2009
10.16
10.16
Hey, SHAFTers. I don’t want to flood this site with a torrent of videos, but I will direct you to a couple gems.
The first video comes from YouTube user ProfMTH. His “Brief Bible Blunders” series lampoons Biblical literalism by highlighting some of the Bible’s contradictions and absurdities. Below is one of my favorites, but be sure to watch the entire series.
The second video comes courtesy of The Thinking Atheist. This channel doesn’t boast many videos, but those videos that the user has uploaded are well-produced and worth watching. By way of evidence:
For more videos related to atheism, I’d refer you to Atheist Media. It’s just one of the many great sites you’ll find on our blogroll.
Funny, and I really don’t want to be a crank like Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, but I am afraid the net effect of videos like this (that is, videos that pick easily picked low lying fruit) is to encourage this fallacious reasoning: “Because some religious people are stupid, therefore all religions/religious people are stupid.”
I don’t care to take the effort, but someone should go out and make a funny video about the stupid things that some atheists believe, then make a similar move. Of course, in response atheists would just cite such a video as evidence of the desperate and pathetic irrationality (due to the fallaciousness of it all) of theists. Hmmm.
You should never follow the statement “I really don’t want to be a crank like Bill Donahue” with a “but.” Lol.
I agree with your concern that such videos encourage people to be equally dismissive of all religions. That’s unfortunate. But I disagree with you that these videos are as silly and irrelevant as, say, a video showcasing stupid beliefs of atheists. So long as the belief being ridiculed isn’t atheism itself, than it doesn’t discredit atheism. These videos, in contrast, at least discredit specific theisms (though not theism at large).
Yes, what I essentially said was “I don’t want to be a crank, but listen to me being cranky.” I did watch Life of Brian for the 8 millionth time late last night, does that earn me some street cred?
I am not sure those videos really target “specific theisms” (maybe the first, though even the literalist could cry foul that the lines are taken totally out of context). The second video just targets individuals and their beliefs, I don’t see that it is essential to Christianity to believe in the appearances of Mother Mary on cheese. I guess you could say that their Christianity was fertile soil for silly beliefs, but I can imagine making that connection with atheism and the beliefs of some individual atheists.
Bottom line: I have a huge stack of grading and am struggling to get myself to it so am spending all day on blogs!
I really wish the bible blunders guy would use a decent version of Yakety Sax, like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnHmskwqCCQ
The saxophone doesn’t sound nearly as funny. Not that this has ANYTHING to do with religion or atheism…
I enjoyed the latte Jesus and wordplay from the second video, but I don’t see a necessary contradiction in the first video. I don’t know the context of these quotes, but to me, “For judgement I have come into this world…” could mean, “I have come into this world to be judged”.
I haven’t studied many religions, and I’m not positive that this is true, but I think the LDS believe that Jesus came to earth to get a body and go through the trials and judgement that everybody else goes through. In this case, all of the quotes work well together.
I think that’s a very strained reading of that verse, David. Interesting, but strained. Read the verse in context–Jesus was chastising the Pharisees and warning them of his judgment.