My mother and father never got married. For the first half of my life I would go between them - up until I was about 8 years old (I'm 16 years old now btw) but once my step-mother entered the picture my dad won total custody. Now, my mother was - and still is, to my knowledge - in med school. She taught me to question EVERYTHING - I figured out that santa was bullshit at 5 years old. So when my religious step-mother tried to send me to bible camp when I was 9, I didn't fall for it. My mother is a very flawed person and has dealt with substance abuse since she was a child, but she's got a brilliant mind, and I'm glad to have inherited it.
God, I went to one of those camps back when I was a believer. I wore some bracelets with some music logos on them, and the pastor pulled them right off of my wrists while we were doing the same shit in that video. Later he came up to me with them in his hand and asked if he could have them and I reluctantly said yes. I was a dumb kid.
Having been brought up in a different country, I'm glad we don't have that in my country (or at least it's not as prominent). Worst we had was this: we lived in a very rural town (300 people), so the church youth group was more like a way to play with other kids, but the priest was not restricting us, we played as normal kids, "build a wood hut in the forest" (with the priest helping), "cowboys & indians", and so on. So yes, there was indoctrination in the sense they were teaching us the bible, but they were not pushing it outside of the church classes.
I loved Veggie Tales as a kid. It still has a fond place in my heart. I still sing so many of their secular songs (and sometimes get the religious ones stuck in my head). It's probably my fondest religious memory. Now, if I had been raised a freethinker and were never exposed to the show, my life wouldn't have been any worse, but the memories are still some of the happiest of my childhood.
The Definition of a Fairy Tale A fairy tale is commonly a short story often told to children. Fairy tales may be told in fun, or may be used as a tool to help cope with loss or to explain the workings of the world to a child. A fantasy setting is used to define a scenario or to amuse the listeners for a short period of time. They include fanciful things such as magic, royalty, dragons, and animals that talk and act like humans. Insightful listeners could detect moral lessons in even some of the more obscure fairy tales. Never in a million years would my parents have thought to teach me that Peter Pan or Mary Poppins was anything but a work of fiction. Yet they tried to teach me that everything within the bible was real. That isn't Salvation you trying to give me, its Schizophrenia.
Yes indeed. The gift of mental illness. I’ve been given it through religious indoctrination. Best form of child abuse out there. Endless nightmares of Armegeddon and me being destroyed because of my refusal to believe in their delusions. Yes religion is a disease far worse then cancer.
Seth... the moment from your father's letter broke my heart. Mine's gone and he died not knowing I rejected all of his religious teaching; for that I'm grateful, just in case he would have said that to me.
Seth I'm so sorry to hear about the situation with you and your father. It truly made me cry. I kept my atheism secret from my family because it would have been the same situation. I hate how religion destroys families and thinking minds.
At least your children won't have to go through what your parents put you through. Thanks to the 'global village', the internet and videos like this one, religion is on the way out. Soon zealots will be in the minority, and will have to keep their beliefs to themselves or face the ridicule they deserve.
True, this kind of thinking is in an all time low due to the presence of the internet and being constantly challenged by different worldviews instead of living in a confirmation bias bubble.
I have to thank you too. I grew up in an Greek Orthodox family and I just get rid of all these fairy tales at the age of 18. Your videos have been so motivational to me. With this video of your talk and after this terrible scene of child abuse, I will definetely fight for my thoughts, my prospect of reality and my dream for a better world. Don't stop motivating people like me and making them to throw away their blinders. :)
Well that "Welcome to This World" video just hurt me a bit. I grew up in the church, and I hold no animosity towards my parents who were doing their best to raise me as they were raised, but I pity anyone who tries to tell that crap to my daughter. Their day will be quite ruined.
How to become a christian... Get born... Submit to interminable propaganda from parents, church leaders, even teachers... Get told a). you are a SINNER... Get told b). Someone died for you to absolve you from sin... Get told c). If you don't love that person, you go to everlasting _HELL_ You have to _love AND fear_ that person at the same time... _FEEL_ Guilty... _FEEL_ unworthy... _FEEL_ like shit... Congratulations! You're a christian!
Great video. I am 16 years old and it is sad to me that the majority of people in my community, or in the world rather, do not think for themselves but rather mindlessly absorb anything they are told.
Holy fuck! that "nightmare" thing sounds fucking traumatizing!! just hearing the first one about the car accident I personally am triggered. How fucked in the head is that? they just toss these kids into this situation? and that makes their parents happy? what the actual FUCK
I love dinosaurs. I have a 16 pound chunk of dinosaur poop in my rock collection. My dinosaur poop is older then 6,000 years old and has never seen Jesus.
Seth, everything you said deeply resonated with me. I was indoctrinated into the Mormon church at such a young age I can't even remember when it started. That was "my" normal. I too was in my thirties when I finally began to think for myself. My greatest hope is that it is not too late to teach my children how to think for themselves. Thank you for putting such a fine point on it.
it makes me very grateful to be born in a secular jewish home. i know, the fundamentalist jews are very hard core, but you'll never hear a fundamentalist jew telling to his child that he/she is a sinner or corrupt. that makes me cringe...
I had tears in my eyes by the time thi was over. I'm dying to share this with the people I know ... but I'm so very afraid to go public with my atheism. I live in fear each day ... but one day, I will proclaim it. Loud and proud.
I'm from central Europe and I grown up in an atheist family. So, everytime I saw Flandders family in The Simpsons I was like "That's just a funny exaggeration, that's not real, nobody can be like that in the real life." Well, I underestimate you America :-D
A video game where almost everyone was raptured and you have to assemble a badass team of the unscrupulous deviants that weren't good enough to get raptured up to fight against demons? That sounds like an awesome video game! You'd have drama and uncertainty because you know everyone in your group has something wrong with them and you'll never know who will turn all the while killing the fuck out of big horned demons.
In the 70's, I was a Manager at McDonald's restaurants. Their marketing philosophy was the same. Get them as kids and you'll have a customer for life. Playlands, birthday parties, etc. - all geared to grabbing the kids, because if the kids yell loud enough, the parents will bring them to the restaurant. They did a survey and Ronald McDonald was more widely recognized by young children than Santa Claus. Back then they even had it quantified, each customer coming through the door was worth, on average, $120.00 per year in business. Worked for Big Mac, works for the church.
