We evolved in a manner which made cooperation and altruism beneficial to the survival of our species. Morality is a genetic imperative. Of course, there is always variant, it is not written on our hearts. Religion co-opted morality and then claims to be its origin.
Religion not only co-opts morality, but usually does so only after losing a long embarrassing fight against whatever moral advancement it finally comes around to.
@@pterafirma what moral advancement did religion coopt? the polytheism of the Roman empire resulted in endless rounds of generals fighting each other to be emperor. The eastern roman empire stayed stable though and after adopting Christianity, Europe and then America became the most civilized and advanced places in the world, so I would be a little....wary of that assertion.
@Xadion Why does any empire fall in the end? shit still happens. yes- you can read about it in books. China has lasted longer than any empire Europe has ever had. What made China unique? It was super patriarchal and imperial. Christianity is probably not patriarchal enough.
I wouldn't necessarily say that morality per se was a direct result of evolution. We evolved to be empathetic because that was beneficial to us as social creatures, but the concept of prescriptive morals and the complex systems that arose from it is more a product of culture and philosophy that didn't arise until we developed higher order intelligence. That being said even this was well before the development of organized religion but I feel it's something to keep in mind. Religion I think was the first and most primitive attempt at creating a cultural moral framework that could be applied across a large organized society rather than merely within isolated tribal groups.
Another great video. I hate hearing theists ask me if I'm an atheist, why don't I go out and kill and steal and cheat. I always respond with, "All I hear you saying is that if you're religion didn't tell you not to do those things, that's exactly what you'd be doing." I don't murder and steal because it's wrong to do to somebody, not because I'm instructed not to.
*"All I hear you saying is that if you're religion didn't tell you not to do those things, that's exactly what you'd be doing."* And worse - their religion does call for murder. Modern Christians ignore those moral edicts which shows it's not Christian morals they are following; their morality is informed by something else.
I doubt it's true when Christians say things like that to me. I think they just associate their morality with their religion because they've had a lifetime of being told that's where their morality comes from. But if it is true that's possibly the only real advantage of religion. I'd rather these psychopaths be kept in check by their religion than out murdering and raping.
Noones asks you that. What a bullshit, self-fullfilling prophesy ( pun intended) statement. A better question would be, why do you habitually lie from behind a keyboard?
@@juanvaldez5422 nope theists definitely ask that A lot. Thiests also like to say "you do believe in God you're just angry at him" in one way or another but really it's mostly just flawed arguments like Pascal's wager or the God of the gaps fallacy. Oh I can't forget, using some anecdotal unverifiable miracle or some scripture to prove their God.
I think the problem with an ultimate theory of morality is that we aren't ultimate beings. Humans exist at a particular scale in space, time, and importance. At that scale, morality and meaning make sense. Elsewhere, not so much. Just because we aren't cosmically, vitally important cogs in a grand machine doesn't mean life has no meaning or that virtue is a chemical illusion. That's a poorly calibrated perspective.
This sounds like the most mathematically appealing description of existence I've seen. I can just picture a diagram of the infinitesimally small cube with it's 3 axis being stationed at the centre of a photo of the Milky Way.
This is what I've been trying to say! good & evil don't exist in a cosmic (purely objective) context, but it does in a human context. At a human level, there's stuff that's "objectively" good or bad, if we take into account the survival of our species as the motivating factor
“Secular humanism doesn’t have to account for life’s ‘meaning’ or ‘purpose.’” I could not agree more! Life’s ‘meaning’ or ‘purpose’ is what we as individuals internalize, and can never be externally imposed. It is arrogant to presume that the ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ one may embrace for their life, not only can, but must be applied to the lives of others. But this is the attitude of religion. Peace.
Hobson's book is full of false accusations and red herrings. I noted the vagueness of his language - eg, claiming that christianity 'provides an account' of life's meaning/purpose. Anyone can provide an account - the question is whether the account has met its burden of proof. Christianity's account hasn't.
So you don't agree with consequentialism or normative ethics? Could you explain why? Albeit not static and non changing morality systems. Do actions not have consequences? Can those consequences not be measured scientifically?
I had a close moral dilemma last week, my man slave was Messing around when he should have been working harder since he had time to play. So I got mad and beat him with an iron rod, my neighbor saw me & called the cops they said I killed him. I did get arrested & my slave was sent to the hospital, but luckily on the 2nd day he woke up and was ok. so all charges was dropped against me, the judge explained by law it was ok to beat him and knock him out for up to two days as long as I don’t kill him.
My daughter got raped a few months ago.... luckily they got caught in the act, so the guy had to pay me, and now the sucker has to marry and live with her. That'll teach him! I can finally take a nice vacation while my daughter enjoys her life with her rapist.
Other day we were returning from a raid to my neighbours house, which resulted the death of him but by God's grace I kept his wife alive to serve me as a sex slave. As soon as we made it back I dropped my panths and gave her a good thumble. Since then she has been a good, submissive companion to me and that is for her own good too. Obviously being a sex slave to someone morally superior is objectively better than being a wife to a heretic
I saw my neighbor out in the town forest gathering sticks Saturday morning. I picked up a rock and bashed his head in with it, and he died instantly. I was promptly arrested and jailed for 2nd degree murder. Thankfully my attorney cited the law about not gathering sticks on the Sabbath Day to the grand jury, and they dismissed the charge and the judge let me go.
Watching your videos makes me realize how fortunate I was. My parents didn't raise me to be any particular thing, but were happy to take me to a place of worship if I wanted to see what it was like and learn. They always answered any question I asked regardless of my age. When I was 8 I had heard the word prostitute but did not know what it meant, I asked my dad, and instead of saying he would tell me when I was older, he chuckled out of how out of the blue the question was and then just told me. The only lies about belief were Santa and the Easter bunny but I figured those out young. My parents read books to me and never kept me from hearing anything scary, obscene, or confusing. The only thing censored to me was when a show had a sex scene and my mom would tell me to close my eyes. I had catholic friends, orthodox friends, Mormon friends, even Hindu friends but never did any of those views make an ounce of sense to me. My mother was raised orthodox, and my father catholic, but they both fell out of those religions when they moved out and never pushed anything onto me, nor my sister, who actually tried church and just couldn't find any value in it. I was raised to just be kind to people without expecting any form of reward, no underlying message that a God wanted me to do it. I now try to think of everything all the way through. I think about why I'm kind to people, it's because making people feel undeserved negative emotions makes me feel disgusting because I made somebody's life objectively worse, although marginally. I credit my ability to think freely to my parents who never limited my thinking in any way. On political ideas they would do their best to describe both sides of the arguments to me, doing their best to leave out their feelings. I have good parents.
I believe this is an approach I would want to take if I ever had children. Unnecessarily preventing a child from learning about something will only stifle their natural curiosity, and may only cause confusion or problems due to a lack of information. A very basic example could be representation in kids media. Some people believe that things like homosexuality should be kept out of kids media, on the basis that it would be “confusing to the kids,” that media should “let kids be kids,” and similar arguments. These arguments are flawed, however, because the idea that information, especially information that may be particularly useful to some kids, should be censored is not healthy. Kids will always be confused about many things in life, and withholding this info will only confuse them more. If a gay kid were to never see any form of gay relationships, and have it never mentioned around them, or have any mention of it be shut down because they’re too young, the child would likely feel confused and isolated, thinking they’re unnatural, when they’re not. It would also be unhealthy to straight kids, as a straight kid who undergoes a similar situation may be taught, intentionally or otherwise, that being gay is something to mock and shame, causing unnecessary harm, when it could have been taught early on that such relationships were harmless and valid. I saw a couple gay relationships in media as a kid. If I didn’t, I’d think gay people didn’t or shouldn’t exist for a while. Having this proper exposure taught me all I needed to know, and that is the most important thing for kids. The right to know.
Weird (not really) that most of those are either priests or atheists. Like all scams, those who fall for it are the ones with less knowledge (I try not to be judgemental against those that never had a chance to learn, but there are some that are willfully ignorant, and they deserve judgement).
@@57thorns Atheist countrys are the most succesfull and social places on OUR planet. But,,we have lots of islamics,who refuse to learn,because its not there nazi religion.
@@AN-ou6qu Wel the have some problems with Uyghurs. But the wil solve that problem in a proper way. Its a shame we in Europe can not do it the same way as China is doing.
My religious brother use to argue that Ancient Rome and Egypt fell (he termed it 'destroyed,') because they were intrinsically immoral... until I pointed out that Rome lasted 1200 years, Egypt 2000 years, and Ancient Israel.... 418 years.
Remember in school how often kids bitched about dates when studying history. Having even a half-assed grasp of chronology is rare and now long after school... there even more of it. My father was born 1895, my mother in 1901, my paternal grandparents were both born before the American Civil War started. When I was born FDR, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Churchill and Mick Jagger were still alive (I checked Jagger (he is so far). My father mined coal using black powder and mules and he could neither read nor write. I had two jobs, was unemployed for only two days in my life, I retired at 54 and only worked on avionics and computers that entire time. That doesn't even seem reasonable to me. Time is funny.
Also by the time Rome fell, it was Christian. In fact, the Christian Romans spread Christianity through Europe. Their conversion to Christianity is part of the reason Medieval European rulers tried to emulate them. Doesn't really make sense for God to punish the Empire that helped tie Christianity to Western Civilization.
thank you for bringing up animal studies showing morality is not simply human and not based on religion. i had arguments with a man who has a MA in psychology who simply refused to accept the observations of researchers showing animals having moral bases. yes, he's a born again catholic. bizarre. i left that church never to return when i was 19.
They covered how animals can behave morally in year 1 of my psychology course. Funny to think that a psychology student (someone who's supposed to be a scientist) would be so against the idea that humans are animals, given that it's like the whole premise of viewing psychology as a science. Edit: SOME animals have morality. Not claiming that animals are perfect and purer than humans or something.
It didn't? Are you so sure? If you study a bit of history, you'll find out that between Europe and the Caliphates there was a LOT more history in common, and cross-cultural contamination than what most people assume. Hell, the NUMBERS we use were the inventions of Arab scholars. And many cultural ideas were also carried over. Even through the iron curtain of religious conflict, people, ideas and notions travelled a lot. Revisionists would want you to believe that there has been nothing but continuous war between Europeans and Arabs/Moors/Egyptians/Middle Easterners, but it's the farthest thing from the truth.
In fact, you could make a case for various humanistic values emerging in a lot of different civilizations, not just European ones. And in a lot of cases, those other civilizations were more consistent than Europeans in respecting those values.
Can I just say as someone who was also raised Christian but eventually found myself befuddled by the ignorance and immorality I kept running into, your videos are a long drink of crystal clear water after a week in a desert. I love listening to folks like Hitchens and Harris, but your videos literally spell out my own train of thought so closely sometimes I wonder if I've holographically projected you and we're all in the Matrix. Fortunately the 2nd and 3rd movies prove that's impossible. But seriously, great channel. I may even send a link towards my deeply religious mother.
I am still caught up in the endless trap of trying to prove to others that their beliefs are wrong, simply because I am irrationally mad for being so small and insignificant that I cannot even direct my life/myself properly.
Yo this is the weirdest channel ever, stylistically, but it's also my favorite channel on UA-cam. I probably love it so much because it's so stylistically different.
Weird? How so? His speech is slowish perhaps, but no more so than many others on YT currently, and given the concision seems reasonable. The animation style is unique, but hardly 'weird' - nothing Dali-esque.
CyberiusT Calm down son, don't be all insulted for absolutely no reason and jump you the defense of someone who obviously can hold there own, that's even weirder than this channel. The dudes channel is weird because dudes logo is a floating baby, for one. His name is Theramin Trees [wtf?] for two. Those two things alone are weird as fuck! However, that weird shit was what attracted me. I'm super into researching the occult, even though it's mostly silly bullshit. One of the actual interesting aspects of the occult is the use of symbols to express deeper ideas; I wonder if the floating baby could hide some deeper, mental meaning to Theramin Trees. Or maybe not. But when I see an odd use for a symbol, or a symbol I've never encountered before, I dissect it. Anyway, yeah that kind of answers the question. I'm not trying to insult the guy, I'm saying he's bad ass, wanting to be "normal" leads to people being bland, paper thin eternally insulted internetites that jump to the defense of their favorite UA-camr their vicariously living through for no reason.
Liphted: "Calm down"? WTF gave you the idea I was in any way upset - I was curious what you were on about. (I'm not *upset* now either - I'm baffled.) Man, the world is even more f*d-up than I thought if the first reaction you have is assuming any question is "leaping to someone's defence". :P
The most delicious fruit can be rooted in a pile of manure. Being rooted in a religious past does not make humanism part of that past, it is the redemption of that past. The beautiful arising from the shit.
*You think a Humanistic driven world is a "delicious fruit"? Not much aware of history, are you?* Simon explicitly mentioned "redemption of that past" which seems to be a very clear statement of awareness of history. But forget that your point for the moment. We're talking of humanism here: What history are you referring to where bad things have been done thanks to humanistic ideology? On the face of it this seems to be a rubbish statement. But I did a quick Google search to see what you may be referring to. I can find no reference to any atrocities done in the name of humanism. I then went looking for individual murders. A few individual murders in the name of humanism wouldn't make your case at all, but at least I could see that there may be some basis for your remarks. But no, the only hits were about humanists wanting to abolish the death penalty. This is the second post in these threads where you have accused someone of being naive. In both cases you provide no evidence whatsoever, and in both cases you seem to ignore the entire context of the post you're replying to. It seems a lot like you're entirely full of shit.
*I must allow the humanists to define it for themselves. So I read the Humanist Manifesto.* Excellent. *Delicious fruit?* Clearly that's an analogy, with the point being that something good can come from something shit. But that's a distraction. You're responding to my questioning about your statement "Not much aware of history, are you?". I tried to look up this history that you seem to think is so obvious it doesn't even need stating, but that history seemed not to exist. I called you out for making accusations devoid of any evidence whatsoever. Your reply has still provided no evidence whatsoever, and has only attempted to divert conversation to whether the original analogy was too flowery. I'm happy to discuss that, but first either clearly state then provide some evidence for your accusation, or withdraw it. (For anyone reading, I mentioned a previous post made by LuthAMF that gave me the impression he's a troll, but I'm happy to say he replied again to that thread with a post that I thought was well-explained and reasonable).
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih humanism is the source of the idea and perception that humans are a measure of everything and everything was made for man. Such a worldview was the fuel for the destruction of nature via agricultural practices which require the removal of naturally occuring vegetation and limitless animal killing for fun and trophies in colonial countries especially, and, in the hands of most, it was also the fuel for colonial racism and the justification for colonialism. Its one of the most antropocentric ideas ever
@@lil_weasel219 *humanism is the source of the idea and perception that humans are a measure of everything and everything was made for man.* Not only is that not true, it's hard to imagine it being much further from the truth. How did you come to think this is what humanism is? Reading your statement about 'everything was made for man' immediately made me think of religion; particularly the creation story of the Abrahamic religions. And this is the complete opposite of what humanism says. At the core of humanism is the principle that evidence and critical thinking are the ways to understand reality, and the rejection of superstition and unfounded supernatural claims. Like I said; the complete opposite of what you claim here. *...it was also the fuel for colonial racism and the justification for colonialism.* More rubbish. Humanism teaches that all humans are equal, and should be treated as such. For a second time, what you blame humanism for is actually far more closely related to religion. Racism and colonialism happen when people become convinced that they have divine warrant. They are doing God's work, and the tribes/colonies they are taking over are not fully human. Again, this is the complete opposite of everything humanism stands for. It's funny - if I replace 'humanism' in your post with 'religion' or 'Christianity' it's suddenly quite accurate (at least, as close as such generalisms can be).
I grew up atheist and I remember other kids asking me once how I knew the difference between right and wrong if I don't have the bible to tell me and I was so baffled how they could need the bible for that. I told them something along the lines of if it hurts people, its wrong, if it doesn't, its right (pretty common sense) and I dont remember their response, but yea that was the first time I had a really noteworthy experience with religion. It really stuck out to me that they couldn't inherently tell the difference from right and wrong, as an outsider looking in, it really made no sense to me. Now as an adult I understand why they thought that. They did know the difference from right and wrong intuitively actually, but they didn't trust their own judgement, it seems very obvious now why they, and a lot of people need someone or something else to tell them right from wrong, its weird looking back on that, knowing what I know now. I looked at the world very differently then, I didnt realize how different my upbringing was from theirs, I knew they were religious, and that most people are, but I dont think I really grasped what that was, to me it was like a santa claus for adults and kids, thats really how I thought of it (I also knew santa wasnt real from a young age) and I knew that you werent supposed to break the magic for them, or they would get very upset. I actually pretended to be religious sometimes to fit in up until I was about 12. I just didnt want to hurt my friends feelings or to stick out and have them dislike me I guess. Sometimes I wished my parents were christians so I could have just fit in and lived in blissful ignorance, but Im so glad now that wasnt the case. I actually was quite ignorant of how insidious religion is.
