Wow you got that far 😅 - I tried to do the same, got part way in Deuteronomy and lol saw god could not count insect legs very well and gave up. Funny it was that vs all the horrible stuff that got me. How anyone today takes this as literal boggles the mind.
I decided to read the entire bible and study the history and that did it for me too. Most Christians only know about the same stories in church. My mother was a devout Catholic. When she was in her 70's, we were discussing the subject and she told me she never read the bible.
One year I received a study bible, meant to be read over the course of a year. At the end of that year, my early years of my highschool period, I was even more entrenched in the faith. Throughout the year, I went to church certain times in each week, and had conversations with a teacher at school who brought me into the faith. I even went to Bible College after I metriculated, however I dropped out mid year 1. About a year later, my journey out of faith began.
I was studying theology in university. I liked Systematic Theology, and focused on the OT. I've always loved philosophy. Yeah, I couldn't square the circle any more, so I quit being a theist.
"All christian denominations that disagree with my interpretation of God and his word are wrong. They will go to Hell." "Christianity ALWAYS makes you a good person. "We are all sinners" makes you humble and tolerant. All those millions of christians that act totally differently, and often in the name of God, do not change that the Word of God is perfect and infallible and therefore always works". "The Bible is true, no matter what it says" - Dinesh D'Souza.
Yes, especially the theistic religion and specifically (((JESUS ))) is utterly beyond STUPID to begin with!!! God the father son and holy shit!! What does that mean!!????😊😊😊
@@feedingravensnot all of them. Universalists say we're all saved by Jesus' sacrifice, job done, hallelujah. Their main problem is spreading the message of everyone's salvation isn't as effective as preaching threats of eternal torture.
Not true.... Religion started with our forfathers thousands and thousands of years ago to make sense of this strange world and live the life in. And the made stories.... and then came the con man (prophets, mesiahs, popes, priests, bibletumpers...). You could say...religion invented the con man. But religion had by design nothing to do with god or gods. For the Greeks the gods were just principles of life.... and great stories.
I was a Christian until I realized I was tired of trying to fight against lucid and rational atheists arguments. Now I love learning about our incredible human history ❤️
Me too and I am amazed how little I know about it. Why learn anything, if all you need to know is that their was a big, fat, nice, all-knowing, all-mighty toothfairy in the sky, who created it all.
David is one of my fav skeptics. Funny as hell and always informative. I do hope this is part of a much, much, much, much, much longer conversation. Also, Seth, please get David to have his website updated to work with https...
Preaching to the choir! Religion is a socially acceptable delusion in nearly every society on the planet, with thousands of different iterations - that's amazing to me!
I'm hoping someday soon Seth that you do a podcast about Seventh day adventists. My hubs is knee deep in it and I hoping to show him something that will make him think. Thanks!
I was raised in a devoted SDA home. Sent to their schools through college. Surprisingly, my dad told me to question everything so I did. It took me decades to get over the indoctrination but I did. Maybe check out Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Aron Ra Richard Dawkins, etc. The were a huge help to me.
@@kimjohnson4278 I've showed all that to my hubs. He's fully indoctrinated. When I show him facts, he just digs his heels in deeper. It's definitely a cult. Thanks for your input.
Isn't it funny that the one true religion is the one your parents and grandparents believed in . and that all came from what cultures they were born into.
Not just funny, it's an actual MIRACLE! 😇Only the Christain god 🤩is powerful enough to plan something out with such intricacy & accuracy. Checkmate atheists! 🤤
Reading comprehension is a serious thing! I’m an atheist today because I actually read the Bible!! I remember vividly as a teen, reading the Bible and questioning, “God has favorites”? “God hates”? “God gets jealous”? As a kid it dawned on me that this god sure had a lot of human characteristics 😅
Yes, God gets jealous. God doesn't get envious. You know what the difference is? Did you bother to look at what God hates? The proud, the liars, the murderers, and thieves. Who does God care for ? The widows, the orphans, the humble, the seekers. Evolution as a theory is falling apart faster than wet toilet paper. The incredible complexity of life is embodied not just in the cells, but the DNA, the proteins and even the chemical makeup that requires design and information beyond our imagination to even begin to replicate; and we want to go with chance? Go to the casino and let me know how chance works out for you as I watch them pull in millions while very few people walk out with thousands that they will lose the next time they visit.
@@logicalmuslim1590 Really? Because my investigation of the Quran shows a book so badly written it's impossible to understand without the other books to support it, and even then the story of the Quran has so many problems in it. They are finally getting around to doing a textual critique of the Islam Quran and they are finding out that the prophet may not existed, the city was wrong place and the people who put it together were 200 years after the so-called live of the prophet and in many cases thousands of kilometers away. And the fact that Uthman destroyed all copies that were different than his puts a lie into the issue of the Quran having not been changed.
@@harrybinn4455 Harry the Qur'an is a linguistic miracle a scientific miracle and a mathematical miracle. I checked the math. Sorry my friend but you have confirmation bias. I have examined the Qur'an in depth. It checks out. Which Bible is the words of God?
You only need to check out the leaders of the penticostal church to know to stay far away !! Neighbours in our street had been church goers for 20 years I watched them leaving for church every Sunday then it stopped I asked them why? The husband said the pastors house was getting bigger while many in the congregation were struggling .also there were no updates on missions work and no attempts to help the local homeless shelter food hub just 5 km away from the church set up by non church volunteers. Now we take the kids to the beach or on hikes together with the family on Sundays he said they have never been happier ...its like a cloud has been lifted .
@@tach5884 Bull. You were one before. There are many other well known atheist that have become Christians. Even Harris is now claiming to be a cultural Christian. Why? If there is no god, what purpose does cultural christianity have? The arguments from atheism are weak at best and emotional at the worst. I've seen the arguments and have found that they have been answer many times over, but reason for unbelief is not from lack of evidence, it's a lack of wanting to serve God.
😂 my father in law who is a Lutheran Pastor bought that book for me after I asked him a few questions he couldn't answer. I went through it with a highlighter and covered all the bits I had big problems with, about a quarter of the book is now highlighted
@@crazyprayingmantis5596 That's great. Did you bother to see if there were any answers to your highlighted questions, or were you just marking away? I have read the book. I didn't have any problems with it. You want someone else? Check out J. Warner Wallace who was an atheist as well when he started to investigate Christianity to disprove it. He was former homicide investigator. Then you have Anthony Flew, an atheist philosopher who for years railed against the bible and inspired Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris. In his 70's he became a Deist. Personally, I have asked the tough questions, but I didn't leave highlighted in a book, I dug around and examined the bible and the history surrounding the stories and I found answers that satisfied me.
Well, now I have a new set to add to my Kindle list. I'll also have it included on my evangelical mother's, so keep an eye out for any mushroom clouds of rage from central Texas.
Well I was a scumbag before I started believing in the flying spaghetti monster, now I help old ladies across the street. If that isn't evidence for the flying spaghetti monster I don't know what is. Praise the flying spaghetti monster
@@TheBorgrR Exactly. Whether being islam or christianity or Judaism but even more obvious now in the U.S.A. with the christian nationalist being exactly similar to wanting to have a christian version of sharia law and everybody regardiless of their religion or lack thereof shall just be submitting to just their version of reality.
@@ashleytheseeker8480 You was a dumb f*** (UA-cam is America... not so much freedom of Speech) for a period of time in your life. I never distinguish religion. All religion is bad, it is not specific.
Interesting brief to what I'm sure is an excellent read. I would recommend to any undergraduate of any major to take a full semester World Religions elective like I did once upon a time. Three lectures a week and I learned a great deal about the diversity and history of religious myth ... and a great reason to be a confirmed Atheist! 😉😊
Religions are mythology. I 1st began to think this way after reading about Roman mythology around grade 8. It took awhile before I decided, but religion is superstition and myth.
I And the 33% of patriotic Americans who are atheists? They don't count, eh? Theists never ask themselves... "Why is my God REAL when all the others are FALSE?" BTW, why would any "God" bless a nation complicit in genocide? "Religion poisons everything!" - Christopher Hitchens Never truer words spoken!
100% superstitions and myth….. When you begin to study world religions such as Greek mythology, Norse Mythology and even older Hinduism, you begin to see its all fiction with heavy superstitions.
The word "religio" comes from old Latin, "to act good", it later became to means "to be with god" , because god and goodness become entwined. Hence, those labeled as "atheists" were ppl "without god", this in itself becomes "not good", and soon after we see the word sin (left handedness) become a sign of ones belief and ones goodness, or lack of.
The societal pressure of centuries upon centuries of enforced and expected belief has certainly had the desired effect, you simple are not expected to disbelieve extraordinary claims of the past.
The similarities are so consistent that people can singlehandedly create religions if they know the pattern. Isn't that mormonism was born? Some guy trying to play messiah?
The origin story of Mormonism clearly shows how religious ideas are made up and are believed by millions (?) within a very short time, even though the founders are not credible people AT ALL.
I’m an ex-Mormon atheist so I’m not trying to be an apologist but Joseph Smith never claimed to be the messiah. He was a brilliant megalomaniac who claimed to be the prophet ushering in the last days. Amazing to me how people like him are able to draw otherwise reasonable people into their delusions and under their control.
I have been saying this for decades, I even wrote a book about it 20+ years ago. I am in the process of writing a prequel to it along with its screen play. This info needs to be wide spread although we all know that 99% of believers will just dismiss it without a second thought.
@@HocusPocus6969 You really haven't read the bible have you? The God of the bible is in no way in the image of man. While the bible states that man may have been created in the image of God, it was a minor image at best in that man was considered body, mind and spirit. The rest is beyond comparison as the book of Job reminds us.
@@harrybinn4455 Your magic sky fairy is easily dismissed, run along. YOU are not special, especially to a being you think created the entire universe....that is extreme arrogance. That's like saying we find a specific quark to be special, know all about it and love it. Not that you know what a quark is.
@@seanrunyan8928 And YOU haven't disproven anything with your casual dismissal. You want arrogance, just what is it that you have just shown? Evolution has no intermediate fossils, OOL has more problems than you can spit at. Meanwhile archeology is showing the bible is historically accurate. The teachings of Christ, a known historical figure, changed the world with over 2 billion people still believing. Atheists are less than 100 million. You need to check your arrogance at the door.
*Jews:* Initially had _no concept_ of a punitive afterlife like 'Hell.' Their afterlife idea was _Sheol_ - a vague, shadowy place devoid of the terror later associated with 'hell.' *Jews Meet Greeks* (circa 600 BCE): As Jewish culture began interacting with Greek ideas around this time, the influence grew, culminating in the Hellenistic period after Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Levant in 333 BCE. This cultural exchange introduced new ideas, including the concept of a punitive afterlife. As these Hellenistic influences deepened, the Jewish notion of hell began to evolve, eventually solidifying within Christian doctrine. Conservative evangelicals later turned this idea into a potent tool of fear, terror and control, especially targeting the superstitious and children. *Conclusion:* Hell is a construct devised by natural manipulators-con artists and cult leaders-to exploit magical thinking and control the fearful. It serves as a prime example of how easily fabricated horrors can dominate believers' minds.