Having watched a number of different speakers in any of these various events, I'm starting to think that Ken Ham specifically is rather low hanging fruit.
Saul ofTarsus But he's just such a fucking half wit. Every time they debate him just gives him another opportunity to open that void of all knowledge he calls a mouth.
+Juxtavarious No, he is not stupid. He makes a damn good living for both himself and his family by peddling this tripe to the foolish. Dishonest, manipulative, and hypocritical he might be. But not stupid.
My dad was Nazarene; we were raised Lutheran, my mother's religion. At 13, approaching communion I half expected to be struck by lightning because I didn't believe any of it. Haha, passed that hurdle, been thinking for myself ever since ...
***** Hi Seth. At time stamp 37:00 in this video, you talk about how hard it is to see your parents who are such hard-core believers having to deal with your being on the front-lines of atheism, and I wanted to say something to you about that. My dad died some years back, but my mom is still around, and I don't speak with her much, mainly because I know that she does not know and will not accept the person I am and have been for as long as I can remember, because I am not the son she and my dad wanted me to be. I spoke to my mom about 11 hours ago, for the first time since I nearly died in the hospital some time back, and thanks to a literal "we're all created equal" attitude, the hospital sent me home still infected with an antibiotic resistant bacteria because they could not understand that MY normal body temperature runs lower than the text-books teach to be "normal". So I told my mom that I am fighting this infection on my own and either I will beat it, or it will kill me. She asked me to make sure that someone will let her know if I die. Her reason? The verse you quoted earlier. Proverbs 22:6. Years ago, I reminded her of that verse to comfort her because I openly called myself an atheist back then and she could not live with that fact. Now, I no longer use the label, but my beliefs are no more "theistic" than they were then. It's about 3 in the morning here, and I have been thinking about this, and as you mentioned that verse, it strengthened my resolve. My mom is looking forward to my death because she believes that verse promises that I will die a theistic Bible believing, God fearing Christian, as my parents raised me to be, but that is not what it says. It says "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Well, I will be 50 years old as of the 27th of this month. My parents taught me to think for myself, to be a good person, to help the world, to value truth, and to stand up for what's right... and now that I am old, I WILL NOT DEPART FROM IT. If the Bible's evil god gives me an ultimatum of serving such an evil being as himself, or spending eternity in Hell being tortured forever, I WILL CHOOSE HELL OVER SERVING EVIL, but an ultimatum leaves no room for free will, and if I have free will, then I choose neither! My mom believes that we have free will and that if I was trained as a child in the way I should go, I will not depart from it. So I guess that means either she's wrong, or the path I am on IS THE WAY I SHOULD GO, because I have spent a lifetime being the good person they trained me to be and that required me to embrace reality, take responsibility for making the world I live in better rather than praying for someone else to do it, and reject the evil god of the Bible regardless of the fact that it is a fictitious being. I am now that I am old and have lived through more than most people could imagine, and have chosen the path of goodness over the path of "godness", I WILL NOT part from it! Perhaps you can share this with your parents. They may just appreciate where I'm coming from.
My son's bff at age 5 was Bible Man for Halloween. My son was Anakin Skywalker. His friend, Ben was afraid to go up to a scary house "because he was pretty sure there were demons there. " My son got fed up and said," Jesus Christ, Ben! Don't you have more authority than that?" Omg, I nearly peed myself from laughing. My son had been watching Bible Man at their house, so they talked about "authority over evil." His Mom was not amused, though.
I always wanted to see the reaction of christians when I tell them that dinosaurs are still alive. (note: if you haven't figured it out I'm talking about birds)
Seth, your upbringing and mine are so similar!!!!! I am nearly 30 and struggle to this day to have any sensible relationship with my family because I just don't buy it anymore (the deep religious claims). Superstitions damage and harm families.
I could see that Seth was getting really choked up there ..and he's absolutely right ..it is child abuse! Many years ago when I was just a teenager, my father yelled me that I was a "good for nothing" and a "nobody" after I told him I didn't believe in god. I never talked to the old man for the last 3 years of his life ..wish I would've done that sooner! Religious people don't realize the damage they're doing to their kids. The church and it's teachings is nothing but a con game ..all religions and churches should be taxed and access denied to radio and television ..and internet! Televangelism is the worst and should be taxed even more heavily.
I about broke down when you started talking about your dad. I find it very unfortunate that your dad chooses not to see his family , over a lie. Future generations will not have to deal with this, take comfort in that what you are doing , is changing the lives of those who refuse to drink the kool-aid. I consider you family bro , as an fellow atheist and Oklahoman.
Every time I hear Bible man I can’t help but laugh A little because it makes me think of the mega man games and how the bosses are usually named something man, iceman, fire man and so on. So then I imagine what a Bossfight against the Bible man would be like, LOL.
This would be almost laughable if it weren’t so goddamn sad. How did the lunatics end up in charge of the asylum? Unbelievable that this shit happens in this day and age. SMH
As a Scottish person, I am contractually obligated to confirm that Nessie exists. So does the Big Grey Man. Please come here to see them and spends lots and lots of tourist money.
You see, Veggietales is religious entertainment done right. All of the things Veggietales says would work if they were presented with secular arguments and it's actually entertaining. I actually heard that Veggietales stopped being a religious show as of late and it now teaches the same sorts of lessons using secular reasoning.
im extremely glad that my parents did NOT sway me towards religion...not i just need to get my daughter out of it. thanks to her mother..she was baptised and believes in god. any suggestions?
Four years later and I assume you got around to speaking to your daughter by now? If not, you must tell her the truth as the undeniable facts present themselves as the truth and hope those seeds of doubt grow within her. I know our personal opinions can affect how we interpret facts sometimes, so clearly this is easier said than done. But better to risk losing your daughter for a short time rather than forever while she walks the path of discovery at her own pace than allowing her to continue living in a world of fantasy and make believe.
I loved the ending. That brought a big beaming smile to my face. That is such a good phrase. "A personal relationship with reality" So positive yet mocking one of their silly stock phrases.
You know, I had a thought Man is made in the image of god, right? So does that mean the god has to use the can? And if so, what is his shit suppose to be? Meteorites?