@Ethnic Nationalist theories have proofs, god doesn't. And you don't even follow a religion, so why believe? You deists are more disgusting than religious people, because the religious still accept the dogmas, while you make god at your own will.
Reminds me of a fight I had with my dad because he claimed judeo-Christian values ended slavery in the US That still remains one of the biggest load of bs I've ever heard
I could accept the argument that some groups of people inspired by specific teachings of Christianity (Quakers) contributed to the eventual widespread condemnation of slavery, as much as I’m willing to admit that Christianity contributed to building a the system of slavery in the first place by citing rules to engage in slavery as written in their holy Bible. “Your male and female slaves are to be from the nations around you; you may purchase male and female slaves.” - Leviticus 25:44 CSB
@Ethnic Nationalist Where is he/she lying? Is that line not in the book? Did different American Christians not fight at both sides for or against slavery in the US civil war?
@Ethnic Nationalist Is it? I don’t think I saw a line in both the OT and NT that explicitly forbade or went against slavery, and the OT, as we see from examples like that Leviticus line above, at least appears to have condoned or treated slavery as a given, setting laws for how to own and manage slaves if not outright supported it. Even Jesus himself appears to have condoned the existence of slavery, telling them to obey their masters although he did tell the masters to give them basic human decency. So overall, I don’t think Christianity was actually against slavery, especially since pro-slavery people were able to quote freely from the Christian religious text as support of their slaveowning, including appropriation of the Curse of Ham idea.
@Ethnic Nationalist Oh, in the least the OT is very partial to Israelites, made up racist backstories for other Canaanites and justified slaughtering or enslaving them. The only difference is the concept of African slaves didn’t occur to them, but since they differentiated non-Israelites they don’t exactly make a good case for racism either. It would be Paul that reached out to the gentiles, and again none of them decided to explicitly do away with slavery, be it motivated by racism or ethnicity.
'Being an entirely voluntary exercise, the crucifixion story amounts to nothing more than a divine flirtation with sadomasochism.' I've never heard it said better.
As a student in school, a teacher sent me out of the classroom, because I dared disagree with her notion, that Christianity was the foundation of western morality and that there was no morality without it. Now, before my family moved to this country, I grew up in a place and time, where there religion had no influence in the state at all - let's say, practicing religion was not encouraged and churches didn't get any support - and atheism was (and still is) as widely spread like barely anywhere else in the world. Nobody in my family is Christian, I wasn't baptized and neither were my parents, my siblings or my cousins. I never even heard of Jesus before I moved to the west. But we still have a sense of morality and that's why I knew the teacher was wrong and I opposed her. Now, the cherry on top of this story is this: the class I attended was supposed to be about ethics. It is a class especially for kids, who did NOT want to attend the Bible class (because, yeah, that's a thing that needs to exist).
That sounds weird. When I went to school they didn't have a Bible class, or an ethics class. I am American, but I've only heard of that existing in private Christian schools.
It has been and still is standard in West Germany. Well, actually the name of the class is "religion" and I think, you *do* learn, about other religions, as well. And noone HAS to attend. But you have to attend something as a substitue.
@@Gandaleon Weird how we have this view of Germany in the US as a secular paradise/hellscape (depending on your view on religion), but Germans have religious literacy classes in public school and actual political parties dedicated to certain Christian denominations.
@@CheapSkateGamer96 To be fair, what is the difference between "a place where, if you believe, you can be open about it, and if you don't, you can be open about it" and a secular paradise?
I suppose the argument isn’t that you can’t be moral, rather than there’s no compelling reason to be moral beyond your own boundaries which you can break because you have set them, and there’s no fear of inherent retribution for this act as there would be if you were disobeying a prescribed morality from a higher authority.
Luth, You're backwards. Christian morality is presented as 'priceless artifacts' by believers...but all they're selling is radioactive trinkets that look shiny while it destroys their health and well being. But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Let's find out. Is it moral and just to punish an innocent for the crimes of the guilty?
Luth, bible myths have bibleGod punishing innocent people for the crimes of the guilty all the time. King David's baby...the first born of Egypt...global flood story logically includes murdering infants...claiming generations after generations will be punished for the crimes of their offspring...the whole adam and eve original sin curse...etc. etc. In the real world, there's a whole legal libraries worth of argumentation defining and supporting what a 'miscarriage of justice' is.... primarily the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. ie. unjust. But that's 'man's justice', right? Imperfect, unjust, man's justice. I'm sure that if the police went up to your mother and shot her in the head and told you "oh, we caught her sister jaywalking right after we made a public announcement about all jaywalking must stop, so this is justice served" (akin to the King David story)...you'd rejoice and celebrate the objective justice of such an act. After all, that is the justice system of your fictional overlord...and your fictional overlord's suppose to be perfect, so that must be perfect justice. Right? Tell me all about how just such a system would be in reality and not just in the confines of your fairytale book.
Luth, it's nearly impossible for you to discuss anything with people like me because we don't take your claims of truth at face value. We question. We think. We don't use faith to determine what truth actually is. I'm not pounding my fist saying "it's this way". I'm pointing out that no where on the planet, is there any country or legal argument that sells the idea of justice being served by punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. Such a scenario is literally the definition of 'miscarriage of justice'. There's no emotion in stating that fact. It's just a verifiable fact. But I understand you have to get emotional and charge me with doing the same. You know that I'm right. You know that punishing an innocent for the crimes of the guilty is not justice by any sane definition of the word. But admitting that fact would undermine the position you've built on faith. So you have to attack me instead of being honest with yourself. I understand completely. Instead of addressing the facts, you have to attack whatever you don't like about how I present them, or me personally, or both. I was a Christian for the first half of my life. I understand how that works. In the real world, virtually everyone figures out and understands that punishing an innocent for the crimes of the guilty is not justice. Every legal system on the planet I'm aware of agrees. How is that not a statement of fact concerning 'the real world'?
Luth, you sure do like barfing out deflective bullshit and logical fallacies. It is unjust to punish an innocent for the crimes of the guilty. It's called 'miscarriage of justice'. Don't blame me if you can't admit reality or your sadistic religion preaches the opposite.
Luth, Your argument is a logical fallacy called 'special pleading'. Punishing an innocent for the crimes of the guilty is injustice. A miscarriage of justice. Everyone understands this. All you're doing is adding a label, 'atonement' (ie. special pleading) and claiming it gets a pass from logic. It doesn't. All you're doing is justifying injustice by calling it something else.
Whenever I hear someone saying that Christianity invented something intrinsic to human nature like morality and that there was no morality or true good society before it, I just imagine Ancient China looking up and going "hm? sorry what was that?"
Oh god I had some psycho write three comments in a row 750 words each screeching obscenities all because I told someone else the Ancient Greeks have more to take credit for than "Judeo-Christianity" when it comes to the West.
This video reminded me of the time my mom said "but where did they learn good morals?" upon learning that my cousin was marrying someone who wasn't following a religion. Kinda shookt me to realize there really are people who think being a good person can only be taught through religious scripture
@@sentinelUSA05 I wasn't really talking about the philosophical/religious implications of being a "good person" on my initial comment. It was just disbelief that a person thought that someone raised without religion wouldn't have a concept of good or bad. And yeah, a "100% good person" most likely doesnt exist. Imperfection is part of being human. But I'd still consider someone whose bad actions don't outweigh the good that they've done a "good person" in general.
@@sentinelUSA05 haha i tend to oversimplify, and im probably gonna end up doing so again. Some animals exhibit altruism despite not having the concept of religion. I assume its the same for someone who still does good things outside of spirituality. They do it because benefits the community. It may come as a detriment to them, but it could improve the community as a whole. This is probably a little more muddied now that towns arent as tight-knit as they used to be, but its just a guess based on experience as someone who isn't really religious. Also I mentioned a persons good actions outweighing their bad as criteria so I think your example of Jeff Bezos already kind of fails to meet that imo. Yes he donates to charity, but Amazon is notorious for its terrible treatment of its employees and other shady stuff. But hey im just a rando on the internet. At this point i think we're still limited to what we know about a person to determine whether they're "good" or not.
This video prompted a very disturbing revelation in me about how Christianity frames crimes and punishment, which starts with the very first "crime" ever committed. Crime: Adam and Eve disobey God by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Punishment: *Every single person that is descended from them, i.e. all of humanity, must suffer for it.*
The story isn't so much about Adam's sin causing sin in everyone else, though he was chosen as the first representatives of humanity. It is about the knowledge of sin that came into the world after his meal. Man already had a sinful nature but he hadn't known sin yet. The "curse" (this doesn't mean "hex" it means loss of protection) of death was not something humanity didn't possess already. They were already mortal and would have died but for the tree of life which provided them with life. In Genesis 3:22 God removed them from the garden and access to the tree of life and so suffered death as they were already made to do. The rest of humanity doesn't suffer because of Adam. They suffer because they all sin. Adam was just the first, and "so through Adam, all men die."
@Richdragon No. God made them with free will. He wanted an honest relationship not creatures that follow for fear. You can characterize it as you wish, of course.
@Richdragon No. I see where you think that is what I'm saying. I didn't mean it that way. An honest relationship means a loving relationship where the parities are mutually interested in each other on personal grounds. A relationship built in fear is no such relationship. If God came down and revealed himself to the world and demanded obedience with lightning bolts and fire coming from his mouth, we would all believe and do what he says for fear of His wrath. There wouldn't be any personal relationship.
@Richdragon For sure, the threat of justice and consequences may strike fear in someone guilty before that justice. The thing is, I know no Christian that is a Christian because they are afraid of hell fire. In fact, I would argue that anyone that comes to Christ for no other reason then fear of hell fire, never remains a Christian for long. I can say, for sure, that I didn't, haven't and don't follow God because of my fear of hell. All hell does for me is reveal what I deserve so that I can understand what I have gained.
@Richdragon Being guilty is waving your social finger in God's general direction because you don't think you need him or because you think he is immoral or because you think you could do things better. The Bible says, "a fool says in his heart there is no God." It assumes the obviousness of God's existence. As for hell, I'm not sure that the Bible teaches eternal conscious torment. I'm still working that through. Not only that but descriptions of hell are obviously metaphorical. From the Lazarus parable to revelations the discussions about hell are painted in figurative language. The original illusions come from the burning trash pit outside of Jerusalem. The imagery begins with fire figuratively and ends in revelations with fire figuratively. Throughout the NT though hell is described as a place of destruction where the chaff is "burned" up. The verses about the smoke of their judgment rising up forever follows a verse just a chapter or so earlier where the great city Babylon is destroyed and its "smoke rises up forever," when the context is quite clear that the city is destroyed and is no more. Actually the Christians I run around with would. It would be hard to hide because the way they interacted with the things of God would be different. It would be soulless. It wouldn't be one of gratitude or humility. Now there may be some Christians that I have ran across and not really known who are Christians because of that fear but as I said before, I would bet my bank account that they won't remain a Christian for long because its much easier to accept post modernism or atheism then to struggle through a faith in fear. People that live in fear will find a way to justify their way out of it if they can. Even if there are some Christians that are so out of fear, it is an extreme minority. I should be clear, I'm talking about born again committed Christians. I'm not talking about the millions of people that have no relationship with God but only participate in the rituals because that is what they were taught to do from childhood. Among that group, many may choose God because of fear. I don't know. That isn't a type I'm around much.
Its true, but I think that story helped them reel their egos in some and check themselves relative to how Islam is. Not alot though, as christians still have strong flaws.
It's also really stupid. In the end, Jesus' great "sacrifice" amounted to him sacrificing his weekend and then coming back to life and flying up to Heaven. Meanwhile, when real people sacrifice themselves for a cause or other people, they don't come back. They're gone. But by some magic, the most empty, meaningless sacrifice of them all is the only one that Christians care about.
@@anchorthesun3438 So? He only stayed dead for roughly two or three days, depending on which gospel you read. Then he predicted the end of the world within the lifetime of his present followers, and ascended into paradise. Meanwhile, every human that has ever died for something did not come back.
@@anchorthesun3438 Correct. Which doesn't make him special. He is just another case of brutal torture, but unlike real victims he himself submitted himself to it, and then demands our everlasting thankfulness and whorship while threatening us with even more brutal torture
Always wondered why, in his sermon on the mount in Matthew 5, Jesus INSISTS that we must NOT think he's come to change the slightest word of the old Jewish law of Moses and the Pharisees, and Jesus threatens that any man "who sets aside ONE off the LEAST of the old commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven"... And then a few lines later in the same speech the guy says 6:51 "You've heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you...." UM Excuse me Jesus, that sounds like you ARE changing more than a jot or tittle... you wanna be thrown in the river of fire too Mr. Cheesus ? hhmm?
I agree with the theory that Jesus was just a proto-hippie, and that he & his followers were just intoxicated, thinking he was magic. It's not like Charles Manson didn't do something similar..
@@mensetens6391 Jesus didn't die for anyone else either. He died because he was executed for starting a cult that threatened Roman rule, then people made up a story to attach meaning to his death, which resulted in a religion.
@@Nognamogo _He died because he was executed for starting a cult that threatened Roman rule_ That was a very nice example of an assertion without evidence. _then people made up a story to attach meaning to his death, which resulted in a religion_ As was that. Strike two. _Jesus didn't die for anyone else either_ Now, here we agree. I didn't say 'die for someone else.' When I mentioned 'die for the sake of others,' I *said* 'die for the sake of others,' which is a case of a small change making a big difference. He died that we might see the power of God's love, that though it seems helpless it is really far more powerful than hate or human selfish ambition and shows us our way to God (whom we refuse in our false pride), who forgives and draws us through invitation to himself. He never demands, never orders, but draws in love.
If God (YHWH) were truly all powerful, they'd be capable of judging people as they were, without having to conform to seemingly arbitrary criterion laid out by millenia old texts.
@@LarsPallesen How does a god, as opposed to their mortal clergy, actually punish a sin in any provable way? That said, authoritarian dictatorships tend to be very heavy on punishing thought crimes pretty harshly.
@Phoenix Victoria it does make sense never even occurred to me such that it was a theocracy because it was so detached from religion that I didn't even see the theocratic elements in it big brother being an all knowing God everything is monitored the hour of hate and all monotonous things damn
Around the 10 minute mark: that's the thing I can never understand about religious people. They say the bible is the foundation of their morality - or even *everyone's* morality - and when you point out they are morally opposed to slavery or murdering disobedient children, same-sex lovers, adulterers, blasphemers and unbelievers they acknowledge that those things are immoral acts - and yet *continue* to claim that their holy book is the source of their morality rather than rejecting it as a flawed source and questioning anything else it claims. Frankly, if I picked up a book on, say, "Life in the UK" and could see that there are numerous bits that are clearly factually incorrect, I wouldn't be inclined to believe anything else it told me about life in the UK. I mean, it _might_ have something correct, but how would I know? I'd have to fact-check *everything* in it to be sure - and it'd probably be easier just to forget the book entirely and find out for myself. Why can't religious people who already acknowledge that the bible contains immoral things presented as "God's Moral Law" (TM) just say, "OK, this book's clearly rubbish" and move on?
The Bible is a dense book, full of many proclamations of things adherents must do, many of which contradict one another. There is no one alive who follows every rule set forth in the Bible as-is.
As a man who had lived the majority of his life as an atheist and is currently in the process of converting to Judaism, I really appreciate this kind of though-provoking videos. Everyone in their right mind needs to hear the criticism of their religion. As for me, the humanistic values such as freedom, acceptance, equality and scientific researches will always be above anything else. I have been a type of person who would rush to help one in need and defend the oppressed groups (such as LGBTQ+), and I remain that way. I didn't need a religion to be a moral person before, my personal experience was enough; and nothing changes now, I strive to be a moral person and help others around me on my own account.
This was a biggie, TT. One of the most repeated claims I hear from believers is that all morality derives from their god and their religious belief, yet their holy book, supposedly the source of this morality, contains unspeakable violence, misogyny, and homophobia, all of which go unjustified, other than to say, Yahweh sez do it THIS way OR ELSE. If you'll permit me to draw a parallel between morality and decency, allow me to cite the following: _Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it._ -- Christopher Hitchens P.S.: NICE use of the 2nd movement of the Beethoven 7th, a long-time fave of mine!
Everyone that I asked why we need religion (which focuses only on christianity) as a subject in school always said the same things. "Kids wouldn't have any morals without religion." "It's the most important part of school." (Pretty sure that's learning to write and read.) "You have to learn about all religions and accept them, so we need it." (We only learn about one religion and are told not to accept any people with other believes, as they are all satanists.) "You only colour in things anyways, so it's just to relax." (Not remotely true, we usually only wrote stuff down, read the Bible or had tests. Relaxing can only be done at home and more free time would be way better, as maybe then kids would finally have free time and not spent all of it doing homework.) And so on. It's so stupid. Ethics would be way better, but no, then kids would start worshipping satan apparently.