_I began my quest towards non-believing when I was at the ripe old age of 8. By the time I was 11, I was a born again ATHEIST. It all started during one those fire & brimstone sermons conducted by my mothers' favorite pastor. In that sermon, the pastor made mentioned of the garden of eden. And the talking snake having a conversation with two Europeans called ... Eve & Adam. That did it for me. You see, I grew up on Saturday morning cartoons and knew better. The ONLY talking animals that can speak is Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny & Porky the Pig._
You forgot Mighty Mouse! ;) I was a couple years older than you when I was first introduced to church by a "caring" neighbor trying to save his heathen neighbors' daughter from hell, and immediately realized the entire thing was a way to control people. I asked the priest, if god loves us so much more than our own parents, how can he condem us to eternal hell if we do something wrong? My own parents wouldn't send me to my room for the rest of my life if I do something wrong. His response, "you have to believe what you're told." Right then and there - "I'm out!" A friend tried to get me into the Born Again tribe when I was a teenager. I immediately recognized they all seemed like a bunch of Stepford Wives. Tried Budhism as a young adult. Same thing, just trying to control you. Didn't have the desire to try any others after that.
@@HarpMuse Yes, religion is a tribal group identity for which conformity is an integral part. Getting saved and born again are becoming an adult and joining the tribe.
@@bobs182 And the way to keep people in the tribe is to demonize anyone that doesn't believe (i.e., conform). Unfortunately this has led to so many wars and division of humanity.
Well in the Bible a donkey speaks also. Satan not a snake but a dragon. But here's the thing, logically speaking: EVERY MIRACLE OF GOD IS UNFALSIFIABLE. You can never prove that they didn't happen. Alhamdulillah!
David Fitzgerald is Awesome! While I love many Atheist writers like Hitch, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Richard Carrier or many others he breaks everything down so well and makes it so much easier to understand or more accessible to the lay person who hasn’t read many books other than the Bible or since they were in high school and makes it easy for anyone to read even if you love the others but don’t feel like reading much “heavier” books!
🎯 Key points for quick navigation: 00:01:00 *🔍 Overview of Religious Origins* - Major world religions share common evolutionary patterns despite their unique appearances and traditions. - The foundational figures of many religions may be fictional. - Similar patterns of religious development are seen across diverse cultures and time periods. - Reactions to critiques of religious figures often provoke strong responses from adherents. 00:01:57 *📜 Historical Evidence of Religion* - Archaeological and historical evidence reveals inconsistencies and late origins of major religious texts and figures. - Evidence suggests that early religious figures like Moses and David have scant historical support. - The development of religious practices and texts often occurred later than traditionally believed. - Findings in Judaism and Islam show gaps between religious stories and historical evidence. 00:05:02 *📚 Evolution of Religious Beliefs* - The book explores the complex evolution of religious beliefs and the gods worshipped over time. - The process from animism to monotheism involved multiple stages and was not linear. - The development of monotheism was not predetermined; various gods and beliefs were possible. - The book delves into the origins and evolution of different religious systems including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Eastern religions.
I think of Religion as Business in World History, as Commerce; there's a Founder, the Board of Directors, the Chairman and "C" Suite, all the Shareholders. It's the Standard Business Model with all the Marketing and Advertising to give it 'Staying Power '.
It's so refreshing listening to people like you, who give us food for thought. I'd like to comment to you that since I was a kid I couldn't find any intelligent answer to the absurdity of existence, so I simply concluded that 'my successes and failures I only owe them to myself' and not to a higher super power or reason to blame for my good or bad condition. Also, I figured out that: I'm not what I am.
It’s amazing a refreshing to continue to discover or learn about new Atheist books in a world that continues to be filled with Christians every where I go even in California I can’t get away from them!
Believers offer the lowest standard of evidence for their god, but if that same standard is used to attempt to prove another god, they're the first ones to say it's not good enough. The double standard and bias! But i get it. Their faith absolutely prevents any other conclusion. Which is why being a believer is the most dishonest position.
@@logicalmuslim1590 This is a comment section. He wasn't directing his comments at you, and while the comment describes believers as a whole, that does not mean that he wouldn't acknowledge the existence of exceptions. However, it is often useful to use generalizations to make a point. Example: "Trump is a teller of falsehoods. Therefore, all Trump supporters are believers of falsehoods or are also tellers of falsehoods." What I wrote is mostly true, but there are exceptions. However, it's not always rhetorically effective or necessary to mention the exceptions.
@@logicalmuslim1590 It is sweeping. After being a believer for 35 years and throwing Jesus on the scrap heap of dead gods and now trying to help people out of this cult, this is absolutely how every single believer justifies their deity belief. It's not a fallacy in any way. You feel it's fallacious because you feel offended by it, but your offense doesn't minimize the exact reasons i pointed out. Why don't you try defending your position instead of attacking mine.
When I was studying this in college I thought I made a great discovery when I noticed similarities between Egyptian and Christian studies, no others beat me to it years ago
While the details of religions are specific to the culture, I believe that religiosity, the tendency to religion, is universal and can be explained as an unfortunate by-product of our psychology, which in turn is the result of how we have evolved. Belief in the afterlife, belief in disembodied minds, faith, worship, love, rituals, and the priesthood all have a psychological, Darwinian explanation.
I was raised secular though my grandparents & most other family were devout in a mainline Protestant sect. I recently started a deep dive into religious studies, as is common partly in self defense. Also had done a fair amount of Buddhist study & practice at one point. I did not buy the myths but assumed there were founder human guys at the core who were mythologized. But the more I dive into the best scholarship, the less is there. I am shocked at how unattested Jesus is - the gospels are not history, Paul did not know the guy & his survicing letters, if he existed & wrote any, are heavily redacted & edited as Dr. Markus Vinzent is showing - highly recommend Patristica channel & his team's work. Ditto the Buddha, seems no there there re an actual person. The need for real founder figures seems a modern post enlightenment & printing press obsession. lReligious myths are powerful as is - and also need to be kept separate of secular democratic government. Or at least highly contained as in much of N Europe. Lookong forward to getting Daivd's latest books, just finished Nailed.
I hadn’t heard of these researchers about the origins of Judaism, but I came to a conclusion that someone basically completely rewrote the entire religion and got rid of all their polytheism, making up the entire history wholesale and changing the whole thing to monotheism. My assumption was that it happened during the Babylonian exile.
Krishna, Rama, Heracles, Perseus, Horus, Thor, Huitzilopochtli, Mithra, Emperor of Japan, Gilgamesh, Karna, Romulus and Remus, Cú Chulainn. These are main characters in religions that have a God as a parent and lived on Earth. Some having a mortal mother as well.
While I lean towards mythicism myself, I seldom argue it, because it's a losing subject. Even the majority of non-believers are far too conditioned to accept the existence of Jesus for it to be worth arguing.
Mythicism is a backward position. It doesn’t start with the evidence we have and tries to explain them using the fewest assumptions, it starts with the assumption that Jesus didn’t exist and tries to cherry-pick points in favor of it. Some points are very stretched and some are straight out false or unsupported by evidence, furthermore it doesn’t offer plausible explanation or at least better explanations for the evidence we have. Mr Fitzgerald here doesn’t seem to understand the basic concept that “Lincoln Vampire Hunter” containing a lot of fictional elements is not evidence that Lincoln is a fictional character.
It's true that the non-historicity of Jesus will never be definitively provable, but the evidence for him is stunningly weak. The evidence that most of his putative characteristics and central significance is derived from previous religious traditions is quite strong. You can never prove a categorical negative. That doesn't mean that there is a good case for believing in the opposing positive assertion. I can't prove that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist. That doesn't equate to there being a good case for believing in the Easter Bunny. Similarly, there is no good case for the historicity of the Jesus character, and the suggestive evidence that he was derivative from a welter of cultural factors and previous belief systems is strong.
Take a look at the images of the Universe from the James Webb Space Telescope. Anyone who seriously believes that the Creator of all of that, if there even is one, has instructions for the people of Earth, and "speaks" to a "chosen" illiterate nomad (with no witnesses) in a scorching desert, telling him to spread the word to all of humanity, using the most inefficient means possible, or promised him a parcel of land without a signed and witnessed Deed, needs to immediately seek help from a licensed mental health professional.
I was in a worldwide cult for 10 years and got out alive. Religion is the greatest barrier to god that has ever been hoisted on humanity. I love your shirt.
Religion arose when people began to be too successful. Being a meaning-based species, we probably always had some kind of comprehensive theory of existence. However, once we started to be too many, humans had no choice but to compete and arraign ourselves into civilizations. Religion became the best means to engender schooling behavior in our species. Like some fish, we came to rely on massed individuals to live. Religion evolved to be the best means of social cohesion for a species that required diversity and extensive division of labor to survive in competition with rival societies. I think that atheists like me, we need to be really mindful that religion was the only social scaffolding that made states and economies possible. Gods do not exist, but as humans we found a way to make mythology a virtual place where we could all meet regardless of class, occupation, gender or age. Religion is a curated delusion that we as societies have learned to use to act more like a super organism. We must understand that religion is one of the most important BIOLOGICAL phenomena that define humanity. Mythology aka religion was an adaptation that must have been pretty fiercely selected for in the last 20-30 thousand years. Today, we can't but witness its continued success. As an example, consider Pizza Gate. This myth arose very quickly. It acquired tens, hundreds, of thousands of adherents in a short period of time. This spontaneous religion promptly dispatched gunmen to rescue non-existent children in a non-existent basement of an unremarkable restaurant. It doesn't matter that the goal of this new myth was ridiculous. What the myth actually accomplished was tremendous. It used the demonized figure of Hillary Clinton to create a great social force to wield against liberalism and progressivism. These are things they all hated as individuals, but the myth gave them all the collective organization to act against it. Myth empowers the collective. As atheists we need to understand that myth might always have the upper hand over reason because myth evolved for speed. Science led us to understand that our brain is prewired for grammar. I think that science has failed us by not helping us understand better the neural circuitry of myth, and it is very important that it catch up, very soon.