Hi Seth. I have just begun watching the above talk and I have also just bought and downloaded the audiobook version of "Deconverted: A Journey from Religion to Reason" from Audible UK (and intend to listen to the entire thing today). Well, that's my Sunday sorted out. Thanks for everything Seth. I never tire of listening to you speak.
I know you'll probably never read this, but THANK YOU Seth! No other words can sum up everything you've done to help make my life better... listening to & learning from an intelligent person always helps. Thanks again.
Hey Seth... I thought you might find it entertaining to know that I had to skip an Ad for Grand Canyon College, a "Christian College" here in the AZ. If i could stop lauging i might think they did it on purpose.... True Story, though.
Excellent speech. I can only imagine the pain of hearing a parent reject you on the basis of faith. Luckily my family doesn't seem to mind having at least two of three siblings to have turned away from the faith.
One of the things that aids me in staying grounded in regards to how I relate to very religious people . My mother raised me alone working retail . This meant we never went to church . I was able to develop a confidence in my reckoning of reality , unlike so many others .
We had a christian house of horrors. It was good but I never got any of it. Even at the end when they tell you to give your life to christ and such I always thought that it was unrelated and disjointed.
Beth (and response to Al Jeffreys 7 comments down: Seth's vid is superb for having your question (i.e., What do we do about it?!) naturally arise. Another FreeOK2013 vid (the one with Dale McGowan) is one answer. I have another: to get on with the work of providing the songs, drama, celebrations etc. of our very own "epic of evolution." See my hour-long youtube vid of a 2013 presentation I gave, "Connie Barlow: How Religion Is Failing Our Youth and What We Can Do About It." I've got curricula.
It's kinda funny for me watching this, having grown up in an extreme conservative church that viewed all those youth-attracting tricks as "unscriptural" and "the liberalization of the church". We didn't even have Vacation Bible School.
As an indoctrinated child, my mother was and still is a Bible literalist, and many of the childhood memories I have are of her drilling the terror of the Rapture & demons & eternal hell into my brain. I did not believe, I was forced to fall in line through religious terrorism. I remember one of the most horrifying moments of my life was when I was brought on stage at a smaller church & had a lady place oily hands on me, and I alone, with a mic pushed into my face, was commanded to speak in tongues. I was no more than 5, and I stood silent, confused & permanently cursed with stage fright, public speaking, or large gatherings. I was forced to "believe" until I had 2 NDEs within the last 6 years, and realized, during each of these massive heart failures which left me clinically dead for nearly an hour, that anything anyone said about seeing angels, heaven or god was bullshit, and even the pathetic attempts at answering my probing questions regarding afterlife just pushed me further into non-belief. I am the only atheist in a huge, strictly religious, mostly baptist fundamentalist, family. I live in a retirement community full of religious Trump supporters, in a small town with literally no black or hispanic people, and with no transportation, often feel like I am trapped in a kind of hell on earth, nobody to talk to & never been to an atheist meeting or felt like I was included. The church I was dragged to by my grandma makes it pretty clear they dont help anyone, even so much as to just put them on the prayer list, unless they have been a regular tither, handing over money every Sunday. I was shunned after sharing a suicide attempt story at youth group, and when I asked the pastor after my NDE, why did I see (or didnt see) what I saw, his pitiful indicating to a verse or two that just said you must have faith, no proof needed, was the last time I went.
SO Where did god come from ? He must have had a mother .... And a Dad ! Dose God Have a God Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him
Wow, once it got to that whole "Father's Day" story and how it does ruin familial ties, it...I want to be more polite but the whole family fall out disgusts me... We are all humans, we should be united. None of these Religious Attacks, no murder, no family separations by death or by choice due to religion. Religion is not a set thing, you are not born with it, you learn it and accept it, or you learn to disagree with it. Hatred is a choice. Religion is a choice.
As someone from the other side of the Iron Curtain, I'm really struck by how different the Christianity in the US is from Orthodoxy; not just in the details, but in what people expect out of religion. Orthodox Christianity will not do stuff like this, because the believers would get pissed off; there's still a sense of reverence attached to the notion of religion. Making a talking Jesus doll would be regarded as flat-out blasphemy around here.
Our non-belief isn't the motivating factor, compassion for our fellow human being sure is! And yes, we want to recruit kids as young as possible, to empower them with the thinking skills to see through your lies and faulty reasoning! We want to raise kids that learn to think for themselves, learn to analyse and think of solutions, to fix the world that we have ruined in the past 200 years. That's what motivates us. Hope for a better world, not fear.
It may be much less prevalent in the UK, for example, but there are more than enough creationist state school to make this stuff universally relevant. I predict that this will become more of an issue given the UK Government's drive to increase the number of "Free Schools" within the state system which have greater control over curriculum and are very often set up by religious organisations. great video lecture.
My mother died a few years ago,its taken me years to understand even the potency indoctrination we receive and ,now i think free,i feel the social,economic and psychological,ostracization ,directed at me 24/7..if i speak out about how i believe,but i am from Missouri and do understand Oklahoma ,i think ,this bible belt ,especially in rural totally indoctrinated people ,they have been fully indoctrinated for many generations ,,i thing it has become genetic in many ways ,
From the perspective of a believer, it must seem natural to want to attract children to the same beliefs. For a non-believer, that notion is contradictory because we want children to think for themselves, think critically, question and look for evidence. If they're doing that, the rest should take care of itself. Non-believers don't need to recruit children. The reason you don't see charitable groups run by non-believers - their non-belief isn't the motivating factor, so they don't promote that.
lol at 10:29 (Bibleman). My mother was a Sunday school teacher a few years ago and the church gave a Bibleman kit to her to teach to the class. It included a Bibleman video series, a lightsaber-like sword, and a Bibleman costume. My nieces and nephews were just watching it a few weeks ago and playing with the the costumes,toys that came with the kit. I was in the room at the time and watched a few minutes of it. I couldn't stand it.
When I was in early grade school (private Methodist - our family didn't go to church, though), we were shown "The Cross and the Switchblade". Talk about scaring the shit out of kids! It basically was about gangs being saved and showed a couple gang fights with baseball bats and knives. What got me the most was a banger getting punished by having a knife shoved up through both armpits! I bet it looked like my eyes would pop out and was probably white as a sheet after seeing that back then (70s).