OK, I have different points to address: The first one, just because you know it by age of 8, doesn't mean everyone else does. Not everyone retain/process/analyse/ knowledge in the same manner. You might get an idea from 1 video, others may need 10. More importantly, this video isn't just for you, in fact, I don't think it is even intended for atheists (although it is interesting/fun and can be educational), but more for those who are stuck in the middle, confused, where such videos can help a person clarify their thoughts beliefs and move on. The second point, your definition of atheism is wrong: atheism is saying you don't believe in god for the lack of sufficient evidence. If you believe that God does not exist, that is a totally different matter (and the burden of proof is on you to substantiate your claim.) So that is an important distinction. The third point, where I actually agree with you. I tend to dislike most pro-atheist tone and stance (Sam Harris to name an example), like we need to move on, but we also need to tackle this in a more tactful and useful manner other than 'lashing back in resentment'. The fourth point, you are being too judgemental. Just like so many people have car accidents, recover, and move on with their life, there are those who go through such an experience and become an advocate/activist in that area. Such thing apply to every field. So while I agree with you that the approach is not suitable, by no means it is not needed. Just like theists preach, atheists will preach too. Optimal? Maybe not, but shutting down one side because you think it is "obvious" is hardly a convincing or even a rationale argument. Have a good one mate, p.s. it has been a while since I watched the video, so I'm not sure about TT's position and claims made in the video. I'm merely addressing the points you've raised. So if he defined atheism in the way you projected then both of you are wrong. If he did claim that no gods exist, then the burden of proof is on him to make that claim (which is a difficult one, and to be honest, rather...pointless in my opinion, but then again.. that is who I am) I just want people to get along and move on.
THANK YOU!!! This video is much needed at least for my sanity and I’m certain the sanity of others as well. This seems to be an apologetic argument that refuses to die, and is becoming wildly popularized by Jordan Peterson. (Clinical psychologist of Canada) I find it all too infuriating and endlessly frustrating to point out the moral failures of religion and where secular humanism is succeeding, only to have all the foundational work behind humanism ripped out from underneath it! The tactics of claiming credit for humanistic morality and saddling it with the flaws of dogmatic religion is ridiculously dishonest and completely unwarranted! There’s a Christopher Hitchens quote that I can’t find but will attempt to paraphrase, (The religious try to project onto us their faults and beliefs that we refuse to share.)
LuthAMF You’re quite welcome to hunt for the full quote, if you find it please comment it below. However I feel you’ve completely missed the point. I can’t speak for all atheists, simply because we’re not a homogeneous group, but one that is greatly diverse. We have no universal texts or “holy” figureheads. For myself though, I don’t simply parrot back the words said by others or what I’ve reading in their books. I speak from a position of understanding and deep thought on the matters of religion, science, politics, ethics, and morality. Feel free to disagree, but don’t expect to get away with such condescension un-rebutted.
LuthAMF Oh, my opening paragraph was quite sincere. I’ve been looking for the direct Hitchens quote for a while, and if you find I’d very much like to reference it in future discussions. So if you truly think that level of honesty is snobbish, that might explain your infatuation with religion.
LuthAMF By “truncating history” I could only assume you’re conflating modern secular humanism with the forced atheism of communist Russia in the late 20th century. These two are very separate entities. The forced political atheism of Stalin’s Russia was a pseudo-religion in and of itself. It was also enforced by the state, although there were still plenty of Churches who were still allowed their regular services. Modern Secular Humanism is nothing like that, it only seeks to help those who leave religion and are persecuted for it. Most Humanist organizations are merely seeking to build a community and support structure for those who don’t find kinship with the religious. Many SH groups lobby for protection of Church State Separation, but then again, many Religious (Christian and others) organizations do the same. So I don’t know what slippery bslope propaganda you’ve been fed or are trying to push, but no one I’d recognize as a modern secular humanist is pushing for the forced de-conversion or extermination of the religious majority.
LuthAMF Ah, so your vague comment was meant to be in support of your position, thank you for the clarification 👌🏼 I’m well aware of Christianity’s mixed history of peace and brutal war. Thankfully the Enlightenment came along to castrate the Church and it’s previously unregulated and unquestioned power. I’m so happy that America was founded on enlightenment principles, as the first truly secular country in history, what a precedent! The American constitution has stopped Christianity from running amok inside the democratic process, and protects religious minorities and other Christians from themselves. And with the Treaty of Tripoli stating clearly and without question, “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”, Settled any argument attempting to twist this fine secular nation, retroactively, into a theocracy.
LuthAMF I’m uncertain what form of criticism you’re attempting here. But similar criticism could be lobbed at Christianity with its innumerable sects and denominations. Yet they DO go around boasting about their latest error, but they try to call it “Truth” or “Divinely inspired revelation”. From the Pope, to Martin Luther, to southern baptist reformations. All thought they had the “Absolute Truth”, or “knew” they were in personal contact with God. If you’d like to have a conversation about our different viewpoints, I’d be happy to. I’ve never meant my messages to be combative, but when two diametrically opposed positions meet, conflict is usually not far behind. Especially if each think the other to be unreasonable or unreachable.
Humanism didn't come out of Judeo-Christian tradition; it came *in spite of it,* clawing its way out of religious miasma, gasping for air for every hard-fought inch as countless inquisitors and moral guardians harried it every step along the way in an attempt to beat it back into compliance. That so many zealots would try and appropriate of the values they fought so hard against as if they were their own all along sickens me to my very core, for it is naught but a mad and desperate scramble to steal the good will garnered by their old foe in an attempt to keep the waning embers of their relevance alive.
I would agree that what you call "humanism" came "in spite of it" but then again just because it calls itself "humanism" does not mean it is necessarily very good for humans. religions encourage families and group cohesion at the very least. "humanism" seems to also encourage cohesion of a sort....but not families and it seems to put women at the center of everything.
@@aaronsilver-pell411 Yes, humanism is absolutely best for humanity. This obsolete idea of "family values" being inherently good outside of an irrational, emotional level is misguided *at best,* and any ideology that encourages the weakness in the human psyche formally known as tribalism should be regarded as suspicious for that reason alone. Remember: Co-operation between different groups creates things like The Concert of Europe or the EU, some of the greatest achievements of some of the greatest civilisations in human history. Conflict between different groups created the Holocaust, and, ironically, considering it's promoters are often white racists, is the reason there are so many of the Muslims they can't shut up about in Europe.
@@mrsuspicious1743 If your humanism is not inclusive and supportive of families then there is probably something fucked up with it. and btw, the EU is a dysfunctional mess.
The calm and clarity with which you present your arguments is truly wonderful. I always come away from your videos feeling more peaceful and enlightened. Thank you!
The fact that secular humanism doesn't account for life's meaning of purpose, means that your life's meaning or purpose belongs to you alone. What more could you ask for?
I as a child went to a Christian preschool. I even at that young age recognized contradictions. When i asked questions my answers were "god works in mysterious ways". At home religion was not reinforced, my questions were answered. But I quickly learned not to question certain inconsistencies I recognized. As my questions undermined what was being taught even in public schools. I didn't like being forced to say the pledge every morning. "One nation under God" while also being taught of the separation of church and state and religious freedom. How is there religious freedom if we are forced to accept there even is a god? In god we trust on all our currency? Now with where America is politically. With lawmakers citing their bible as resons for draconian laws. In congress saying "we are a Christian nation" openly calling for the state to enforce their interpretation of the bible onto all citizens. Allowing discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals if someone has stong religious beliefs. The Supreme Court turning back decades of precedent. Banning books now in schools but giving exceptions for the bible. As I continually educate myself, the fundamental contradictions I noticed as a child become clear as to where these beliefs and myths come from. Why things didn't add up. It was all taught from the canonized American mythos. Not history. The bad parts sped through. I recently helped my youngest sibling with their homework on America's westward expansion. Made another realization as to why theres this attack on CRT, how we are trying to 'change' history. Parents helping kids with history are experiencing cognitive dissonance, learning themselves about American history they weren't taught. Worried about how their white children might feel learng about the history of slavery in America. Its not all glowing "ra ra America is the best. We have done no wrongs". Instead of learning themselves they cry that "their trying to change history. Make kids hate America". Because this isn't what they were taught in school. Rather than having to face American history, they want it white washed again. Fighting tooth and nail to hold onto propoganda rather than doing any critical thought into maybe they have something to learn. Ignorance is bliss.
Incredibly. A morally mature individual gets to the point where they won't do these things because they don't want them done to them. Not because their God will send them to the Bad Place.
17:19 indiscriminate revenge: When police finds a suspect and parades them in front of the press, and they are then sentenced as guilty, despite there being no real evidence, because it is more important to find _someone_ guilty instead of _the_ guilty. This is sometimes referred to as "giving the relatives of a murder victim closure", and when the injustice is later revealed, those that defend the innocent (the condemned suspect) are often vilified for "opening old wounds". Sometimes the rationale is that the person the police pointed to was a known criminal, so "probably guilty of something". And that is not even with a willing subject, like the whipping boys (who mayor may not have existed) who took beatings for a prince or young king.
YES! Thank you! This is what I've been trying to tell people! Religion doesn't define morality, it's secular thought that develops morality, then when religious people realize the truth of a secular moral value, they claim it to be their own!
First: Your god has to exist before he can do anything. Second: Morality is shaped by people and the realities of the environment they inhabit. Simply laying down laws and having the power to enforce them does not make your moral pronouncements moral.
First prove that your god is all-knowing and that these moral laws given by your religious leaders are not just made up by other people who CLAIM to be speaking the word of an infallible god. It's pretty telling when secular ethics result in better outcomes than the moral laws given in holy texts. Abolition, freedom of speech and religion, equality of race, gender, and sexual orientation, protection of children from rape and parental abuse: none of these are values held by the Bible or Quran. These are all SECULAR values that religions have retroactively claimed as their own. A god approving of the conquest and rape of underage girls does not make the action moral. It violates their bodily autonomy and does long-term damage to them both physically and mentally. If we care about the health and well-being of other people, this is wrong and a pronouncement from your god doesn't change that.
I got news for you: if authority is all you value, then you don't really value morality. See, morality is concerned with actions and the consequences they have on other people. Humans must share this world with other humans and a level of codependence is necessary to survive. We say hitting is wrong because striking another person causes pain. It's inflicting unwanted damage and so we discourage the activity. But authority figures can make laws decoupled from the effects they have on other people. It might make laws against murder, but it might also make laws allowing slavery. Obedience becomes more important than the effect. Even if the laws in question were to definitively make society dysfunctional and miserable, the subjects would still be compelled to obey at the behest of the authority. +finalfantasy8911 Your god does not prohibit homosexuality because of any inherently negative effects of the activity, but rather because he simply does not approve of it and will punish people for engaging in it. The consequences come from HIM, not from the activity itself. Were he not to have anything against homosexuality, we, as a species and as a society, would suffer no ill effects from it and would, indeed, also enjoy many benefits for the increased freedom we'd have in society. Oh, and my list of secular values are not empty assertions. I challenge you to find anything in the Bible that expressly communicates any of those values.
It's not hard to imagine how the morals we live with today can have emerged from social evolutionary pressures. You did a good job of highlighting this. Thanks for another thought-provoking video.
Even wolves have been known to allow injured pack members to feed at kills. They have also been obsessed to defend injured pack members from other Wolf packs and predators such as bears and mountain lions
@Ethnic Nationalist No they don’t. Humans wonder how we got here, and at some point came up with God. Animals don’t. They have their own sense of right and wrong.
I remember my professor and I having a discussion on my cousin's leaving of his religion. My professor asked what he'd do next. I said that my cousin would go and live his own life exactly as he chooses to live it. He then asked if he'd be joining another religion, like, say, Buddhism. I said no, my cousin wouldn't. The whole debacle with the religion he was in has just about turned him off from organized religion altogether. Then my professor brought up the subject of morality. I told my professor that really, you can get a sense of morality from anywhere, not solely from religion. For example, I get my sense of right and wrong from what naturally feels right and wrong to me, and how the actions of others affected me throughout my life. It was a weird conversation, if only because it was then that I realized that my professor was not as secular-minded as I thought. I wouldn't hold that against him though - he's a smart guy and generally seems to approach things with skepticism.
Religious people are threatened from day one with eternal torture for non-compliance. Is this the source of their moral superiority? Supremacist cults, all of them, need to be disbanded.
I just wanna say I always love the music in your videos. The sounds you use have a "plastic" feel a lot of time, and reflect the messages of your videos very well. I think I've watched all of your videos at this point and your music is always on point.
TheraminTrees. I love your shows so much. I've been struggling with this idea for years now. This is such an informative video because for me it confirms that somewhere along the way, humanity got derailed and I think I understand now. Matrilineal cultures survived for thousands of years in a sustainable manner. Now that we are near extinction -- who's ruling but amoral, narcissistic, patriarchal Judeo-Christian men, while the women have become all but invisible. This doesn't apply to all men, but the rich and powerful are among the most abusive. Nothing could be worse for the planet. #InTheNameOfGawd religion has hijacked all common sense, intuition, imagination, and the natural. They call themselves "moral" yet somehow religion figures they are exempt from moral laws such as reporting child sex abuse. 🤦♀️
In terms of inequalities rooted in Christian ideologies, there's so much wrapped up in the creation story right at the start isn't there. That uneven genesis tale is like the initial mistake in the knitting that distorts the whole pattern. So much of what comes later refers back to that. Anthropology was part of my first degree and it was invigorating to read about the tremendous variations in community structure that have existed - matrilineal and patrilineal - and the array of approaches to personal relationships, some of them achingly charming in their reverence to humanity, and frequently celebrating difference. It feels like some of the world's major religious groups have acted like steam rollers across the globe, flattening and extinguishing so many precious flowers.
I remember back in a college I took a class where we watched a documentary about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's), that specifically focused on how interpretations of copyright law were used to disrupt the businesses of traditional farmers, and the video started with a discussion of copyright, and patent laws, in particular one of the experts cited a rejected patent/copyright request for "tortillas", which was rejected because tortillas are a traditional thing, that predated that company... Whenever I hear people arguing that secular morality borrows from one religion, or another that is the image that comes to mind, a greedy organization requesting a "tortilla patent".
Something I asked a lot as a kid in response to the absolutism of being saved by Jesus, or more specifically not saved, was "What happens to the people who never meet missionaries and never learn about Jesus?". My parents struggled to give me a satisfactory answer. They'd tell me about individual stories of people deep in the middle of Africa seeing Jesus in dreams and starting churches. They also said that God is stamped on our hearts at birth, so actually anybody who doesn't believe is choosing not to. Then I would ask why we need missionaries if God is stamped on each person's heart. It always seemed to go in circles and I never got a satisfying answer. I know why now.
you were a kid buddy. The Bible teaches that those who are not righteous or believe in Jesus will go to the lake of fire. God killed the entirety of humanity and saved a single family since it was corrupt. The nasty biblical truth, is that God isn't a loving entity to those who denounce him or are ignorant of him, but he shows mercy, as revelation said, you'll be judged by your own works.
Why would "God" create a person to burn in "hell"? I asked this in a bible study group I attended at someones behest. I was not invited back. I spent hours innumerable in service to the church and scared myself into submission concerning my countless questions. Yep, they still have yet to be answered. My heart knows and has known the answers.
Just because your question has gone unanswered doesn’t mean there’s not an answer out there to it. There is an answer to your question, all you have to do it is go outside of your social circle to find it. Not all everyday Christians know a lot about theology. Go in some educated Christian spaces and maybe you’ll find an answer that tickles your ears. Seek the truth with all your heart and you will find.
@@Nobody-tj9jo how about the fact that the answer might not be known by Christians. I really like one atheist answer: "two options for this: God is not as omniscient as we are leaded to believe and has involuntarily created a soul that deserves to be punished. Or he did willingly creat a person to torture him later and letting him loos in the world to torture some of his innocent creations"
It's just so painfully obvious that we naturally developed morals and ethics as instincts (and many learnt in childhood) as we evolved as a species. As our cognitive abilities developed so did empathy and understanding of how to create and maintain a civilized society. It's just common sense.
Did religion create morality? No Did religion impart many modern morals? Yes Do you need to be religious to be moral? No Does religion drive some people to lead more moral lives? Yes Does religion drive some people to lead less moral lives? Yes
If Christianity never existed the same general moral ideals would still be adopted by the majority of people today (of course without accounting for how the butterfly effect might impact history)
Very easy for a religion to drive you to be less moral when your basis are things like the bible. Some good moral lessons in that. Some morals we discarded for very good reason also drin
You know, that's actually a really good point. I never thought about that. The next time someone tries to make the moral argument to me I'll just say "Okay wait. Are you saying that one cannot come to good moral conclusion through reason alone? Now think about what that implies about your religion if you say yes..." Morality has to be reasonable or else, it's not reasonable. It seems so simple now that I'm hearing it.