I think you have written an inciteful essay, but I disagree on one particular point: that religion is a biologically derived adaptation. I think that it is more precise to say that religion is a social adaptation to meet biological needs. If a group of children were raised without ever encountering religious beliefs, there is no evidentiary basis for claiming that they would spontaneously create some form of religion. No doubt they would create some structure of common beliefs, but there is no reason to assume that it would have a religious character-- that is to say that there is no particular reason to think that it would entail supernatural ideas. The evidence goes the other way. People who are raised in a rationalistic social setting do not have any intrinsic tendency to create magical belief systems on their own. There is just no evidentiary basis for that.
@@donnievance1942 Thanks for you kind reply. Mythology just hasn't been studied as a human secretion. Religion has been literally sacred, even to scholars, forever. The fact that cults and religions abound everywhere, now and in the past shows that evidence is there for us to find it. Also, mythology is scrabbled together with both natural and supernatural elements depending on need and convenience, but scholars haven't bothered to study how and why. They are behind! Also, this is a behaviour that has to be observed in the aggregate. It it is largely innate according to my conjecture, considering that most people on earth seem to gravitate to it. Even communism requires a cult of the leader. I think that just like how we can study ants by the shape of their nests, a nest being something that manifests in the presence of a colony, we should be able to understand how all humans are using mythologies as an adaptation. I am personally convinced that it is as biological as language, and maybe as important.
I've gone through a similar personal transformation. As someone who was raised Catholic but became skeptical early on in my teens, I began to read about what history and archaeology had to say about Jesus and the Bible, and it did not take me long to realize there was no objective, verifiable evidence that the religion was based on something real. And I also got tuned into the divide between bible scholars who study it objectively and academically, and others who study it as an article of faith and are Christians themselves. So there's Zero surprise here that other religions have the same kind of genesis.
Buddha recommends not creating a god out of him. His last words "diligently seek your own salvation, rely on yourself and the (universal) law! It's not a religion, it's a philosophy and practice of self realisation
I like a quote I heard from somewhere... I think it was Ricky Gervais. But I think he was also quoting someone else. I'm paraphrasing for more accurate information, but it goes something like this: There are roughly 4,200 different religions across the planet. I don't believe in any of them. You don't believe in those other 4,199 religions either. We both don't believe in those 4,199 other religions and I just happen to not believe in one more religion than you do.
Faith and prayer is about belief and appeal to a higher power... religion is about corralling and controlling those dynamics for power over fellow humans🥃
Yikes. Who did the text for this video? I'm less than one minute into it and I see "Christ Myth Theory: the view that the story of Jesus never existed as a historial figure." The minor problem is with the misspelling of "historical." The bigger problem is ... This doesn't even make sense. The STORY never existed as a historical figure? What would that even mean, for the story to exist as a historical figure? Hopefully the speaker's content will be better than that textual blurb.
The question that led me to the conclusion that all gods/religions were mythology occurred to me in my mid 30s. Where did this Yahweh come from and when did anyone start believing it was the only god? Didn't take a long journey to find enough evidence that the things David says were true. That was back in the early 1980s before the internet was an easy place to get information. I had to read books, a lot of books including my first cover to cover go at the bible. Now, I won't say the characters of Jesus and Mohammed aren't based on actual people that may have given some inspiration for the myths and legends, but I can't say that I know they weren't either. Doesn't really matter. The stories are myths. I will say I don't think Abraham or Moses were actual people and feel pretty confident about that.
@@logicalmuslim1590 Like every religious "holy book," it is a fantasy made up by humans, mostly ignorant ones with a lot of imagination and some mental problems.
I suppose it depends on how thin you want to slice the melon. If Mormonism, for instance, is regarded as a subset of Christianity, then yes, its founder is very likely mythical. But if it is considered a new religion, then it can't be disputed that Joseph Smith was a historical character.
Yeah, but Joseph Smith is not a divine immortal figure with supernatural powers in Mormonism. He is not a parallel with the Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. figures. Nobody doubts that religions have actual human founders. What we doubt is that the magical avatars were historically real. We know enough about Joseph Smith to know that he was real, and that he was a previously convicted fraudster.
Logically (albeit unconsciously), we would always be protecting our psychological investments. All of us would be doing that. Atheists as much as theists.
@@FoursWithin I didn't say that people operate logically. I said that logically, we would always be protecting our psychological investments. But yes, I certainly agree that people don't operate logically.
To better understand how religions form and develop and eventually formalize into a rigid scripture-adherent phenomenon, a better way than looking at history would be conducting a lab experiment, luckily there already is one, called cargo cults of the south pacific, maybe David Fitzgerald should write a book about that
no one is going to have a resurrection because of their beliefs. Ancients had no concept Read Heavens on Earth by Michael Shermer chapter 7 " soul stuff ..a googol of googolplex of resurrection complexities " And no concept of living "forever" Yikes!
It took me decades and reading the bible front to back several times to finally realize I am an atheist. Not because I am think. I tired really, really, really hard to find anything anywhere that may even suggest a hint at a diety. I literally found nothing. And worse, less than nothing because all evidence indicates that the universe exhibits no sign of ever having or needing a god. God is not dead. It is imaginary.
Yes, what does humans creating things for their needs out of existing material have anything to do with a super human like mind without a brain thinking/willing material into existence from nothing?
Well, my father used to live across the street from the LA Mormon tabernacle, which had a golden statue of, I think, Joe Moroni on top. He was called "Horny Joe"--- because of course we know that a lot of the impetus for Mormon men was to have nubile young wives in bulk, plus older ones to take care of the babies. So if the LDS view of these folks is that they're saints, ask the young teenage girls and women that were made into their sex slaves.
Yes it is. He's not quite at the point of being a fictional character, but he is heavily mythologized and white-washed. Even the artist renderings of J.S. are fiction; they draw him as having light blond hair and bright blue eyes, while in reality he had dark brown hair and blue eyes.
Smith was a con man in a community of superstitious,credulous, gullible people. The Book of Mormon is a con, plagiarized from the few books he had. The Book of Abraham, “translated” from the hieroglyphics, is a con, as he could not read them.
Only when we understand why we humans create these myths from a psychological point of view do we get closer to an understanding of its real impact on us. Yes, these myths are being carried over from one generation to the next but it ties so well into the psychological needs in us for some sort of ground zero, an origin of some sort. We seek a framework in which we can put ourselves in. Very few people are brave enough to remain non-idealistic and accept the groundless nature of reality, just as it comes to us without any form of interpretation or mental remodelling in-between. Most people seek to have some kind of handle on reality, even people fond of science mostly belong to that mentality group. The stories we tell each other all begins inside ourselves first. In most cases it is the same old story that’s been told a billion times before but nevertheless we find it soothing and comforting to rehash it once again in order to invoke it and make it feel real to us. The louder we shout our gospels from the rooftops, the more real we believe ourselves and our world to be. But we all neglect the one thing that’s most crucial about the whole story; -we completely miss the opportunity to acknowledge our own psychological makeup that is the actual foundation for the pantheon of mythology that spring from it. This makes us incredibly easy targets for exploitation and control. The only true antidote to this sickness is the journey of self-discovery and the investigation into the true nature of reality in relation to our own experiences. It is a journey that must be taken by each one of us. The final outcome of such a journey cannot be transmitted or passed over from one person to the next. The nature of both our own ignorance and the resultant state of wisdom is such that it can only be transcended by ourselves. It’s a personal journey because we hold onto the idea of a personal being all the way until we realise our true nature. To unwind ignorance is a waking on a tightrope constantly finding and loosing our bearings and footholds but still finding ways to move forward into ever more subtle ways of relating to that we like to call Reality. For some this is called being on a spiritual path. A path that sidesteps all conventional religious dogma and obligations. It is a path that can be applied completely hidden to the world and secretly practiced in all walks of life. It is a limitless practice that only happens within our own field of experience and perception. It is a path that leads to the transcendence of ignorance into wisdom. It leads to an understanding of what ignorance is and how it manifest itself in all living beings. It is a path that give rise to boundless love and compassion for all those that have not yet begun their journey towards the transcendence of ignorance. It is a path that leads to the result of being completely immune to any attempts of exploitation, corruption or subordination. It leads to the limitless Awareness that cannot be altered or made stupid again.
And as we evolve into more and more intelligent animals, we start to lack the need of the placebo effect of religions. There are people who have never needed such self-deception and I am pretty sure there were the same people back in 10,000 years ago as well. Dull individuals will never shed the need of an imaginary friend, no matter what facts will tell them.
Leaders of Moonies, Mormons, Bahai, Scientology, all existed. I suspect so did the leaders of older religions. What happens, though, is that they get embellished. Promoted. They get special status such as Virgin Birth, ability to do miracles, direct hotline to God, etc. Followers want their leaders to be superhuman heroes. They want their religions to outshine the others. This is part of the psychology of belief. And then there are people who are not even religious leaders, but people clamour to MAKE them one, such as Trump. In the passage of time, this all gets blurred, it becomes dogma, and woe betide anyone who is too prominent a non-believer.
You can use Buddhist meditation practices to get to know yourself. You don’t need to believe anything and particularly you don’t need any metaphysical god like entities. Doesn’t matter even if Buddha existed or not. The Vipassana techniques can be used as a mind map, but there are also other maps out there.
When it comes to these questions I am not at all an expert. But on the occasions that I do explore the subject, the conclusion that I come to is that whether or not there was an original figure behind the religion, a real Jesus for example, it doesn't matter if there was or not, as the figure that is represented is fictitious. To again use Jesus as an example, whomever it was based on bears no resemblance to the figure described in the Bible. That character is a fiction, created over time to fill the needs of the religion as it developed. Further, throughout all societies there is a habit of creating fictional backstories to bolster the claims being made in modern times. A good example of this is Freemasonry, which was started in the late 18th Century, but with a fictional backstory claiming origins in ancient times. I see no reason not to presume such practices for all religions.
Buddhist here. Buddhist meditation works fo rme. If the buddha Gautama Siddharta didn't exist as a historical person I don't care. His life story is a pretty generic spiritual seeker story. Rich kid that had been sheltered by his parents discovers that old age, sickness and death exist and decides to renounce the worldly lifestyle to find an answer. That happened all over the world again and again and still happens
I feel the same. There's a lot in Buddhism that's useful in a practical and ethical way. And it requires no belief at all. In fact Buddhist texts quote the Buddha as having said not to accept his word on the value of what he taught, but to try it for yourself. I've never been anything other than an atheist, yet I've always felt drawn to the more secular, Western manifestation of Buddhism.
@@hannotn I practice tantric buddhism. In a sense the most faith based type of buddhism, along with pure land buddhism. But that's a personal choice I would never automatically recommend to random people on the basis that it is what works for me.
