome any answers other atheists might have, especially if they pertain to 1,2, or 4, and have some science to back them up. (And if anybody snips at me about sociology not being science, I'm going to let my angry kitty cat start shooting his machine gun!)

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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The above bulletin has

The above bulletin has resulted in someone expressing thanks to RRS for helping them to get past theism.

Read about it here.


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todangst wrote: PS is it

todangst wrote:

PS is it pronounced MORE-oni?

I have a family member that for about a decade was sucked in by an offshoot of the RLDS church, complete with red-eyed devils and prophets with which God conversed directly. It was headed by a guy that was so bad that the RLDS church kicked him out. (long story)

When the family member was all fired up about the whole thing, I spent an afternoon hearing all the babble about Joseph Smith and the angel Moroni.

Pronounced more-OWN-eye

Trust me on this. I heard it over and over and over.....

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thatkidthom wrote: It just

thatkidthom wrote:

It just looks bad, especially when the video comes off being so snotty.

I haven't watched the video so I cannot comment on it. However I have heard many times over from christians that one thing that turns them off about atheist is that some of them are perceived to have an arrogance about them. I wonder if this means we need a kinder, gentler atheist Sticking out tongue


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Sapient wrote:The above

Sapient wrote:
The above bulletin has resulted in someone expressing thanks to RRS for helping them to get past theism.

Read about it here.

It turns out that it was also the video on prayer, not Christians being delusional. Details still in the above thread.

Here is the video on prayer:


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I LOVE Marshall Brain (maker

I LOVE Marshall Brain (maker of these videos, whydoesgodhamputees.com and howstuffworks.com), we need to get him on the show at some point.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins

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Sorry I didn't venture into

Sorry I didn't venture into this thread sooner, but perhaps I can help here.

It is true that many mormons would probably have a knee-jerk response to the pronunciation, even though it is unimportant. The problem is more to do with the thinking of others than with the significance of the word, really.

Quote:
Yes that it’s the correct pronunciation and the religion refers to Joe as Joseph Smith.

Also it states that there is no evidence of the great civilizations that the Book of Mormon speaks of but from my understanding most of the book takes place in central, and S. America. And we've all seen the massive Aztec, and other various cultures cities.

Actually, the Aztecs refers to a set of civilizations and tribes that fell under the jurisdiction of a mediating, loose governmental body. When you hear the word "Aztecs" it is in reference to people whose tribe or city paid dues into a central government which oversaw all of your allies and resolved inter-group conflicts. The cities were not as large as is depicted in the Book of Mormon.

Also, when the Book of Mormon came to be, it was taught that the Natives in the US were the tribes mentioned in the Book of Mormon, but as time passed, it was evident that this could not be possible due to the lack of armor, swords, cimitars, the lack of the animals described in the Book of Mormon, and due to many other differences in culture, society, and evidences available. So, as time passed, they began to teach that it was south america that it must refer to, but all that does is pose the same problem, just in another place and the people being told this don't suspect a problem because they don't realize that central american cultures weren't that big, didn't have the kinds of armor mentioned, and were operated under extremely different norms than what is mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Now there is some people who claim that it is the Samoans that the book refers to ... but ... the same problem is there ... The fact is, there isn't an ancient western culture, nor is there evidence of there ever being one that fits the descriptions in the Book of Mormon.

Also, recent DNA research done on Natives in the continental US shows that the Native Americans are not from the middle east, but are genetically closer to people from the Orient.

Hambydammit wrote:
Oddly enough, the Southpark episode with Richard Dawkins falling in love with Ms. Garrison seems to be going toward the point that eliminating religion from the world wouldn't solve all of man's problems. We'll see next week. What I'm afraid is that their point is going to be that with or without religion, people will still kill each other. As we all know, this misses the obvious point that while things would not be perfect without religion, there's a damn good chance they would be better.

I think that the point was that things won't change without religion. This is actually something I am not sure if we can really know at this point. However, in relation to what todangst said, it is more dogmatic thought that creates many of the issues that we talk about - but sence we associate dogmatic thought more with religion, we often overlook where it appears elsewhere. Dogmatic thought plays a role in people having delusions. People don't generally claim to have seen without believing in ghosts at the time that they experience it or retell the story. The same goes for alien abductions and other related events. Such things may seem trivial to you and I as compared to religions, but that doesn't mean there isn't some adverse effect that it causes. People with medical conditions, for example, may fail to seek adequate treatment because they think some ailment that they have is due to aliens. For that matter, people who practise certain forms of "naturalistic" medical care or "holistic" medicines and convince someone to dogmatically believe that they are a practitioner that is as good as a doctor may end up treating someone who has a fatal condition and who could die because they weren't seeing an adequate physician.

I once saw a thread in a naturalist forum where someone had gone into the forum to seek advice for particular (very detailed) physical symptoms. The people in the forum gave their advice to help "cure" the condition and even gave their own opinions on what it could be. The person came back after a few days and stated that they were actually from a critical thinking forum and that they only posted the above to see what advice would be given. They stated that the symptoms they mentioned were the exact description of symptoms from a condition that would cause an individual to die within 2-3 days if not treated by a medical doctor. They pointed out that had this been a real person with that real condition, the individual would have died if they had not sought further treatment. The owners of the forum promptly banned the person and ranted about how absurd it was for them to play a trick on them like that.

melchisedec wrote:
I haven't watched the video so I cannot comment on it. However I have heard many times over from christians that one thing that turns them off about atheist is that some of them are perceived to have an arrogance about them. I wonder if this means we need a kinder, gentler atheist

Atheists aren't "created" to be kind Eye-wink

BTW, I love the nick. It is really difficult to be around my older brother (who's as fundamentalist mormon as they come - returned missionary, temple married) without making a "Milk his dick" joke.