*I am genuinely scared.* I received a decent education from a public school in northern Kentucky. It was a small school in a small town mostly populated by conservative Christians. Despite this, I learned actual science and history. My government teacher often used the Socratic method to encourage critical thinking. My biology and anatomy teacher was the first atheist I ever knew. But that was 4 years ago. Now, Ken Ham has come to Kentucky. His greedy little organization, Answers in Genesis, have found Kentucky to be a polite and fertile state in which to grow their operations. First, they built the Creation Museum in the small little town of Petersburg. Now, they are building a giant replica of Noah's Ark, _The Ark Encounter_, right in the middle of my hometown of Williamstown. I fear for the future of education in this state. I was so proud of my little school that encouraged enthusiasm for learning, and employed teachers who were capable and unbiased regarding their religious affiliation. That may soon change. I can hear the future of education slowly swirling down the toilet bowl of anti-science and deceit that is Ken Ham. Texas is a much wealthier, bossier, and influential state, if their board of education has been infiltrated by such harmful ideologies, what hope can there be for Kentucky?
Cosmic Rogue A part of me actually wants to give the fundamentalist religious nuts one of the states. Just one. Where they can go completly crazy, introduce all their insane ideas, and just have it their way, uncontested and uncontrolled... And then, after a generation or so, compare the situation in that state, with the conditions of more reasonable states that teach actual science and encourage reasonable thinking. Because just after a couple of year, such a state would be completly floored. Their scientific illiateracy would make them completly unable to compete anywhere in the world, they would have no science-research institutions and no reasonable way of gouvenmnent, but only rulings by ancient scriptural laws. Just after a couple of years, such a state would want a reasonable standard back... I guarantee it. Unfortunatelly, something like that cannot be done. It would be unethically, because you'd literally doom an entire generation of children to ignorance and horror. And nobody wants that.
Cosmic Rogue Well... of coure, we would have to make sure, that they are cut off! Their backwards ways would need to be contained in their own little world! ;-)
Freddy Scissorhands well come now that is why they want to take over the entire world, for how could you compare good intellectual stock when the bar is so low everywhere and could not be compared.
Sadly, this kind of religious indoctrination is not completely confined to the American south. I used to work at Dinosaur State Park ( a natural science museum in Rocky hill, CT) as a docent, conducting museum tours for school groups. One day I led a tour for a home school group. I gave them the same tour as I would any other group. Although the kids were outwardly polite, they seemed disengaged compared to the public school groups I typically led. At the end of the tour I showed the group a film about fossils in our auditorium. After the film, I asked if anyone had any questions, and no one did, (or no questions they wanted ME to answer) so I said goodbye and went into the projector booth at the back of the auditorium to rewind the film. Instead of leaving, the teachers/parents went to the front of the auditorium and began 'deprogramming' the children. They told the kids that the fossils were planted by the devil to 'shake their faith'. They said that everything I had taught them was a lie and that I was 'Satan's instrument'. Then they made the kids pray. I could see and hear every word from the projection booth. I could not believe that this was going on in New England!
I knew where this was going the moment you said, "Home school group". The vast majority of home schools today are because of parents who don't want their kids educated in any way or subject that they feel isn't biblical.
Yeah, you work at Dinosaur State Park and you are leading private school students through and no one had questions. "That is not normal" You knew that was unusual. So it does not surprise me about the rest. What I have to question is "WHY" did they even bother to come? That is what is unusual.
@@marconatrix umm, duh? Do you think they are saying that homeschool is bad? If so I'll bet good money you are a creationist. Cuz you idiots never understand basic facts. Home school itself is fine, but in america, it's usually the people that want to lie to their children, that teach home school. In religious countries OBVIOUSLY it would be reversed because the parents that don't mind their children being lied to, let them go to schools where they ARE lied to. While logical people with working brains, don't want their kids to grow up retarded, so they teach them actual facts.
Schizophrenia being tied with high religiosity makes perfect sense when you think about it. Particularly _hallucinations_. Obviously those hallucinations will reflect their religious beliefs, and thus make them all the more overzealous, being utterly convinced by their broken mind that they have been visited by the supernatural.
I have noticed that many religious people are not of sound mind. I was involved in a relationship with a woman who was evangelical and she had diagnosed mental illness. I’m glad I got away from her. I sometimes wonder if being religious itself should be considered a mental illness.
@@danmiller6462 being religious itself probably not but its undeniable that it can be a trigger or precursor very, very, very, very easily. And then religious people will say, "well with all this damn sci-ance theres more people in them insane wards" yeah, no shit we found more illnesses and conditions and are still finding them and are actively treating/finding ways to treat them instead of "god did it" or "pray for healing"
yeah but it doesnt go the other way, which this satanist guy fails to mention, religiosity is not linked to any mental illness, but science worshipers love to say otherwise
Texas, of all states, being the first to elect a publicly atheist head of state is highly unlikely. Given all the Cali folk that recently moved in, though... they may have a chance. First time I've ever applauded the moral reasoning of Californians...
Now that I think about it, didn't he announce candidacy recently? Senate, maybe? It may have been a more local, county position.. but still. He's stepping in the ring.
Also want to add that I'm not positive if it's still in the Texas constitution, but there was a requirement for any elected leader to have a belief in god. It specifically says/said a particular god is needed, but does/did say no atheist could hold public office.
@@myjessicajourney1915 it was there and still is sadly buuuut there are ways around that. Aron did run for state legislator I forget how well that worked out...
I was raised by Christians. Believing in the bible and thinking its stories are real was horrifying. I had nightmares that my 'soul' would burn in hell because I thought you had to ask for forgiveness after each sin, and if I sinned right before my death before I had a chance to think in my head that I was sorry I would suffer for all eternity. I was six.
Same here. Raised by a fanatic Christian. Nightmares beginning at age 5, usually about the devil coming to kidnap me. I would guess that millions of children suffer from nightmares brought on by their religious parents.
China and Russia are beating USA in technology, education is so important that China has boot camps for children usually boys that they called an addiction to the internet and to gaming. Research shows that around the world females are outperforming males and China wants no dum dum in their country. It's funny how Russia and China have no Democracy but are smarter.
I don't think I realize how lucky I was. In high school for our 10th grade English class, we read parts of the bible right after reading Greek mythology. It was a secular lesson. Our teacher even said something like "Isn't it strange how heroes in Greek mythology had virgin births too?" I don't believe she was an atheist pushing her opinion, but that one sentence made the gears in my head begin to turn. I've had doubts and questions before, but this was the start of my long thought process that eventually led me to atheism. It's awful how many children are being "protected" from having this kind of realization.
I watched Putin Cossacks and the church, rather alarming, the Christians here condemn socialism yet praise to high heaven the extreme conservatism of Putin’s Russia , squawk about western decadence yet murder dissidents, beat up intelligent people, by brain washed to hate thugs, way to go, Russia, Poland, and big chunks of all the all the rest of democratic Europe, threatened by (the meek) who shall inherit the earth, such self righteous ignorance around, heavy threat to liberty
@@oscopin74 too bad the whole institution cares about money/power more than actually changing the future for the better. Sure there's plenty of teachers who would love to teach rational thinking about religion, but they'll get fired and blacklisted for it.
In high school, my view of God and religion were muddled at best until I read "Letters From The Earth." Mark Twain made the ridiculousness of religion, specifically Christianity, so glaringly ridiculous that it started me on a lifelong journey starting at agnosticism to atheism.
Wow. So much embrace of a conspiracy not proven. Great, how stupid is this world still? Pretty much to say it is losing it's intelligence, and it does not want admit it...
Donald Schneider As much as I'd like to see Aron as president, I'd be on pins and needles for his safety the entire time... All it would take is some fundamentalist christian bastard motherfucker with a good hit man's number and a chunk of cash he'd gotten in the form of donations from pie-eyed religious sheep.
Mr Pyro what you say is true... it also true for our current president. I am surprised no one has tried (that we know of ) It's a testament to the S.S.
I was taught critical thinking as a kid, but I always called myself Christian because I was taught that being Christian meant being a good person. It wasn't until I actually sat down and READ the bible that I learned I am not, in fact, Christian and would never be one under any circumstance. I'd imagine that most people who self identify as Christian share a similar upbringing. They try to be nice to each other, but they wouldn't condemn someone to death for working on Sunday or force a rape victim to marry their rapist.
I remember reading the Bible as a kid, like, age 3-4. It always felt like stories to me, there was never a time when I thought that Jesus actually existed, or that God was real, I thought it was just stories for grown-ups. Turns out, I was entirely right, but most people haven't figured it out yet...
***** The only difference between the real Bible and the Bible designed for children is length; they're both still simplistic stories of idiotic inanities. It's just that the official version is a lot longer and has some anachronistic words sprinkled throughout.
***** 'twas the fault of my grandparents. They gave me a copy because they were taught to only read certain verses, I.E. the ones without all the death and destruction in them. I just picked it up and read that shit. Honestly, it's just plain poorly written. It's not even good as fiction, I don't get how people can believe it, never did...
Teth47 I saw a news report on ancient flooding in Asia Minor when I was a kid and thought, "maybe that's what inspired the myth of Noah's Ark". So yeah, kinda glad I never got indoctrinated into that kinda stuff.
Really educational. I just find it so unbelievable that a place like Texas is able to do what they're doing with regards to teaching Christianity as fact. I'd expect people in a Western country to be better than that in the year of 2015.
flensdude | pTarian Being from Texas, live in Texas.....yeah, people here, feel they are special. Im not proud of my home state, I'm actually rather embarrassed. As soon as my daughter graduates, we're leaving. It's truly a sad place to live!
All of my close family from Texas are creationists and my mom told me I needed to go back to church because she wants to see me in heaven. This guy near Austin asked me, "Well how do you explain all this?" After I explained what I knew about the earth's origin, he got pissed off. Also my mom wouldn't watch the movie "The theory of everything" because Stephen Hawking is atheist.
Its sad. But schools should teach 3 options. Creationism, Evolution, and we dont know. Evolution being most likely. We dont know is second. Creationism being very highly unlikely.
if creation is to be taught then all creation myths should be given equal time. this would expose the absurdity of all of them and the christian myth would fare no better. I actually like this idea, but I enjoy mythology studies. I would like to hear the grounds for objection from creationists without exposing their religious intent.
"Were you there?" "Why yes, yes I was." "What? No you weren't!" "Oh but I was! What makes you think I wasn't, were *you* there?" Either it's possible to make inferences about the past based on current knowledge, or every high school biology teacher really was there and you can't disprove that.
Legit all my public school science teachers were staunch atheists. In bio class in 8th grade (I was a year ahead) my teacher legit was like I’m gunna teach biology and that includes evolution if you are gunna disrupt the class I will turn you into the principal. Swear
Same with my teachers. One student kept interrupting the class with religious nonsense, but would be whacked by whoever was next to him. One day, this student tried interrupting again and was given a 20 minute lecture on why his religion was full of shit. Before the student was sent to the head teachers office in tears.
My parents mistake in indoctrinatio-I MEAN homeschooling me was that they gave me basic critical thinking and logic class and let me read Calvin and Hobbes. Those came back later and helped me get out of religion haha.
Slightly off-topic, but it's great to see a vibrant atheist community in Ireland because religion has been - and continues to be - at the root of so much bad blood between Ireland and here in the UK. Throughout history there was religiously motivated brutality from both sides. If we can lose the shackles of religion we can stop justifying the ill feelings of today by the actions of ancestors that neither of us had anything to do with or any power to influence. I think that would be of enormous benefit to both our nations. It would at least remove one factor from the equation that still divides two nations that are so geographically and culturally close to each other.
Your heart and head are in the right place. Unfortunately (& typically) there is more than just religious differences behind our histories. Colonialist ideologies had decimated and tried to subjugate many across this planet. It's bad aftertaste still lingers. If you ever find the time try to familiarise yourself with our (irish) history to see things in proper context. You are right about both our countries having a lot in common and a mutually respectful friendship could finally mature properly. Understanding our past is crucial, but does not by itself define us.