Since churches in US have turned all in business and marketing, even giving away stuff for youngsters, here's a slogan I propose: "Come to the Church today and sell your soul to God now!" Now, what kind of God is the one a believers can sell their souls to, who are they ACTUALLY worshiping? Let's leave that for them to figure out, I guess the Bible has something on the subject. 8D
'God loves you'/'Bless your heart'/etc: That's Christian for 'Fuck you'. It's ok. Be mad. I'm not. Anger is a byproduct of trying to defend unstable ground. Outside of the Bible, everything you have been taught your whole life doesn't hold water. This is the real world. It's natural to fear the unknown. It's part of being Human. Every day is a new opportunity to learn about ourselves and our world. Think for yourself. Don't be someone else's puppet. Take control of your own life.
You just put everything i was thinking into words. Even tho i have never been a believer in a god or gods. I still think Seth is a key member of the revaluation that needs to happen. He is a person one of good charisma and morals. We may not all think the same things as him but we will NEVER hate him for those things because he is a good guy that we can relate to. Best Regards Thomas Jensen / Denmark
Seth Andrews is not Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, or the late Christopher Hitchens. Seth Andrews is something else entirely. He is a normal person, he grew up the same way many of us have, he has lived the religious life and faced many of the same problems we have with the dichotomy of coming to the realization that what you thought you knew is wrong and the people closest to you don't think of you the same because of it. Seth Andrews is one of us, relatable, hope for the rest of us.
It took me 15 years of trying to shove the square peg through the round hole because I was too scared to let myself think before I was finally able to break free of my childhood indoctrination. I was homeschooled from the 3rd grade on and made to watch Ken Ham videos. Incidentally, the first time I said "I'm an athiest" out loud was after watching Seth's freeok 2011 speech "Blind spots." Now I take up activism so other people don't have to go through that.
Hey there Seth, this is 9 years from when you made this speech and would find it interesting should you respond 🙄? Because you mentioned something in regards to this in 10 years from it’s making. Tho I admit that I am a year early 😜, Lol 😂 Anyhoot 🦉, before watching this, the title reminded me of one of my favorite songs from our era, 70’s-80’s, that resonates with everything about this video and is by Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” The beginning of the lyrics, “Welcome to your life, there’s no turning back. Even while you sleep we will find you.” At 54 and now learning about all sorts of new things about life, especially new things about old things that I never knew and remember being often curious about many of them yet never questioned them. Knowing now obviously what I didn’t back then, I realize now that much of it has to do with the indoctrination that I never knew nor realized till recently after 48 years of being raised in the Mormon church. I vividly remember on Sundays my mom would MAKE US get ready for church and MAKE US GO! EVEN when SHE didn’t feel like going herself because she didn’t feel comfortable because she continued to smoke cigarettes. Even up through high school and a little after becoming of age at 18, church attendance was enforced. I will admit that I’m glad that my parents aren’t around to experience this. Tho IT IS MY journey, watching and listening to the many stories of those who come out to their parents, and not just religion, but now their “identity”, and the pain the parents believe they have because of the decisions of their child/children. Thank you for your time and the work you do unselfishly. Aaaloha 🌺
That applies to Both Christians and atheists. You are Both Dogmatic..Prideful and Wrong! Someone who can read a book and take the Good and Leave BS. Can read a book with Intelligence is what we need. 😊❤
you could have named this speech " if you believe in the bible you HAVE to believe in evolution" nothing evolves faster than the bible. (400,000 changes last year) the rediculous rock stages just amplify how desperate religion is to keep kids blindsided. thank you seth for keeping reality in the crosshairs!
I realise that Ham is one of my countrymen, much to my embarrassment, but WhereTF did this crap about "vegetarian until the fruit was eaten" come from? I've never heard it here in Australia. How is gaining the knowledge of good an evil supposed to suddenly make everything else start misbehaving? And that's if I ignore everything except common sense.
The "cure" for this epidemic of child abuse will still take a few generations, at least, to find major improvement and understanding. My job as an educator is, by no means, over. Handing it off, even though I am of retirement age, does not seem like something I should dismiss when there is so much yet to be accomplished.
Well. When I started grade school, I had no idea what allegiance was either. Same goes for republic and liberty. I really wanted to know why, because I didn't get it. When I asked why we had to say this pledge. The annoyed response from a few other students was "Because you have to!". Took me a while to realize they never actually answered the question.
![Does God Exist? William Lane Craig vs. Christopher Hitchens - Full Debate [HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0tYm41hb48o/mqdefault.jpg)
That Jesus Camp stuff scares me every time. It is absolutely fucking INSANE. I feel so bad for those kids.
Koltiras Rip so do i. I'm a survivor and an ex believer and so many childhoods have been destroyed by it
My mother and father never got married. For the first half of my life I would go between them - up until I was about 8 years old (I'm 16 years old now btw) but once my step-mother entered the picture my dad won total custody. Now, my mother was - and still is, to my knowledge - in med school. She taught me to question EVERYTHING - I figured out that santa was bullshit at 5 years old. So when my religious step-mother tried to send me to bible camp when I was 9, I didn't fall for it. My mother is a very flawed person and has dealt with substance abuse since she was a child, but she's got a brilliant mind, and I'm glad to have inherited it.
God, I went to one of those camps back when I was a believer. I wore some bracelets with some music logos on them, and the pastor pulled them right off of my wrists while we were doing the same shit in that video. Later he came up to me with them in his hand and asked if he could have them and I reluctantly said yes. I was a dumb kid.
Having been brought up in a different country, I'm glad we don't have that in my country (or at least it's not as prominent). Worst we had was this: we lived in a very rural town (300 people), so the church youth group was more like a way to play with other kids, but the priest was not restricting us, we played as normal kids, "build a wood hut in the forest" (with the priest helping), "cowboys & indians", and so on. So yes, there was indoctrination in the sense they were teaching us the bible, but they were not pushing it outside of the church classes.
I loved Veggie Tales as a kid. It still has a fond place in my heart. I still sing so many of their secular songs (and sometimes get the religious ones stuck in my head). It's probably my fondest religious memory. Now, if I had been raised a freethinker and were never exposed to the show, my life wouldn't have been any worse, but the memories are still some of the happiest of my childhood.
Seth you are amazing! Thank you for sharing this with us!