I don't know how you couldn't see it. It's common sense. As a christian I always saw it like that. But I am not sure what he meant later on with the sadomasochistic part. I think Jesus suffered for ourselves from his own choice. And that is very inspiring and honorable.
If you're acting morally right but you do it because you want the reward of being in heaven/don't want the punishment of being in hell, you are not a good person. You are selfish and you act the way you do out of selfish reasons. If you act morally right because you know it to be the right way to act without hope for a reward, only then are you actually a moral person.
so if i follow the law out of love for my God, I'm a selfish person because I act "morally right" because I want to be in his kingdom? What sense does that make? If you don't want to go to prison for the rest of your life for committing a crime you do so either out of fear of the consequences of that crime or because you love your neighbor or have the integrity not to commit the crime, if you don't commit a crime out of fear of the consequence somehow that makes you a selfish and an immoral person? I think the existence of the state and the law is a motivation for avoiding criminal activity to do good. Likewise, if I act morally right in fear of the consequences of my actions then that doesn't make me immoral or selfish, that means I'm keeping the law and I am a good person because I am keeping it.
@@freonsp I don't act morally right because I don't want to go to prison. I don't want to go to prison but that's not the main reason why I behave morally right. I act morally right because it is the right way to act and I have some integrity (and that's presumably why most people do it). Religions try to sell the idea that you need to follow their laws because otherwise you'd be immoral and immoral people go to hell. If this was the only reason for someone to not commit crimes, and not because of a sense of morality, then they only do it for themselves. Obviously this is not what's happening in reality and people often behave according to their own moral compass by rejecting immoral ideas their religions spread or by behaving in a way a religion would want them to without believing in it. So, if you behave morally right exclusively because you want to go to heaven and not because it is the right thing to do, then you only do it only for your own good (i.e. you behave selfishly). If you do it because you know that something is good and you do it (or it's bad and you don't) then you actually act from a sense of morality. If you believe in paradise, wanting to go there is of course a valid additional reason to behave well but it has nothing to do with you being moral since the goal is your own profit (paradise). In your example (let's just assume every law is always morally good even though that isn't really the case), if I only don't murder my family or rob a bank because I don't want to go to prison then I could hardly call myself moral. Without changing my mindset I could go to a country without laws and happily start robbing and killing people. However, I know that stealing is bad and I also don't want others to suffer and die, so I still wouldn't do those things. That is morality. I guess that's a good (albeit likely extremely simplified) way of thinking about it: Take away the good consequences for yourself. Would you still do something seen as good? Take away the bad consequences for yourself. Would you still refrain from doing something seen as bad? If so, you act at least to an extent from an actual sense of morality. If not, you only care about yourself. As previously stated, I see most people in the first category in which case religions with all their promises and threats do not seem to be the source of moral behaviour. Sorry for the long response, it kinda got out of hand. But I hope I could clear up any confusions and further clarify my viewpoint.
It’s funny, because as the son of an atheist father, I’ve always been taught that western philosophy comes primarily from the criticism of Christianity, not from the application of it 😂
He collaborated with me on the two videos before this one, and we're doing some more, starting with the next one up after this. Working with him is an indescribable delight :8)
I consider the source of morality to be pretty simple. we are thought this mechanism very early on in our lives. if we do something wrong the parent would step in and say "Don't do that. imagine how you would feel if you were on the receiving end of this action". A simple appeal to egoism. On the surface it seams simple but once you start considering more than one person the morality of the situation becomes exponentially more complex. Lets say there is a burning building. there is a person in the window of that building. What is the moral thing to do? Walk away? No because if "I" was that person in the building I would get angry or sad. What about running into the building? Yes. I would be happy someone came to save me. but the scenario changes if we consider a fireman spraying water on the fire. Running into the fire then becomes something morally dubious. As a competent fireman I would be very angry and annoyed that some shmuck ran into the fire and added more work and worry to my job. And the situation can be built up from there. Religious morality is parasitic to this mechanism. Instead of other person (empathy to humans) it inserts this god that followers of the religion would need to please. Pushing this homosexual off the roof of the building is a morally good thing. It makes the god happy.
Imagination is self adjusting if we were talking about the Klingons the same would work. "Stop showing mercy think how you would feel in his place. give the kid an honorable death and gut him"
no I don't. I'm also an atheist and I consider god to be a parasitic influence on the system presented. It supplants itself in place of the other person. people afflicted by god no longer think about "how they would feel in place of the other person" they think "How their abstract noncorporial imaginary friend that is controlled by the clergy would feel". The klingons in the joke above do the same thing with honor. I do not propose that all moralities are equal. I simply state that the system exists and that it is inherently human and does not require god to exist.
Sorry Sir but Moral Fundamentalism is not the same as Moral Relativism. I'm not saying Morality is subjective I'm saying that Every person has the organ of morality just like every person has an organ called heart that pumps blood and unless stricken with pathology that organ works the same in every person. so please do not tell me "so what you're saying is" and don't tell me what I love or don't. put yourself in my place and imagine how you would feel.
I am not an atheist but love your videos. I have had the experience of God and so could never deny the power that I know to be true. But what has been done to mankind by means of religion is an ongoing tragedy and as we embrace the value of our own experiences and do not seek to enforce them on others, the difference between true compassion and love versus the one size fits all adoption of values and morality that are indoctrinated in one who follows a religious Creed will be clearly evident.
It's funny that this video came up on my feed today because I was thinking about it before I saw it and realized the same thing: Morality isn't the result of religious values; religious values are the result of morality.
In man's transition from animal to selfconciousness, he felt emotions compelling him to action, these 'forces' he called 'gods'. "The god of war took me over in that battle and i fought like mad". He then reasons that his morality is bestowed upon him from god, when infact it is his instincts which guide him. Aren't then all the 'imoral morals' just the norms of the time, which aren't from authority, because one wouldn't convert to an imoral god, and once the norms within the believers change, so would its gods morals, because a god is a societal construct, a personification of its morals. And now we write into law our new morals, based on decency and reason. And if tomorrow all believe dogs are the reason for all our ailments, we shall make it a decency to rid them of this earth. Humans are pretty reasonable, but in groups they are not.
I am an atheist who broke through his indoctrination many years ago. Although last year, I took up the study of topics such as religion, atheism, rationality, skepticism, fallacies and logical arguments. I have just found your channel, and MUST compliment you on how succinctly you devour each hideous leg of religious control, and it's unwarranted pardons. You're pulling it apart in a delightfully unique, calm and cogent way. Limb from limb.
Thank you. As someone formerly indoctrinated into Christianity, I construct my words with that former self in mind. In that way, I hope to keep the content accessible/digestible.
@@theanonymous.5940 to be honest, deconstruction is a process. It’s not something that happens overnight, for me, it took 5 years for me to fully realize what religion actually was and the harms it had done to me. After my long, and in some cases, purposely delayed deconstruction, I couldn’t be happier that I took this path. I look back and laugh at the mental jail religion put me in. I was seriously being taught things that had no grip in reality. I needed to align my thoughts with reality, as in some cases, when I didn’t understand something, I just automatically assumed that god did it. Recently, I got big into learning about evolution & what it means to be human. I researched so many sub categories of these topics, into very specific things such as the intricacies of evolution, and how we know evolution actually does what we say it does. I learned these topics from an unbiased point of view, I listened to hundreds of hours of podcast content, watched countless documentaries on how evolution worked. Listened to countless lectures on random science topics. I learned about the human mind and how it can be manipulated early on via indoctrination. I learned about how some humans are likely to stay in a comfortable lie than the sometimes daunting reality. From all my takeaways, I learned that I must always take the rational path, and that NOTHING should come in the way from you researching what truth was. I found that the more I dug up about the realities of this world, the more misaligned it was with my religious beliefs. It wasn’t an easy journey for me, as I was born into a religious Christian household. It went against everything I believed to question these things. But here I am 5 years later thanking myself I escaped the horrible cycle. I don’t expect this message to deconvert you in any way, instead, I hope this message helps spark your interest for learning about these things, and to not let anything get in the way of learning about realities truths. Open to talking to you directly about this. I’m always open to conversation.
@@theanonymous.5940 reason why I chose to respond to you in particular is because your sentence resonates with me. I too was a scared teen questioning my faiths legitness. My heart would literally start racing when I read something that contradicted my beliefs. I was maybe 13-14 when I started to have my doubts. Now I’m 18 & glad I started when I did.
Thank you for articulating the loosely associated points that have floated around in my head for some time. Truly, your straightforward, non-hyperbolic speaking is nothing short of heroic.
Another gem from a great thinker. Hard- core Christians try to deny any innate or non- religious morality but exhibit it thus: Good Samaritan, Sermon on the Mount, forgiveness, help the needy etc. : no comments are needed. But the atrocities of the OT are justified with 'context' and some very convoluted excuses. This suggests that deep down they know how awful these are, so have to resolve that cognitive dissonance somehow. The video also makes the important point that many Jews object to 'Judeo- Christian' as it whitewashes centuries of Christian demonisation and persecution of Jews. When you ask'where do non- Christians get morality?' you often get the egotistical claim that 'they are just copying Christians'. That idea permeates the books that are referred to in the video.
The Talmud is a group of Jewish legal and religious books which contain religious discussions and explanations for what is written in the Tanakh. Without the Talmud, unlearned people might have fallen into the trap of interpreting the Tanakh literally. This is why we have yeshivas where people study the written Torah [Tanakh] and the oral Torah [Talmud Bavli and Talmud Yerushalmi]
@@sovl2178 I am not sure, but some rabbis are discussing if MAYBE there are two instances of a Yeshua being mentioned in the Talmud, but not completely sure
Reminds me of another person saying that it's dangerous to read the bible without the church to guide you. I think what you mean is that you don't want people to make their own interpretations of the book, ensuring that any flaws or problematic lines can be covered up with an alternative interpretation plastered on by someone else.
I absolutely loved this video. Even though I am a Christian, this a dialogue that needs to be had at a much wider scale. I still fully believe in Jesus and God, but the way in which moral topics are discussed in religious spaces needs to be reconsidered. We can not abandon reason for blind faith. Many Christians claim to be more like Jesus, but I can confirm that they are nothing like Him. My religion is such a large part of who I am. Without my faith, I wouldn't be where I am right now. Despite this, I still have to acknowledge that the way Christianity has ingrained itself into society has caused immense harm and pain. The God I know is all-loving, powerful, transcendent, and omnipotent. God has not poisoned society-people have. Sending blessings to anyone reading this. ♥️
God isn't all-loving, powerful, transcendent, and omnipotent. Far from it in fact. He is absolutely a narcissist and arguably a terrible person and the last person you'd want to worship. He willingly allowed Satan to torment Job by killing his 10 children to prove that his follower will still come back to him just to appease His ego over a bet. 10 children were killed for a bet. God doesn't even apologize nor explain to Job why his 10 children were slaughtered. If anything, Lucifer is the kinder deity because he only punishes the sinful, not the righteous.
@@theholyasdf3593 God made a bet to Lucifer that Job would remain faithful to his Lord. The reason? Human vanity (which is not befitting of an Omniscient deity which suggests that God is a human construct created with human tendencies). Indeed Job has kept his faith even when faced with the torture and eventual murder of his wife and 10 children's lives. God even condescendingly sneers at Job afterwards for not being able to comprehend divine knowledge (which is completely contradictory to the "All Merciful and Loving Father" image that Christians love to tote). God displays many blatant personality contradictions throughout the Bible. If the story of Job is to be considered non-canon then what else of the Bible can be taken at face-value as the will of God? None. The entire Bible is uncertain and can only be used as a foundation to build your OWN beliefs and values.
I’d like to preface this by saying I’m a godless heathen I thoroughly enjoy studying comparative religions despite not believing in them. My favorite thing to do is to study and learn about Judaism and how it’s incompatible with Christianity (which I was indoctrinated into - my dad worked at Kenneth Copeland Ministries for a long time too). My favorite people I enjoy listening to are Rabbi Tovia Singer and Rabbi Michael Skobac. Again This is only for those interested in the topic and I’m not trying to sound like I’m trying to convert or anything
The opening quote by Robert G. Ingersoll is absurd navel gazing. "The Nature of things" is indistinguishable from the idea of infinite immutable power.
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We evolved in a manner which made cooperation and altruism beneficial to the survival of our species. Morality is a genetic imperative. Of course, there is always variant, it is not written on our hearts. Religion co-opted morality and then claims to be its origin.
Religion not only co-opts morality, but usually does so only after losing a long embarrassing fight against whatever moral advancement it finally comes around to.
@@pterafirma what moral advancement did religion coopt? the polytheism of the Roman empire resulted in endless rounds of generals fighting each other to be emperor. The eastern roman empire stayed stable though and after adopting Christianity, Europe and then America became the most civilized and advanced places in the world, so I would be a little....wary of that assertion.
@Xadion Why does any empire fall in the end? shit still happens. yes- you can read about it in books. China has lasted longer than any empire Europe has ever had. What made China unique? It was super patriarchal and imperial. Christianity is probably not patriarchal enough.
Indeed, as social beings we naturally adopt pro-social behaviors
I wouldn't necessarily say that morality per se was a direct result of evolution. We evolved to be empathetic because that was beneficial to us as social creatures, but the concept of prescriptive morals and the complex systems that arose from it is more a product of culture and philosophy that didn't arise until we developed higher order intelligence. That being said even this was well before the development of organized religion but I feel it's something to keep in mind. Religion I think was the first and most primitive attempt at creating a cultural moral framework that could be applied across a large organized society rather than merely within isolated tribal groups.
Another great video. I hate hearing theists ask me if I'm an atheist, why don't I go out and kill and steal and cheat. I always respond with, "All I hear you saying is that if you're religion didn't tell you not to do those things, that's exactly what you'd be doing."
I don't murder and steal because it's wrong to do to somebody, not because I'm instructed not to.
*"All I hear you saying is that if you're religion didn't tell you not to do those things, that's exactly what you'd be doing."*
And worse - their religion does call for murder. Modern Christians ignore those moral edicts which shows it's not Christian morals they are following; their morality is informed by something else.
I doubt it's true when Christians say things like that to me. I think they just associate their morality with their religion because they've had a lifetime of being told that's where their morality comes from.
But if it is true that's possibly the only real advantage of religion. I'd rather these psychopaths be kept in check by their religion than out murdering and raping.
"I murder, steal, and cheat all I want to. And that amount is ZERO."
Noones asks you that. What a bullshit, self-fullfilling prophesy ( pun intended) statement. A better question would be, why do you habitually lie from behind a keyboard?
@@juanvaldez5422 nope theists definitely ask that A lot. Thiests also like to say "you do believe in God you're just angry at him" in one way or another but really it's mostly just flawed arguments like Pascal's wager or the God of the gaps fallacy. Oh I can't forget, using some anecdotal unverifiable miracle or some scripture to prove their God.
Has anyone ever given you the feedback that your verbal pacing is excellent?
Thank you.
Both his verbal placements and diction are excellent
God has blessed him
@@MsCaleb79 now that's funny
Francis Roy I’m just waiting for him to say “winter is coming “
I think the problem with an ultimate theory of morality is that we aren't ultimate beings. Humans exist at a particular scale in space, time, and importance. At that scale, morality and meaning make sense. Elsewhere, not so much. Just because we aren't cosmically, vitally important cogs in a grand machine doesn't mean life has no meaning or that virtue is a chemical illusion. That's a poorly calibrated perspective.
A fantastic way to phrase it. I haven't seen this argument expressed in that way before, thanks for sharing.
.
damn
i need to ponder that for some few moments
This sounds like the most mathematically appealing description of existence I've seen. I can just picture a diagram of the infinitesimally small cube with it's 3 axis being stationed at the centre of a photo of the Milky Way.
This is what I've been trying to say! good & evil don't exist in a cosmic (purely objective) context, but it does in a human context. At a human level, there's stuff that's "objectively" good or bad, if we take into account the survival of our species as the motivating factor
“Secular humanism doesn’t have to account for life’s ‘meaning’ or ‘purpose.’”
I could not agree more! Life’s ‘meaning’ or ‘purpose’ is what we as individuals internalize, and can never be externally imposed. It is arrogant to presume that the ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ one may embrace for their life, not only can, but must be applied to the lives of others. But this is the attitude of religion. Peace.
Hobson's book is full of false accusations and red herrings. I noted the vagueness of his language - eg, claiming that christianity 'provides an account' of life's meaning/purpose. Anyone can provide an account - the question is whether the account has met its burden of proof. Christianity's account hasn't.
Indeed not.
Still, I shall consult the Elder Chimps!
You ever heard of natural law?
Yes and its a bogus concept.
So you don't agree with consequentialism or normative ethics? Could you explain why? Albeit not static and non changing morality systems. Do actions not have consequences? Can those consequences not be measured scientifically?