I remember a story about this hand materializing and writing on a wall. Quite literally the written word of god. But, do we have a big stone with mystical engraved writing? nope. we have a loose collection of fairy tales and stone age comic books.
What a honorable and great thing AronRa and Lilandra are doing with their lives - trying to protect our kids and future kids, from the child abuse of creationism studies.
I am so pissed I missed this meeting, as I live in Ireland although I am not affiliated with Atheist Ireland, however it would have been a real honor to see AronRa speak in person as he is without a doubt the most fluent and interesting speaker on Atheism online today. I have always been a huge fan of his and think he is an incredibly brave educator and public speaker. In Ireland we have a compulsory Catholic ethos in schools at all levels that claims ownership of children through communion and confirmation with no resistance whatsoever. Luckily, the Irish population are essentially "cultural Catholics", i.e. they are "aligned with the tribe" so to speak in that they recognize certain celebrations and ceremonies so to speak but take the faith with a grain of salt, as a result most of the population see no conflict at all in supporting gay rights and teaching real science and still having religion in school. This is similar to people who identify as being Jewish, culturally, but are in fact Atheist. The Catholic Church still holds a lot of power in Ireland however but this generation does not see it as being the source of morality as there has been too many scandals unveiled over the years.
I am not an atheist and I think that a Goodly influence could be encoded in non randomness in quantum events. Atheism is linked to Darwinism and neither can explain consciousness and Darwinism can't explain why humans do not use many more of their resources to get offspring, like all primitive lifeforms do, I think.
frankos rooni I suggest that in evolutionary biology a desire to have offspring is not purely due to influences that have nothing to do with the genome and that neither have the desire for sex. I suggest that some couples desire to have children, that may play a huge part in their lives is at least partly due to their inherited genes and it is not so, that their genome plays no part in that wish whatsoever, according to evolutionary biology. I can't understand why genomes that turn off the desire to have sex that begets more children, when the bearers of those genomes have a few children with plenty of resources to get more children should dominate in the population in any population, according to evolutionary biology. Also in all other species it seems that the population simply grows until all the resources are used up. That is what one should expert for people too according to Darwinism I think. The desire to have children can be very strong in some people. Why do such a desire not dominate in the population at all times in all people? According to evolutionary biology. It seems to me that genes that stop getting more children because they do not need that to get food and shelter when the bearer of those genes gets old should not dominate in the population according to evolutionary biology. Genes that code for getting even 2% more offspring than other genes on average would more or less dominate in the population in 200 generations according to evolutionary biology. 1,02^200 = 52,48489738
frankos rooni I think that in order for evolutionary biology to be true one have to assume that genes are not powerful enough to control the emotions of intelligent people with many resources precisely in those areas that have to do with the number of offspring they have. While evolutionary biology accept, I think it can be possible in other areas. Intelligent people with many resources do not hold their breath until they pass out for instance. Intelligent people with many resources also choose career paths that give them pleasant feelings and avoid careers that give them unpleasant feelings. The pleasant feeling for one may be unpleasant for another and the genome do have something to do with that according to evolutionary biology, I think. But somehow it have been impossible for evolution to give pleasant feelings to intelligent people with many resources because of their many children and unpleasant feelings if they have only few children according to evolutionary biology while it it is possible in many other areas. That is just puzzling to me and I think it could be possible that genes and the brains they create may not be the entirety of the subject. Could there be another guidance like there is for the cells in an organism that are not allowed to divide uncontrollably.
I went to school in Texas. In high school, I was suspended then expelled for refusing to be indoctrinated with their religious garbage.. I told my history teacher that she was full of shit. I was sent to an "alternative school" for this.
lol. I had a teacher in the 2nd grade that sent me to the office when I countered her statement that lizards can't be larger than 3 feet. I said " I guess monitor lizards need to change their names then".
I have temporal lobe epilepsy, and I got 'religious' experiences on occasions when I have simple partials. Most of the time I just get fear and visual hallucinations (Alice in Wonderland Syndrome-- Yes, Lewis Carroll had them too). Fortunately I have been seizure free for over a year and a half. My religious experiences were the 'one with the universe' type. It was better than the fear ones by a long shot.
We live in Canada. About 20 years ago,my creationist brother and his wife home schooled their 2 children using textbooks from Texas. Given the laws where we live, there was nothing illegal about it. When they moved to another county a few years later, they again did not register their kids for school. They were now high school age. The criteria for high school are different, and I was able to persuade the county to investigate. The county then enforced the law and required the kids to go to public school.
"Why can't I believe what I wanna believe?" If you believe you can fly, I'd warn you if you're about to step off a cliff. If you told your kids *they* could fly, I'd warn them, too. If you tell *my* kids they can fly, I'd get angry.
I survived homeschooling guess what it did... made me an atheist xD.. to anyone else... who can... teach yourself... dont believe all the religious books they give you instead of real school material.. homeschooling should be illegal... I have had to rebuilt everything in almost every subject I was ever taught... by myself thanks, to my parents..
ThePharphis Home schooling is allowed because children are utterly incapable of taking care of themselves in the first few years of their lives, and thus parents who are required to provide for their very existence are considered to have the right to teach their child whatever they want. This is a flaw of biology if anything. Home schooling isn't always flawed, in any case. Good home schooling can give your child a much better education than they would receive in a public school, at least up until the level where you require professors with specialized degrees in order to teach highly advanced subjects (university level mainly). The problem is that many people who give their children home schooling do not do so in order to give their kid knowledge about the world and teach them how to think and learn, but to indoctrinate them and exert greater control over them. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to regulate that sort of thing.
I agree but I do think home school should adhere to a "cover school" system some states already have this.. where those people check to make sure the kid is actually being taught well... anything.. my parents didnt teach me anything other than basic history and reading and writing after that I taught myself all through middle school and highschool (sometimes this sounds good and can work for some people) but not exactly I mean I HAD to find subjects I HAD to find school material because they didnt what so ever
They have attempted to do that but individuals who homeschool also tend to react rather badly when any attempt at regulation is made, such as making the parents get some sort of license so they can monitor what is being taught. I swear some are just a hairbreadth's away from being survivalist/anti-government nuts.
I was not educated in Texas , but I have lived here for the past 22 years . Last week I was in a discussion with several of my fellow employees ,( all educated in Texas) ,I was told " we never got into all that science stuff , we are more into history " I then asked " which history?" The response i got was " There is only one history and it's in the bible" I then asked about what science they were interested in ?The response was almost unanimous . " we don't need all that science stuff . and they're just guessing anyway !! WOW !!!! Yes this is a true story !!!!
I was educated in Texas. Garland ISD, in Dallas County. Never had any biblical shit in my Texas History class, and there was no proselytizing in our textbooks that I can remember. But yeah, everyfuckingbody is a Christian of some sort. Took me 19 years to start asking questions (90's, internet wasn't shit), but I wiggled my way out of the Abrahamic web eventually. All we can do is preach reason and back up our pronouncements with empirical data.
Religious shit made it into my middle school history books and I grew up in NE Ohio. Thankfully, my teacher in seventh grade was plugged into the historicity of Moses (he may have been an atheist) and was able to point out that it was simply for reference. Many of the graphical timelines in that specific book had some sort of biblical story represented in them. The book was very new, which is kind of scary when you consider that was over 20 years ago.
Ransom Sumpter “It turns out, if you score a negative on an IQ test, they give you a free pass outta everything!” “You did so bad you owe points?” “I DID BAD?”
I was dragged to the temple every time as a child but now I disbelieve due to aging and because smoking lots of pot regularly helped open my mind. I used to be a devoted hindu but now I laugh at it. FREEDOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am sad and horrified for these poor kids. I also was indoctrinated from the time I was a small child, in fact one of my earliest memories is praying before bed. My mother was a stay at home mom and she taught is only fake science and there was even religion in math history writing and reading. We also were taught the buzzwords to plug our ears and we weren't allowed to watch documentaries about science or even ancient worlds sometimes. We also couldn't listen to anything other than Christian movies and wearing shorts above our knees was immodest. I truly think fundamental religion that is often forced on children is abuse. I'm 18 now and I've been an atheist for about a year and sometimes even now weird stuff will make me feel uncomfortable at the sound of it until I remember that the religion forced down my throat is nothing more than grims fairy tales. Finally realizing the truth was one of the hardest things in my life. My mom boils it down to I'm upset that my youth pastor (and good friend) dies along with the abuse I faced as a child from my father. When in all reality it was one of the hardest transitions of my life. I started doubting at around 12 but it was a small whisper. When my pastor had said christians know they are going to heaven I didn't understand because even then I was saying "how do you know for sure?" eventually I would tide myself over with youtube videos with more fake science. This tided me over (at least I thought) until on February 17th 2016 my youth pastor passed away. I was crushed. How could God do this to him? He was finally settling down in our city and he had a wife and two children who were 3 and 1 years old. This is what started my thinking along with the hardest year and a half. I became extremely suicidal and though I wouldve denied it I was an atheist. I was just terrified of hell and God and my family. Slowly but surely I accepted that my entire childhood was a lie. Finally on July 16th 2017 at 2:11 am I accepted reality and suddenly a huge burden was lifted. I had taken the red pill as some may say. And I had to watch every atheist video around. One day I was watching apologetics videos and the next I was watching videos on why the apologetic videos are no good. Anyways, Aron ra, if you ever see this and happen to read it, I just want to say thank you. For everything really, you helped me see the lie in Christianity and I'm glad you do what you do so keep up the good work!
Imagine if children could have their own beliefs instead of having their parent's beliefs being shoved down their throats. Even is public schools aren't teaching them, there are still church schools that children go to, not by their own choice, but by their parent's.
Holy shit, I went to a baptist school from 1-12th grade. I actually watched a video in school that had a brainwashing exercise. The exercise had a format of telling a false fact about the young earth/evolution and then having us chant, "Where you There". This video went on for about 2 hours. That shit actually happened.
All you need do is go to any post on evolution and see the harm religion does to education. Seems the religious fundamentalists have given up trying to defend their fairy tale and have taken up bashing evolution full time.
chris worth What they don't seem to understand is that even if evolution were to be proven wrong, it wouldn't make Creationism correct. It seems to me they spend more time bashing evolution than actually trying to demonstrate Creationism as true, so yeah, I can certainly see that.
chris worth It's funny how they think disproving evolution will prove creationism somehow. Just like disproving sexual reproduction theory will prove the stork theory of babies.
Appropriate comeback to the cocky question, "Were you there?" "No, were you?" "If I'm wrong, prove you are right without referring in any degree to any religion or religious doctrine."
Funny that you mention 7 or 8, it was around that time that I had an ark playset and a book about animals, and it started to dawn on me that the ark would have to be very very big. I had been through Hugo in Charleston so I was aware of how hard it was to move and cut trees and I had built forts of scrap wood, and I thought "wow, this old man built a boat large enough for camels and giraffes and rhinos and lions and horses and pigs and goats and wait, what about the fish, kangaroos, large boat... old man... wait a minute... kangaroos... old man..." this is like that santa claus guy. adults lie. a lot.
I had an ark playset as a child. My Dad worked for ARCO and they were given to all Atlantic Richfield employees. Ironically, ARCO was boring through several levels of Bible-disputing geologic table then and now, doing petro exploration. I don't remember having any type of epiphany with the ark playset. But I do remember the geologic tables in my treasured dinosaur books insofar as I understood them, fueling some serious douche chills when my mother held bible study classes in our living room, and some particularly bad rows with a Sunday school teacher, when it came time to make the creationist shoe box dioramas. Good times.
I'm Hungarian living in Hungary , it's a very small country in the center of Europe, but guess what, we have exactly the same problems in education like you,,,religion has got several schools, and intend to gain more( by the help of our government),,our history has also been falsly revised by our government, they banned the earlier school books, and now every school must teach from the same kind of books, book publishers have been cut off...etc,,,my country's reputation, which once was good, it's horrible now, and not only in education, but in many other aspects... it's a disaster..