I find that believers strike out with threats, when informed of reasoned denial, of the existence of a God outside of fiction. Atheist literature goes back to 500 BC. I suspect educated men have always known Deity as a tool of fiction, a tool of state. Believers begin their crimes like Moses, becoming history's worst navigator, as if travel were best done with one foot in fantasyland. Believers fail to comprehend the saying of Jesus Christ which has lasted to this day. Believers are found among a gathering crowd, when Jesus Christ is alarmed by a wicked generation, those who seek the signs of resurrection. "The only sign given is Jonah" - who was a believer. He was outnumbered & murdered by other believers. Jesus Christ "hangeth on a tree" to celebrate the War of the Jews. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree:" Galatians 3:13 "Render to Caesar"
@@lieutbugaroff Russel published Zions Watchtower which many church groups subscribed to, but the bible students weren't under the control of the Watchtower. Rutherford came after and seized control of the Watchtower Society and brought the groups of bible students under his control. In 1931 he gave the bible students the name Jehovah's Witnesses. A new religion was born.
Way back around 1970 when I was college student studying the philosophy of the world's religions, I came to the conclusion that men create their own deities rather than the other way around. And I think that's mostly because we can't stand the fact that there are things we can't know. So we create a higher being that supposedly can give us the answers. Fiction or not, at least we then have less uncertainty in our world view.
I'm pretty sure he is aware of what is reliably known about the historical Joseph Smith as a previously convicted fraudster (getting people to invest in searches for fictitious troves of buried Native American gold) before coming up with the Angel Moroni scam. Smith's rap sheet is still on the books, and I think I've heard Fitzgerald mention that very topic.
Atheist thought has finally meaningfully evolved itself. Atheists should therefore revere all the religions, except perhaps Mormonism, as our ancient families, to be honored and revered. It is what our grandparents and their grandparents believed and lived their whole lives by. Atheists should only denigrate theistic beliefs that are dangerously stupid, like snake handling, etc. By the same token, theists should treat educated atheists like sort of high priests or monks, who also should be honored and revered.
In addition to many species which are housed in the Farlow Herbarium, located at the Harvard University Herbaria, Wolfe spent months tracking rare species in far-flung locations like London and Hawaii. After extracting DNA from the samples, Wolfe used the genetic codes of four different genes to determine how the various species are related to one another. He then used a process called ancestral state reconstruction to show that the mushrooms have switched from being decomposers to being symbiotic with trees only once in their evolutionary history. Once the mushrooms switched to this new symbiotic lifestyle, they didn't go back to their free-living past. Ultimately, Pringle said, the paper highlights one reason she finds such symbiotic partnerships "intrinsically interesting" -- for all their apparent benefits, the cost can be high. "I think the really interesting thing is this idea that once you become symbiotic, some of your machinery is lost," she said. "It seems like a dead end in some ways -- you have to make this change to enter this niche, but once you're there, you can't go back -- you've lost the capacity to be free-living." Arguably the most widely-recognized group of mushrooms in the world, Amanita mushrooms have appeared in popular culture ranging from Fantasia to the Super Mario Brothers video games. Though it includes a number of edible species, such as the Amanita caesarea, the group is probably best known for its many toxic species, including the death-cap mushroom. Armed with their family tree, Pringle and Wolfe were able to determine that Amanita evolution has largely been away from species that help decompose organic material and toward those that live symbiotically on trees and their roots. More interestingly, they found that the transition came at a steep price -- the loss of the genes associated with breaking down cellulose. "There had been earlier suggestions that this type of gene loss might be taking place, but our study is the first precise test of that hypothesis," Pringle said. "The idea makes sense -- if you're going to actively form a cooperative relationship with a tree, you probably shouldn't simultaneously be trying to break it apart and eat it. But it's a very tricky dance to form these kinds of tight, cooperative interactions, and I think this work shows there is a cost associated with that. You have to change, you have to commit, and it can become a sort of gilded cage -- these mushrooms are very successful, but they're stuck where they are." Harvard researchers are unlocking the evolutionary secrets of one of the world's most recognizable groups of mushrooms, and to do it, they're using one of the most comprehensive fungal "family trees" ever created. As reported in paper published July 18 in PLoS ONE, Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Anne Pringle and Ben Wolfe, a Post-Doctoral Fellow in FAS Center for Systems Biology, studied the genetics of more 100 species of Amanita mushrooms -- about one-sixth of the genus' total diversity -- to create an elaborate phylogeny showing how each species is related to one another. New research finds that Amanita mushrooms' evolution has largely been away from species that help decompose organic material and toward those that live symbiotically on trees and their roots. More interestingly, scientists found that the transition came at a steep price -- the loss of the genes associated with breaking down cellulose.
@@donnievance1942 you just don’t see it do you? The video is about something that doesn’t exist, the video should be about why and how this was made to be about God, a direction. Can you tell me what on earth has gone extinct and made it back and why does science have to say it is this, because this scares me, not God, if you are Christian then can you tell me when Jesus said He would return, where He was and who He was talking to and why does God say pray for water for he tender plant?
@@doveseye.4666 "This video is about something that doesn't exist. " This video clip is about the origins and evolution of religion. Religion, and it's evolution, is something that definitely exists.
And there is personal revelation. Takes one before that mind that is now thinking n seeing what ever I read trying to find wasn’t. Explains why those who know do not talk
This is an oversimplification of the very complicated process by which religions evolved. It started with the ghost cults who feared that the ghosts of the deceased wanted to harm the living because they were jealous that they were no longer alive. So rituals evolved in efforts to appease these supposed angry spirits. Then there were the god-of-the-gaps nature gods, for thunder, volcanoes, etc. all of whom also had to be appeased because they were destructive. Most valued possessions were sacrificed including virgins. Unknown to David, were the various divine revelations that occurred on rare occasions, which up-stepped current religions, which then blended those teachings with others that they liked. There's an extremely detailed account of this in the Urantia Book. It's not the case that central figures didn't actually exist. Quite the opposite, they existed, but then followers elaborated their oral traditions to make them out to be a lot more than they started out to be, which had the effect of making them seem unbelievable. But confirmation bias is alive and well, so if someone has started to doubt, and someone else says it was all a lie, they believe and that becomes the narrative. Admittedly, there is much in each evolutionary religion that is pointless. But some of the core principles, specifically the Golden Rule, do have value in shaping human society. Attempts to undo entire religions with no attempt to preserve that which has value, undercuts civilizations. And there is one who very much desires for that to happen, so while the narrator may think he's acting on his own, there is the distinct possibility that he's being manipulated by someone who claimed 200,000 years ago that there was no God, and we could engage in liberty without license. [A surefire recipe for disaster.]
I read the Bible when I was a teen because my parents told me all the answers are in the bible. By the end of the Old Testament I was an atheist.
Wow you got that far 😅 - I tried to do the same, got part way in Deuteronomy and lol saw god could not count insect legs very well and gave up. Funny it was that vs all the horrible stuff that got me. How anyone today takes this as literal boggles the mind.
When I was about 10 years old and heard about Noah's flood, I said to myself "god killed everyone ? He is a mass murderer. I don't like him".
I decided to read the entire bible and study the history and that did it for me too. Most Christians only know about the same stories in church.
My mother was a devout Catholic. When she was in her 70's, we were discussing the subject and she told me she never read the bible.
One year I received a study bible, meant to be read over the course of a year. At the end of that year, my early years of my highschool period, I was even more entrenched in the faith. Throughout the year, I went to church certain times in each week, and had conversations with a teacher at school who brought me into the faith. I even went to Bible College after I metriculated, however I dropped out mid year 1. About a year later, my journey out of faith began.
I was studying theology in university. I liked Systematic Theology, and focused on the OT. I've always loved philosophy. Yeah, I couldn't square the circle any more, so I quit being a theist.
“Every religion is false, except the one I believe in” - every religious person I’ve known.
"All christian denominations that disagree with my interpretation of God and his word are wrong. They will go to Hell."
"Christianity ALWAYS makes you a good person. "We are all sinners" makes you humble and tolerant. All those millions of christians that act totally differently, and often in the name of God, do not change that the Word of God is perfect and infallible and therefore always works".
"The Bible is true, no matter what it says" - Dinesh D'Souza.
Yes, especially the theistic religion and specifically (((JESUS ))) is utterly beyond STUPID to begin with!!! God the father son and holy shit!! What does that mean!!????😊😊😊
Exactly.
And projection going 100%.
@@feedingravensnot all of them. Universalists say we're all saved by Jesus' sacrifice, job done, hallelujah. Their main problem is spreading the message of everyone's salvation isn't as effective as preaching threats of eternal torture.
Exactly ! or the religion of their Mommy and Daddy.
"The SHOE! The SACRED SHOE!!
NO THE GOURD! THE SACRED GOURD!!!"
Did anyone see Life of Brian?
Always look on the sunny side of life
Cast off the shoe, follow the gourd!
@@janwoodward7360 *bright
Dave Allen 🎭
“I say you are the messiah, Lord, and I should know, I’ve followed a few.”
Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool -- Mark Twain
That is true. BTW, I love Mark Twain.
@@doneestoner9945 That's not true though
@@getasimbe it is true. I was there I saw it.
Not true.... Religion started with our forfathers thousands and thousands of years ago to make sense of this strange world and live the life in. And the made stories.... and then came the con man (prophets, mesiahs, popes, priests, bibletumpers...). You could say...religion invented the con man. But religion had by design nothing to do with god or gods. For the Greeks the gods were just principles of life.... and great stories.
@@getasimbe It is true and it still triggers the cons today. Triggered
I was a Christian until I realized I was tired of trying to fight against lucid and rational atheists arguments. Now I love learning about our incredible human history ❤️
Funny, one might argue it’s a sin not to use the brain god gave us. ;)
Me too!! I can't get enough. Rn my obsession is Aristotle and polymaths. 😁
But never stop seeking God . He still loves you .
Me too and I am amazed how little I know about it.
Why learn anything, if all you need to know is that their was a big, fat, nice, all-knowing, all-mighty toothfairy in the sky, who created it all.
@@henrym.7858 And if you don't love him back he'll send you to hell, that he also invented. Nice god you've got there, luckily it's not real.
David is one of my fav skeptics. Funny as hell and always informative. I do hope this is part of a much, much, much, much, much longer conversation.
Also, Seth, please get David to have his website updated to work with https...
I’ve always found the history of religions fascinating as an atheist.
A bad version of marvel comics?
Agreed. I've never been religious, but have always found religions fascinating.
I agree. It’s something that absolutely fascinates me, but few want to talk openly about different religions. It’s frustrating.
@@Jasonfreer Until you realize that religion is the curse on humanity.
Preaching to the choir! Religion is a socially acceptable delusion in nearly every society on the planet, with thousands of different iterations - that's amazing to me!
I love David Fitzgerald-- so happy to see him here!
Science flys man to the moon
Religion flys men into buildings
@@vls3771
Exactly.
That was funny!
@@TheBorgrR911 was not funny. It changed everything when that happened.