38:00 - So other Christian denom's "shun" like the Jehovah's Witnesses. Learn something new every day... Freethinkers Unite!
The Definition of a Fairy Tale
A fairy tale is commonly a short story often told to children. Fairy tales may be told in fun, or may be used as a tool to help cope with loss or to explain the workings of the world to a child. A fantasy setting is used to define a scenario or to amuse the listeners for a short period of time. They include fanciful things such as magic, royalty, dragons, and animals that talk and act like humans. Insightful listeners could detect moral lessons in even some of the more obscure fairy tales.
Never in a million years would my parents have thought to teach me that Peter Pan or Mary Poppins was anything but a work of fiction. Yet they tried to teach me that everything within the bible was real.
That isn't Salvation you trying to give me, its Schizophrenia.
You weren't alone 🤔
Yes indeed. The gift of mental illness. I’ve been given it through religious indoctrination. Best form of child abuse out there. Endless nightmares of Armegeddon and me being destroyed because of my refusal to believe in their delusions. Yes religion is a disease far worse then cancer.
Seth... the moment from your father's letter broke my heart. Mine's gone and he died not knowing I rejected all of his religious teaching; for that I'm grateful, just in case he would have said that to me.
Seth, your father's response breaks my heart. I am always saddened to see people pick their dogma over their own children.
Seth I'm so sorry to hear about the situation with you and your father. It truly made me cry. I kept my atheism secret from my family because it would have been the same situation. I hate how religion destroys families and thinking minds.
At least your children won't have to go through what your parents put you through. Thanks to the 'global village', the internet and videos like this one, religion is on the way out. Soon zealots will be in the minority, and will have to keep their beliefs to themselves or face the ridicule they deserve.
True, this kind of thinking is in an all time low due to the presence of the internet and being constantly challenged by different worldviews instead of living in a confirmation bias bubble.
I have to thank you too. I grew up in an Greek Orthodox family and I just get rid of all these fairy tales at the age of 18. Your videos have been so motivational to me. With this video of your talk and after this terrible scene of child abuse, I will definetely fight for my thoughts, my prospect of reality and my dream for a better world. Don't stop motivating people like me and making them to throw away their blinders. :)
Well that "Welcome to This World" video just hurt me a bit. I grew up in the church, and I hold no animosity towards my parents who were doing their best to raise me as they were raised, but I pity anyone who tries to tell that crap to my daughter. Their day will be quite ruined.
How to become a christian...
Get born...
Submit to interminable propaganda from parents, church leaders, even teachers...
Get told a). you are a SINNER...
Get told b). Someone died for you to absolve you from sin...
Get told c). If you don't love that person, you go to everlasting _HELL_
You have to _love AND fear_ that person at the same time...
_FEEL_ Guilty... _FEEL_ unworthy... _FEEL_ like shit...
Congratulations! You're a christian!
That story about his father is sad it's sad that his father treats him like that simply because of belief in an invisible man
Great video. I am 16 years old and it is sad to me that the majority of people in my community, or in the world rather, do not think for themselves but rather mindlessly absorb anything they are told.
Holy fuck! that "nightmare" thing sounds fucking traumatizing!! just hearing the first one about the car accident I personally am triggered. How fucked in the head is that? they just toss these kids into this situation? and that makes their parents happy? what the actual FUCK
I love dinosaurs. I have a 16 pound chunk of dinosaur poop in my rock collection. My dinosaur poop is older then 6,000 years old and has never seen Jesus.
I just need to visit the filling station to get some dino juice...
Seth, everything you said deeply resonated with me. I was indoctrinated into the Mormon church at such a young age I can't even remember when it started. That was "my" normal. I too was in my thirties when I finally began to think for myself. My greatest hope is that it is not too late to teach my children how to think for themselves. Thank you for putting such a fine point on it.
Is Bible Man the gayest super hero ever? Surely still in the closet, though...
More camp than a field full of rainbow tents. :p
Dan D they should totally have an episode where he goes to gay conversion therapy.
I was just waiting for one of the kids at bible camp to shout out Allah oh akkbar.
5:28 Just when I was forgetting to be ashamed of my home state...
Brilliant work, Seth, some of your best. I can't vote this up high enough.
The video's at the end were truly horrifying. Great presentation though.
it makes me very grateful to be born in a secular jewish home. i know, the fundamentalist jews are very hard core, but you'll never hear a fundamentalist jew telling to his child that he/she is a sinner or corrupt. that makes me cringe...
I had tears in my eyes by the time thi was over. I'm dying to share this with the people I know ... but I'm so very afraid to go public with my atheism. I live in fear each day ... but one day, I will proclaim it. Loud and proud.
I'm from central Europe and I grown up in an atheist family. So, everytime I saw Flandders family in The Simpsons I was like "That's just a funny exaggeration, that's not real, nobody can be like that in the real life." Well, I underestimate you America :-D
Am I the only one who remembers Davey & Goliath?
Nope ... you're not.
I do!
Is there anything more evil than Religion? I was one of these children, and I think not.
John David I'm an ex believer and I feel your pain
Keep up the good fight Seth.
A video game where almost everyone was raptured and you have to assemble a badass team of the unscrupulous deviants that weren't good enough to get raptured up to fight against demons? That sounds like an awesome video game! You'd have drama and uncertainty because you know everyone in your group has something wrong with them and you'll never know who will turn all the while killing the fuck out of big horned demons.
Credit where Credit is due, some of this shit has some crazy effort put in them.
I don't know! It is probably harder to go from being a believer for 30 years to an atheist. You might be the smartest one in the room!
That's a good point. I was 35 before I figured it out. It's my biggest shame I was fooled for so long.
You're the man Seth, I'm an African American former Muslim turned Atheist and I owe it all to your podcast. Thanks man
In the 70's, I was a Manager at McDonald's restaurants. Their marketing philosophy was the same. Get them as kids and you'll have a customer for life. Playlands, birthday parties, etc. - all geared to grabbing the kids, because if the kids yell loud enough, the parents will bring them to the restaurant. They did a survey and Ronald McDonald was more widely recognized by young children than Santa Claus. Back then they even had it quantified, each customer coming through the door was worth, on average, $120.00 per year in business. Worked for Big Mac, works for the church.
midtown44 It's worse for the church though, because liking MacDonalds atleast dosen't influence all of (or most of) your actions. Religion does.