Commas are never to be used in sequence, and only one space goes after a punctuation mark. Also, it is spelled falsely and not falsly. Don't worry, I'm not bilingual, so good job on that. Wreck those theists!
I go to Seneca East High School, and i'm glad that two o my three science teachers are good in their fields of study. My Geology teacher is very open about the creation of the planet, along with the age, and is an avid astronomer. My Biology teacher is also very forward about evolution and loves the study of the history of human development. even though a majority of the school staff is religious, i'm glad these two can actually teach what they are suppose to and enjoy it.
I just graduated high school right outside of Amarillo, and, as a matter of fact, I went to an Amarillo school for 3 years. I saw the courses Aron is referring to directly, and, at the time, thought they were innocuous in nature, until, that is, I had a Hindu friend of mine have to struggle through the courses. Unlike many students, she wasn't placed in the classroom with the analitic instructor, but instead received teachings about the sanctity of the Christian faith. Not only did it bother her immensely, but, now that I have removed myself from the Christian faith and no longer see sunch indoctrination as a boon but rather a burden, I feel sickened that someone would have to go through that, and, not only that, but the persons who made them go through such did so in the name of me and my family when they acted for the good of the "Texas Public."
The Zeitgeist is changing, thankfully. The Bible thumpers down there are getting a little sick and tired of being thought of as uneducated hicks, make no mistake. They're smarter than you think, and the shift in religious politics down there is a good indicator.
I really like having the slides available to watch during the presentation, it really made the presentation more enjoyable (there was a lull in the middle, but the first section was great)
Great talk as always, Thank you. Chilling realization at 42:00 that this happened to me. I was invited to a gifted/friends/group thing in 1992 in Canada through my high school but held at a neighboring church, was immediately bored because it was preach non-sense. I now wonder how illegal that was. Fairly sure my parents had no notice.
Thank you Aron, three years later. Currently I'm reading a wonderful book entitled "The Rise And Fall Of Adam And Eve", by Stephen Greenblatt, a historian out of Harvard. There might be information in there that you aren't aware of, but you know the outline of our collective brainwashing. I'm sharing this with you and the rest of this group, because it is beautifully written and "historical". To put it in plebeian terms, it's awesome! I'm not done, however, I've never read anything like this ! Keep up your work, friend.
This definitely explains a lot of the people I debate on YT. Why should they accept what I say over dear old Mrs. Jenkins, their elementary teacher, and Mr Barnes,the ir High School science teacher their parents, and their pastor? After all, I'm just an evil atheist!
That is only if they actually pay attention to anything you say in defense of your position. The worst thing I have ever seen in my arguments online is the tendency of people to reinterpret anything you say in order to support their side in some way. Conspiracy theorists are great at that. That is generally when I abandon the argument....there is no point anyways
Ken Ham and people that can listen to his words without furrowing their brow incredulously make me absolutely sick to my stomach. Refusal to believe in honest evidence found by your fellow man is the ULTIMATE exercise in ignorance and stupidity.
I'm so glad I left Arizona and all this pernicious religious dogma behind, I;ve been living in the UK for over ten years now and I'm so thankful that my two children are getting a secular education. There is no religion in public life here, politicians never mention religion or thank god, it would be a complete anathema to the Brits.
The ONLY time that I have seen someone who was raised without religion become religious was when they met a very attractive religious person that they want to date or marry.
Great quality video -- it's nice to see the images presented on-screen instead of the usual barely visible projection. And, of course, the talk was excellent too.
I wish I could get over my fear of death..My upbringing in religion has probably done this to me since I've abandon it, there is no grand peace waiting and I'm desperately trying to find that, that is somehow not true.
You should not fear death, but enjoy life, for it's finite and the only one you have. Death is unavoidable, so why fear it? The fact that i will die sooner or later is what gives purpose to my life, or rather it encourages me to make my life meaningful and to make the best of the limited time i have. For someone like me, life was and still is pretty unpleasant for reasons i'm not going into right now, so i will welcome my end when it comes, but until then i desire to change things to the better, help the people i love, protect them, change the world in one way to another and to leave a legacy behind that i will one day be remembered as someone who mattered to some people. So don't try to think what will happen after you die, rather think about the many possible things you can achieve before that. Follow your passions, have fun, read books, watch movies, make friends, laugh, cry, be happy, be sad, experience as much as you can. That's all the advice i can give to you :)
>Student Excuse me, teacher, were you there? >Teacher Yes >Student What? no you werent! you can't live over millions of years! >Teacher Well how do YOU know? Were YOU there?
In an average middle class midwestern town my daughter’s freshman high school science class will only mention the Big Bang theory in passing. When she asked the teacher why, the reply was ‘I believe in the Big Bang too but the school board has decided this might upset some of the other students & their parents.’ 🙄
Yet your national anthem is one big prayer to God to save your monarch and destroy your enemies, you have a national church, and you're being overrun by Muslims. Your future should frighten you.
Jesus Christ I didn't know it was that bad in Texas. Those poor kids don't have a chance to be free from the bonds of religion. That was downright depressing.
My Children went to school in Tennessee and we and we got in bad graces with the schools because I had my children ask questions like the Christian's did and call their findings incorrect because there are hundreds of books in our very library that disprove the views you are teaching. Did not go so well for us but we kept it up. My house got vandalized we had signs taped to our cars. My daughter even got blocked in a parking lot and forced to listen to a sermon to save her soul. We moved. We were much more quiet in our new neighborhood and they finished school.
What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church… a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them. ~ Martin Luther (born: 1483-11-10 died: 1546-02-18 at age: 62)
***** Well, Nietzsche's philosophy is unfortunately plagued by the fact that it's all useless because he focuses so much on manufacturing something that's diametrically opposed to the theistic models, when in fact there is a much more fruitful territory to be explored if you simply ignore the theistic models and create naturalistic ones from scratch. There's no reason to be a moral Nihilist when being a naturalist for example, because the basic aspects of morality that are important are not stable evolutionary strategies and therefore essentially impossible behaviors to adopt generally for any social species without leading to quick extinction. So that's an objective basis for morality right there and there's no need to begin with alternatives like Will To Power etc.
***** Yes, the Bible predicted the existence of Nietzsche and the exact year of his death, and God remarked on it even before he lived. I call bullshit.
Antiphilosopher No, really, it's in Genesis, next to the bit which says animals don't evolve and vaccination is only a mind control scheme. God is omniscient!
It's really quite shocking listening to how the education system works in Texas, using such close-minded approaches to teaching children. Makes me really glad I've grew up in Scotland with our curriculum (at least the old one, which was replaced a couple of years ago) While Religious Studies was mandatory up until the end of 4th year, it didn't just focus on Christianity. The first year focused on that religion, plus Judaism. The second year looked at Islam and begun studies on Morality. Third year looking at purely morality and philosophy. Fourth year ended up looking at the Origin of the universe, through both Creationist views and Atheistic views, even having a short topic on Rastafarianism. Higher RMPS (which I completed last year, and was unfortunately the start of the new curriculum) split three ways, one part on World Religion (which our school chose Christianity), another part on more in-depth look at the origin of the universe, and the third dedicated to morality and philosophy. Essentially, it was a system that meant even I enjoyed as an Atheist. Teachers didn't push one way of thinking as being the truth, I learned of several different religions and had decent looks at morality within society. I still find it funny how I had three teachers during Higher, one a Metaphorical Christian (Bible is symbolic), one a Literal Christian (obvious), and the last one being Atheist (again obvious).
Only just found AronRa, But like his stuff :) Im white, british and atheist.... I was lucky enough to go to a church of England school where every friday we would stop lessons and from 9am-1pm we would go to the church on the grounds, and be indoctrinated into the cult... Also, my white aunty married a black, carribean muslim and is still with him, She converted and is wholly muslim, So at the weekends i would spend time there, and my uncle always genuinely gave me the choice of wether i wanted to pray to 'allah' or 'god' with him and my cousins, being respectful and already knowing of god from school, Jumped straight in, washed my hands, feet and face.... Went upstairs Follolwed the compass on the prayer matt and followed my uncle and cousins lead, i never bothered with the words as i was very young and thought it disrespectful to speak badly to god....... As this went in i started to see glaring similarities and startling contradictions between the 2 So i started asking my uncle questions, as the church on a friday WAS NOT the place to question........whenever i bought up muslims or allah i was flatly told things such as 'we dont deal with nonsense in this building, we are in the house of god, and once in the class room, there was school work to be done and no talkinng..... It was during these sessions of q&a with my uncle that i discovered allah was not what i perceived as god, but entirely his own entity, As a child i naively thought they were the same thing, but from different parts of the world.... So my uncle began to teach me of the koran... This is when my mind exploded :s There was only 1 god.... But 2 different people telling me the same thing, basically that they were right and the other was wrong..... This went on firva coupke of years, I stsrting questing my school more as i had a basic understanding of islam, I wanted to see what the otherside would say, I got in a lot of trouble over being inquisitive, The final staw for me was when my parents had been called in the last time to speak about jack and was told at 9 years old if i didnt stop i would be permanently expelled from primary school.... Rightly so i was fuming with rage and confusion at the situation, Especially as my parents suggested i stay behind in class and further my education rather than interrupt others with my blasphemy and time wasting I was told in no uncertain terms this was not an option, i see now that it may have had an avalanche effect on the others.... I was 1 of the brightest in my school and im not being big headed i had some of my written work published in a book the same year in a nationwide competition and i was a maths ace!!!! So next friday in church, i sat at the back and took in my maths work and occupied myself...... And in comes a child from another class i had never seen before, who walks up and quietly but passed the vicar/bishop a note, he reads it says 'thats fine, you may go' I think nothing of it until the following friday when half way through my brainwashing i was taken to the toilet and i saw said boy in the classroom alone reading a book, I asked the teacher why he was allowed to not attend and was told 'you worry about yourself not others' i befriended this new boy........ Turns out he was a JEW!!! so i went on to get to know this lad quite well as he was more than happy to explain his religion to me... a 3RD god had appeared into existence from a person/race i had never encountered before......... I was pretty much done with religion and coe schools, I went to a public secondary/high school where i met Sikhs and Hindus and began humanities classes 2 hours a week which was basically geography, history and religious studies rolled into 1 to give you a taste so in later years if i wabted to i could take 1 of those Further as an option and drop drama/sports/art/music..... I find religion truly fascinating but fuck me is it a crock of bullsheeeeeeet!!! P. S. I only bring up race to highlight that i saw very different people, spouting more or less the same nonsense In my family alone i have black Muslims, white muslims, and mixed race muslims, White christians, black Christians, mixed race Christians, 1 atheists (me) and a black Hebrew Israelite and 4 black rastafari....(i know rastas not a religion) ;) I have black family from st. Kitts, Barbados and jamaican, i have black british and mixed race british family and white british... So many very different people All pretty much sayin im right your wrong...... Apart from the rastas who just give pretty decent advice about life (y) Religion is to be studied and learned from but never believed :( Some of my family cannot speak to each other, let alone be in the same room.... Some hate each other and reduse them entry to their homes...... I wont go into detail but from these so called good people i have seen a lot of hatred And by blood or marriage, we are family :/ All in the name of religion :(
Nunya Bid'nez It's also an insult here in Iowa. Of course, living in Nebraska (with the exception of Omaha - "A city that cool should not be in a state that boring." From the Iowa Nice Guy's concession speech) is also considered pretty bad according to Iowans - keep the rivalry alive, you know? Side note: You actually have internet in Nebraska? Huh, maybe it isn't as bad there as I thought.
***** We have internet, but it's WindStream communications, so I'd hardly call it "internet". Lincoln's not so bad either, by the way. I mean, we have the Huskers, and, um, eh, Memorial Stadium, and... Did I already say we have the Huskers? We also have the Husker games here during Football Season, and the Huskers too! P.S., Do you have Runza in Iowa? As many times as I've accidentally stepped in Iowa, I've never actually actively looked for a Runza there.