I had a close moral dilemma last week, my man slave was Messing around when he should have been working harder since he had time to play. So I got mad and beat him with an iron rod, my neighbor saw me & called the cops they said I killed him. I did get arrested & my slave was sent to the hospital, but luckily on the 2nd day he woke up and was ok. so all charges was dropped against me, the judge explained by law it was ok to beat him and knock him out for up to two days as long as I don’t kill him.
My daughter got raped a few months ago.... luckily they got caught in the act, so the guy had to pay me, and now the sucker has to marry and live with her. That'll teach him! I can finally take a nice vacation while my daughter enjoys her life with her rapist.
Other day we were returning from a raid to my neighbours house, which resulted the death of him but by God's grace I kept his wife alive to serve me as a sex slave. As soon as we made it back I dropped my panths and gave her a good thumble. Since then she has been a good, submissive companion to me and that is for her own good too. Obviously being a sex slave to someone morally superior is objectively better than being a wife to a heretic
My mans is playing the Christian GTA 😩😂
Applying barbaric logic in the modern world is the basis of Judeo religions
I saw my neighbor out in the town forest gathering sticks Saturday morning. I picked up a rock and bashed his head in with it, and he died instantly. I was promptly arrested and jailed for 2nd degree murder. Thankfully my attorney cited the law about not gathering sticks on the Sabbath Day to the grand jury, and they dismissed the charge and the judge let me go.
Your channel is criminally underrated. I really love what you are doing here. Much love
Watching your videos makes me realize how fortunate I was. My parents didn't raise me to be any particular thing, but were happy to take me to a place of worship if I wanted to see what it was like and learn. They always answered any question I asked regardless of my age. When I was 8 I had heard the word prostitute but did not know what it meant, I asked my dad, and instead of saying he would tell me when I was older, he chuckled out of how out of the blue the question was and then just told me. The only lies about belief were Santa and the Easter bunny but I figured those out young. My parents read books to me and never kept me from hearing anything scary, obscene, or confusing. The only thing censored to me was when a show had a sex scene and my mom would tell me to close my eyes. I had catholic friends, orthodox friends, Mormon friends, even Hindu friends but never did any of those views make an ounce of sense to me. My mother was raised orthodox, and my father catholic, but they both fell out of those religions when they moved out and never pushed anything onto me, nor my sister, who actually tried church and just couldn't find any value in it. I was raised to just be kind to people without expecting any form of reward, no underlying message that a God wanted me to do it. I now try to think of everything all the way through. I think about why I'm kind to people, it's because making people feel undeserved negative emotions makes me feel disgusting because I made somebody's life objectively worse, although marginally. I credit my ability to think freely to my parents who never limited my thinking in any way. On political ideas they would do their best to describe both sides of the arguments to me, doing their best to leave out their feelings. I have good parents.
If all parents were like yours, we would have a much better world.
Seriously the world would be a better place if everyone were as objective as your parents
your parents are a rare breed - you’re very lucky to have them
I believe this is an approach I would want to take if I ever had children. Unnecessarily preventing a child from learning about something will only stifle their natural curiosity, and may only cause confusion or problems due to a lack of information.
A very basic example could be representation in kids media. Some people believe that things like homosexuality should be kept out of kids media, on the basis that it would be “confusing to the kids,” that media should “let kids be kids,” and similar arguments. These arguments are flawed, however, because the idea that information, especially information that may be particularly useful to some kids, should be censored is not healthy. Kids will always be confused about many things in life, and withholding this info will only confuse them more. If a gay kid were to never see any form of gay relationships, and have it never mentioned around them, or have any mention of it be shut down because they’re too young, the child would likely feel confused and isolated, thinking they’re unnatural, when they’re not. It would also be unhealthy to straight kids, as a straight kid who undergoes a similar situation may be taught, intentionally or otherwise, that being gay is something to mock and shame, causing unnecessary harm, when it could have been taught early on that such relationships were harmless and valid.
I saw a couple gay relationships in media as a kid. If I didn’t, I’d think gay people didn’t or shouldn’t exist for a while. Having this proper exposure taught me all I needed to know, and that is the most important thing for kids. The right to know.
W PARENTS!
OH no! another guy that actually read the Bible....
The judeo-christian holy text*
Weird (not really) that most of those are either priests or atheists. Like all scams, those who fall for it are the ones with less knowledge (I try not to be judgemental against those that never had a chance to learn, but there are some that are willfully ignorant, and they deserve judgement).
@@57thorns
Atheist countrys are the most succesfull and social places on OUR planet.
But,,we have lots of islamics,who refuse to learn,because its not there nazi religion.
Redbad van Rijn China has loads of non-religious people.
@@AN-ou6qu
Wel the have some problems with Uyghurs.
But the wil solve that problem in a proper way.
Its a shame we in Europe can not do it the same way as China is doing.
My religious brother use to argue that Ancient Rome and Egypt fell (he termed it 'destroyed,') because they were intrinsically immoral... until I pointed out that Rome lasted 1200 years, Egypt 2000 years, and Ancient Israel.... 418 years.
Remember in school how often kids bitched about dates when studying history. Having even a half-assed grasp of chronology is rare and now long after school... there even more of it. My father was born 1895, my mother in 1901, my paternal grandparents were both born before the American Civil War started. When I was born FDR, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Churchill and Mick Jagger were still alive (I checked Jagger (he is so far). My father mined coal using black powder and mules and he could neither read nor write. I had two jobs, was unemployed for only two days in my life, I retired at 54 and only worked on avionics and computers that entire time. That doesn't even seem reasonable to me. Time is funny.
@@dimbulb23 Really interesting! Thank you for posting.
Ouch.
Also by the time Rome fell, it was Christian. In fact, the Christian Romans spread Christianity through Europe. Their conversion to Christianity is part of the reason Medieval European rulers tried to emulate them. Doesn't really make sense for God to punish the Empire that helped tie Christianity to Western Civilization.
By your brother's logic, wouldn't that make China the most intrinsically moral nation, given that they've survived in multiple iterations to this day?
thank you for bringing up animal studies showing morality is not simply human and not based on religion. i had arguments with a man who has a MA in psychology who simply refused to accept the observations of researchers showing animals having moral bases.
yes, he's a born again catholic. bizarre. i left that church never to return when i was 19.
They covered how animals can behave morally in year 1 of my psychology course.
Funny to think that a psychology student (someone who's supposed to be a scientist) would be so against the idea that humans are animals, given that it's like the whole premise of viewing psychology as a science.
Edit: SOME animals have morality. Not claiming that animals are perfect and purer than humans or something.
I was taught that islam is the source of modern secular morality. Lucky for me, studying islam showed me the hard truth. Thanks for the great post.
+fathy "I was taught that islam is the source of modern secular morality. "
It didn't? Are you so sure? If you study a bit of history, you'll find out that between Europe and the Caliphates there was a LOT more history in common, and cross-cultural contamination than what most people assume.
Hell, the NUMBERS we use were the inventions of Arab scholars. And many cultural ideas were also carried over. Even through the iron curtain of religious conflict, people, ideas and notions travelled a lot.
Revisionists would want you to believe that there has been nothing but continuous war between Europeans and Arabs/Moors/Egyptians/Middle Easterners, but it's the farthest thing from the truth.
In fact, you could make a case for various humanistic values emerging in a lot of different civilizations, not just European ones.
And in a lot of cases, those other civilizations were more consistent than Europeans in respecting those values.
@@antonioscendrategattico2302 The arabic numerals originated in india.
@@ErikB605 IIRC the system did, the numerals themselves were changed from the original Indian characters before they reached Europe.
Can I just say as someone who was also raised Christian but eventually found myself befuddled by the ignorance and immorality I kept running into, your videos are a long drink of crystal clear water after a week in a desert. I love listening to folks like Hitchens and Harris, but your videos literally spell out my own train of thought so closely sometimes I wonder if I've holographically projected you and we're all in the Matrix. Fortunately the 2nd and 3rd movies prove that's impossible.
But seriously, great channel. I may even send a link towards my deeply religious mother.
I would say "Don't bother" in reference to sending the link to your mom. It could help, sure, but it most likely will not.
Sending the link itself wouldn’t be enough, an explanation would probably be required too
I am still caught up in the endless trap of trying to prove to others that their beliefs are wrong, simply because I am irrationally mad for being so small and insignificant that I cannot even direct my life/myself properly.
Listen, IDK if you'll ever see this, but i wanted to tell you that your "departure from theism" video honestly helped me a lot. Thank you so much.
Yo this is the weirdest channel ever, stylistically, but it's also my favorite channel on UA-cam. I probably love it so much because it's so stylistically different.
Weird? How so? His speech is slowish perhaps, but no more so than many others on YT currently, and given the concision seems reasonable. The animation style is unique, but hardly 'weird' - nothing Dali-esque.
Cheers Liphted ;8)
CyberiusT Calm down son, don't be all insulted for absolutely no reason and jump you the defense of someone who obviously can hold there own, that's even weirder than this channel. The dudes channel is weird because dudes logo is a floating baby, for one. His name is Theramin Trees [wtf?] for two. Those two things alone are weird as fuck! However, that weird shit was what attracted me. I'm super into researching the occult, even though it's mostly silly bullshit. One of the actual interesting aspects of the occult is the use of symbols to express deeper ideas; I wonder if the floating baby could hide some deeper, mental meaning to Theramin Trees. Or maybe not. But when I see an odd use for a symbol, or a symbol I've never encountered before, I dissect it. Anyway, yeah that kind of answers the question. I'm not trying to insult the guy, I'm saying he's bad ass, wanting to be "normal" leads to people being bland, paper thin eternally insulted internetites that jump to the defense of their favorite UA-camr their vicariously living through for no reason.
TheraminTrees Yo! Cheers bro! Keep it up man your channel is great! I love it!
Liphted: "Calm down"? WTF gave you the idea I was in any way upset - I was curious what you were on about. (I'm not *upset* now either - I'm baffled.)
Man, the world is even more f*d-up than I thought if the first reaction you have is assuming any question is "leaping to someone's defence". :P
The most delicious fruit can be rooted in a pile of manure. Being rooted in a religious past does not make humanism part of that past, it is the redemption of that past. The beautiful arising from the shit.
*The most delicious fruit can be rooted in a pile of manure.*
Nice analogy.
*You think a Humanistic driven world is a "delicious fruit"? Not much aware of history, are you?*
Simon explicitly mentioned "redemption of that past" which seems to be a very clear statement of awareness of history.
But forget that your point for the moment. We're talking of humanism here: What history are you referring to where bad things have been done thanks to humanistic ideology? On the face of it this seems to be a rubbish statement. But I did a quick Google search to see what you may be referring to. I can find no reference to any atrocities done in the name of humanism. I then went looking for individual murders. A few individual murders in the name of humanism wouldn't make your case at all, but at least I could see that there may be some basis for your remarks. But no, the only hits were about humanists wanting to abolish the death penalty.
This is the second post in these threads where you have accused someone of being naive. In both cases you provide no evidence whatsoever, and in both cases you seem to ignore the entire context of the post you're replying to. It seems a lot like you're entirely full of shit.
*I must allow the humanists to define it for themselves. So I read the Humanist Manifesto.*
Excellent.
*Delicious fruit?*
Clearly that's an analogy, with the point being that something good can come from something shit.
But that's a distraction. You're responding to my questioning about your statement "Not much aware of history, are you?". I tried to look up this history that you seem to think is so obvious it doesn't even need stating, but that history seemed not to exist. I called you out for making accusations devoid of any evidence whatsoever. Your reply has still provided no evidence whatsoever, and has only attempted to divert conversation to whether the original analogy was too flowery. I'm happy to discuss that, but first either clearly state then provide some evidence for your accusation, or withdraw it.
(For anyone reading, I mentioned a previous post made by LuthAMF that gave me the impression he's a troll, but I'm happy to say he replied again to that thread with a post that I thought was well-explained and reasonable).
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih humanism is the source of the idea and perception that humans are a measure of everything and everything was made for man. Such a worldview was the fuel for the destruction of nature via agricultural practices which require the removal of naturally occuring vegetation and limitless animal killing for fun and trophies in colonial countries especially, and, in the hands of most, it was also the fuel for colonial racism and the justification for colonialism. Its one of the most antropocentric ideas ever
@@lil_weasel219 *humanism is the source of the idea and perception that humans are a measure of everything and everything was made for man.*
Not only is that not true, it's hard to imagine it being much further from the truth. How did you come to think this is what humanism is?
Reading your statement about 'everything was made for man' immediately made me think of religion; particularly the creation story of the Abrahamic religions. And this is the complete opposite of what humanism says. At the core of humanism is the principle that evidence and critical thinking are the ways to understand reality, and the rejection of superstition and unfounded supernatural claims. Like I said; the complete opposite of what you claim here.
*...it was also the fuel for colonial racism and the justification for colonialism.*
More rubbish. Humanism teaches that all humans are equal, and should be treated as such. For a second time, what you blame humanism for is actually far more closely related to religion. Racism and colonialism happen when people become convinced that they have divine warrant. They are doing God's work, and the tribes/colonies they are taking over are not fully human. Again, this is the complete opposite of everything humanism stands for.
It's funny - if I replace 'humanism' in your post with 'religion' or 'Christianity' it's suddenly quite accurate (at least, as close as such generalisms can be).
I grew up atheist and I remember other kids asking me once how I knew the difference between right and wrong if I don't have the bible to tell me and I was so baffled how they could need the bible for that. I told them something along the lines of if it hurts people, its wrong, if it doesn't, its right (pretty common sense) and I dont remember their response, but yea that was the first time I had a really noteworthy experience with religion. It really stuck out to me that they couldn't inherently tell the difference from right and wrong, as an outsider looking in, it really made no sense to me. Now as an adult I understand why they thought that. They did know the difference from right and wrong intuitively actually, but they didn't trust their own judgement, it seems very obvious now why they, and a lot of people need someone or something else to tell them right from wrong, its weird looking back on that, knowing what I know now. I looked at the world very differently then, I didnt realize how different my upbringing was from theirs, I knew they were religious, and that most people are, but I dont think I really grasped what that was, to me it was like a santa claus for adults and kids, thats really how I thought of it (I also knew santa wasnt real from a young age) and I knew that you werent supposed to break the magic for them, or they would get very upset. I actually pretended to be religious sometimes to fit in up until I was about 12. I just didnt want to hurt my friends feelings or to stick out and have them dislike me I guess. Sometimes I wished my parents were christians so I could have just fit in and lived in blissful ignorance, but Im so glad now that wasnt the case. I actually was quite ignorant of how insidious religion is.
@Ethnic Nationalist it isn't proof that a god exists, either. That's belief, not fact.
@Ethnic Nationalist simply because there is no scientific evidence to prove the statement. Only belief, which is subjective.
@Ethnic Nationalist god is not your imaginary friend
@Ethnic Nationalist theories have proofs, god doesn't. And you don't even follow a religion, so why believe? You deists are more disgusting than religious people, because the religious still accept the dogmas, while you make god at your own will.
Take that, Dennis Prager! 👍😁
This will mean nothing to Prager. He has not a scrap of concern for truth unless it is something he can pervert to support his dirty views.
Dennis Prager is cancer.
This will not provide him with the thousands of dollars he gets for lying to people... woops, I mean preaching Chrsitianity.
>whole video is a mashup of cognitive bias interpreting bible as factual
>this comment
hurf durf how will he ever recover? vote democrat!
@@SilverSpoon_ >Greentexting
>On UA-cam
>>>/out/
theramin you bring me peace and you help me break loose the shackles that Islam locked me into
im still trying to heal from it but i am healing
Reminds me of a fight I had with my dad because he claimed judeo-Christian values ended slavery in the US
That still remains one of the biggest load of bs I've ever heard
I could accept the argument that some groups of people inspired by specific teachings of Christianity (Quakers) contributed to the eventual widespread condemnation of slavery, as much as I’m willing to admit that Christianity contributed to building a the system of slavery in the first place by citing rules to engage in slavery as written in their holy Bible.
“Your male and female slaves are to be from the nations around you; you may purchase male and female slaves.” - Leviticus 25:44 CSB
Then what values were in place when they started slavery in the US? Chinese Buddhist?
@Ethnic Nationalist Where is he/she lying? Is that line not in the book? Did different American Christians not fight at both sides for or against slavery in the US civil war?
@Ethnic Nationalist Is it? I don’t think I saw a line in both the OT and NT that explicitly forbade or went against slavery, and the OT, as we see from examples like that Leviticus line above, at least appears to have condoned or treated slavery as a given, setting laws for how to own and manage slaves if not outright supported it. Even Jesus himself appears to have condoned the existence of slavery, telling them to obey their masters although he did tell the masters to give them basic human decency. So overall, I don’t think Christianity was actually against slavery, especially since pro-slavery people were able to quote freely from the Christian religious text as support of their slaveowning, including appropriation of the Curse of Ham idea.