@@Confessions089 You just confessed you don't get it.
I'm hoping someday soon Seth that you do a podcast about Seventh day adventists. My hubs is knee deep in it and I hoping to show him something that will make him think. Thanks!
I was raised in a devoted SDA home. Sent to their schools through college. Surprisingly, my dad told me to question everything so I did. It took me decades to get over the indoctrination but I did. Maybe check out Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Aron Ra Richard Dawkins, etc. The were a huge help to me.
@@kimjohnson4278 I've showed all that to my hubs. He's fully indoctrinated. When I show him facts, he just digs his heels in deeper. It's definitely a cult. Thanks for your input.
Isn't it funny that the one true religion is the one your parents and grandparents believed in . and that all came from what cultures they were born into.
Not just funny, it's an actual MIRACLE! 😇Only the Christain god 🤩is powerful enough to plan something out with such intricacy & accuracy. Checkmate atheists! 🤤
Reading comprehension is a serious thing! I’m an atheist today because I actually read the Bible!!
I remember vividly as a teen, reading the Bible and questioning, “God has favorites”? “God hates”? “God gets jealous”? As a kid it dawned on me that this god sure had a lot of human characteristics 😅
Yes, God gets jealous. God doesn't get envious. You know what the difference is? Did you bother to look at what God hates? The proud, the liars, the murderers, and thieves. Who does God care for ? The widows, the orphans, the humble, the seekers.
Evolution as a theory is falling apart faster than wet toilet paper. The incredible complexity of life is embodied not just in the cells, but the DNA, the proteins and even the chemical makeup that requires design and information beyond our imagination to even begin to replicate; and we want to go with chance? Go to the casino and let me know how chance works out for you as I watch them pull in millions while very few people walk out with thousands that they will lose the next time they visit.
Funny how all Gods look like the people that invented them.
If you want to know the Creator, your Creator....read the Qur'an.
Only the Qur'an is the exact words of the Creator.
@@logicalmuslim1590 Really? Because my investigation of the Quran shows a book so badly written it's impossible to understand without the other books to support it, and even then the story of the Quran has so many problems in it. They are finally getting around to doing a textual critique of the Islam Quran and they are finding out that the prophet may not existed, the city was wrong place and the people who put it together were 200 years after the so-called live of the prophet and in many cases thousands of kilometers away.
And the fact that Uthman destroyed all copies that were different than his puts a lie into the issue of the Quran having not been changed.
@@harrybinn4455 Harry the Qur'an is a linguistic miracle a scientific miracle and a mathematical miracle.
I checked the math.
Sorry my friend but you have confirmation bias.
I have examined the Qur'an in depth.
It checks out.
Which Bible is the words of God?
“But but… haven’t you read the Case for Christ??” Every American evangelical
I did, that's when I became an atheist.
You only need to check out the leaders of the penticostal church to know to stay far away !!
Neighbours in our street had been church goers for 20 years I watched them leaving for church every Sunday then it stopped I asked them why? The husband said the pastors house was getting bigger while many in the congregation were struggling .also there were no updates on missions work and
no attempts to help the local homeless shelter food hub just 5 km away from the church set up by non church volunteers. Now we take the kids to the beach or on hikes together with the family on Sundays he said they have never been happier ...its like a cloud has been lifted .
@@tach5884 Bull. You were one before. There are many other well known atheist that have become Christians. Even Harris is now claiming to be a cultural Christian. Why? If there is no god, what purpose does cultural christianity have?
The arguments from atheism are weak at best and emotional at the worst. I've seen the arguments and have found that they have been answer many times over, but reason for unbelief is not from lack of evidence, it's a lack of wanting to serve God.
😂 my father in law who is a Lutheran Pastor bought that book for me after I asked him a few questions he couldn't answer.
I went through it with a highlighter and covered all the bits I had big problems with, about a quarter of the book is now highlighted
@@crazyprayingmantis5596 That's great. Did you bother to see if there were any answers to your highlighted questions, or were you just marking away?
I have read the book. I didn't have any problems with it. You want someone else? Check out J. Warner Wallace who was an atheist as well when he started to investigate Christianity to disprove it. He was former homicide investigator. Then you have Anthony Flew, an atheist philosopher who for years railed against the bible and inspired Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris. In his 70's he became a Deist.
Personally, I have asked the tough questions, but I didn't leave highlighted in a book, I dug around and examined the bible and the history surrounding the stories and I found answers that satisfied me.
Well, now I have a new set to add to my Kindle list. I'll also have it included on my evangelical mother's, so keep an eye out for any mushroom clouds of rage from central Texas.
Well, looks like I have some reading to do. Just picked up Playing God V1 and it reminded me I have "Nailed" sitting in my reading queue.
Thanks!
It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.
convince me that I've been fooled?
When did you prove it?
I can't believe you unless you prove it.
I've heard that some people are beginning to doubt that the Flying Spaghetti Monster ever really existed!
Heathen! May you boil forever in the salty pasta water of the unbeliever! 😱
Well I was a scumbag before I started believing in the flying spaghetti monster, now I help old ladies across the street.
If that isn't evidence for the flying spaghetti monster I don't know what is.
Praise the flying spaghetti monster
I'm loving this format!! Thank you Seth.
Religion is politics... it is all about power and submission.
@@TheBorgrR
Exactly.
Whether being islam or christianity or Judaism but even more obvious now in the U.S.A. with the christian nationalist being exactly similar to wanting to have a christian version of sharia law and everybody regardiless of their religion or lack thereof shall just be submitting to just their version of reality.
Absolutely. I thought islam was this new paradigm that Allah revealed to save people from hell. I wasted so much brain power and time.
@@ashleytheseeker8480 You was a dumb f*** (UA-cam is America... not so much freedom of Speech) for a period of time in your life. I never distinguish religion. All religion is bad, it is not specific.
David always speaks sense in an approachable way. His books are some of the best and show the absurdity of religion.
I see nothing absurd in worshipping the Creator of the universe.
What is absurd about Islam?
@@logicalmuslim1590 Islam is a death cult. It should be banned.
And there is no “creator of the universe”, you have no evidence to back that claim.
@@logicalmuslim1590 study more say less and you won’t look such a fwit
@@logicalmuslim1590 study more and say less and you won’t look such a fool
@@logicalmuslim1590 islam is vile and a death cult
Interesting brief to what I'm sure is an excellent read. I would recommend to any undergraduate of any major to take a full semester World Religions elective like I did once upon a time. Three lectures a week and I learned a great deal about the diversity and history of religious myth ... and a great reason to be a confirmed Atheist! 😉😊
“One true god, trademark.”
As said in Amadeus “well, there it is.”
Religions are mythology. I 1st began to think this
way after reading about Roman mythology around
grade 8. It took awhile before I decided,
but religion is superstition and myth.
I
And the 33% of patriotic Americans who are atheists? They don't count, eh?
Theists never ask themselves... "Why is my God REAL when all the others are FALSE?"
BTW, why would any "God" bless a nation complicit in genocide?
"Religion poisons everything!" - Christopher Hitchens Never truer words spoken!
@@DennisMerwood-xk8wp 🤴🏻Bad Moon Rising by John Gorenfeld.
100% superstitions and myth…..
When you begin to study world religions such as Greek mythology, Norse Mythology and even older Hinduism, you begin to see its all fiction with heavy superstitions.
The word "religio" comes from old Latin, "to act good", it later became to means "to be with god" , because god and goodness become entwined.
Hence, those labeled as "atheists" were ppl "without god", this in itself becomes "not good", and soon after we see the word sin (left handedness) become a sign of ones belief and ones goodness, or lack of.
@@DJWESG1 And your point is?
Fascinating stuff. I want to see a Netflix series on this!
Any time David and Seth are together I love it. It’s an instant watch for me.
I just watched this video and already plan on buying all 3 books or booklets as soon as possible!
The societal pressure of centuries upon centuries of enforced and expected belief has certainly had the desired effect, you simple are not expected to disbelieve extraordinary claims of the past.
Apologists should have a shirt that says: PhD in Hearsay
😂
is eyewitness testimony evidence?
@@logicalmuslim1590 Eyewitness evidence without corroboration is worthless.
@@logicalmuslim1590 Eyewitness testimony is worthless without corroboration.
@@logicalmuslim1590No.
Santa Claus, the easter bunny, the tooth fairy, the great pumpkin and finally god!
But there was a good case for Santa Claus, otherwise how did those toys get under the tree?
@@patbrennan6572 Santa Clause comes from saying Saint Nicholas fast.
@@Causemoi And Saint Nicholas was an actual historical figure that was Christian by the way.
I’m wondering what type of post-graduate work is required to get the PhD in Heresy.
Very informative. Thank you
The similarities are so consistent that people can singlehandedly create religions if they know the pattern. Isn't that mormonism was born? Some guy trying to play messiah?
Scientology was created by a Man with a Messiah complex.
The origin story of Mormonism clearly shows how religious ideas are made up and are believed by millions (?) within a very short time, even though the founders are not credible people AT ALL.
Although, we know Joseph Smith existed, because we have the arrest records.
@@mickeydecurious 🤴🏻Bad Moon Rising by John Gorenfeld.
I’m an ex-Mormon atheist so I’m not trying to be an apologist but Joseph Smith never claimed to be the messiah. He was a brilliant megalomaniac who claimed to be the prophet ushering in the last days. Amazing to me how people like him are able to draw otherwise reasonable people into their delusions and under their control.
I have been saying this for decades, I even wrote a book about it 20+ years ago. I am in the process of writing a prequel to it along with its screen play. This info needs to be wide spread although we all know that 99% of believers will just dismiss it without a second thought.
All gods are created by humans including the one of the abrahamic religions. That is fact.
A god they created in THEIR image.
@@HocusPocus6969 yes
@@HocusPocus6969 You really haven't read the bible have you? The God of the bible is in no way in the image of man. While the bible states that man may have been created in the image of God, it was a minor image at best in that man was considered body, mind and spirit. The rest is beyond comparison as the book of Job reminds us.
@@harrybinn4455 Your magic sky fairy is easily dismissed, run along. YOU are not special, especially to a being you think created the entire universe....that is extreme arrogance. That's like saying we find a specific quark to be special, know all about it and love it. Not that you know what a quark is.
@@seanrunyan8928 And YOU haven't disproven anything with your casual dismissal. You want arrogance, just what is it that you have just shown?
Evolution has no intermediate fossils, OOL has more problems than you can spit at. Meanwhile archeology is showing the bible is historically accurate. The teachings of Christ, a known historical figure, changed the world with over 2 billion people still believing. Atheists are less than 100 million. You need to check your arrogance at the door.
*Jews:* Initially had _no concept_ of a punitive afterlife like 'Hell.' Their afterlife idea was _Sheol_ - a vague, shadowy place devoid of the terror later associated with 'hell.'