Nunya Bid'nez Let's see, here in Des Moines we have a bunch of bars I've never been to. I live near Drake and I could hear the frat parties during the relays this weekend from my apartment (the joys of living on Greek Row). But I have an internet connection and a gaming computer (plus several older gaming consoles), so what more do I need? I'm sure there's more to do, but I would hardly be the expert on such things... Oh yeah, go Cyclones. Or Hawkeyes. Or Panthers. Or Bulldogs. Um, go Iowa teams! Gods, we have too many fucking colleges/universities considering the size of our state. lol P.S. I'd never heard of Runza, so I did a Google search. Looks like the closest is in Omaha. Do you guys have Zombie Burger? Or Spaghetti Works? If you're ever in Des Moines, those are some of the best restaurants in town (IMO).
I have seen many talks by AronRa and the thing that amazes me is how he is able to hold his temper when angrily challenged by the craziest religious nut jobs. He uses humor and logic very well.
I love listening to you Aron but I always feel so hopeless when you are done. I'm doing everything I am able to to raise awareness but I can't help but thinking that the fictional show "A Handmaid's Tale" will soon be considered a documentary about life in America. How do we turn this bus around and head back to sanity and reality?
Ever wonder why it's so interesting that prayer only seems to work when that person already had a good chance of pulling through in the first place? I mean people that get medical attention from doctors for example get things like "You'll be in our prayers" for example. And yet when those people do make it then their god gets all the praise while the doctors get only minor thanks, and if they die then "it was God's will". Isn't it interesting that God's will seems to always be to ignore the prayers of those with terminal illnesses, those who are in areas with little to no medicine, those that are starving and/or war ravaged? It seems that God seems to already favor those who have the means by which to get by but not those that can't. Isn't that interesting? It's almost as if you couldn't tell if he helped or not. Cause those people who, despite having access to doctors, medicine, etc yet decide to simply pray the sick away, quite often get worse and die, especially their children that they refuse to send to the hospitals even when the child is practically in a coma and vomiting blood. Just further proof that prayer is worthless. It's only benefit is that it makes them feel like they're doing something when they're doing nothing. A sort of clearing of the conscious, make them feel good about themselves. Misplaced, misguided and delusional hope is all prayer provides, and that's the worst kind there is.
Always a stickler for good audio, I'm wondering why AronRa sounds as he does. The video shows him wearing a lapel mic, but it doesn't sound like it's being used. There's that 'hollow' sound that is the effect of reflection (bounce) off hard, mainly flat, surfaces. Oh well. I care, because I want what AronRa says to be as well reproduced as possible. What he says is important and needs to be well heard. This video recording is actually a good deal better than many others I've heard. Always room for improvement. :) Forward, ever! Religion comforts..and cripples. History is clear on this.
I was taught only Evolution when I went to school (graduated in 00'). I remember they mentioned Creationism once but didn't spend anytime on it. But I went to school in the Bay area and Oregon. So maybe it was different then TX.
You know what really needs to exist? A 1950's style cartoon PSA about defending oneself against religious apologetics. Why 1950's cartoon? I dunno, I just like the style, just seems like the first method that comes to mind when getting a PSA out there, brings those PSAs like Duck and Cover to mind. Anyway, the PSA would basically be about how to identify and nullify any potential effect of religious apologetics, the mindset that these apologetics come from, etc. Better than that would be a series of these types of PSAs specified for certain groups of individuals (teachers (science teachers especially), parents, teenagers/young adults (probably in a social context), you get the idea).
@ Ela ... America includes Canada... More precisely the United States of America where people are now proud of their ignorance. We have become so stupid that a person like Donald Trump has won our Republican Party's (now known as the party of stupid) nomination to run for president, and if he does... look out world!
@@aaronbono4688 I didn't vote for Trump beacuse of religion. I voted for him beacuse I don't want to be taxed to oblivion and my country's borders thrown open like some amusment park. I'm not supporting a socialistic party that doesn't value private property rights and thinks we need to punish groups today for injustices commited 100 years ago. No matter how scientifically or socially progressive that party claims to be. I'm not supporting a party that calls me a "deplorable" and that I'm opressing just by existing by being a white male. Thats why I still vote for the right. If the left can support social and scientific progress without raising taxes, protect our borders and stop trying to redistribute wealth, then I'd be all for it. I'm not voting for a party that openly admits that you need to willingly give up your well being for some perceived greater good. Especially when there is overwelming historical evidence when socialisim and comunisim has been tried its ended in suffering and genocide.
I grew up in a Christian school... I fundamentally don't understand biology after spending hours talking to my professors, a friend studying microbiology, and watching days of videos like this. I was still using the phrase "de-evolve" until really recently. I can attest to the fact that this stuff occurs and has been occurring for a while now.
Hello Aron, I am a huge fan of your videos. I live in New Jersey, My wife is from Texas.She was raised in a religious family (tho not really religious herself), I was raised atheist. we recently had a discussion where I had said that I would be hesitant in moving our children into a state that is in the bible belt for many reasons. One of which was public school indoctrination. While she knows the education standards are higher in our parts, she told me that she never encountered such a thing while growing up in the Great State. I had mentioned to her that I had read about some schools stating Moses as founding father, about evolution being taught by unqualified teachers, or not at all. She said (yea, in liberal Papers) My point is, I would like to know if there is a database somewhere that would show my point to be accurate so I am able to discuss these issues with evidence to back me up? I tried a Google search and was bombarded by posts about how atheists were indoctrinating our students in public schools, But very little to validate my point. If she is wrong I would like to be able to prove it, If I am wrong, I would like to stop making that argument.
Try this: tea.texas.gov/academics/curriculum-standards/teks/texas-essential-knowledge-and-skills The site claims that this is the Texas Science Curriculum, but for some reason (I'm sure they know why) it can't be accessed from Europe.
AronRa, would you consider making a playbook for teachers who get Ken Hammed in class? How to respond to "were you there"? How to keep the discussion of evolution on evolution, and not on cosmology or abogenesis?
mikkelturtvig the "thou shall not kill" also actually translates to "thou shalt not murder" and was referenced explicitly as not murdering one of your own. Others were fine apparently.
I was homeschooled for all of my life except 8-10th grades. I live in a Young Earth Creationist family in a Young Earth Creationist-dominated town in Louisiana. However, I credit my mom with teaching my siblings and me of other religions and letting us choose - however, as nice as that seems, it isn't quite that nice. If we were to /actually/ portray any interest in anything besides Christianity, I'm sure it would not go over well. Anyways, despite the religious aspect, it wasn't all bad; I'm actually skipping a grade and going to college at 17, as did my brother, for which I give some credit to homeschool. But A Beka... The one year we did A Beka, the extremely conservative, biased, lying Christian homeschool curriculum mentioned at 16:29, was terrible. It was last year, and it was honestly one of the largest factors that pushed me into becoming an atheist. It's bad enough to constantly shoehorn religion into history or science, but when you can't go through *geometry class* without being told that math proves how great God is, you get a bit annoyed. A Beka taught wonderful beliefs such as: - Rock music is of the Devil - Depression is your own fault, and wouldn't happen if you would just surrender to God! - God wants you to know proper etiquette for which silverware to use at dinner. Seriously. I was very tempted to write my final paper for the year about how I was a bisexual atheist, just to see how far they would go to fail me and my otherwise-high grades.
AronRa came to my job and i helped him pick out a couple beers he might like. He is a really down to earth guy easy to talk to, heck he even took a picture with me. Now I'm not atheist but i do like what he stands for and its seeking truth, you really can't argue with that.
I just... I hate the damage religion has inflicted so much! I cannot fathom allowing my child to go to school if they're going to be taught fairy tales
I believe we're at a giant hump in our human progression, Galileo and the Enlightenment almost killed God off, but the greed of the Church stifled education. TEACHERS ARE OUR FUTURE.
I find this really depressing. I teach science (in the UK), I do teach evolution (not as much as I would like, but there is a it to cover on the national curriculum), I do understand it as that's part of my background, and I've thankfully never had a backlash. Lots of questions which I welcome and some misconceptions again which I really enjoy discussing in a happy non judgemental environment. I can't imagine trying to teach it in the sort of toxic climate you describe.
*I am genuinely scared.*
I received a decent education from a public school in northern Kentucky. It was a small school in a small town mostly populated by conservative Christians. Despite this, I learned actual science and history. My government teacher often used the Socratic method to encourage critical thinking. My biology and anatomy teacher was the first atheist I ever knew.
But that was 4 years ago. Now, Ken Ham has come to Kentucky. His greedy little organization, Answers in Genesis, have found Kentucky to be a polite and fertile state in which to grow their operations. First, they built the Creation Museum in the small little town of Petersburg. Now, they are building a giant replica of Noah's Ark, _The Ark Encounter_, right in the middle of my hometown of Williamstown.
I fear for the future of education in this state.
I was so proud of my little school that encouraged enthusiasm for learning, and employed teachers who were capable and unbiased regarding their religious affiliation.
That may soon change. I can hear the future of education slowly swirling down the toilet bowl of anti-science and deceit that is Ken Ham.
Texas is a much wealthier, bossier, and influential state, if their board of education has been infiltrated by such harmful ideologies, what hope can there be for Kentucky?
Cosmic Rogue A part of me actually wants to give the fundamentalist religious nuts one of the states. Just one. Where they can go completly crazy, introduce all their insane ideas, and just have it their way, uncontested and uncontrolled...
And then, after a generation or so, compare the situation in that state, with the conditions of more reasonable states that teach actual science and encourage reasonable thinking.
Because just after a couple of year, such a state would be completly floored. Their scientific illiateracy would make them completly unable to compete anywhere in the world, they would have no science-research institutions and no reasonable way of gouvenmnent, but only rulings by ancient scriptural laws. Just after a couple of years, such a state would want a reasonable standard back... I guarantee it.
Unfortunatelly, something like that cannot be done. It would be unethically, because you'd literally doom an entire generation of children to ignorance and horror. And nobody wants that.
Freddy Scissorhands Not to mention it would become a breeding ground for violence and terror that could spread to other states like cancer.
Cosmic Rogue
Well... of coure, we would have to make sure, that they are cut off! Their backwards ways would need to be contained in their own little world! ;-)
Freddy Scissorhands well come now that is why they want to take over the entire world, for how could you compare good intellectual stock when the bar is so low everywhere and could not be compared.
Freddy Scissorhands I think the biggest problem with Ken Ham are his presuppositionalist, rather than evidentialist views.
Sadly, this kind of religious indoctrination is not completely confined to the American south.
I used to work at Dinosaur State Park ( a natural science museum in Rocky hill, CT) as a docent, conducting museum tours for school groups.
One day I led a tour for a home school group. I gave them the same tour as I would any other group. Although the kids were outwardly polite, they seemed disengaged compared to the public school groups I typically led.
At the end of the tour I showed the group a film about fossils in our auditorium. After the film, I asked if anyone had any questions, and no one did, (or no questions they wanted ME to answer) so I said goodbye and went into the projector booth at the back of the auditorium to rewind the film.
Instead of leaving, the teachers/parents went to the front of the auditorium and began 'deprogramming' the children. They told the kids that the fossils were planted by the devil to 'shake their faith'. They said that everything I had taught them was a lie and that I was 'Satan's instrument'. Then they made the kids pray.
I could see and hear every word from the projection booth. I could not believe that this was going on in New England!
I knew where this was going the moment you said, "Home school group". The vast majority of home schools today are because of parents who don't want their kids educated in any way or subject that they feel isn't biblical.
In places/countries where the state system has a religious tinge, home-schoolers will usually be atheist/anti-establishment/radicals etc.
Yeah, you work at Dinosaur State Park and you are leading private school students through and no one had questions. "That is not normal" You knew that was unusual. So it does not surprise me about the rest. What I have to question is "WHY" did they even bother to come? That is what is unusual.
I fail to understand why they would do these field trips, if they’re just gonna immediately shit on it afterwards. It’s such a waste of money.