@Ethnic Nationalist Oh, in the least the OT is very partial to Israelites, made up racist backstories for other Canaanites and justified slaughtering or enslaving them. The only difference is the concept of African slaves didn’t occur to them, but since they differentiated non-Israelites they don’t exactly make a good case for racism either. It would be Paul that reached out to the gentiles, and again none of them decided to explicitly do away with slavery, be it motivated by racism or ethnicity.
25:10 Graphic scene of a Christian cross penetrating a David star. Viewer discretion is advised.
Yeah, got a little smutty there didn't it? :Ppp
“Ohhh I dont know I dont know I dont know whyyyyyyyyyy ....
I cant get enough of your loveeee baaaaaaabe”
Colonel1954Dz Arousing
hawt.
Rule 34. No exceptions.
'Being an entirely voluntary exercise, the crucifixion story amounts to nothing more than a divine flirtation with sadomasochism.' I've never heard it said better.
As a student in school, a teacher sent me out of the classroom, because I dared disagree with her notion, that Christianity was the foundation of western morality and that there was no morality without it.
Now, before my family moved to this country, I grew up in a place and time, where there religion had no influence in the state at all - let's say, practicing religion was not encouraged and churches didn't get any support - and atheism was (and still is) as widely spread like barely anywhere else in the world.
Nobody in my family is Christian, I wasn't baptized and neither were my parents, my siblings or my cousins. I never even heard of Jesus before I moved to the west. But we still have a sense of morality and that's why I knew the teacher was wrong and I opposed her.
Now, the cherry on top of this story is this: the class I attended was supposed to be about ethics. It is a class especially for kids, who did NOT want to attend the Bible class (because, yeah, that's a thing that needs to exist).
That sounds weird. When I went to school they didn't have a Bible class, or an ethics class. I am American, but I've only heard of that existing in private Christian schools.
It has been and still is standard in West Germany. Well, actually the name of the class is "religion" and I think, you *do* learn, about other religions, as well.
And noone HAS to attend. But you have to attend something as a substitue.
@@Gandaleon Weird how we have this view of Germany in the US as a secular paradise/hellscape (depending on your view on religion), but Germans have religious literacy classes in public school and actual political parties dedicated to certain Christian denominations.
@@CheapSkateGamer96 To be fair, what is the difference between "a place where, if you believe, you can be open about it, and if you don't, you can be open about it" and a secular paradise?
I suppose the argument isn’t that you can’t be moral, rather than there’s no compelling reason to be moral beyond your own boundaries which you can break because you have set them, and there’s no fear of inherent retribution for this act as there would be if you were disobeying a prescribed morality from a higher authority.
How could I possibly derive my morals from my local religion, Christianity, when I find much of it's morality to be immoral, unjust, sadistic?
Luth, You're backwards. Christian morality is presented as 'priceless artifacts' by believers...but all they're selling is radioactive trinkets that look shiny while it destroys their health and well being.
But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Let's find out. Is it moral and just to punish an innocent for the crimes of the guilty?
Luth, bible myths have bibleGod punishing innocent people for the crimes of the guilty all the time. King David's baby...the first born of Egypt...global flood story logically includes murdering infants...claiming generations after generations will be punished for the crimes of their offspring...the whole adam and eve original sin curse...etc. etc.
In the real world, there's a whole legal libraries worth of argumentation defining and supporting what a 'miscarriage of justice' is.... primarily the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. ie. unjust.
But that's 'man's justice', right? Imperfect, unjust, man's justice. I'm sure that if the police went up to your mother and shot her in the head and told you "oh, we caught her sister jaywalking right after we made a public announcement about all jaywalking must stop, so this is justice served" (akin to the King David story)...you'd rejoice and celebrate the objective justice of such an act. After all, that is the justice system of your fictional overlord...and your fictional overlord's suppose to be perfect, so that must be perfect justice. Right?
Tell me all about how just such a system would be in reality and not just in the confines of your fairytale book.
Luth, it's nearly impossible for you to discuss anything with people like me because we don't take your claims of truth at face value. We question. We think. We don't use faith to determine what truth actually is.
I'm not pounding my fist saying "it's this way". I'm pointing out that no where on the planet, is there any country or legal argument that sells the idea of justice being served by punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. Such a scenario is literally the definition of 'miscarriage of justice'. There's no emotion in stating that fact. It's just a verifiable fact.
But I understand you have to get emotional and charge me with doing the same. You know that I'm right. You know that punishing an innocent for the crimes of the guilty is not justice by any sane definition of the word. But admitting that fact would undermine the position you've built on faith. So you have to attack me instead of being honest with yourself. I understand completely. Instead of addressing the facts, you have to attack whatever you don't like about how I present them, or me personally, or both. I was a Christian for the first half of my life. I understand how that works.
In the real world, virtually everyone figures out and understands that punishing an innocent for the crimes of the guilty is not justice. Every legal system on the planet I'm aware of agrees. How is that not a statement of fact concerning 'the real world'?
Luth, you sure do like barfing out deflective bullshit and logical fallacies.
It is unjust to punish an innocent for the crimes of the guilty. It's called 'miscarriage of justice'.
Don't blame me if you can't admit reality or your sadistic religion preaches the opposite.
Luth, Your argument is a logical fallacy called 'special pleading'. Punishing an innocent for the crimes of the guilty is injustice. A miscarriage of justice. Everyone understands this. All you're doing is adding a label, 'atonement' (ie. special pleading) and claiming it gets a pass from logic. It doesn't. All you're doing is justifying injustice by calling it something else.
Your videos should be shown in schools & colleges all over the world.
Hassan Radwan AGREE!!!!!
Absolutely.
Nice surprise seeing you here Mr.Hassan! Much love and respect!
Problem is they are too long for lessons really, even 10 minute videos take up so much time in school
I dont think they would because in schools (at my 3 past schools i went to in my life atleast) they teach religion atleast an hour a week
Jordan Peterson needs to watch this.
@@tteabag91 it depends on what you mean by "perspectives".
Jordan Peterson is a megaweenie
Kyle Dawson -nicely played. Always amusing to see Peterson’s own quotes used against him.
Jordan’s talent is sounding like he’s smart.
@@Phreemunny Thanks for telling me what I did.
Whenever I hear someone saying that Christianity invented something intrinsic to human nature like morality and that there was no morality or true good society before it, I just imagine Ancient China looking up and going "hm? sorry what was that?"
Oh god I had some psycho write three comments in a row 750 words each screeching obscenities all because I told someone else the Ancient Greeks have more to take credit for than "Judeo-Christianity" when it comes to the West.
+Zempath What happened after you realized this?
I hope you'll find a better partner.
Sumerian comes to my mind
They hardly THINK about China...
This video reminded me of the time my mom said "but where did they learn good morals?" upon learning that my cousin was marrying someone who wasn't following a religion. Kinda shookt me to realize there really are people who think being a good person can only be taught through religious scripture
@@sentinelUSA05 I wasn't really talking about the philosophical/religious implications of being a "good person" on my initial comment.
It was just disbelief that a person thought that someone raised without religion wouldn't have a concept of good or bad.
And yeah, a "100% good person" most likely doesnt exist. Imperfection is part of being human.
But I'd still consider someone whose bad actions don't outweigh the good that they've done a "good person" in general.
@@sentinelUSA05 haha i tend to oversimplify, and im probably gonna end up doing so again.
Some animals exhibit altruism despite not having the concept of religion. I assume its the same for someone who still does good things outside of spirituality. They do it because benefits the community. It may come as a detriment to them, but it could improve the community as a whole. This is probably a little more muddied now that towns arent as tight-knit as they used to be, but its just a guess based on experience as someone who isn't really religious.
Also I mentioned a persons good actions outweighing their bad as criteria so I think your example of Jeff Bezos already kind of fails to meet that imo. Yes he donates to charity, but Amazon is notorious for its terrible treatment of its employees and other shady stuff.
But hey im just a rando on the internet. At this point i think we're still limited to what we know about a person to determine whether they're "good" or not.
The next question gotta be asked: where were morals before judaism/christianity? Religious people are weird
This video prompted a very disturbing revelation in me about how Christianity frames crimes and punishment, which starts with the very first "crime" ever committed.
Crime: Adam and Eve disobey God by eating from the Tree of Knowledge.
Punishment: *Every single person that is descended from them, i.e. all of humanity, must suffer for it.*
The story isn't so much about Adam's sin causing sin in everyone else, though he was chosen as the first representatives of humanity. It is about the knowledge of sin that came into the world after his meal. Man already had a sinful nature but he hadn't known sin yet. The "curse" (this doesn't mean "hex" it means loss of protection) of death was not something humanity didn't possess already. They were already mortal and would have died but for the tree of life which provided them with life. In Genesis 3:22 God removed them from the garden and access to the tree of life and so suffered death as they were already made to do. The rest of humanity doesn't suffer because of Adam. They suffer because they all sin. Adam was just the first, and "so through Adam, all men die."
@Richdragon No. God made them with free will. He wanted an honest relationship not creatures that follow for fear. You can characterize it as you wish, of course.
@Richdragon No. I see where you think that is what I'm saying. I didn't mean it that way. An honest relationship means a loving relationship where the parities are mutually interested in each other on personal grounds. A relationship built in fear is no such relationship. If God came down and revealed himself to the world and demanded obedience with lightning bolts and fire coming from his mouth, we would all believe and do what he says for fear of His wrath. There wouldn't be any personal relationship.
@Richdragon For sure, the threat of justice and consequences may strike fear in someone guilty before that justice. The thing is, I know no Christian that is a Christian because they are afraid of hell fire. In fact, I would argue that anyone that comes to Christ for no other reason then fear of hell fire, never remains a Christian for long.
I can say, for sure, that I didn't, haven't and don't follow God because of my fear of hell. All hell does for me is reveal what I deserve so that I can understand what I have gained.
@Richdragon Being guilty is waving your social finger in God's general direction because you don't think you need him or because you think he is immoral or because you think you could do things better.
The Bible says, "a fool says in his heart there is no God." It assumes the obviousness of God's existence.
As for hell, I'm not sure that the Bible teaches eternal conscious torment. I'm still working that through. Not only that but descriptions of hell are obviously metaphorical. From the Lazarus parable to revelations the discussions about hell are painted in figurative language. The original illusions come from the burning trash pit outside of Jerusalem. The imagery begins with fire figuratively and ends in revelations with fire figuratively. Throughout the NT though hell is described as a place of destruction where the chaff is "burned" up. The verses about the smoke of their judgment rising up forever follows a verse just a chapter or so earlier where the great city Babylon is destroyed and its "smoke rises up forever," when the context is quite clear that the city is destroyed and is no more.
Actually the Christians I run around with would. It would be hard to hide because the way they interacted with the things of God would be different. It would be soulless. It wouldn't be one of gratitude or humility. Now there may be some Christians that I have ran across and not really known who are Christians because of that fear but as I said before, I would bet my bank account that they won't remain a Christian for long because its much easier to accept post modernism or atheism then to struggle through a faith in fear. People that live in fear will find a way to justify their way out of it if they can.
Even if there are some Christians that are so out of fear, it is an extreme minority. I should be clear, I'm talking about born again committed Christians. I'm not talking about the millions of people that have no relationship with God but only participate in the rituals because that is what they were taught to do from childhood. Among that group, many may choose God because of fear. I don't know. That isn't a type I'm around much.
*The crucifixion story amounts to nothing more than a divine flirtation of sadomasochism*
Hahahahahaha holy shit that's good.
Its true, but I think that story helped them reel their egos in some and check themselves relative to how Islam is. Not alot though, as christians still have strong flaws.
It's also really stupid. In the end, Jesus' great "sacrifice" amounted to him sacrificing his weekend and then coming back to life and flying up to Heaven. Meanwhile, when real people sacrifice themselves for a cause or other people, they don't come back. They're gone. But by some magic, the most empty, meaningless sacrifice of them all is the only one that Christians care about.
Captain Rhodes I don’t think you understand how brutal the crucifiction process is. Jesus suffered just as much on the cross as any human would
@@anchorthesun3438 So? He only stayed dead for roughly two or three days, depending on which gospel you read. Then he predicted the end of the world within the lifetime of his present followers, and ascended into paradise. Meanwhile, every human that has ever died for something did not come back.
@@anchorthesun3438 Correct. Which doesn't make him special. He is just another case of brutal torture, but unlike real victims he himself submitted himself to it, and then demands our everlasting thankfulness and whorship while threatening us with even more brutal torture
Always wondered why, in his sermon on the mount in Matthew 5, Jesus INSISTS that we must NOT think he's come to change the slightest word of the old Jewish law of Moses and the Pharisees, and Jesus threatens that any man "who sets aside ONE off the LEAST of the old commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven"...
And then a few lines later in the same speech the guy says 6:51 "You've heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you...."
UM Excuse me Jesus, that sounds like you ARE changing more than a jot or tittle... you wanna be thrown in the river of fire too Mr. Cheesus ? hhmm?
It's possible he had to subtly undermine it. But then again, perhaps not.
I agree with the theory that Jesus was just a proto-hippie, and that he & his followers were just intoxicated, thinking he was magic.
It's not like Charles Manson didn't do something similar..
@@vallisdaemonumofficial Oh, come. Manson didn't die for the sake of others. He made others die for his sake.
@@mensetens6391 Jesus didn't die for anyone else either. He died because he was executed for starting a cult that threatened Roman rule, then people made up a story to attach meaning to his death, which resulted in a religion.
@@Nognamogo _He died because he was executed for starting a cult that threatened Roman rule_
That was a very nice example of an assertion without evidence.
_then people made up a story to attach meaning to his death, which resulted in a religion_
As was that. Strike two.
_Jesus didn't die for anyone else either_
Now, here we agree. I didn't say 'die for someone else.' When I mentioned 'die for the sake of others,' I *said* 'die for the sake of others,' which is a case of a small change making a big difference. He died that we might see the power of God's love, that though it seems helpless it is really far more powerful than hate or human selfish ambition and shows us our way to God (whom we refuse in our false pride), who forgives and draws us through invitation to himself. He never demands, never orders, but draws in love.
If God (YHWH) were truly all powerful, they'd be capable of judging people as they were, without having to conform to seemingly arbitrary criterion laid out by millenia old texts.
And here is why I became agnostic :)
Beethoven's 7th Symphony, 2nd Movement, if anyone's wondering.
Ah...lovely lovely Ludwig Van
I think that the secular equivalent of "sin" may be "thought crime."
How so? How does the secular world condemn and punish thought crimes?
@@LarsPallesen How does a god, as opposed to their mortal clergy, actually punish a sin in any provable way?
That said, authoritarian dictatorships tend to be very heavy on punishing thought crimes pretty harshly.
@@lnsflare1 You're lucky if it's merely considered thought crime, 1984 style. Human dictators are more merciful than imaginary Gods.
@Phoenix Victoria it does make sense never even occurred to me such that it was a theocracy because it was so detached from religion that I didn't even see the theocratic elements in it big brother being an all knowing God everything is monitored the hour of hate and all monotonous things damn
Around the 10 minute mark: that's the thing I can never understand about religious people. They say the bible is the foundation of their morality - or even *everyone's* morality - and when you point out they are morally opposed to slavery or murdering disobedient children, same-sex lovers, adulterers, blasphemers and unbelievers they acknowledge that those things are immoral acts - and yet *continue* to claim that their holy book is the source of their morality rather than rejecting it as a flawed source and questioning anything else it claims.
Frankly, if I picked up a book on, say, "Life in the UK" and could see that there are numerous bits that are clearly factually incorrect, I wouldn't be inclined to believe anything else it told me about life in the UK. I mean, it _might_ have something correct, but how would I know? I'd have to fact-check *everything* in it to be sure - and it'd probably be easier just to forget the book entirely and find out for myself. Why can't religious people who already acknowledge that the bible contains immoral things presented as "God's Moral Law" (TM) just say, "OK, this book's clearly rubbish" and move on?
Same sex lovers are immoral? Wtf?
Fear of hell
9:37. Hold up.
Kill unruly children?!
My parents may have been Christian, but at least they never went this far.
The Bible is a dense book, full of many proclamations of things adherents must do, many of which contradict one another. There is no one alive who follows every rule set forth in the Bible as-is.
As a man who had lived the majority of his life as an atheist and is currently in the process of converting to Judaism, I really appreciate this kind of though-provoking videos. Everyone in their right mind needs to hear the criticism of their religion.
As for me, the humanistic values such as freedom, acceptance, equality and scientific researches will always be above anything else. I have been a type of person who would rush to help one in need and defend the oppressed groups (such as LGBTQ+), and I remain that way. I didn't need a religion to be a moral person before, my personal experience was enough; and nothing changes now, I strive to be a moral person and help others around me on my own account.
This was a biggie, TT. One of the most repeated claims I hear from believers is that all morality derives from their god and their religious belief, yet their holy book, supposedly the source of this morality, contains unspeakable violence, misogyny, and homophobia, all of which go unjustified, other than to say, Yahweh sez do it THIS way OR ELSE. If you'll permit me to draw a parallel between morality and decency, allow me to cite the following:
_Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it._
-- Christopher Hitchens
P.S.: NICE use of the 2nd movement of the Beethoven 7th, a long-time fave of mine!