*Jews Meet Greeks* (circa 600 BCE): As Jewish culture began interacting with Greek ideas around this time, the influence grew, culminating in the Hellenistic period after Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Levant in 333 BCE. This cultural exchange introduced new ideas, including the concept of a punitive afterlife.
As these Hellenistic influences deepened, the Jewish notion of hell began to evolve, eventually solidifying within Christian doctrine.
Conservative evangelicals later turned this idea into a potent tool of fear, terror and control, especially targeting the superstitious and children.
*Conclusion:* Hell is a construct devised by natural manipulators-con artists and cult leaders-to exploit magical thinking and control the fearful. It serves as a prime example of how easily fabricated horrors can dominate believers' minds.
Judaism doesn't believe in Hell. Gehenna is more akin to medieval Roman Catholic purgatory. It's a temporary place for suffering and cleansing.
This was great! I'm sorry I didn't watch it sooner. I'm putting these books on my reading list.
_I began my quest towards non-believing when I was at the ripe old age of 8. By the time I was 11, I was a born again ATHEIST. It all started during one those fire & brimstone sermons conducted by my mothers' favorite pastor. In that sermon, the pastor made mentioned of the garden of eden. And the talking snake having a conversation with two Europeans called ... Eve & Adam. That did it for me. You see, I grew up on Saturday morning cartoons and knew better. The ONLY talking animals that can speak is Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny & Porky the Pig._
You forgot Mighty Mouse! ;) I was a couple years older than you when I was first introduced to church by a "caring" neighbor trying to save his heathen neighbors' daughter from hell, and immediately realized the entire thing was a way to control people. I asked the priest, if god loves us so much more than our own parents, how can he condem us to eternal hell if we do something wrong? My own parents wouldn't send me to my room for the rest of my life if I do something wrong. His response, "you have to believe what you're told." Right then and there - "I'm out!" A friend tried to get me into the Born Again tribe when I was a teenager. I immediately recognized they all seemed like a bunch of Stepford Wives. Tried Budhism as a young adult. Same thing, just trying to control you. Didn't have the desire to try any others after that.
First Day At School: Dave Allen 🎭
@@HarpMuse Yes, religion is a tribal group identity for which conformity is an integral part. Getting saved and born again are becoming an adult and joining the tribe.
@@bobs182 And the way to keep people in the tribe is to demonize anyone that doesn't believe (i.e., conform). Unfortunately this has led to so many wars and division of humanity.
Well in the Bible a donkey speaks also.
Satan not a snake but a dragon.
But here's the thing, logically speaking:
EVERY MIRACLE OF GOD IS UNFALSIFIABLE.
You can never prove that they didn't happen.
Alhamdulillah!
David Fitzgerald is Awesome! While I love many Atheist writers like Hitch, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Richard Carrier or many others he breaks everything down so well and makes it so much easier to understand or more accessible to the lay person who hasn’t read many books other than the Bible or since they were in high school and makes it easy for anyone to read even if you love the others but don’t feel like reading much “heavier” books!
🎯 Key points for quick navigation:
00:01:00 *🔍 Overview of Religious Origins*
- Major world religions share common evolutionary patterns despite their unique appearances and traditions.
- The foundational figures of many religions may be fictional.
- Similar patterns of religious development are seen across diverse cultures and time periods.
- Reactions to critiques of religious figures often provoke strong responses from adherents.
00:01:57 *📜 Historical Evidence of Religion*
- Archaeological and historical evidence reveals inconsistencies and late origins of major religious texts and figures.
- Evidence suggests that early religious figures like Moses and David have scant historical support.
- The development of religious practices and texts often occurred later than traditionally believed.
- Findings in Judaism and Islam show gaps between religious stories and historical evidence.
00:05:02 *📚 Evolution of Religious Beliefs*
- The book explores the complex evolution of religious beliefs and the gods worshipped over time.
- The process from animism to monotheism involved multiple stages and was not linear.
- The development of monotheism was not predetermined; various gods and beliefs were possible.
- The book delves into the origins and evolution of different religious systems including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Eastern religions.
Dude. Nobody needs a time break-down for a 5 minute video.
@@donnievance1942 Dude, nobody asked for your opinion.
I think of Religion as Business in World History, as Commerce; there's a Founder, the Board of Directors, the Chairman and "C" Suite, all the Shareholders.
It's the Standard Business Model with all the Marketing and Advertising to give it 'Staying Power '.
It's so refreshing listening to people like you, who give us food for thought.
I'd like to comment to you that since I was a kid I couldn't find any intelligent answer to the absurdity of existence, so I simply concluded that 'my successes and failures I only owe them to myself' and not to a higher super power or reason to blame for my good or bad condition. Also, I figured out that: I'm not what I am.
I just purchased these 3 books at the 2024 BAHACON. They're next up on my reading list.
It’s amazing a refreshing to continue to discover or learn about new Atheist books in a world that continues to be filled with Christians every where I go even in California I can’t get away from them!
Thankyou, Seth. David is great.👍🏼🌊💙💙💙🌊🥰✌🏼
Believers offer the lowest standard of evidence for their god, but if that same standard is used to attempt to prove another god, they're the first ones to say it's not good enough. The double standard and bias! But i get it. Their faith absolutely prevents any other conclusion. Which is why being a believer is the most dishonest position.
do you know what a sweeping generalization fallacy looks like?
It looks like your post.
@@logicalmuslim1590 This is a comment section. He wasn't directing his comments at you, and while the comment describes believers as a whole, that does not mean that he wouldn't acknowledge the existence of exceptions. However, it is often useful to use generalizations to make a point. Example: "Trump is a teller of falsehoods. Therefore, all Trump supporters are believers of falsehoods or are also tellers of falsehoods." What I wrote is mostly true, but there are exceptions. However, it's not always rhetorically effective or necessary to mention the exceptions.
@@centaur7607 look at the first word of the OP.
Yes it was directed at me.
Yes it is a sweeping generalization.
@@logicalmuslim1590 It is sweeping. After being a believer for 35 years and throwing Jesus on the scrap heap of dead gods and now trying to help people out of this cult, this is absolutely how every single believer justifies their deity belief. It's not a fallacy in any way. You feel it's fallacious because you feel offended by it, but your offense doesn't minimize the exact reasons i pointed out. Why don't you try defending your position instead of attacking mine.
When I was studying this in college I thought I made a great discovery when I noticed similarities between Egyptian and Christian studies, no others beat me to it years ago
While the details of religions are specific to the culture, I believe that religiosity, the tendency to religion, is universal and can be explained as an unfortunate by-product of our psychology, which in turn is the result of how we have evolved. Belief in the afterlife, belief in disembodied minds, faith, worship, love, rituals, and the priesthood all have a psychological, Darwinian explanation.
"Religion is to the common people true, to the wise false, and to the rulers useful."
Seneca
I was raised secular though my grandparents & most other family were devout in a mainline Protestant sect. I recently started a deep dive into religious studies, as is common partly in self defense. Also had done a fair amount of Buddhist study & practice at one point. I did not buy the myths but assumed there were founder human guys at the core who were mythologized. But the more I dive into the best scholarship, the less is there. I am shocked at how unattested Jesus is - the gospels are not history, Paul did not know the guy & his survicing letters, if he existed & wrote any, are heavily redacted & edited as Dr. Markus Vinzent is showing - highly recommend Patristica channel & his team's work. Ditto the Buddha, seems no there there re an actual person. The need for real founder figures seems a modern post enlightenment & printing press obsession. lReligious myths are powerful as is - and also need to be kept separate of secular democratic government. Or at least highly contained as in much of N Europe. Lookong forward to getting Daivd's latest books, just finished Nailed.
I just love how the Kindle version on Amazon is $6.66. Classic
A god is only necessary
for those with no imagination.
The Creator is necessary for existence.
Because infinite regression of contingent causes is irrational.
I hadn’t heard of these researchers about the origins of Judaism, but I came to a conclusion that someone basically completely rewrote the entire religion and got rid of all their polytheism, making up the entire history wholesale and changing the whole thing to monotheism. My assumption was that it happened during the Babylonian exile.
Trinitarian Christianity is NOT monotheistic.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit = 3 gods.
Krishna, Rama, Heracles, Perseus, Horus, Thor, Huitzilopochtli, Mithra, Emperor of Japan, Gilgamesh, Karna, Romulus and Remus, Cú Chulainn. These are main characters in religions that have a God as a parent and lived on Earth. Some having a mortal mother as well.
Congratulations,keep strong in you conviction in reason and comun logic
Just ordered all the books cant Waite to read them.
That shirt is epic. I want one
At about 2:20 into the video: "trying to cross off the serial numbers of the paganism that came before it" is a great line. 👍
While I lean towards mythicism myself, I seldom argue it, because it's a losing subject. Even the majority of non-believers are far too conditioned to accept the existence of Jesus for it to be worth arguing.
If every earlier and similar dying-and-rising son/daughter of god is entirely made up, why would the jewish latecomer be any different.
Mythicism is a backward position. It doesn’t start with the evidence we have and tries to explain them using the fewest assumptions, it starts with the assumption that Jesus didn’t exist and tries to cherry-pick points in favor of it. Some points are very stretched and some are straight out false or unsupported by evidence, furthermore it doesn’t offer plausible explanation or at least better explanations for the evidence we have.
Mr Fitzgerald here doesn’t seem to understand the basic concept that “Lincoln Vampire Hunter” containing a lot of fictional elements is not evidence that Lincoln is a fictional character.
It's true that the non-historicity of Jesus will never be definitively provable, but the evidence for him is stunningly weak. The evidence that most of his putative characteristics and central significance is derived from previous religious traditions is quite strong. You can never prove a categorical negative. That doesn't mean that there is a good case for believing in the opposing positive assertion. I can't prove that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist. That doesn't equate to there being a good case for believing in the Easter Bunny. Similarly, there is no good case for the historicity of the Jesus character, and the suggestive evidence that he was derivative from a welter of cultural factors and previous belief systems is strong.
It's worth arguing just to get the idea in front of more brains.
That is how the bunko game is played. Don't change what works to flees the sheep.
*fleece
Take a look at the images of the Universe from the James Webb Space Telescope. Anyone who seriously believes that the Creator of all of that, if there even is one, has instructions for the people of Earth, and "speaks" to a "chosen" illiterate nomad (with no witnesses) in a scorching desert, telling him to spread the word to all of humanity, using the most inefficient means possible, or promised him a parcel of land without a signed and witnessed Deed, needs to immediately seek help from a licensed mental health professional.
Love David's work
I was in a worldwide cult for 10 years and got out alive. Religion is the greatest barrier to god that has ever been hoisted on humanity. I love your shirt.