@@marconatrix umm, duh? Do you think they are saying that homeschool is bad? If so I'll bet good money you are a creationist. Cuz you idiots never understand basic facts. Home school itself is fine, but in america, it's usually the people that want to lie to their children, that teach home school. In religious countries OBVIOUSLY it would be reversed because the parents that don't mind their children being lied to, let them go to schools where they ARE lied to. While logical people with working brains, don't want their kids to grow up retarded, so they teach them actual facts.
Schizophrenia being tied with high religiosity makes perfect sense when you think about it. Particularly _hallucinations_. Obviously those hallucinations will reflect their religious beliefs, and thus make them all the more overzealous, being utterly convinced by their broken mind that they have been visited by the supernatural.
Yea it does make sense.
I have noticed that many religious people are not of sound mind. I was involved in a relationship with a woman who was evangelical and she had diagnosed mental illness. I’m glad I got away from her. I sometimes wonder if being religious itself should be considered a mental illness.
@@danmiller6462 being religious itself probably not but its undeniable that it can be a trigger or precursor very, very, very, very easily. And then religious people will say, "well with all this damn sci-ance theres more people in them insane wards" yeah, no shit we found more illnesses and conditions and are still finding them and are actively treating/finding ways to treat them instead of "god did it" or "pray for healing"
yeah but it doesnt go the other way, which this satanist guy fails to mention, religiosity is not linked to any mental illness, but science worshipers love to say otherwise
Texans: make this guy your next governor!
Texas, of all states, being the first to elect a publicly atheist head of state is highly unlikely. Given all the Cali folk that recently moved in, though... they may have a chance. First time I've ever applauded the moral reasoning of Californians...
Now that I think about it, didn't he announce candidacy recently? Senate, maybe? It may have been a more local, county position.. but still. He's stepping in the ring.
As a Texan, I would absolutely vote for Aron if the opportunity arose.
Also want to add that I'm not positive if it's still in the Texas constitution, but there was a requirement for any elected leader to have a belief in god. It specifically says/said a particular god is needed, but does/did say no atheist could hold public office.
@@myjessicajourney1915 it was there and still is sadly buuuut there are ways around that.
Aron did run for state legislator I forget how well that worked out...
I was raised by Christians. Believing in the bible and thinking its stories are real was horrifying. I had nightmares that my 'soul' would burn in hell because I thought you had to ask for forgiveness after each sin, and if I sinned right before my death before I had a chance to think in my head that I was sorry I would suffer for all eternity. I was six.
**hugs**
There there, this is a safe place.
Same here. Raised by a fanatic Christian. Nightmares beginning at age 5, usually about the devil coming to kidnap me. I would guess that millions of children suffer from nightmares brought on by their religious parents.
Bose-Einstein relatable 😭
I never had religious nightmares, but I was raised in a fundamentalist home and am still in one now. Even though I've personally left that behind.
no wonder the U.S.A is getting behind in technology
I'd also blame that on the strange worshipping of women we're doing out of fear of the word "SEXIST"
+Panty
That word offends you, huh?
China and Russia are beating USA in technology, education is so important that China has boot camps for children usually boys that they called an addiction to the internet and to gaming. Research shows that around the world females are outperforming males and China wants no dum dum in their country. It's funny how Russia and China have no Democracy but are smarter.
we have to borrow smart people from other countries lol
@Gen. Lee Interested Education is about knowing and learning to know, and with that knowledge, able to do a lot of things
I don't think I realize how lucky I was.
In high school for our 10th grade English class, we read parts of the bible right after reading Greek mythology. It was a secular lesson.
Our teacher even said something like "Isn't it strange how heroes in Greek mythology had virgin births too?"
I don't believe she was an atheist pushing her opinion, but that one sentence made the gears in my head begin to turn. I've had doubts and questions before, but this was the start of my long thought process that eventually led me to atheism.
It's awful how many children are being "protected" from having this kind of realization.
It's awful that being taught well is "lucky"
I watched Putin Cossacks and the church, rather alarming, the Christians here condemn socialism yet praise to high heaven the extreme conservatism of Putin’s Russia , squawk about western decadence yet murder dissidents, beat up intelligent people, by brain washed to hate thugs, way to go, Russia, Poland, and big chunks of all the all the rest of democratic Europe, threatened by (the meek) who shall inherit the earth, such self righteous ignorance around, heavy threat to liberty
Cool. Just shows how important our teachers are. 👍
@@oscopin74 too bad the whole institution cares about money/power more than actually changing the future for the better. Sure there's plenty of teachers who would love to teach rational thinking about religion, but they'll get fired and blacklisted for it.
In high school, my view of God and religion were muddled at best until I read "Letters From The Earth." Mark Twain made the ridiculousness of religion, specifically Christianity, so glaringly ridiculous that it started me on a lifelong journey starting at agnosticism to atheism.
"I hate Windows 8"
-- Aron Ra, 2015
Same here
Even if that is all you take from this talk, you have learned how bad "cults" are.
@@kasey42 no I didnt
Still better than windows 10
@@kasey42 hehe no cults are apples thing :P
I should get a blue shirt that says "this shirt is red, God said so"
It should also say, "if you see blue, you are of the devil."
Marilyn Newman that would be an interesting shirt on it's own
Aiden Nelson It took me a while to get that. LOL.
It reminds me of a shirt: Sephiroth kills people because you touch yourself at night.
Wow. So much embrace of a conspiracy not proven. Great, how stupid is this world still? Pretty much to say it is losing it's intelligence, and it does not want admit it...
ill buy one of those lol
Aron Ra for president!
***** Yep. Mine as well!
Donald Schneider Oh how I wish for politicians to be even nearly as intellectual.
Donald Schneider As much as I'd like to see Aron as president, I'd be on pins and needles for his safety the entire time... All it would take is some fundamentalist christian bastard motherfucker with a good hit man's number and a chunk of cash he'd gotten in the form of donations from pie-eyed religious sheep.
Mr Pyro what you say is true... it also true for our current president. I am surprised no one has tried (that we know of ) It's a testament to the S.S.
Donald Schneider
Fuckin' modern-day ninjas, aren't they?
I was taught critical thinking as a kid, but I always called myself Christian because I was taught that being Christian meant being a good person. It wasn't until I actually sat down and READ the bible that I learned I am not, in fact, Christian and would never be one under any circumstance. I'd imagine that most people who self identify as Christian share a similar upbringing. They try to be nice to each other, but they wouldn't condemn someone to death for working on Sunday or force a rape victim to marry their rapist.
Conversion of inert stuff into life on earth. The mechanism ua-cam.com/video/XJsGWCbFvo8/v-deo.html
I remember reading the Bible as a kid, like, age 3-4. It always felt like stories to me, there was never a time when I thought that Jesus actually existed, or that God was real, I thought it was just stories for grown-ups. Turns out, I was entirely right, but most people haven't figured it out yet...
***** Some column A and some column B. I was reading before I could walk because autism.
***** The only difference between the real Bible and the Bible designed for children is length; they're both still simplistic stories of idiotic inanities. It's just that the official version is a lot longer and has some anachronistic words sprinkled throughout.
***** 'twas the fault of my grandparents. They gave me a copy because they were taught to only read certain verses, I.E. the ones without all the death and destruction in them. I just picked it up and read that shit. Honestly, it's just plain poorly written. It's not even good as fiction, I don't get how people can believe it, never did...
***** I never understood the notion of attempted belief... If the belief is justified, it requires no effort to believe, it is simply self-evident.
Teth47 I saw a news report on ancient flooding in Asia Minor when I was a kid and thought, "maybe that's what inspired the myth of Noah's Ark". So yeah, kinda glad I never got indoctrinated into that kinda stuff.
Really educational. I just find it so unbelievable that a place like Texas is able to do what they're doing with regards to teaching Christianity as fact. I'd expect people in a Western country to be better than that in the year of 2015.
flensdude | pTarian Being from Texas, live in Texas.....yeah, people here, feel they are special. Im not proud of my home state, I'm actually rather embarrassed. As soon as my daughter graduates, we're leaving. It's truly a sad place to live!
All of my close family from Texas are creationists and my mom told me I needed to go back to church because she wants to see me in heaven. This guy near Austin asked me, "Well how do you explain all this?" After I explained what I knew about the earth's origin, he got pissed off. Also my mom wouldn't watch the movie "The theory of everything" because Stephen Hawking is atheist.
We're trying here. Big-ass state, everyone's spread out, but we'll get there.
Creationism in taught in public schools , gross!
Its sad. But schools should teach 3 options. Creationism, Evolution, and we dont know. Evolution being most likely. We dont know is second. Creationism being very highly unlikely.
Kev Jer in my opinion that would be as bad as allowing “alternative vaccines” maybe not as bad but just as logical to allow
if creation is to be taught then all creation myths should be given equal time. this would expose the absurdity of all of them and the christian myth would fare no better. I actually like this idea, but I enjoy mythology studies. I would like to hear the grounds for objection from creationists without exposing their religious intent.
Curtis Sams sorry no, not enough time!
@@guineapigzed awww... and i was expecting a percy jackson mythos...
"Were you there?"
"Why yes, yes I was."
"What? No you weren't!"
"Oh but I was! What makes you think I wasn't, were *you* there?"
Either it's possible to make inferences about the past based on current knowledge, or every high school biology teacher really was there and you can't disprove that.
Legit all my public school science teachers were staunch atheists. In bio class in 8th grade (I was a year ahead) my teacher legit was like I’m gunna teach biology and that includes evolution if you are gunna disrupt the class I will turn you into the principal. Swear
L0gical ATHEIST all my science teachers are Christian
Same with my teachers. One student kept interrupting the class with religious nonsense, but would be whacked by whoever was next to him. One day, this student tried interrupting again and was given a 20 minute lecture on why his religion was full of shit. Before the student was sent to the head teachers office in tears.
@@connorirons4542 Good for him, it will help him in the long run.
@@connorirons4542, i wish i was there to see it.
My parents mistake in indoctrinatio-I MEAN homeschooling me was that they gave me basic critical thinking and logic class and let me read Calvin and Hobbes. Those came back later and helped me get out of religion haha.
You don't need to pretend that homeschooling isn't a tactic by religious fundamentalists to indoctrinate children.
Slightly off-topic, but it's great to see a vibrant atheist community in Ireland because religion has been - and continues to be - at the root of so much bad blood between Ireland and here in the UK.
Throughout history there was religiously motivated brutality from both sides. If we can lose the shackles of religion we can stop justifying the ill feelings of today by the actions of ancestors that neither of us had anything to do with or any power to influence. I think that would be of enormous benefit to both our nations. It would at least remove one factor from the equation that still divides two nations that are so geographically and culturally close to each other.
Your heart and head are in the right place. Unfortunately (& typically) there is more than just religious differences behind our histories. Colonialist ideologies had decimated and tried to subjugate many across this planet. It's bad aftertaste still lingers. If you ever find the time try to familiarise yourself with our (irish) history to see things in proper context. You are right about both our countries having a lot in common and a mutually respectful friendship could finally mature properly. Understanding our past is crucial, but does not by itself define us.
"I hate Windows 8". As if I already didn't love AronRa.
I luuuuuvvvv these intellectual speeches by AronRa. Go Aron, Go, go, go ! ! !
I wish that would be the title of his biography
I remember a story about this hand materializing and writing on a wall. Quite literally the written word of god. But, do we have a big stone with mystical engraved writing? nope. we have a loose collection of fairy tales and stone age comic books.
What a honorable and great thing AronRa and Lilandra are doing with their lives - trying to protect our kids and future kids, from the child abuse of creationism studies.
I am so pissed I missed this meeting, as I live in Ireland although I am not affiliated with Atheist Ireland, however it would have been a real honor to see AronRa speak in person as he is without a doubt the most fluent and interesting speaker on Atheism online today. I have always been a huge fan of his and think he is an incredibly brave educator and public speaker. In Ireland we have a compulsory Catholic ethos in schools at all levels that claims ownership of children through communion and confirmation with no resistance whatsoever. Luckily, the Irish population are essentially "cultural Catholics", i.e. they are "aligned with the tribe" so to speak in that they recognize certain celebrations and ceremonies so to speak but take the faith with a grain of salt, as a result most of the population see no conflict at all in supporting gay rights and teaching real science and still having religion in school. This is similar to people who identify as being Jewish, culturally, but are in fact Atheist. The Catholic Church still holds a lot of power in Ireland however but this generation does not see it as being the source of morality as there has been too many scandals unveiled over the years.