Everyone that I asked why we need religion (which focuses only on christianity) as a subject in school always said the same things.
"Kids wouldn't have any morals without religion."
"It's the most important part of school." (Pretty sure that's learning to write and read.)
"You have to learn about all religions and accept them, so we need it." (We only learn about one religion and are told not to accept any people with other believes, as they are all satanists.)
"You only colour in things anyways, so it's just to relax." (Not remotely true, we usually only wrote stuff down, read the Bible or had tests. Relaxing can only be done at home and more free time would be way better, as maybe then kids would finally have free time and not spent all of it doing homework.)
And so on. It's so stupid. Ethics would be way better, but no, then kids would start worshipping satan apparently.
YES YES YES YESSSSSSS!
A new video, a new learning experience.
Thank you 💜
OK, I have different points to address:
The first one, just because you know it by age of 8, doesn't mean everyone else does.
Not everyone retain/process/analyse/ knowledge in the same manner.
You might get an idea from 1 video, others may need 10.
More importantly, this video isn't just for you, in fact, I don't think it is even intended for atheists (although it is interesting/fun and can be educational), but more for those who are stuck in the middle, confused, where such videos can help a person clarify their thoughts beliefs and move on.
The second point, your definition of atheism is wrong: atheism is saying you don't believe in god for the lack of sufficient evidence.
If you believe that God does not exist, that is a totally different matter (and the burden of proof is on you to substantiate your claim.) So that is an important distinction.
The third point, where I actually agree with you. I tend to dislike most pro-atheist tone and stance (Sam Harris to name an example), like we need to move on, but we also need to tackle this in a more tactful and useful manner other than 'lashing back in resentment'.
The fourth point, you are being too judgemental. Just like so many people have car accidents, recover, and move on with their life, there are those who go through such an experience and become an advocate/activist in that area. Such thing apply to every field.
So while I agree with you that the approach is not suitable, by no means it is not needed. Just like theists preach, atheists will preach too.
Optimal? Maybe not, but shutting down one side because you think it is "obvious" is hardly a convincing or even a rationale argument.
Have a good one mate,
p.s. it has been a while since I watched the video, so I'm not sure about TT's position and claims made in the video. I'm merely addressing the points you've raised.
So if he defined atheism in the way you projected then both of you are wrong. If he did claim that no gods exist, then the burden of proof is on him to make that claim (which is a difficult one, and to be honest, rather...pointless in my opinion, but then again.. that is who I am) I just want people to get along and move on.
Ingersoll and Paine. Two of my favourite freethinkers.
THANK YOU!!! This video is much needed at least for my sanity and I’m certain the sanity of others as well.
This seems to be an apologetic argument that refuses to die, and is becoming wildly popularized by Jordan Peterson. (Clinical psychologist of Canada)
I find it all too infuriating and endlessly frustrating to point out the moral failures of religion and where secular humanism is succeeding, only to have all the foundational work behind humanism ripped out from underneath it!
The tactics of claiming credit for humanistic morality and saddling it with the flaws of dogmatic religion is ridiculously dishonest and completely unwarranted!
There’s a Christopher Hitchens quote that I can’t find but will attempt to paraphrase, (The religious try to project onto us their faults and beliefs that we refuse to share.)
LuthAMF
You’re quite welcome to hunt for the full quote, if you find it please comment it below.
However I feel you’ve completely missed the point.
I can’t speak for all atheists, simply because we’re not a homogeneous group, but one that is greatly diverse.
We have no universal texts or “holy” figureheads.
For myself though, I don’t simply parrot back the words said by others or what I’ve reading in their books.
I speak from a position of understanding and deep thought on the matters of religion, science, politics, ethics, and morality.
Feel free to disagree, but don’t expect to get away with such condescension un-rebutted.
LuthAMF
Oh, my opening paragraph was quite sincere.
I’ve been looking for the direct Hitchens quote for a while, and if you find I’d very much like to reference it in future discussions.
So if you truly think that level of honesty is snobbish, that might explain your infatuation with religion.
LuthAMF
By “truncating history” I could only assume you’re conflating modern secular humanism with the forced atheism of communist Russia in the late 20th century.
These two are very separate entities.
The forced political atheism of Stalin’s Russia was a pseudo-religion in and of itself.
It was also enforced by the state, although there were still plenty of Churches who were still allowed their regular services.
Modern Secular Humanism is nothing like that, it only seeks to help those who leave religion and are persecuted for it.
Most Humanist organizations are merely seeking to build a community and support structure for those who don’t find kinship with the religious.
Many SH groups lobby for protection of Church State Separation, but then again, many Religious (Christian and others) organizations do the same.
So I don’t know what slippery bslope propaganda you’ve been fed or are trying to push, but no one I’d recognize as a modern secular humanist is pushing for the forced de-conversion or extermination of the religious majority.
LuthAMF
Ah, so your vague comment was meant to be in support of your position, thank you for the clarification 👌🏼
I’m well aware of Christianity’s mixed history of peace and brutal war.
Thankfully the Enlightenment came along to castrate the Church and it’s previously unregulated and unquestioned power.
I’m so happy that America was founded on enlightenment principles, as the first truly secular country in history, what a precedent!
The American constitution has stopped Christianity from running amok inside the democratic process, and protects religious minorities and other Christians from themselves.
And with the Treaty of Tripoli stating clearly and without question,
“The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”,
Settled any argument attempting to twist this fine secular nation, retroactively, into a theocracy.
LuthAMF
I’m uncertain what form of criticism you’re attempting here.
But similar criticism could be lobbed at Christianity with its innumerable sects and denominations.
Yet they DO go around boasting about their latest error, but they try to call it “Truth” or “Divinely inspired revelation”.
From the Pope, to Martin Luther, to southern baptist reformations.
All thought they had the “Absolute Truth”, or “knew” they were in personal contact with God.
If you’d like to have a conversation about our different viewpoints, I’d be happy to.
I’ve never meant my messages to be combative, but when two diametrically opposed positions meet, conflict is usually not far behind.
Especially if each think the other to be unreasonable or unreachable.
Theramin Trees! Always have to watch as soon as I see it in my feed.
Same man. God bless him (pun intended).
He's an angel. Lol
Praise be to the Trees!
As usual my Patreon support has contributed to an outstanding video.
Humanism didn't come out of Judeo-Christian tradition; it came *in spite of it,* clawing its way out of religious miasma, gasping for air for every hard-fought inch as countless inquisitors and moral guardians harried it every step along the way in an attempt to beat it back into compliance. That so many zealots would try and appropriate of the values they fought so hard against as if they were their own all along sickens me to my very core, for it is naught but a mad and desperate scramble to steal the good will garnered by their old foe in an attempt to keep the waning embers of their relevance alive.
Desiderius Erasmus.
I would agree that what you call "humanism" came "in spite of it" but then again just because it calls itself "humanism" does not mean it is necessarily very good for humans. religions encourage families and group cohesion at the very least. "humanism" seems to also encourage cohesion of a sort....but not families and it seems to put women at the center of everything.
@@aaronsilver-pell411 Yes, humanism is absolutely best for humanity. This obsolete idea of "family values" being inherently good outside of an irrational, emotional level is misguided *at best,* and any ideology that encourages the weakness in the human psyche formally known as tribalism should be regarded as suspicious for that reason alone. Remember: Co-operation between different groups creates things like The Concert of Europe or the EU, some of the greatest achievements of some of the greatest civilisations in human history. Conflict between different groups created the Holocaust, and, ironically, considering it's promoters are often white racists, is the reason there are so many of the Muslims they can't shut up about in Europe.
@@mrsuspicious1743 If your humanism is not inclusive and supportive of families then there is probably something fucked up with it. and btw, the EU is a dysfunctional mess.
@@mrsuspicious1743 Family= terrible, bad, obsolete, misguided, absolutely bad for humanity. right. Ok. gotcha.
The calm and clarity with which you present your arguments is truly wonderful. I always come away from your videos feeling more peaceful and enlightened. Thank you!
Brilliant, as usual. Specially the part where you explain the conflicts within the so-called Judeo-Christian values.
I get so excited when you have a new video. Thank you *so* much for the accurate captions.
The fact that secular humanism doesn't account for life's meaning of purpose, means that your life's meaning or purpose belongs to you alone. What more could you ask for?
So grateful to see another TheraminTrees video. Much love to you and QualiaSoup.
Fantastic topic, one of the few channels that convince me to stay on this platform.
I as a child went to a Christian preschool. I even at that young age recognized contradictions. When i asked questions my answers were "god works in mysterious ways".
At home religion was not reinforced, my questions were answered. But I quickly learned not to question certain inconsistencies I recognized. As my questions undermined what was being taught even in public schools. I didn't like being forced to say the pledge every morning. "One nation under God" while also being taught of the separation of church and state and religious freedom. How is there religious freedom if we are forced to accept there even is a god? In god we trust on all our currency?
Now with where America is politically. With lawmakers citing their bible as resons for draconian laws. In congress saying "we are a Christian nation" openly calling for the state to enforce their interpretation of the bible onto all citizens. Allowing discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals if someone has stong religious beliefs. The Supreme Court turning back decades of precedent. Banning books now in schools but giving exceptions for the bible.
As I continually educate myself, the fundamental contradictions I noticed as a child become clear as to where these beliefs and myths come from. Why things didn't add up. It was all taught from the canonized American mythos. Not history. The bad parts sped through.
I recently helped my youngest sibling with their homework on America's westward expansion. Made another realization as to why theres this attack on CRT, how we are trying to 'change' history.
Parents helping kids with history are experiencing cognitive dissonance, learning themselves about American history they weren't taught. Worried about how their white children might feel learng about the history of slavery in America. Its not all glowing "ra ra America is the best. We have done no wrongs". Instead of learning themselves they cry that "their trying to change history. Make kids hate America". Because this isn't what they were taught in school. Rather than having to face American history, they want it white washed again. Fighting tooth and nail to hold onto propoganda rather than doing any critical thought into maybe they have something to learn.
Ignorance is bliss.
My father had a colleague who openly told my father he would do those things if not for his Christianity. I wonder how prevalent that is.
Replying to Sknabc…
Incredibly. A morally mature individual gets to the point where they won't do these things because they don't want them done to them. Not because their God will send them to the Bad Place.
17:19 indiscriminate revenge:
When police finds a suspect and parades them in front of the press, and they are then sentenced as guilty, despite there being no real evidence, because it is more important to find _someone_ guilty instead of _the_ guilty. This is sometimes referred to as "giving the relatives of a murder victim closure", and when the injustice is later revealed, those that defend the innocent (the condemned suspect) are often vilified for "opening old wounds". Sometimes the rationale is that the person the police pointed to was a known criminal, so "probably guilty of something".
And that is not even with a willing subject, like the whipping boys (who mayor may not have existed) who took beatings for a prince or young king.
YES! Thank you! This is what I've been trying to tell people!
Religion doesn't define morality, it's secular thought that develops morality, then when religious people realize the truth of a secular moral value, they claim it to be their own!
First: Your god has to exist before he can do anything.
Second: Morality is shaped by people and the realities of the environment they inhabit. Simply laying down laws and having the power to enforce them does not make your moral pronouncements moral.
First prove that your god is all-knowing and that these moral laws given by your religious leaders are not just made up by other people who CLAIM to be speaking the word of an infallible god.
It's pretty telling when secular ethics result in better outcomes than the moral laws given in holy texts. Abolition, freedom of speech and religion, equality of race, gender, and sexual orientation, protection of children from rape and parental abuse: none of these are values held by the Bible or Quran. These are all SECULAR values that religions have retroactively claimed as their own.
A god approving of the conquest and rape of underage girls does not make the action moral. It violates their bodily autonomy and does long-term damage to them both physically and mentally. If we care about the health and well-being of other people, this is wrong and a pronouncement from your god doesn't change that.
I got news for you: if authority is all you value, then you don't really value morality.
See, morality is concerned with actions and the consequences they have on other people. Humans must share this world with other humans and a level of codependence is necessary to survive. We say hitting is wrong because striking another person causes pain. It's inflicting unwanted damage and so we discourage the activity.
But authority figures can make laws decoupled from the effects they have on other people. It might make laws against murder, but it might also make laws allowing slavery. Obedience becomes more important than the effect. Even if the laws in question were to definitively make society dysfunctional and miserable, the subjects would still be compelled to obey at the behest of the authority.
+finalfantasy8911 Your god does not prohibit homosexuality because of any inherently negative effects of the activity, but rather because he simply does not approve of it and will punish people for engaging in it. The consequences come from HIM, not from the activity itself. Were he not to have anything against homosexuality, we, as a species and as a society, would suffer no ill effects from it and would, indeed, also enjoy many benefits for the increased freedom we'd have in society.
Oh, and my list of secular values are not empty assertions. I challenge you to find anything in the Bible that expressly communicates any of those values.
It's not hard to imagine how the morals we live with today can have emerged from social evolutionary pressures. You did a good job of highlighting this. Thanks for another thought-provoking video.
Even wolves have been known to allow injured pack members to feed at kills. They have also been obsessed to defend injured pack members from other Wolf packs and predators such as bears and mountain lions
@Ethnic Nationalist
No they don’t. Humans wonder how we got here, and at some point came up with God. Animals don’t. They have their own sense of right and wrong.
I remember my professor and I having a discussion on my cousin's leaving of his religion. My professor asked what he'd do next. I said that my cousin would go and live his own life exactly as he chooses to live it. He then asked if he'd be joining another religion, like, say, Buddhism. I said no, my cousin wouldn't. The whole debacle with the religion he was in has just about turned him off from organized religion altogether. Then my professor brought up the subject of morality. I told my professor that really, you can get a sense of morality from anywhere, not solely from religion. For example, I get my sense of right and wrong from what naturally feels right and wrong to me, and how the actions of others affected me throughout my life.
It was a weird conversation, if only because it was then that I realized that my professor was not as secular-minded as I thought. I wouldn't hold that against him though - he's a smart guy and generally seems to approach things with skepticism.
What feels right may not be actually be right though.
@@sidney4022 and yet it most certainly cant be any worse than what god says is right.
@@rokor3578 a piece of advice I was given was that for every action I'm taking, I'd better have a good reason for doing it, not just on feeling.
Religious people are threatened from day one with eternal torture for non-compliance. Is this the source of their moral superiority? Supremacist cults, all of them, need to be disbanded.
I just wanna say I always love the music in your videos. The sounds you use have a "plastic" feel a lot of time, and reflect the messages of your videos very well. I think I've watched all of your videos at this point and your music is always on point.
Cheers John.
TheraminTrees. I love your shows so much. I've been struggling with this idea for years now. This is such an informative video because for me it confirms that somewhere along the way, humanity got derailed and I think I understand now. Matrilineal cultures survived for thousands of years in a sustainable manner. Now that we are near extinction -- who's ruling but amoral, narcissistic, patriarchal Judeo-Christian men, while the women have become all but invisible. This doesn't apply to all men, but the rich and powerful are among the most abusive. Nothing could be worse for the planet. #InTheNameOfGawd religion has hijacked all common sense, intuition, imagination, and the natural. They call themselves "moral" yet somehow religion figures they are exempt from moral laws such as reporting child sex abuse. 🤦♀️
In terms of inequalities rooted in Christian ideologies, there's so much wrapped up in the creation story right at the start isn't there. That uneven genesis tale is like the initial mistake in the knitting that distorts the whole pattern. So much of what comes later refers back to that. Anthropology was part of my first degree and it was invigorating to read about the tremendous variations in community structure that have existed - matrilineal and patrilineal - and the array of approaches to personal relationships, some of them achingly charming in their reverence to humanity, and frequently celebrating difference. It feels like some of the world's major religious groups have acted like steam rollers across the globe, flattening and extinguishing so many precious flowers.
@@TheraminTrees I agree completely. I keep hoping humanity might take the helm and turn this ship around somehow. Thanks again. 💗
I remember back in a college I took a class where we watched a documentary about Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO's), that specifically focused on how interpretations of copyright law were used to disrupt the businesses of traditional farmers, and the video started with a discussion of copyright, and patent laws, in particular one of the experts cited a rejected patent/copyright request for "tortillas", which was rejected because tortillas are a traditional thing, that predated that company... Whenever I hear people arguing that secular morality borrows from one religion, or another that is the image that comes to mind, a greedy organization requesting a "tortilla patent".