Having watched a number of different speakers in any of these various events, I'm starting to think that Ken Ham specifically is rather low hanging fruit.
+Juxtavarious That is because you can pile bullshit up only so high. There is no higher "fruit"from Christian thinking on scientific subjects.
Saul ofTarsus
But he's just such a fucking half wit. Every time they debate him just gives him another opportunity to open that void of all knowledge he calls a mouth.
+Juxtavarious No, he is not stupid. He makes a damn good living for both himself and his family by peddling this tripe to the foolish. Dishonest, manipulative, and hypocritical he might be. But not stupid.
My dad was Nazarene; we were raised Lutheran, my mother's religion. At 13, approaching communion I half expected to be struck by lightning because I didn't believe any of it. Haha, passed that hurdle, been thinking for myself ever since ...
***** Hi Seth. At time stamp 37:00 in this video, you talk about how hard it is to see your parents who are such hard-core believers having to deal with your being on the front-lines of atheism, and I wanted to say something to you about that. My dad died some years back, but my mom is still around, and I don't speak with her much, mainly because I know that she does not know and will not accept the person I am and have been for as long as I can remember, because I am not the son she and my dad wanted me to be. I spoke to my mom about 11 hours ago, for the first time since I nearly died in the hospital some time back, and thanks to a literal "we're all created equal" attitude, the hospital sent me home still infected with an antibiotic resistant bacteria because they could not understand that MY normal body temperature runs lower than the text-books teach to be "normal". So I told my mom that I am fighting this infection on my own and either I will beat it, or it will kill me. She asked me to make sure that someone will let her know if I die. Her reason? The verse you quoted earlier. Proverbs 22:6. Years ago, I reminded her of that verse to comfort her because I openly called myself an atheist back then and she could not live with that fact. Now, I no longer use the label, but my beliefs are no more "theistic" than they were then. It's about 3 in the morning here, and I have been thinking about this, and as you mentioned that verse, it strengthened my resolve. My mom is looking forward to my death because she believes that verse promises that I will die a theistic Bible believing, God fearing Christian, as my parents raised me to be, but that is not what it says. It says "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Well, I will be 50 years old as of the 27th of this month. My parents taught me to think for myself, to be a good person, to help the world, to value truth, and to stand up for what's right... and now that I am old, I WILL NOT DEPART FROM IT. If the Bible's evil god gives me an ultimatum of serving such an evil being as himself, or spending eternity in Hell being tortured forever, I WILL CHOOSE HELL OVER SERVING EVIL, but an ultimatum leaves no room for free will, and if I have free will, then I choose neither! My mom believes that we have free will and that if I was trained as a child in the way I should go, I will not depart from it. So I guess that means either she's wrong, or the path I am on IS THE WAY I SHOULD GO, because I have spent a lifetime being the good person they trained me to be and that required me to embrace reality, take responsibility for making the world I live in better rather than praying for someone else to do it, and reject the evil god of the Bible regardless of the fact that it is a fictitious being. I am now that I am old and have lived through more than most people could imagine, and have chosen the path of goodness over the path of "godness", I WILL NOT part from it! Perhaps you can share this with your parents. They may just appreciate where I'm coming from.
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A vegetable nativity?
We three king-Edward potatoes from Orient are?
Vegetable shepherd's pies gathered around?
44:39 celestial Nth Korea!
"A personal relationship with... reality." I love it! Good stuff Seth.
I can relate to Seth's family situation so, so very well.
One of the most eloquent trains of thought I've ever heard. I will be stealing much from this in my talks with others. Thank you.
Man, that was a beautiful speech. Good stuff!
My son's bff at age 5 was Bible Man for Halloween. My son was Anakin Skywalker. His friend, Ben was afraid to go up to a scary house "because he was pretty sure there were demons there. " My son got fed up and said," Jesus Christ, Ben! Don't you have more authority than that?" Omg, I nearly peed myself from laughing. My son had been watching Bible Man at their house, so they talked about "authority over evil." His Mom was not amused, though.
I always wanted to see the reaction of christians when I tell them that dinosaurs are still alive.
(note: if you haven't figured it out I'm talking about birds)
Seth, your upbringing and mine are so similar!!!!! I am nearly 30 and struggle to this day to have any sensible relationship with my family because I just don't buy it anymore (the deep religious claims). Superstitions damage and harm families.
I could see that Seth was getting really choked up there ..and he's absolutely right ..it is child abuse! Many years ago when I was just a teenager, my father yelled me that I was a "good for nothing" and a "nobody" after I told him I didn't believe in god. I never talked to the old man for the last 3 years of his life ..wish I would've done that sooner! Religious people don't realize the damage they're doing to their kids. The church and it's teachings is nothing but a con game ..all religions and churches should be taxed and access denied to radio and television ..and internet! Televangelism is the worst and should be taxed even more heavily.
I about broke down when you started talking about your dad. I find it very unfortunate that your dad chooses not to see his family , over a lie. Future generations will not have to deal with this, take comfort in that what you are doing , is changing the lives of those who refuse to drink the kool-aid. I consider you family bro , as an fellow atheist and Oklahoman.
Every time I hear Bible man I can’t help but laugh A little because it makes me think of the mega man games and how the bosses are usually named something man, iceman, fire man and so on. So then I imagine what a Bossfight against the Bible man would be like, LOL.
This would be almost laughable if it weren’t so goddamn sad. How did the lunatics end up in charge of the asylum? Unbelievable that this shit happens in this day and age. SMH
As a Scottish person, I am contractually obligated to confirm that Nessie exists.
So does the Big Grey Man.
Please come here to see them and spends lots and lots of tourist money.
It always bugs me when I go into the children's section at Barnes & Nobles and see an entire section dedicated to kid's Bibles and whatnot.
Another amazing video. What a great presentation. I work for an organisation in the UK which promotes science and I am so glad you do this.
Allow me to control your children's education and I shall give you a population of "Manchurian citizens."
So, did Noah get all these dinos on the ark? What happened to them in these few millenia? I would LOVE to see some!
I always feel sick inside every time I see a jesus camp clip. I mean litterally - it's painful to watch.
His dad should be extremely proud of him. If he wants nothing to do with his own child, then it's his loss.