I am not an atheist and I think that a Goodly influence could be encoded in non randomness in quantum events. Atheism is linked to Darwinism and neither can explain consciousness and Darwinism can't explain why humans do not use many more of their resources to get offspring, like all primitive lifeforms do, I think.
How do Darwinism explain that people get fewer children, when they get more resources.
frankos rooni
I suggest that in evolutionary biology a desire to have offspring is not purely due to influences that have nothing to do with the genome and that neither have the desire for sex.
I suggest that some couples desire to have children, that may play a huge part in their lives is at least partly due to their inherited genes and it is not so, that their genome plays no part in that wish whatsoever, according to evolutionary biology.
I can't understand why genomes that turn off the desire to have sex that begets more children, when the bearers of those genomes have a few children with plenty of resources to get more children should dominate in the population in any population, according to evolutionary biology.
Also in all other species it seems that the population simply grows until all the resources are used up.
That is what one should expert for people too according to Darwinism I think.
The desire to have children can be very strong in some people. Why do such a desire not dominate in the population at all times in all people? According to evolutionary biology.
It seems to me that genes that stop getting more children because they do not need that to get food and shelter when the bearer of those genes gets old should not dominate in the population according to evolutionary biology.
Genes that code for getting even 2% more offspring than other genes on average would more or less dominate in the population in 200 generations according to evolutionary biology.
1,02^200 = 52,48489738
frankos rooni
I think that in order for evolutionary biology to be true one have to assume that genes are not powerful enough to control the emotions of intelligent people with many resources precisely in those areas that have to do with the number of offspring they have. While evolutionary biology accept, I think it can be possible in other areas.
Intelligent people with many resources do not hold their breath until they pass out for instance.
Intelligent people with many resources also choose career paths that give them pleasant feelings and avoid careers that give them unpleasant feelings. The pleasant feeling for one may be unpleasant for another and the genome do have something to do with that according to evolutionary biology, I think.
But somehow it have been impossible for evolution to give pleasant feelings to intelligent people with many resources because of their many children and unpleasant feelings if they have only few children according to evolutionary biology while it it is possible in many other areas.
That is just puzzling to me and I think it could be possible that genes and the brains they create may not be the entirety of the subject.
Could there be another guidance like there is for the cells in an organism that are not allowed to divide uncontrollably.
True but ireland has made huge steps forward in last 20 years. The grip is loosening right? (I'm a yank)
I went to school in Texas. In high school, I was suspended then expelled for refusing to be indoctrinated with their religious garbage.. I told my history teacher that she was full of shit. I was sent to an "alternative school" for this.
lol. I had a teacher in the 2nd grade that sent me to the office when I countered her statement that lizards can't be larger than 3 feet. I said " I guess monitor lizards need to change their names then".
You got off light actually or was it training school ?
You are an amazing person.
As a minor. I am afraid to tell my mother that I am atheist. It will likely harm and not help.
Big fan. Appreciate your work!
I have temporal lobe epilepsy, and I got 'religious' experiences on occasions when I have simple partials. Most of the time I just get fear and visual hallucinations (Alice in Wonderland Syndrome-- Yes, Lewis Carroll had them too). Fortunately I have been seizure free for over a year and a half. My religious experiences were the 'one with the universe' type. It was better than the fear ones by a long shot.
We live in Canada. About 20 years ago,my creationist brother and his wife home schooled their 2 children using textbooks from Texas. Given the laws where we live, there was nothing illegal about it. When they moved to another county a few years later, they again did not register their kids for school. They were now high school age. The criteria for high school are different, and I was able to persuade the county to investigate. The county then enforced the law and required the kids to go to public school.
"Why can't I believe what I wanna believe?"
If you believe you can fly, I'd warn you if you're about to step off a cliff. If you told your kids *they* could fly, I'd warn them, too. If you tell *my* kids they can fly, I'd get angry.
👍
I survived homeschooling guess what it did... made me an atheist xD.. to anyone else... who can... teach yourself... dont believe all the religious books they give you instead of real school material.. homeschooling should be illegal... I have had to rebuilt everything in almost every subject I was ever taught... by myself thanks, to my parents..
FlyingAce1016 I'm not sure home-schooling should be illegal, but there could probably be better regulated methods of doing so
ThePharphis Home schooling is allowed because children are utterly incapable of taking care of themselves in the first few years of their lives, and thus parents who are required to provide for their very existence are considered to have the right to teach their child whatever they want. This is a flaw of biology if anything.
Home schooling isn't always flawed, in any case. Good home schooling can give your child a much better education than they would receive in a public school, at least up until the level where you require professors with specialized degrees in order to teach highly advanced subjects (university level mainly).
The problem is that many people who give their children home schooling do not do so in order to give their kid knowledge about the world and teach them how to think and learn, but to indoctrinate them and exert greater control over them. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to regulate that sort of thing.
I agree but I do think home school should adhere to a "cover school" system some states already have this.. where those people check to make sure the kid is actually being taught well... anything.. my parents didnt teach me anything other than basic history and reading and writing after that I taught myself all through middle school and highschool (sometimes this sounds good and can work for some people) but not exactly I mean I HAD to find subjects I HAD to find school material because they didnt what so ever
They have attempted to do that but individuals who homeschool also tend to react rather badly when any attempt at regulation is made, such as making the parents get some sort of license so they can monitor what is being taught. I swear some are just a hairbreadth's away from being survivalist/anti-government nuts.
I was not educated in Texas , but I have lived here for the past 22 years . Last week I was in a discussion with several of my fellow employees ,( all educated in Texas) ,I was told " we never got into all that science stuff , we are more into history " I then asked " which history?" The response i got was " There is only one history and it's in the bible" I then asked about what science they were interested in ?The response was almost unanimous . " we don't need all that science stuff . and they're just guessing anyway !! WOW !!!! Yes this is a true story !!!!
I was educated in Texas. Garland ISD, in Dallas County. Never had any biblical shit in my Texas History class, and there was no proselytizing in our textbooks that I can remember. But yeah, everyfuckingbody is a Christian of some sort. Took me 19 years to start asking questions (90's, internet wasn't shit), but I wiggled my way out of the Abrahamic web eventually. All we can do is preach reason and back up our pronouncements with empirical data.
Religious shit made it into my middle school history books and I grew up in NE Ohio. Thankfully, my teacher in seventh grade was plugged into the historicity of Moses (he may have been an atheist) and was able to point out that it was simply for reference. Many of the graphical timelines in that specific book had some sort of biblical story represented in them. The book was very new, which is kind of scary when you consider that was over 20 years ago.
Why are you putting spaces before punctuation???
Who would have thought that a state could have a negative average IQ?
Ransom Sumpter
“It turns out, if you score a negative on an IQ test, they give you a free pass outta everything!”
“You did so bad you owe points?”
“I DID BAD?”
I was dragged to the temple every time as a child but now I disbelieve due to aging and because smoking lots of pot regularly helped open my mind. I used to be a devoted hindu but now I laugh at it. FREEDOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
sing it!!!!
Another great talk from Aron Ra.
I am sad and horrified for these poor kids. I also was indoctrinated from the time I was a small child, in fact one of my earliest memories is praying before bed. My mother was a stay at home mom and she taught is only fake science and there was even religion in math history writing and reading. We also were taught the buzzwords to plug our ears and we weren't allowed to watch documentaries about science or even ancient worlds sometimes. We also couldn't listen to anything other than Christian movies and wearing shorts above our knees was immodest. I truly think fundamental religion that is often forced on children is abuse. I'm 18 now and I've been an atheist for about a year and sometimes even now weird stuff will make me feel uncomfortable at the sound of it until I remember that the religion forced down my throat is nothing more than grims fairy tales. Finally realizing the truth was one of the hardest things in my life. My mom boils it down to I'm upset that my youth pastor (and good friend) dies along with the abuse I faced as a child from my father. When in all reality it was one of the hardest transitions of my life. I started doubting at around 12 but it was a small whisper. When my pastor had said christians know they are going to heaven I didn't understand because even then I was saying "how do you know for sure?" eventually I would tide myself over with youtube videos with more fake science. This tided me over (at least I thought) until on February 17th 2016 my youth pastor passed away. I was crushed. How could God do this to him? He was finally settling down in our city and he had a wife and two children who were 3 and 1 years old. This is what started my thinking along with the hardest year and a half. I became extremely suicidal and though I wouldve denied it I was an atheist. I was just terrified of hell and God and my family. Slowly but surely I accepted that my entire childhood was a lie. Finally on July 16th 2017 at 2:11 am I accepted reality and suddenly a huge burden was lifted. I had taken the red pill as some may say. And I had to watch every atheist video around. One day I was watching apologetics videos and the next I was watching videos on why the apologetic videos are no good. Anyways, Aron ra, if you ever see this and happen to read it, I just want to say thank you. For everything really, you helped me see the lie in Christianity and I'm glad you do what you do so keep up the good work!
Imagine if children could have their own beliefs instead of having their parent's beliefs being shoved down their throats.
Even is public schools aren't teaching them, there are still church schools that children go to, not by their own choice, but by their parent's.
Are you still atheist?
Funnily enough, the reverse is also true. Education also harms religion.
Yeah but only religion does it intentionally. Education gives people the tools drill into religion and lets them do what they want with them.
Holy shit, I went to a baptist school from 1-12th grade.
I actually watched a video in school that had a brainwashing exercise.
The exercise had a format of telling a false fact about the young earth/evolution and then having us chant, "Where you There".
This video went on for about 2 hours.
That shit actually happened.
Your presentations are always incredible!
All you need do is go to any post on evolution and see the harm religion does to education. Seems the religious fundamentalists have given up trying to defend their fairy tale and have taken up bashing evolution full time.
chris worth
What they don't seem to understand is that even if evolution were to be proven wrong, it wouldn't make Creationism correct. It seems to me they spend more time bashing evolution than actually trying to demonstrate Creationism as true, so yeah, I can certainly see that.
Bert Simmons You have to understand that to them, creation is an inherent truth, and doesn't need to be proven.
DibtheLegend Does't make it any less wrong.
chris worth It's funny how they think disproving evolution will prove creationism somehow. Just like disproving sexual reproduction theory will prove the stork theory of babies.
Laurent Jade All cults look ridiculous from the outside looking in.
Appropriate comeback to the cocky question, "Were you there?" "No, were you?" "If I'm wrong, prove you are right without referring in any degree to any religion or religious doctrine."
Fortunately police investigators don't adopt this attitude. No crimes would ever be solved. "Well, I wasn't there. How should I know who did it."
Funny that you mention 7 or 8, it was around that time that I had an ark playset and a book about animals, and it started to dawn on me that the ark would have to be very very big. I had been through Hugo in Charleston so I was aware of how hard it was to move and cut trees and I had built forts of scrap wood, and I thought "wow, this old man built a boat large enough for camels and giraffes and rhinos and lions and horses and pigs and goats and wait, what about the fish, kangaroos, large boat... old man... wait a minute... kangaroos... old man..." this is like that santa claus guy. adults lie. a lot.
I had an ark playset as a child. My Dad worked for ARCO and they were given to all Atlantic Richfield employees. Ironically, ARCO was boring through several levels of Bible-disputing geologic table then and now, doing petro exploration. I don't remember having any type of epiphany with the ark playset. But I do remember the geologic tables in my treasured dinosaur books insofar as I understood them, fueling some serious douche chills when my mother held bible study classes in our living room, and some particularly bad rows with a Sunday school teacher, when it came time to make the creationist shoe box dioramas. Good times.