If gods didn't exist, humans would create them.
As it turned out, we did.
Religion arose when people began to be too successful. Being a meaning-based species, we probably always had some kind of comprehensive theory of existence. However, once we started to be too many, humans had no choice but to compete and arraign ourselves into civilizations. Religion became the best means to engender schooling behavior in our species. Like some fish, we came to rely on massed individuals to live. Religion evolved to be the best means of social cohesion for a species that required diversity and extensive division of labor to survive in competition with rival societies.
I think that atheists like me, we need to be really mindful that religion was the only social scaffolding that made states and economies possible. Gods do not exist, but as humans we found a way to make mythology a virtual place where we could all meet regardless of class, occupation, gender or age. Religion is a curated delusion that we as societies have learned to use to act more like a super organism. We must understand that religion is one of the most important BIOLOGICAL phenomena that define humanity.
Mythology aka religion was an adaptation that must have been pretty fiercely selected for in the last 20-30 thousand years. Today, we can't but witness its continued success. As an example, consider Pizza Gate. This myth arose very quickly. It acquired tens, hundreds, of thousands of adherents in a short period of time. This spontaneous religion promptly dispatched gunmen to rescue non-existent children in a non-existent basement of an unremarkable restaurant.
It doesn't matter that the goal of this new myth was ridiculous. What the myth actually accomplished was tremendous. It used the demonized figure of Hillary Clinton to create a great social force to wield against liberalism and progressivism. These are things they all hated as individuals, but the myth gave them all the collective organization to act against it. Myth empowers the collective.
As atheists we need to understand that myth might always have the upper hand over reason because myth evolved for speed. Science led us to understand that our brain is prewired for grammar. I think that science has failed us by not helping us understand better the neural circuitry of myth, and it is very important that it catch up, very soon.
I think you have written an inciteful essay, but I disagree on one particular point: that religion is a biologically derived adaptation. I think that it is more precise to say that religion is a social adaptation to meet biological needs. If a group of children were raised without ever encountering religious beliefs, there is no evidentiary basis for claiming that they would spontaneously create some form of religion. No doubt they would create some structure of common beliefs, but there is no reason to assume that it would have a religious character-- that is to say that there is no particular reason to think that it would entail supernatural ideas. The evidence goes the other way. People who are raised in a rationalistic social setting do not have any intrinsic tendency to create magical belief systems on their own. There is just no evidentiary basis for that.
@@donnievance1942 Thanks for you kind reply.
Mythology just hasn't been studied as a human secretion. Religion has been literally sacred, even to scholars, forever. The fact that cults and religions abound everywhere, now and in the past shows that evidence is there for us to find it. Also, mythology is scrabbled together with both natural and supernatural elements depending on need and convenience, but scholars haven't bothered to study how and why. They are behind!
Also, this is a behaviour that has to be observed in the aggregate. It it is largely innate according to my conjecture, considering that most people on earth seem to gravitate to it. Even communism requires a cult of the leader. I think that just like how we can study ants by the shape of their nests, a nest being something that manifests in the presence of a colony, we should be able to understand how all humans are using mythologies as an adaptation. I am personally convinced that it is as biological as language, and maybe as important.
Religion was around before civilization though, and is present in most tribal communities.
Pre-civilization was a tribal world.
Jesus is sun/son worship! A recycled story out of Egypt, with a dozen predecessors, same story
I've gone through a similar personal transformation. As someone who was raised Catholic but became skeptical early on in my teens, I began to read about what history and archaeology had to say about Jesus and the Bible, and it did not take me long to realize there was no objective, verifiable evidence that the religion was based on something real. And I also got tuned into the divide between bible scholars who study it objectively and academically, and others who study it as an article of faith and are Christians themselves.
So there's Zero surprise here that other religions have the same kind of genesis.
Founder of Latter Day Saints(Mormons), Joseph Smith Jr., actually existed. But that's
Buddha recommends not creating a god out of him. His last words "diligently seek your own salvation, rely on yourself and the (universal) law! It's not a religion, it's a philosophy and practice of self realisation
And still, like Jesus, he ended up being deified by the masses.
@@randysmith5435 exactly. Many people can't trust themselves and need a god, eventually they'll find the conscious self.
I like a quote I heard from somewhere... I think it was Ricky Gervais. But I think he was also quoting someone else. I'm paraphrasing for more accurate information, but it goes something like this:
There are roughly 4,200 different religions across the planet. I don't believe in any of them. You don't believe in those other 4,199 religions either. We both don't believe in those 4,199 other religions and I just happen to not believe in one more religion than you do.
Actually, God says in the Qur'an that ANY who believe in God and the Day of Judgment and act righteously shall have their reward. Not just Muslims.
Faith and prayer is about belief and appeal to a higher power... religion is about corralling and controlling those dynamics for power over fellow humans🥃
Very well said and very, very true.
Yikes.
Who did the text for this video? I'm less than one minute into it and I see "Christ Myth Theory: the view that the story of Jesus never existed as a historial figure."
The minor problem is with the misspelling of "historical." The bigger problem is ... This doesn't even make sense. The STORY never existed as a historical figure? What would that even mean, for the story to exist as a historical figure?
Hopefully the speaker's content will be better than that textual blurb.
The question that led me to the conclusion that all gods/religions were mythology occurred to me in my mid 30s. Where did this Yahweh come from and when did anyone start believing it was the only god? Didn't take a long journey to find enough evidence that the things David says were true. That was back in the early 1980s before the internet was an easy place to get information. I had to read books, a lot of books including my first cover to cover go at the bible. Now, I won't say the characters of Jesus and Mohammed aren't based on actual people that may have given some inspiration for the myths and legends, but I can't say that I know they weren't either. Doesn't really matter. The stories are myths. I will say I don't think Abraham or Moses were actual people and feel pretty confident about that.
David Fitzgerald is not afraid to call a myth a myth.
What do you say that the Qur'an is?
@@logicalmuslim1590 Like every religious "holy book," it is a fantasy made up by humans, mostly ignorant ones with a lot of imagination and some mental problems.
@@logicalmuslim1590 Just like all holy books, it was written by ignorant scribes with a lot of fantasy, imagination, and a twisted mind.
@@Shermanbay Qur'an 51:47
Qur'an 21:30
Qur'an 21:33
@@logicalmuslim1590 Why would I care about what ignorant scribes said 500 or more years ago, using their fantasy, imagination, and twisted mind?
Is there an audio book? I looked in audible and couldn't find it.
Excellent 👍
I suppose it depends on how thin you want to slice the melon. If Mormonism, for instance, is regarded as a subset of Christianity, then yes, its founder is very likely mythical. But if it is considered a new religion, then it can't be disputed that Joseph Smith was a historical character.
Yeah, but Joseph Smith is not a divine immortal figure with supernatural powers in Mormonism. He is not a parallel with the Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc. figures. Nobody doubts that religions have actual human founders. What we doubt is that the magical avatars were historically real. We know enough about Joseph Smith to know that he was real, and that he was a previously convicted fraudster.
Logically (albeit unconsciously), we would always be protecting our psychological investments. All of us would be doing that. Atheists as much as theists.
People don't operate logically though.
Which is why plenty of peoples lives are quite unsuccessful
@@FoursWithin
I didn't say that people operate logically. I said that logically, we would always be protecting our psychological investments.
But yes, I certainly agree that people don't operate logically.
To better understand how religions form and develop and eventually formalize into a rigid scripture-adherent phenomenon, a better way than looking at history would be conducting a lab experiment, luckily there already is one, called cargo cults of the south pacific, maybe David Fitzgerald should write a book about that
no one is going to have a resurrection because of their beliefs. Ancients had no concept Read Heavens on Earth by Michael Shermer chapter 7 " soul stuff ..a googol of googolplex of resurrection complexities " And no concept of living "forever" Yikes!
It took me decades and reading the bible front to back several times to finally realize I am an atheist. Not because I am think. I tired really, really, really hard to find anything anywhere that may even suggest a hint at a diety. I literally found nothing. And worse, less than nothing because all evidence indicates that the universe exhibits no sign of ever having or needing a god. God is not dead. It is imaginary.
Yes, what does humans creating things for their needs out of existing material have anything to do with a super human like mind without a brain thinking/willing material into existence from nothing?
Perhaps the LDS view of Joseph Smith is different than the real guy.
Well, my father used to live across the street from the LA Mormon tabernacle, which had a golden statue of, I think, Joe Moroni on top. He was called "Horny Joe"--- because of course we know that a lot of the impetus for Mormon men was to have nubile young wives in bulk, plus older ones to take care of the babies.
So if the LDS view of these folks is that they're saints, ask the young teenage girls and women that were made into their sex slaves.
Yes it is. He's not quite at the point of being a fictional character, but he is heavily mythologized and white-washed. Even the artist renderings of J.S. are fiction; they draw him as having light blond hair and bright blue eyes, while in reality he had dark brown hair and blue eyes.
Smith was a con man in a community of superstitious,credulous, gullible people. The Book of Mormon is a con, plagiarized from the few books he had. The Book of Abraham, “translated” from the hieroglyphics, is a con, as he could not read them.
Only when we understand why we humans create these myths from a psychological point of view do we get closer to an understanding of its real impact on us. Yes, these myths are being carried over from one generation to the next but it ties so well into the psychological needs in us for some sort of ground zero, an origin of some sort. We seek a framework in which we can put ourselves in. Very few people are brave enough to remain non-idealistic and accept the groundless nature of reality, just as it comes to us without any form of interpretation or mental remodelling in-between. Most people seek to have some kind of handle on reality, even people fond of science mostly belong to that mentality group. The stories we tell each other all begins inside ourselves first. In most cases it is the same old story that’s been told a billion times before but nevertheless we find it soothing and comforting to rehash it once again in order to invoke it and make it feel real to us. The louder we shout our gospels from the rooftops, the more real we believe ourselves and our world to be. But we all neglect the one thing that’s most crucial about the whole story; -we completely miss the opportunity to acknowledge our own psychological makeup that is the actual foundation for the pantheon of mythology that spring from it. This makes us incredibly easy targets for exploitation and control.
The only true antidote to this sickness is the journey of self-discovery and the investigation into the true nature of reality in relation to our own experiences. It is a journey that must be taken by each one of us. The final outcome of such a journey cannot be transmitted or passed over from one person to the next. The nature of both our own ignorance and the resultant state of wisdom is such that it can only be transcended by ourselves. It’s a personal journey because we hold onto the idea of a personal being all the way until we realise our true nature. To unwind ignorance is a waking on a tightrope constantly finding and loosing our bearings and footholds but still finding ways to move forward into ever more subtle ways of relating to that we like to call Reality. For some this is called being on a spiritual path. A path that sidesteps all conventional religious dogma and obligations. It is a path that can be applied completely hidden to the world and secretly practiced in all walks of life. It is a limitless practice that only happens within our own field of experience and perception. It is a path that leads to the transcendence of ignorance into wisdom. It leads to an understanding of what ignorance is and how it manifest itself in all living beings. It is a path that give rise to boundless love and compassion for all those that have not yet begun their journey towards the transcendence of ignorance. It is a path that leads to the result of being completely immune to any attempts of exploitation, corruption or subordination. It leads to the limitless Awareness that cannot be altered or made stupid again.