You see, Veggietales is religious entertainment done right. All of the things Veggietales says would work if they were presented with secular arguments and it's actually entertaining. I actually heard that Veggietales stopped being a religious show as of late and it now teaches the same sorts of lessons using secular reasoning.
Seth you are a fucking legend! :)
im extremely glad that my parents did NOT sway me towards religion...not i just need to get my daughter out of it. thanks to her mother..she was baptised and believes in god. any suggestions?
Tell her the truth.
Four years later and I assume you got around to speaking to your daughter by now? If not, you must tell her the truth as the undeniable facts present themselves as the truth and hope those seeds of doubt grow within her. I know our personal opinions can affect how we interpret facts sometimes, so clearly this is easier said than done. But better to risk losing your daughter for a short time rather than forever while she walks the path of discovery at her own pace than allowing her to continue living in a world of fantasy and make believe.
15:24 is so unbelievably fucking brilliant, I almost fell out of my chair laughing.
This talk ties in really closely with, "Christianity steals all the best ideas"
I grew up on veggie tales omg
To think our tax money is paying for this bullshit.
I loved the ending. That brought a big beaming smile to my face.
That is such a good phrase. "A personal relationship with reality" So positive yet mocking one of their silly stock phrases.
You know, I had a thought
Man is made in the image of god, right?
So does that mean the god has to use the can?
And if so, what is his shit suppose to be? Meteorites?
You don't want to fuck with anything that can shit meteorites.lol
Yep. I was one of those trouble children that had the ability to question things...with good questions.
Truly, you have been touched by his noodly appendage. Ramen!
Hi Seth. I have just begun watching the above talk and I have also just bought and downloaded the audiobook version of "Deconverted: A Journey from Religion to Reason" from Audible UK (and intend to listen to the entire thing today). Well, that's my Sunday sorted out. Thanks for everything Seth. I never tire of listening to you speak.
I know you'll probably never read this, but THANK YOU Seth! No other words can sum up everything you've done to help make my life better... listening to & learning from an intelligent person always helps. Thanks again.
Seth! This is the best! Thoroughly entertaining!
Seth is a monumental speaker
Silly Chri$tians
Silly Humans
Hey Seth... I thought you might find it entertaining to know that I had to skip an Ad for Grand Canyon College, a "Christian College" here in the AZ. If i could stop lauging i might think they did it on purpose....
True Story, though.
Excellent speech. I can only imagine the pain of hearing a parent reject you on the basis of faith. Luckily my family doesn't seem to mind having at least two of three siblings to have turned away from the faith.
Powerful and disturbing.
omg a thief in the night! pretty good horror series.
One of the things that aids me in staying grounded in regards to how I relate to very religious people . My mother raised me alone working retail . This meant we never went to church . I was able to develop a confidence in my reckoning of reality , unlike so many others .
We had a christian house of horrors. It was good but I never got any of it. Even at the end when they tell you to give your life to christ and such I always thought that it was unrelated and disjointed.
Beth (and response to Al Jeffreys 7 comments down: Seth's vid is superb for having your question (i.e., What do we do about it?!) naturally arise. Another FreeOK2013 vid (the one with Dale McGowan) is one answer. I have another: to get on with the work of providing the songs, drama, celebrations etc. of our very own "epic of evolution." See my hour-long youtube vid of a 2013 presentation I gave, "Connie Barlow: How Religion Is Failing Our Youth and What We Can Do About It." I've got curricula.
It's kinda funny for me watching this, having grown up in an extreme conservative church that viewed all those youth-attracting tricks as "unscriptural" and "the liberalization of the church". We didn't even have Vacation Bible School.
As an indoctrinated child, my mother was and still is a Bible literalist, and many of the childhood memories I have are of her drilling the terror of the Rapture & demons & eternal hell into my brain. I did not believe, I was forced to fall in line through religious terrorism. I remember one of the most horrifying moments of my life was when I was brought on stage at a smaller church & had a lady place oily hands on me, and I alone, with a mic pushed into my face, was commanded to speak in tongues. I was no more than 5, and I stood silent, confused & permanently cursed with stage fright, public speaking, or large gatherings. I was forced to "believe" until I had 2 NDEs within the last 6 years, and realized, during each of these massive heart failures which left me clinically dead for nearly an hour, that anything anyone said about seeing angels, heaven or god was bullshit, and even the pathetic attempts at answering my probing questions regarding afterlife just pushed me further into non-belief. I am the only atheist in a huge, strictly religious, mostly baptist fundamentalist, family. I live in a retirement community full of religious Trump supporters, in a small town with literally no black or hispanic people, and with no transportation, often feel like I am trapped in a kind of hell on earth, nobody to talk to & never been to an atheist meeting or felt like I was included. The church I was dragged to by my grandma makes it pretty clear they dont help anyone, even so much as to just put them on the prayer list, unless they have been a regular tither, handing over money every Sunday. I was shunned after sharing a suicide attempt story at youth group, and when I asked the pastor after my NDE, why did I see (or didnt see) what I saw, his pitiful indicating to a verse or two that just said you must have faith, no proof needed, was the last time I went.
SO Where did god come from ?
He must have had a mother .... And a Dad ! Dose God Have a God Who Made Him
And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him And Who Made Him
Wow, once it got to that whole "Father's Day" story and how it does ruin familial ties, it...I want to be more polite but the whole family fall out disgusts me...
We are all humans, we should be united. None of these Religious Attacks, no murder, no family separations by death or by choice due to religion.
Religion is not a set thing, you are not born with it, you learn it and accept it, or you learn to disagree with it. Hatred is a choice. Religion is a choice.
As someone from the other side of the Iron Curtain, I'm really struck by how different the Christianity in the US is from Orthodoxy; not just in the details, but in what people expect out of religion. Orthodox Christianity will not do stuff like this, because the believers would get pissed off; there's still a sense of reverence attached to the notion of religion. Making a talking Jesus doll would be regarded as flat-out blasphemy around here.
Our non-belief isn't the motivating factor, compassion for our fellow human being sure is!
And yes, we want to recruit kids as young as possible, to empower them with the thinking skills to see through your lies and faulty reasoning! We want to raise kids that learn to think for themselves, learn to analyse and think of solutions, to fix the world that we have ruined in the past 200 years.