I'm Hungarian living in Hungary , it's a very small country in the center of Europe, but guess what, we have exactly the same problems in education like you,,,religion has got several schools, and intend to gain more( by the help of our government),,our history has also been falsly revised by our government, they banned the earlier school books, and now every school must teach from the same kind of books, book publishers have been cut off...etc,,,my country's reputation, which once was good, it's horrible now, and not only in education, but in many other aspects... it's a disaster..
***** thank you for your comment, is very encouraging!! I appreciate it
Commas are never to be used in sequence, and only one space goes after a punctuation mark. Also, it is spelled falsely and not falsly. Don't worry, I'm not bilingual, so good job on that. Wreck those theists!
I go to Seneca East High School, and i'm glad that two o my three science teachers are good in their fields of study. My Geology teacher is very open about the creation of the planet, along with the age, and is an avid astronomer. My Biology teacher is also very forward about evolution and loves the study of the history of human development. even though a majority of the school staff is religious, i'm glad these two can actually teach what they are suppose to and enjoy it.
I just graduated high school right outside of Amarillo, and, as a matter of fact, I went to an Amarillo school for 3 years. I saw the courses Aron is referring to directly, and, at the time, thought they were innocuous in nature, until, that is, I had a Hindu friend of mine have to struggle through the courses. Unlike many students, she wasn't placed in the classroom with the analitic instructor, but instead received teachings about the sanctity of the Christian faith. Not only did it bother her immensely, but, now that I have removed myself from the Christian faith and no longer see sunch indoctrination as a boon but rather a burden, I feel sickened that someone would have to go through that, and, not only that, but the persons who made them go through such did so in the name of me and my family when they acted for the good of the "Texas Public."
The Zeitgeist is changing, thankfully. The Bible thumpers down there are getting a little sick and tired of being thought of as uneducated hicks, make no mistake. They're smarter than you think, and the shift in religious politics down there is a good indicator.
Aron getting up there, lookin' like a stud..
I really like having the slides available to watch during the presentation, it really made the presentation more enjoyable (there was a lull in the middle, but the first section was great)
Great talk as always, Thank you. Chilling realization at 42:00 that this happened to me. I was invited to a gifted/friends/group thing in 1992 in Canada through my high school but held at a neighboring church, was immediately bored because it was preach non-sense. I now wonder how illegal that was. Fairly sure my parents had no notice.
Thank you Aron, three years later. Currently I'm reading a wonderful book entitled "The Rise And Fall Of Adam And Eve", by Stephen Greenblatt, a historian out of Harvard. There might be information in there that you aren't aware of, but you know the outline of our collective brainwashing. I'm sharing this with you and the rest of this group, because it is beautifully written and "historical". To put it in plebeian terms, it's awesome! I'm not done, however, I've never read anything like this ! Keep up your work, friend.
This definitely explains a lot of the people I debate on YT. Why should they accept what I say over dear old Mrs. Jenkins, their elementary teacher, and Mr Barnes,the ir High School science teacher their parents, and their pastor? After all, I'm just an evil atheist!
That is only if they actually pay attention to anything you say in defense of your position. The worst thing I have ever seen in my arguments online is the tendency of people to reinterpret anything you say in order to support their side in some way. Conspiracy theorists are great at that. That is generally when I abandon the argument....there is no point anyways
I live in Texas, but lucky I went to a private school so I didn't have to worry about this, but I can assure you he's telling the truth.
Ken Ham and people that can listen to his words without furrowing their brow incredulously make me absolutely sick to my stomach. Refusal to believe in honest evidence found by your fellow man is the ULTIMATE exercise in ignorance and stupidity.
I'm so glad I left Arizona and all this pernicious religious dogma behind, I;ve been living in the UK for over ten years now and I'm so thankful that my two children are getting a secular education. There is no religion in public life here, politicians never mention religion or thank god, it would be a complete anathema to the Brits.
The ONLY time that I have seen someone who was raised without religion become religious was when they met a very attractive religious person that they want to date or marry.
You should offer the chance to ask questions more often.
Great quality video -- it's nice to see the images presented on-screen instead of the usual barely visible projection. And, of course, the talk was excellent too.
Coming from Massachusetts, it is just mind-blowing that there would be schools that would even humor the consideration of teaching creationism
it sickens me when i see this sort of thing happening education standards should be universal and without bias
I wish I could get over my fear of death..My upbringing in religion has probably done this to me since I've abandon it, there is no grand peace waiting and I'm desperately trying to find that, that is somehow not true.
chunga100 I don't think that has anything to do with a religious upbringing.
chunga100 Can you remember what it felt like before you were born, well I think that's what it will be like when you die.
MMDE
I was taught that there would be peace after my death and that I could meet my loved ones again, this was a lie that took a long time to forsake.
You should not fear death, but enjoy life, for it's finite and the only one you have. Death is unavoidable, so why fear it? The fact that i will die sooner or later is what gives purpose to my life, or rather it encourages me to make my life meaningful and to make the best of the limited time i have. For someone like me, life was and still is pretty unpleasant for reasons i'm not going into right now, so i will welcome my end when it comes, but until then i desire to change things to the better, help the people i love, protect them, change the world in one way to another and to leave a legacy behind that i will one day be remembered as someone who mattered to some people.
So don't try to think what will happen after you die, rather think about the many possible things you can achieve before that. Follow your passions, have fun, read books, watch movies, make friends, laugh, cry, be happy, be sad, experience as much as you can. That's all the advice i can give to you :)
BlueGlasses
Good advice.
>Student
Excuse me, teacher, were you there?
>Teacher
Yes
>Student
What? no you werent! you can't live over millions of years!
>Teacher
Well how do YOU know? Were YOU there?
This speech still applies even 10 years later. This aged well
In an average middle class midwestern town my daughter’s freshman high school science class will only mention the Big Bang theory in passing. When she asked the teacher why, the reply was ‘I believe in the Big Bang too but the school board has decided this might upset some of the other students & their parents.’ 🙄
I asked my science teacher if we’re going to learn about evolution and she said “yes, a lot.”
And I live in Texas!
I’m excited to learn it honestly
I hope you are still on the right track. The track to the universe of science!
An amazing talk this frightens me I'm so pleased I'm in the UK
Yet your national anthem is one big prayer to God to save your monarch and destroy your enemies, you have a national church, and you're being overrun by Muslims. Your future should frighten you.
I think I would cry if I ever got to meet Matt Dillahunty or AronRa for saving me and my siblings from the indoctrination, fear, and lies of religion
It’s cool to see just how connected people are through this.
Jesus Christ I didn't know it was that bad in Texas. Those poor kids don't have a chance to be free from the bonds of religion. That was downright depressing.
My Children went to school in Tennessee and we and we got in bad graces with the schools because I had my children ask questions like the Christian's did and call their findings incorrect because there are hundreds of books in our very library that disprove the views you are teaching. Did not go so well for us but we kept it up. My house got vandalized we had signs taped to our cars. My daughter even got blocked in a parking lot and forced to listen to a sermon to save her soul. We moved. We were much more quiet in our new neighborhood and they finished school.
What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church… a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.
~ Martin Luther (born: 1483-11-10 died: 1546-02-18 at age: 62)
***** Well, Nietzsche's philosophy is unfortunately plagued by the fact that it's all useless because he focuses so much on manufacturing something that's diametrically opposed to the theistic models, when in fact there is a much more fruitful territory to be explored if you simply ignore the theistic models and create naturalistic ones from scratch. There's no reason to be a moral Nihilist when being a naturalist for example, because the basic aspects of morality that are important are not stable evolutionary strategies and therefore essentially impossible behaviors to adopt generally for any social species without leading to quick extinction. So that's an objective basis for morality right there and there's no need to begin with alternatives like Will To Power etc.
***** You have any source for that God quote. No? Didn't think so. Otherwise a really meaningless comment.
Antiphilosopher It's in the Bible.
*****
Yes, the Bible predicted the existence of Nietzsche and the exact year of his death, and God remarked on it even before he lived. I call bullshit.
Antiphilosopher No, really, it's in Genesis, next to the bit which says animals don't evolve and vaccination is only a mind control scheme. God is omniscient!
12:14 That applies to me. The Bible Reloaded guys made me realize I had been an atheist the whole time.
I don't know how this ended up on my watch later list, but I'm glad it did. Good speech brother.
It's really quite shocking listening to how the education system works in Texas, using such close-minded approaches to teaching children. Makes me really glad I've grew up in Scotland with our curriculum (at least the old one, which was replaced a couple of years ago)
While Religious Studies was mandatory up until the end of 4th year, it didn't just focus on Christianity. The first year focused on that religion, plus Judaism. The second year looked at Islam and begun studies on Morality. Third year looking at purely morality and philosophy. Fourth year ended up looking at the Origin of the universe, through both Creationist views and Atheistic views, even having a short topic on Rastafarianism. Higher RMPS (which I completed last year, and was unfortunately the start of the new curriculum) split three ways, one part on World Religion (which our school chose Christianity), another part on more in-depth look at the origin of the universe, and the third dedicated to morality and philosophy.
Essentially, it was a system that meant even I enjoyed as an Atheist. Teachers didn't push one way of thinking as being the truth, I learned of several different religions and had decent looks at morality within society. I still find it funny how I had three teachers during Higher, one a Metaphorical Christian (Bible is symbolic), one a Literal Christian (obvious), and the last one being Atheist (again obvious).
Only just found AronRa,
But like his stuff :)
Im white, british and atheist....
I was lucky enough to go to a church of England school where every friday we would stop lessons and from 9am-1pm we would go to the church on the grounds, and be indoctrinated into the cult...
Also, my white aunty married a black, carribean muslim and is still with him,
She converted and is wholly muslim,
So at the weekends i would spend time there, and my uncle always genuinely gave me the choice of wether i wanted to pray to 'allah' or 'god' with him and my cousins,
being respectful and already knowing of god from school,
Jumped straight in, washed my hands, feet and face.... Went upstairs
Follolwed the compass on the prayer matt and followed my uncle and cousins lead, i never bothered with the words as i was very young and thought it disrespectful to speak badly to god.......
As this went in i started to see glaring similarities and startling contradictions between the 2
So i started asking my uncle questions, as the church on a friday WAS NOT the place to question........whenever i bought up muslims or allah i was flatly told things such as 'we dont deal with nonsense in this building, we are in the house of god, and once in the class room, there was school work to be done and no talkinng.....
It was during these sessions of q&a with my uncle that i discovered allah was not what i perceived as god, but entirely his own entity,
As a child i naively thought they were the same thing, but from different parts of the world....
So my uncle began to teach me of the koran...
This is when my mind exploded :s
There was only 1 god.... But 2 different people telling me the same thing, basically that they were right and the other was wrong.....
This went on firva coupke of years,
I stsrting questing my school more as i had a basic understanding of islam,
I wanted to see what the otherside would say,
I got in a lot of trouble over being inquisitive,
The final staw for me was when my parents had been called in the last time to speak about jack and was told at 9 years old if i didnt stop i would be permanently expelled from primary school....
Rightly so i was fuming with rage and confusion at the situation,
Especially as my parents suggested i stay behind in class and further my education rather than interrupt others with my blasphemy and time wasting
I was told in no uncertain terms this was not an option, i see now that it may have had an avalanche effect on the others....
I was 1 of the brightest in my school and im not being big headed i had some of my written work published in a book the same year in a nationwide competition and i was a maths ace!!!!
So next friday in church, i sat at the back and took in my maths work and occupied myself......
And in comes a child from another class i had never seen before, who walks up and quietly but passed the vicar/bishop a note, he reads it says 'thats fine, you may go'
I think nothing of it until the following friday when half way through my brainwashing i was taken to the toilet and i saw said boy in the classroom alone reading a book,
I asked the teacher why he was allowed to not attend and was told 'you worry about yourself not others'
i befriended this new boy........ Turns out he was a JEW!!!
so i went on to get to know this lad quite well as he was more than happy to explain his religion to me...
a 3RD god had appeared into existence from a person/race i had never encountered before.........