And as we evolve into more and more intelligent animals, we start to lack the need of the placebo effect of religions. There are people who have never needed such self-deception and I am pretty sure there were the same people back in 10,000 years ago as well. Dull individuals will never shed the need of an imaginary friend, no matter what facts will tell them.
Wow, some of these commenters need to write books.
Leaders of Moonies, Mormons, Bahai, Scientology, all existed. I suspect so did the leaders of older religions. What happens, though, is that they get embellished. Promoted. They get special status such as Virgin Birth, ability to do miracles, direct hotline to God, etc. Followers want their leaders to be superhuman heroes. They want their religions to outshine the others. This is part of the psychology of belief. And then there are people who are not even religious leaders, but people clamour to MAKE them one, such as Trump. In the passage of time, this all gets blurred, it becomes dogma, and woe betide anyone who is too prominent a non-believer.
You can use Buddhist meditation practices to get to know yourself. You don’t need to believe anything and particularly you don’t need any metaphysical god like entities. Doesn’t matter even if Buddha existed or not. The Vipassana techniques can be used as a mind map, but there are also other maps out there.
When it comes to these questions I am not at all an expert. But on the occasions that I do explore the subject, the conclusion that I come to is that whether or not there was an original figure behind the religion, a real Jesus for example, it doesn't matter if there was or not, as the figure that is represented is fictitious. To again use Jesus as an example, whomever it was based on bears no resemblance to the figure described in the Bible. That character is a fiction, created over time to fill the needs of the religion as it developed.
Further, throughout all societies there is a habit of creating fictional backstories to bolster the claims being made in modern times. A good example of this is Freemasonry, which was started in the late 18th Century, but with a fictional backstory claiming origins in ancient times. I see no reason not to presume such practices for all religions.
Buddhist here. Buddhist meditation works fo rme. If the buddha Gautama Siddharta didn't exist as a historical person I don't care. His life story is a pretty generic spiritual seeker story. Rich kid that had been sheltered by his parents discovers that old age, sickness and death exist and decides to renounce the worldly lifestyle to find an answer. That happened all over the world again and again and still happens
I feel the same. There's a lot in Buddhism that's useful in a practical and ethical way. And it requires no belief at all. In fact Buddhist texts quote the Buddha as having said not to accept his word on the value of what he taught, but to try it for yourself. I've never been anything other than an atheist, yet I've always felt drawn to the more secular, Western manifestation of Buddhism.
@@hannotn I practice tantric buddhism. In a sense the most faith based type of buddhism, along with pure land buddhism. But that's a personal choice I would never automatically recommend to random people on the basis that it is what works for me.
"Religion is a snare and a racket!"
-Judge Rutherford, founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses religion.
I find that believers strike out with threats, when informed of reasoned denial, of the existence of a God outside of fiction.
Atheist literature goes back to 500 BC. I suspect educated men have always known Deity as a tool of fiction, a tool of state.
Believers begin their crimes like Moses, becoming history's worst navigator, as if travel were best done with one foot in fantasyland.
Believers fail to comprehend the saying of Jesus Christ which has lasted to this day. Believers are found among a gathering crowd, when Jesus Christ is alarmed by a wicked generation, those who seek the signs of resurrection. "The only sign given is Jonah" - who was a believer. He was outnumbered & murdered by other believers. Jesus Christ "hangeth on a tree" to celebrate the War of the Jews.
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree:" Galatians 3:13
"Render to Caesar"
As an exjw, I detest that guy. But the one thing he got right
Founder was CT Russell. Rutherford came after him
@@lieutbugaroff Russel published Zions Watchtower which many church groups subscribed to, but the bible students weren't under the control of the Watchtower.
Rutherford came after and seized control of the Watchtower Society and brought the groups of bible students under his control.
In 1931 he gave the bible students the name Jehovah's Witnesses.
A new religion was born.
@@azazelsgoat respectfully that is utter bs The roots of jws trace to Russell and he is the founder Every jw you ask would say the same
We may be watching the birth of the Orange Jesus religion, so we might get to see this in real time.
If its a hierarchy, its a concept created by man.
Way back around 1970 when I was college student studying the philosophy of the world's religions, I came to the conclusion that men create their own deities rather than the other way around. And I think that's mostly because we can't stand the fact that there are things we can't know. So we create a higher being that supposedly can give us the answers. Fiction or not, at least we then have less uncertainty in our world view.
I would love to hear what he says about Joseph Smith founder of Mormonism.
I'm pretty sure he is aware of what is reliably known about the historical Joseph Smith as a previously convicted fraudster (getting people to invest in searches for fictitious troves of buried Native American gold) before coming up with the Angel Moroni scam. Smith's rap sheet is still on the books, and I think I've heard Fitzgerald mention that very topic.
I think that most of those historical figures did exist. But then a. bunch of mythical stuff that existed before was associated with that person.
Old Testament is surely 7th C BC.
Atheist thought has finally meaningfully evolved itself. Atheists should therefore revere all the religions, except perhaps Mormonism, as our ancient families, to be honored and revered. It is what our grandparents and their grandparents believed and lived their whole lives by. Atheists should only denigrate theistic beliefs that are dangerously stupid, like snake handling, etc. By the same token, theists should treat educated atheists like sort of high priests or monks, who also should be honored and revered.
There are two words that all the religions ever can not survive......"prove it"
By Vectrons golden eye that was fascinating!
In addition to many species which are housed in the Farlow Herbarium, located at the Harvard University Herbaria, Wolfe spent months tracking rare species in far-flung locations like London and Hawaii.
After extracting DNA from the samples, Wolfe used the genetic codes of four different genes to determine how the various species are related to one another.
He then used a process called ancestral state reconstruction to show that the mushrooms have switched from being decomposers to being symbiotic with trees only once in their evolutionary history.
Once the mushrooms switched to this new symbiotic lifestyle, they didn't go back to their free-living past.
Ultimately, Pringle said, the paper highlights one reason she finds such symbiotic partnerships "intrinsically interesting" -- for all their apparent benefits, the cost can be high.
"I think the really interesting thing is this idea that once you become symbiotic, some of your machinery is lost," she said. "It seems like a dead end in some ways -- you have to make this change to enter this niche, but once you're there, you can't go back -- you've lost the capacity to be free-living."
Arguably the most widely-recognized group of mushrooms in the world, Amanita mushrooms have appeared in popular culture ranging from Fantasia to the Super Mario Brothers video games.
Though it includes a number of edible species, such as the Amanita caesarea, the group is probably best known for its many toxic species, including the death-cap mushroom.
Armed with their family tree, Pringle and Wolfe were able to determine that Amanita evolution has largely been away from species that help decompose organic material and toward those that live symbiotically on trees and their roots.
More interestingly, they found that the transition came at a steep price -- the loss of the genes associated with breaking down cellulose.
"There had been earlier suggestions that this type of gene loss might be taking place, but our study is the first precise test of that hypothesis," Pringle said.
"The idea makes sense -- if you're going to actively form a cooperative relationship with a tree, you probably shouldn't simultaneously be trying to break it apart and eat it. But it's a very tricky dance to form these kinds of tight, cooperative interactions, and I think this work shows there is a cost associated with that. You have to change, you have to commit, and it can become a sort of gilded cage -- these mushrooms are very successful, but they're stuck where they are."
Harvard researchers are unlocking the evolutionary secrets of one of the world's most recognizable groups of mushrooms, and to do it, they're using one of the most comprehensive fungal "family trees" ever created.
As reported in paper published July 18 in PLoS ONE, Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Anne Pringle and Ben Wolfe, a Post-Doctoral Fellow in FAS Center for Systems Biology, studied the genetics of more 100 species of Amanita mushrooms -- about one-sixth of the genus' total diversity -- to create an elaborate phylogeny showing how each species is related to one another.
New research finds that Amanita mushrooms' evolution has largely been away from species that help decompose organic material and toward those that live symbiotically on trees and their roots. More interestingly, scientists found that the transition came at a steep price -- the loss of the genes associated with breaking down cellulose.
Is there some particular reason you decided to write a long essay on a topic with no relationship whatever to this video?
@@donnievance1942 you just don’t see it do you? The video is about something that doesn’t exist, the video should be about why and how this was made to be about God, a direction.
Can you tell me what on earth has gone extinct and made it back and why does science have to say it is this, because this scares me, not God, if you are Christian then can you tell me when Jesus said He would return, where He was and who He was talking to and why does God say pray for water for he tender plant?
@@doveseye.4666
"This video is about something that doesn't exist. "
This video clip is about the origins and evolution of religion.
Religion, and it's evolution, is something that definitely exists.
@@FoursWithin then Santa exists.
@@FoursWithin I say, all hail the original Word.
And there is personal revelation. Takes one before that mind that is now thinking n seeing what ever I read trying to find wasn’t. Explains why those who know do not talk
This is an oversimplification of the very complicated process by which religions evolved. It started with the ghost cults who feared that the ghosts of the deceased wanted to harm the living because they were jealous that they were no longer alive. So rituals evolved in efforts to appease these supposed angry spirits.
Then there were the god-of-the-gaps nature gods, for thunder, volcanoes, etc. all of whom also had to be appeased because they were destructive. Most valued possessions were sacrificed including virgins.
Unknown to David, were the various divine revelations that occurred on rare occasions, which up-stepped current religions, which then blended those teachings with others that they liked.
There's an extremely detailed account of this in the Urantia Book.
It's not the case that central figures didn't actually exist. Quite the opposite, they existed, but then followers elaborated their oral traditions to make them out to be a lot more than they started out to be, which had the effect of making them seem unbelievable.
But confirmation bias is alive and well, so if someone has started to doubt, and someone else says it was all a lie, they believe and that becomes the narrative.
Admittedly, there is much in each evolutionary religion that is pointless. But some of the core principles, specifically the Golden Rule, do have value in shaping human society. Attempts to undo entire religions with no attempt to preserve that which has value, undercuts civilizations.
And there is one who very much desires for that to happen, so while the narrator may think he's acting on his own, there is the distinct possibility that he's being manipulated by someone who claimed 200,000 years ago that there was no God, and we could engage in liberty without license. [A surefire recipe for disaster.]
Thanks!