That's what motivates us. Hope for a better world, not fear.
It may be much less prevalent in the UK, for example, but there are more than enough creationist state school to make this stuff universally relevant. I predict that this will become more of an issue given the UK Government's drive to increase the number of "Free Schools" within the state system which have greater control over curriculum and are very often set up by religious organisations. great video lecture.
My mother died a few years ago,its taken me years to understand even the potency indoctrination we receive and ,now i think free,i feel the social,economic and psychological,ostracization ,directed at me 24/7..if i speak out about how i believe,but i am from Missouri and do understand Oklahoma ,i think ,this bible belt ,especially in rural totally indoctrinated people ,they have been fully indoctrinated for many generations ,,i thing it has become genetic in many ways ,
From the perspective of a believer, it must seem natural to want to attract children to the same beliefs. For a non-believer, that notion is contradictory because we want children to think for themselves, think critically, question and look for evidence. If they're doing that, the rest should take care of itself. Non-believers don't need to recruit children. The reason you don't see charitable groups run by non-believers - their non-belief isn't the motivating factor, so they don't promote that.
lol at 10:29 (Bibleman). My mother was a Sunday school teacher a few years ago and the church gave a Bibleman kit to her to teach to the class. It included a Bibleman video series, a lightsaber-like sword, and a Bibleman costume. My nieces and nephews were just watching it a few weeks ago and playing with the the costumes,toys that came with the kit. I was in the room at the time and watched a few minutes of it. I couldn't stand it.
When I was in early grade school (private Methodist - our family didn't go to church, though), we were shown "The Cross and the Switchblade". Talk about scaring the shit out of kids! It basically was about gangs being saved and showed a couple gang fights with baseball bats and knives. What got me the most was a banger getting punished by having a knife shoved up through both armpits! I bet it looked like my eyes would pop out and was probably white as a sheet after seeing that back then (70s).
Since churches in US have turned all in business and marketing, even giving away stuff for youngsters, here's a slogan I propose:
"Come to the Church today and sell your soul to God now!"
Now, what kind of God is the one a believers can sell their souls to, who are they ACTUALLY worshiping? Let's leave that for them to figure out, I guess the Bible has something on the subject. 8D
'God loves you'/'Bless your heart'/etc: That's Christian for 'Fuck you'. It's ok. Be mad. I'm not. Anger is a byproduct of trying to defend unstable ground. Outside of the Bible, everything you have been taught your whole life doesn't hold water. This is the real world.
It's natural to fear the unknown. It's part of being Human. Every day is a new opportunity to learn about ourselves and our world.
Think for yourself. Don't be someone else's puppet. Take control of your own life.
You just put everything i was thinking into words. Even tho i have never been a believer in a god or gods. I still think Seth is a key member of the revaluation that needs to happen. He is a person one of good charisma and morals. We may not all think the same things as him but we will NEVER hate him for those things because he is a good guy that we can relate to.
Best Regards Thomas Jensen / Denmark
Seth Andrews is not Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, or the late Christopher Hitchens. Seth Andrews is something else entirely. He is a normal person, he grew up the same way many of us have, he has lived the religious life and faced many of the same problems we have with the dichotomy of coming to the realization that what you thought you knew is wrong and the people closest to you don't think of you the same because of it. Seth Andrews is one of us, relatable, hope for the rest of us.
It took me 15 years of trying to shove the square peg through the round hole because I was too scared to let myself think before I was finally able to break free of my childhood indoctrination. I was homeschooled from the 3rd grade on and made to watch Ken Ham videos. Incidentally, the first time I said "I'm an athiest" out loud was after watching Seth's freeok 2011 speech "Blind spots." Now I take up activism so other people don't have to go through that.
Hey there Seth, this is 9 years from when you made this speech and would find it interesting should you respond 🙄? Because you mentioned something in regards to this in 10 years from it’s making. Tho I admit that I am a year early 😜, Lol 😂
Anyhoot 🦉, before watching this, the title reminded me of one of my favorite songs from our era, 70’s-80’s, that resonates with everything about this video and is by Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
The beginning of the lyrics,
“Welcome to your life, there’s no turning back. Even while you sleep we will find you.”
At 54 and now learning about all sorts of new things about life, especially new things about old things that I never knew and remember being often curious about many of them yet never questioned them.
Knowing now obviously what I didn’t back then, I realize now that much of it has to do with the indoctrination that I never knew nor realized till recently after 48 years of being raised in the Mormon church.
I vividly remember on Sundays my mom would MAKE US get ready for church and MAKE US GO! EVEN when SHE didn’t feel like going herself because she didn’t feel comfortable because she continued to smoke cigarettes.
Even up through high school and a little after becoming of age at 18, church attendance was enforced.
I will admit that I’m glad that my parents aren’t around to experience this. Tho IT IS MY journey, watching and listening to the many stories of those who come out to their parents, and not just religion, but now their “identity”, and the pain the parents believe they have because of the decisions of their child/children.
Thank you for your time and the work you do unselfishly.
Aaaloha 🌺
That applies to Both Christians and atheists. You are Both Dogmatic..Prideful and Wrong! Someone who can read a book and take the Good and Leave BS. Can read a book with Intelligence is what we need. 😊❤
you could have named this speech " if you believe in the bible you HAVE to believe in evolution"
nothing evolves faster than the bible. (400,000 changes last year)
the rediculous rock stages just amplify how desperate religion is to keep kids blindsided.
thank you seth for keeping reality in the crosshairs!
I realise that Ham is one of my countrymen, much to my embarrassment, but WhereTF did this crap about "vegetarian until the fruit was eaten" come from? I've never heard it here in Australia. How is gaining the knowledge of good an evil supposed to suddenly make everything else start misbehaving?
And that's if I ignore everything except common sense.
The "cure" for this epidemic of child abuse will still take a few generations, at least, to find major improvement and understanding. My job as an educator is, by no means, over. Handing it off, even though I am of retirement age, does not seem like something I should dismiss when there is so much yet to be accomplished.
Well. When I started grade school, I had no idea what allegiance was either. Same goes for republic and liberty. I really wanted to know why, because I didn't get it. When I asked why we had to say this pledge. The annoyed response from a few other students was "Because you have to!". Took me a while to realize they never actually answered the question.