Something I asked a lot as a kid in response to the absolutism of being saved by Jesus, or more specifically not saved, was "What happens to the people who never meet missionaries and never learn about Jesus?". My parents struggled to give me a satisfactory answer. They'd tell me about individual stories of people deep in the middle of Africa seeing Jesus in dreams and starting churches. They also said that God is stamped on our hearts at birth, so actually anybody who doesn't believe is choosing not to. Then I would ask why we need missionaries if God is stamped on each person's heart. It always seemed to go in circles and I never got a satisfying answer. I know why now.
you were a kid buddy. The Bible teaches that those who are not righteous or believe in Jesus will go to the lake of fire. God killed the entirety of humanity and saved a single family since it was corrupt. The nasty biblical truth, is that God isn't a loving entity to those who denounce him or are ignorant of him, but he shows mercy, as revelation said, you'll be judged by your own works.
"The notion of ordering people to love denies the autonomous nature of love"
Damn
Great video, thank you. I have been arguing these points forever, it seems. Now I can just link them to this awesome video!
Why would "God" create a person to burn in "hell"? I asked this in a bible study group I attended at someones behest. I was not invited back. I spent hours innumerable in service to the church and scared myself into submission concerning my countless questions. Yep, they still have yet to be answered. My heart knows and has known the answers.
Just because your question has gone unanswered doesn’t mean there’s not an answer out there to it. There is an answer to your question, all you have to do it is go outside of your social circle to find it. Not all everyday Christians know a lot about theology. Go in some educated Christian spaces and maybe you’ll find an answer that tickles your ears. Seek the truth with all your heart and you will find.
@@Nobody-tj9jo how about the fact that the answer might not be known by Christians. I really like one atheist answer: "two options for this: God is not as omniscient as we are leaded to believe and has involuntarily created a soul that deserves to be punished. Or he did willingly creat a person to torture him later and letting him loos in the world to torture some of his innocent creations"
It's just so painfully obvious that we naturally developed morals and ethics as instincts (and many learnt in childhood) as we evolved as a species. As our cognitive abilities developed so did empathy and understanding of how to create and maintain a civilized society. It's just common sense.
How does TheraminTrees not have more subscribers? Just found this channel, His videos are excellent.
the algorithm doesnt love channels that upload only once in a blue moon i guess.
:D
The profound message of your information is set off perfectly by the gentle soothing timbre of your voice. Thanks from Down Under.
Did religion create morality? No
Did religion impart many modern morals? Yes
Do you need to be religious to be moral? No
Does religion drive some people to lead more moral lives? Yes
Does religion drive some people to lead less moral lives? Yes
Religion did not impart modern morals bruh
If Christianity never existed the same general moral ideals would still be adopted by the majority of people today (of course without accounting for how the butterfly effect might impact history)
Very easy for a religion to drive you to be less moral when your basis are things like the bible. Some good moral lessons in that. Some morals we discarded for very good reason also drin
I absolutely love your use of Chopin in transitions. Please never stop.
Your videos have incalculable value. THANK YOU.
You know, that's actually a really good point. I never thought about that. The next time someone tries to make the moral argument to me I'll just say "Okay wait. Are you saying that one cannot come to good moral conclusion through reason alone? Now think about what that implies about your religion if you say yes..."
Morality has to be reasonable or else, it's not reasonable. It seems so simple now that I'm hearing it.
Before this video started, I watched two unskippable two-minute Christian ads about their petty arguments.
That shouldn't have happened. I've disabled all non-skippable ads on videos. I'll make a note.
This video is unbelievably good. That Jesus could not have been a victim blew my mind. Why didn't I see that myself ?
I don't know how you couldn't see it. It's common sense. As a christian I always saw it like that. But I am not sure what he meant later on with the sadomasochistic part. I think Jesus suffered for ourselves from his own choice. And that is very inspiring and honorable.
@@serenityssolace He said "Yet not my will, but yours"
@@serenityssolace That sacrifice losses its meaning when you realize the entire set of events was his fault to begin with.
If you're acting morally right but you do it because you want the reward of being in heaven/don't want the punishment of being in hell, you are not a good person. You are selfish and you act the way you do out of selfish reasons. If you act morally right because you know it to be the right way to act without hope for a reward, only then are you actually a moral person.
so if i follow the law out of love for my God, I'm a selfish person because I act "morally right" because I want to be in his kingdom? What sense does that make? If you don't want to go to prison for the rest of your life for committing a crime you do so either out of fear of the consequences of that crime or because you love your neighbor or have the integrity not to commit the crime, if you don't commit a crime out of fear of the consequence somehow that makes you a selfish and an immoral person? I think the existence of the state and the law is a motivation for avoiding criminal activity to do good. Likewise, if I act morally right in fear of the consequences of my actions then that doesn't make me immoral or selfish, that means I'm keeping the law and I am a good person because I am keeping it.
@@freonsp I don't act morally right because I don't want to go to prison. I don't want to go to prison but that's not the main reason why I behave morally right. I act morally right because it is the right way to act and I have some integrity (and that's presumably why most people do it).
Religions try to sell the idea that you need to follow their laws because otherwise you'd be immoral and immoral people go to hell. If this was the only reason for someone to not commit crimes, and not because of a sense of morality, then they only do it for themselves.
Obviously this is not what's happening in reality and people often behave according to their own moral compass by rejecting immoral ideas their religions spread or by behaving in a way a religion would want them to without believing in it.
So, if you behave morally right exclusively because you want to go to heaven and not because it is the right thing to do, then you only do it only for your own good (i.e. you behave selfishly). If you do it because you know that something is good and you do it (or it's bad and you don't) then you actually act from a sense of morality.
If you believe in paradise, wanting to go there is of course a valid additional reason to behave well but it has nothing to do with you being moral since the goal is your own profit (paradise).
In your example (let's just assume every law is always morally good even though that isn't really the case), if I only don't murder my family or rob a bank because I don't want to go to prison then I could hardly call myself moral. Without changing my mindset I could go to a country without laws and happily start robbing and killing people. However, I know that stealing is bad and I also don't want others to suffer and die, so I still wouldn't do those things. That is morality.
I guess that's a good (albeit likely extremely simplified) way of thinking about it:
Take away the good consequences for yourself. Would you still do something seen as good?
Take away the bad consequences for yourself. Would you still refrain from doing something seen as bad?
If so, you act at least to an extent from an actual sense of morality.
If not, you only care about yourself.
As previously stated, I see most people in the first category in which case religions with all their promises and threats do not seem to be the source of moral behaviour.
Sorry for the long response, it kinda got out of hand. But I hope I could clear up any confusions and further clarify my viewpoint.
It’s funny, because as the son of an atheist father, I’ve always been taught that western philosophy comes primarily from the criticism of Christianity, not from the application of it 😂
real
This is the most useful discussion of morality to which I have been exposed. Logical, thoughtful and superbly delivered.
It's good to know that QualiaSoup is still knocking about, even if he isn't active on UA-cam any more.
He collaborated with me on the two videos before this one, and we're doing some more, starting with the next one up after this. Working with him is an indescribable delight :8)
I consider the source of morality to be pretty simple. we are thought this mechanism very early on in our lives. if we do something wrong the parent would step in and say "Don't do that. imagine how you would feel if you were on the receiving end of this action".
A simple appeal to egoism. On the surface it seams simple but once you start considering more than one person the morality of the situation becomes exponentially more complex.
Lets say there is a burning building. there is a person in the window of that building. What is the moral thing to do? Walk away? No because if "I" was that person in the building I would get angry or sad. What about running into the building? Yes. I would be happy someone came to save me. but the scenario changes if we consider a fireman spraying water on the fire. Running into the fire then becomes something morally dubious. As a competent fireman I would be very angry and annoyed that some shmuck ran into the fire and added more work and worry to my job. And the situation can be built up from there.
Religious morality is parasitic to this mechanism. Instead of other person (empathy to humans) it inserts this god that followers of the religion would need to please.
Pushing this homosexual off the roof of the building is a morally good thing. It makes the god happy.
did you miss the "Stop that. imagine how you would feel if it happened to you" part?
Imagination is self adjusting if we were talking about the Klingons the same would work. "Stop showing mercy think how you would feel in his place. give the kid an honorable death and gut him"
Yeah you clearly didn't get the joke.
no I don't. I'm also an atheist and I consider god to be a parasitic influence on the system presented. It supplants itself in place of the other person. people afflicted by god no longer think about "how they would feel in place of the other person" they think "How their abstract noncorporial imaginary friend that is controlled by the clergy would feel". The klingons in the joke above do the same thing with honor. I do not propose that all moralities are equal. I simply state that the system exists and that it is inherently human and does not require god to exist.
Sorry Sir but Moral Fundamentalism is not the same as Moral Relativism. I'm not saying Morality is subjective I'm saying that Every person has the organ of morality just like every person has an organ called heart that pumps blood and unless stricken with pathology that organ works the same in every person. so please do not tell me "so what you're saying is" and don't tell me what I love or don't. put yourself in my place and imagine how you would feel.
“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
― Christopher Hitchens
I am not an atheist but love your videos. I have had the experience of God and so could never deny the power that I know to be true. But what has been done to mankind by means of religion is an ongoing tragedy and as we embrace the value of our own experiences and do not seek to enforce them on others, the difference between true compassion and love versus the one size fits all adoption of values and morality that are indoctrinated in one who follows a religious Creed will be clearly evident.
Always a pleasure :) Thanks for the great vid TT
"It's not just infanticide, it's glorious infanticide!" -John Gill
You're a monstrously underrated fetus; you need 7.5 billion subscribers.
Thanks so much TheraminTrees!! Every video from you is Christmas come early for me!
It's funny that this video came up on my feed today because I was thinking about it before I saw it and realized the same thing: Morality isn't the result of religious values; religious values are the result of morality.
Every TheraminTrees video is a gift from the heavens.
My favourite Judeo-Christian tradition is separation of church and state.
In man's transition from animal to selfconciousness, he felt emotions compelling him to action, these 'forces' he called 'gods'. "The god of war took me over in that battle and i fought like mad". He then reasons that his morality is bestowed upon him from god, when infact it is his instincts which guide him. Aren't then all the 'imoral morals' just the norms of the time, which aren't from authority, because one wouldn't convert to an imoral god, and once the norms within the believers change, so would its gods morals, because a god is a societal construct, a personification of its morals. And now we write into law our new morals, based on decency and reason. And if tomorrow all believe dogs are the reason for all our ailments, we shall make it a decency to rid them of this earth. Humans are pretty reasonable, but in groups they are not.
I enjoy listening to your voice. You remind me of my mother,calm, kind, reasonable. Thank you
Brilliant! I wish I had found this link very much earlier!! The voice of the presentation deserves an Oscar .Thank you!
I wish I could think as clearly as you do.
This video was brilliant!
Thank you.
Eloquent as always, thank you.
I am an atheist who broke through his indoctrination many years ago. Although last year, I took up the study of topics such as religion, atheism, rationality, skepticism, fallacies and logical arguments. I have just found your channel, and MUST compliment you on how succinctly you devour each hideous leg of religious control, and it's unwarranted pardons. You're pulling it apart in a delightfully unique, calm and cogent way. Limb from limb.
Thank you. As someone formerly indoctrinated into Christianity, I construct my words with that former self in mind. In that way, I hope to keep the content accessible/digestible.
Wait how did you do it? Im going through a really bug dilhemma rn (as a teen) and im scared.
@@theanonymous.5940 to be honest, deconstruction is a process. It’s not something that happens overnight, for me, it took 5 years for me to fully realize what religion actually was and the harms it had done to me. After my long, and in some cases, purposely delayed deconstruction, I couldn’t be happier that I took this path. I look back and laugh at the mental jail religion put me in. I was seriously being taught things that had no grip in reality. I needed to align my thoughts with reality, as in some cases, when I didn’t understand something, I just automatically assumed that god did it. Recently, I got big into learning about evolution & what it means to be human. I researched so many sub categories of these topics, into very specific things such as the intricacies of evolution, and how we know evolution actually does what we say it does. I learned these topics from an unbiased point of view, I listened to hundreds of hours of podcast content, watched countless documentaries on how evolution worked. Listened to countless lectures on random science topics. I learned about the human mind and how it can be manipulated early on via indoctrination. I learned about how some humans are likely to stay in a comfortable lie than the sometimes daunting reality.
From all my takeaways, I learned that I must always take the rational path, and that NOTHING should come in the way from you researching what truth was. I found that the more I dug up about the realities of this world, the more misaligned it was with my religious beliefs.
It wasn’t an easy journey for me, as I was born into a religious Christian household. It went against everything I believed to question these things. But here I am 5 years later thanking myself I escaped the horrible cycle.
I don’t expect this message to deconvert you in any way, instead, I hope this message helps spark your interest for learning about these things, and to not let anything get in the way of learning about realities truths.
Open to talking to you directly about this. I’m always open to conversation.
@@theanonymous.5940 reason why I chose to respond to you in particular is because your sentence resonates with me. I too was a scared teen questioning my faiths legitness. My heart would literally start racing when I read something that contradicted my beliefs. I was maybe 13-14 when I started to have my doubts. Now I’m 18 & glad I started when I did.
Thank you for articulating the loosely associated points that have floated around in my head for some time. Truly, your straightforward, non-hyperbolic speaking is nothing short of heroic.
Another gem from a great thinker. Hard- core Christians try to deny any innate or non- religious morality but exhibit it thus: Good Samaritan, Sermon on the Mount, forgiveness, help the needy etc. : no comments are needed. But the atrocities of the OT are justified with 'context' and some very convoluted excuses. This suggests that deep down they know how awful these are, so have to resolve that cognitive dissonance somehow. The video also makes the important point that many Jews object to 'Judeo- Christian' as it whitewashes centuries of Christian demonisation and persecution of Jews. When you ask'where do non- Christians get morality?' you often get the egotistical claim that 'they are just copying Christians'. That idea permeates the books that are referred to in the video.
The Talmud is a group of Jewish legal and religious books which contain religious discussions and explanations for what is written in the Tanakh. Without the Talmud, unlearned people might have fallen into the trap of interpreting the Tanakh literally.
This is why we have yeshivas where people study the written Torah [Tanakh] and the oral Torah [Talmud Bavli and Talmud Yerushalmi]
What does the talmud say about Jesus
@@sovl2178 I am not sure, but some rabbis are discussing if MAYBE there are two instances of a Yeshua being mentioned in the Talmud, but not completely sure
@@lezbyanke777 he's in a pit of boiling shit.
Reminds me of another person saying that it's dangerous to read the bible without the church to guide you. I think what you mean is that you don't want people to make their own interpretations of the book, ensuring that any flaws or problematic lines can be covered up with an alternative interpretation plastered on by someone else.
I absolutely loved this video. Even though I am a Christian, this a dialogue that needs to be had at a much wider scale. I still fully believe in Jesus and God, but the way in which moral topics are discussed in religious spaces needs to be reconsidered. We can not abandon reason for blind faith. Many Christians claim to be more like Jesus, but I can confirm that they are nothing like Him. My religion is such a large part of who I am. Without my faith, I wouldn't be where I am right now. Despite this, I still have to acknowledge that the way Christianity has ingrained itself into society has caused immense harm and pain. The God I know is all-loving, powerful, transcendent, and omnipotent. God has not poisoned society-people have. Sending blessings to anyone reading this. ♥️
The church as an institution have thrown him out the window
God isn't all-loving, powerful, transcendent, and omnipotent. Far from it in fact.
He is absolutely a narcissist and arguably a terrible person and the last person you'd want to worship. He willingly allowed Satan to torment Job by killing his 10 children to prove that his follower will still come back to him just to appease His ego over a bet. 10 children were killed for a bet.
God doesn't even apologize nor explain to Job why his 10 children were slaughtered. If anything, Lucifer is the kinder deity because he only punishes the sinful, not the righteous.
@@firelight3806 Why do you think God permitted Satan to do that to Job? What was God's bet?
@@theholyasdf3593 God made a bet to Lucifer that Job would remain faithful to his Lord. The reason? Human vanity (which is not befitting of an Omniscient deity which suggests that God is a human construct created with human tendencies).
Indeed Job has kept his faith even when faced with the torture and eventual murder of his wife and 10 children's lives. God even condescendingly sneers at Job afterwards for not being able to comprehend divine knowledge (which is completely contradictory to the "All Merciful and Loving Father" image that Christians love to tote).
God displays many blatant personality contradictions throughout the Bible. If the story of Job is to be considered non-canon then what else of the Bible can be taken at face-value as the will of God? None. The entire Bible is uncertain and can only be used as a foundation to build your OWN beliefs and values.
I’d like to preface this by saying I’m a godless heathen
I thoroughly enjoy studying comparative religions despite not believing in them. My favorite thing to do is to study and learn about Judaism and how it’s incompatible with Christianity (which I was indoctrinated into - my dad worked at Kenneth Copeland Ministries for a long time too). My favorite people I enjoy listening to are Rabbi Tovia Singer and Rabbi Michael Skobac. Again This is only for those interested in the topic and I’m not trying to sound like I’m trying to convert or anything
Why am I just finding this channel? This is A+ content
The opening quote by Robert G. Ingersoll is absurd navel gazing. "The Nature of things" is indistinguishable from the idea of infinite immutable power.