I was pretty much done with religion and coe schools,
I went to a public secondary/high school where i met Sikhs and Hindus and began humanities classes 2 hours a week which was basically geography, history and religious studies rolled into 1 to give you a taste so in later years if i wabted to i could take 1 of those
Further as an option and drop drama/sports/art/music.....
I find religion truly fascinating but fuck me is it a crock of bullsheeeeeeet!!!
P. S. I only bring up race to highlight that i saw very different people, spouting more or less the same nonsense
In my family alone i have black Muslims, white muslims, and mixed race muslims,
White christians, black Christians, mixed race Christians, 1 atheists (me) and a black Hebrew Israelite and 4 black rastafari....(i know rastas not a religion) ;)
I have black family from st. Kitts, Barbados and jamaican, i have black british and mixed race british family and white british...
So many very different people
All pretty much sayin im right your wrong......
Apart from the rastas who just give pretty decent advice about life (y)
Religion is to be studied and learned from but never believed :(
Some of my family cannot speak to each other, let alone be in the same room.... Some hate each other and reduse them entry to their homes......
I wont go into detail but from these so called good people i have seen a lot of hatred
And by blood or marriage, we are family :/
All in the name of religion :(
To be called a Texan, in the City I live in, is a really nasty fuckin' insult. I alway's wondered why. Thanks Aron.
Bad Snaxx Here in Nebraska, it's an insult state-wide.
Nunya Bid'nez It's also an insult here in Iowa. Of course, living in Nebraska (with the exception of Omaha - "A city that cool should not be in a state that boring." From the Iowa Nice Guy's concession speech) is also considered pretty bad according to Iowans - keep the rivalry alive, you know?
Side note: You actually have internet in Nebraska? Huh, maybe it isn't as bad there as I thought.
Really strange, because the city Im talking about Liverpool in the UK. We're thousande of miles from Texas.
***** We have internet, but it's WindStream communications, so I'd hardly call it "internet".
Lincoln's not so bad either, by the way. I mean, we have the Huskers, and, um, eh, Memorial Stadium, and... Did I already say we have the Huskers? We also have the Husker games here during Football Season, and the Huskers too!
P.S., Do you have Runza in Iowa? As many times as I've accidentally stepped in Iowa, I've never actually actively looked for a Runza there.
Nunya Bid'nez
Let's see, here in Des Moines we have a bunch of bars I've never been to. I live near Drake and I could hear the frat parties during the relays this weekend from my apartment (the joys of living on Greek Row). But I have an internet connection and a gaming computer (plus several older gaming consoles), so what more do I need? I'm sure there's more to do, but I would hardly be the expert on such things... Oh yeah, go Cyclones. Or Hawkeyes. Or Panthers. Or Bulldogs. Um, go Iowa teams! Gods, we have too many fucking colleges/universities considering the size of our state. lol
P.S. I'd never heard of Runza, so I did a Google search. Looks like the closest is in Omaha. Do you guys have Zombie Burger? Or Spaghetti Works? If you're ever in Des Moines, those are some of the best restaurants in town (IMO).
Oh the joys of living in Tennessee and knowing my sales tax helps make someone ignorant to reality.
I have seen many talks by AronRa and the thing that amazes me is how he is able to hold his temper when angrily challenged by the craziest religious nut jobs. He uses humor and logic very well.
I wish Aron was our governor instead of Greg "Wheels" Abott
The Lenovo y50 laptop is apparently the official laptop of atheism.
Whew! I have a T530. That was close.
I love listening to you Aron but I always feel so hopeless when you are done. I'm doing everything I am able to to raise awareness but I can't help but thinking that the fictional show "A Handmaid's Tale" will soon be considered a documentary about life in America. How do we turn this bus around and head back to sanity and reality?
Ever wonder why it's so interesting that prayer only seems to work when that person already had a good chance of pulling through in the first place? I mean people that get medical attention from doctors for example get things like "You'll be in our prayers" for example. And yet when those people do make it then their god gets all the praise while the doctors get only minor thanks, and if they die then "it was God's will". Isn't it interesting that God's will seems to always be to ignore the prayers of those with terminal illnesses, those who are in areas with little to no medicine, those that are starving and/or war ravaged? It seems that God seems to already favor those who have the means by which to get by but not those that can't. Isn't that interesting? It's almost as if you couldn't tell if he helped or not. Cause those people who, despite having access to doctors, medicine, etc yet decide to simply pray the sick away, quite often get worse and die, especially their children that they refuse to send to the hospitals even when the child is practically in a coma and vomiting blood. Just further proof that prayer is worthless. It's only benefit is that it makes them feel like they're doing something when they're doing nothing. A sort of clearing of the conscious, make them feel good about themselves. Misplaced, misguided and delusional hope is all prayer provides, and that's the worst kind there is.
Dude where the fuck is the ACLU and law suites
The ACLU only sues minority-viewpoint, small conservative groups. There are probably a lot of Christians serving the ACLU too.
Always a stickler for good audio, I'm wondering why AronRa sounds as he does.
The video shows him wearing a lapel mic, but it doesn't sound like it's being used.
There's that 'hollow' sound that is the effect of reflection (bounce) off hard, mainly flat, surfaces. Oh well.
I care, because I want what AronRa says to be as well reproduced as possible.
What he says is important and needs to be well heard.
This video recording is actually a good deal better than many others I've heard.
Always room for improvement. :) Forward, ever!
Religion comforts..and cripples.
History is clear on this.
I was taught only Evolution when I went to school (graduated in 00'). I remember they mentioned Creationism once but didn't spend anytime on it. But I went to school in the Bay area and Oregon. So maybe it was different then TX.
You know what really needs to exist? A 1950's style cartoon PSA about defending oneself against religious apologetics. Why 1950's cartoon? I dunno, I just like the style, just seems like the first method that comes to mind when getting a PSA out there, brings those PSAs like Duck and Cover to mind.
Anyway, the PSA would basically be about how to identify and nullify any potential effect of religious apologetics, the mindset that these apologetics come from, etc.
Better than that would be a series of these types of PSAs specified for certain groups of individuals (teachers (science teachers especially), parents, teenagers/young adults (probably in a social context), you get the idea).
I'd like that, maybe done in Fallout style.
Good luck.
This makes me sad. How can so many people be so brainwashed? I feel really bad for kids in America.
@ Ela ... America includes Canada... More precisely the United States of America where people are now proud of their ignorance. We have become so stupid that a person like Donald Trump has won our Republican Party's (now known as the party of stupid) nomination to run for president, and if he does... look out world!
And now Trump has won the presidency. You were concerned about ignorance in American before, welcome to the march toward Idiocracy.
March? We've been an idiocracy, Trump just confirmed it.
Trump>Obama
@@aaronbono4688 I didn't vote for Trump beacuse of religion. I voted for him beacuse I don't want to be taxed to oblivion and my country's borders thrown open like some amusment park. I'm not supporting a socialistic party that doesn't value private property rights and thinks we need to punish groups today for injustices commited 100 years ago. No matter how scientifically or socially progressive that party claims to be. I'm not supporting a party that calls me a "deplorable" and that I'm opressing just by existing by being a white male. Thats why I still vote for the right. If the left can support social and scientific progress without raising taxes, protect our borders and stop trying to redistribute wealth, then I'd be all for it.
I'm not voting for a party that openly admits that you need to willingly give up your well being for some perceived greater good.
Especially when there is overwelming historical evidence when socialisim and comunisim has been tried its ended in suffering and genocide.
fantastic :D love your lectures have seen TONS of them :) very thought provoking and educative
Religion needs to be sued out of every public school system
This is insane, I went to school in Tennessee for a year, and my Science teacher actually taught evolution. Was my experience rare?
I grew up in a Christian school... I fundamentally don't understand biology after spending hours talking to my professors, a friend studying microbiology, and watching days of videos like this. I was still using the phrase "de-evolve" until really recently. I can attest to the fact that this stuff occurs and has been occurring for a while now.
Hello Aron, I am a huge fan of your videos. I live in New Jersey, My wife is from Texas.She was raised in a religious family (tho not really religious herself), I was raised atheist. we recently had a discussion where I had said that I would be hesitant in moving our children into a state that is in the bible belt for many reasons. One of which was public school indoctrination. While she knows the education standards are higher in our parts, she told me that she never encountered such a thing while growing up in the Great State. I had mentioned to her that I had read about some schools stating Moses as founding father, about evolution being taught by unqualified teachers, or not at all. She said (yea, in liberal Papers) My point is, I would like to know if there is a database somewhere that would show my point to be accurate so I am able to discuss these issues with evidence to back me up? I tried a Google search and was bombarded by posts about how atheists were indoctrinating our students in public schools, But very little to validate my point. If she is wrong I would like to be able to prove it, If I am wrong, I would like to stop making that argument.
Try this: tea.texas.gov/academics/curriculum-standards/teks/texas-essential-knowledge-and-skills
The site claims that this is the Texas Science Curriculum, but for some reason (I'm sure they know why) it can't be accessed from Europe.
AronRa, would you consider making a playbook for teachers who get Ken Hammed in class? How to respond to "were you there"? How to keep the discussion of evolution on evolution, and not on cosmology or abogenesis?
Aron Ra is a Texas treasure.
Get that one guy a cough drop already
One of the holy Ten Commandments : " Thou shalt not lie. "
Then why is that all religion is ever about ?
the commandment actually says dont bare false witness "against" others. they use that as a loophole
mikkelturtvig the "thou shall not kill" also actually translates to "thou shalt not murder" and was referenced explicitly as not murdering one of your own. Others were fine apparently.
Oh they can lie. They aren't supposed to bear false witness though that a legal thing. They also can kill but they can't murder their own.
I was homeschooled for all of my life except 8-10th grades. I live in a Young Earth Creationist family in a Young Earth Creationist-dominated town in Louisiana. However, I credit my mom with teaching my siblings and me of other religions and letting us choose - however, as nice as that seems, it isn't quite that nice. If we were to /actually/ portray any interest in anything besides Christianity, I'm sure it would not go over well. Anyways, despite the religious aspect, it wasn't all bad; I'm actually skipping a grade and going to college at 17, as did my brother, for which I give some credit to homeschool.
But A Beka... The one year we did A Beka, the extremely conservative, biased, lying Christian homeschool curriculum mentioned at 16:29, was terrible. It was last year, and it was honestly one of the largest factors that pushed me into becoming an atheist. It's bad enough to constantly shoehorn religion into history or science, but when you can't go through *geometry class* without being told that math proves how great God is, you get a bit annoyed. A Beka taught wonderful beliefs such as:
- Rock music is of the Devil
- Depression is your own fault, and wouldn't happen if you would just surrender to God!
- God wants you to know proper etiquette for which silverware to use at dinner. Seriously.
I was very tempted to write my final paper for the year about how I was a bisexual atheist, just to see how far they would go to fail me and my otherwise-high grades.
AronRa came to my job and i helped him pick out a couple beers he might like. He is a really down to earth guy easy to talk to, heck he even took a picture with me. Now I'm not atheist but i do like what he stands for and its seeking truth, you really can't argue with that.
***** Wow what a logical point my friend...
I just... I hate the damage religion has inflicted so much! I cannot fathom allowing my child to go to school if they're going to be taught fairy tales
That end music is wonderful. What is it?
Coming to see you in London 30th April 2015 Really looking forward to it.
If anything is eternal, it is the truth. Aron, you are magnificent.
@@DG-iw3yw “For with God, all things are possible”: Matt 9:26.
”Oh, ye of little faith?” :Matt 6:30.😇
I believe we're at a giant hump in our human progression, Galileo and the Enlightenment almost killed God off, but the greed of the Church stifled education. TEACHERS ARE OUR FUTURE.
I find this really depressing. I teach science (in the UK), I do teach evolution (not as much as I would like, but there is a it to cover on the national curriculum), I do understand it as that's part of my background, and I've thankfully never had a backlash. Lots of questions which I welcome and some misconceptions again which I really enjoy discussing in a happy non judgemental environment. I can't imagine trying to teach it in the sort of toxic climate you describe.