The Atheist Delusion

[ImmortalFlame]

However, when I was thoroughly enjoying watching the original video, watching their faces as they realize how stupid evolution is I couldn't help but think that, after more than 20 years debating with atheists online, that this isn't real. This isn't how atheist would react in an interview like this. They would have walked away, or they would have gotten all smug and defensive and argumentative and mocking.

You say that, but it's pretty clear from your post - and your threads in general - that you are the one who is smug, argumentative, defensive and mocking.

That's just how it is.

If you imagine it to be so. I'm sure you've encountered lots of rude atheists, but I'm also sure you've encountered lots of polite, reasonable atheists who you dismissed as rude just because you didn't like their arguments.

So I thought to myself, what are the possibilities? They found some amiable atheists and selected a few.

No, they selected the ones who they thought most poorly represented atheists and atheism (and selectively edited the questions to make them look even worse).

Imagine the ones they rejected! They were fakes, or stooges as this video calls them. Actors playing the part of stupefied atheists. I come to the conclusion that the atheists in the original video were probably more amiable than reality would dictate because they were on camera. Being agreeable for their own 15 minutes of fame. Stranger things have happened. i could picture any of them on a reality game show eating slugs and wading through vats of cat sick for the same reason. To be on T.V.

Are you serious? Because this level of paranoia crossed with prejudice is hard to believe.

 

[Altfish]

I'm not watching the first two, I hate those kind of videos. The quasi celebrities making them always **** around for what seems like 2 1/2 hours tooting their own horn and being "funny" ie, smug. I just can't stand it.

i did watch the third video, and I agree with part of it but find some of it's reasoning contradictory. Atheists are always going on about how science and atheism aren't necessarily linked, but then when you show some atheists that don't seem up to snuff on the latest knowledge in the metaphysical experimentation of evolution they are all like . . . that wouldn't happen! It's like watching Condoleezza Rice pretend to be shocked that there could be an attack on the World Trade Center after explaining the attack on the World Trade Center occurred during a military exercise simulating an attack on the World Trade Center.

However, when I was thoroughly enjoying watching the original video, watching their faces as they realize how stupid evolution is I couldn't help but think that, after more than 20 years debating with atheists online, that this isn't real. This isn't how atheist would react in an interview like this. They would have walked away, or they would have gotten all smug and defensive and argumentative and mocking.

That's just how it is.

So I thought to myself, what are the possibilities? They found some amiable atheists and selected a few. Imagine the ones they rejected! They were fakes, or stooges as this video calls them. Actors playing the part of stupefied atheists. I come to the conclusion that the atheists in the original video were probably more amiable than reality would dictate because they were on camera. Being agreeable for their own 15 minutes of fame. Stranger things have happened. i could picture any of them on a reality game show eating slugs and wading through vats of cat sick for the same reason. To be on T.V.

To answer your last question. YES they do quote mine. Ray Comfort is famous for it, there are plenty of videos on line showing the full quote and then his abridged version.
The Ben Stiller film, "No Intelligence Allowed" even had Richard Dawkins being used to quote Wiki, "
The editing of the interview with Dawkins leads the viewer to believe that Richard Dawkins is saying that some intelligent designer (God) may be discovered when the evidence of cellular and molecular biology is examined. Dawkins is midway through a hypothetical statement, making the greater point that a designer would have to be designed (and this is highly unlikely), when Stein's voice-over interrupts, asking, "Wait a second, Richard Dawkins thought intelligent design might be a legitimate pursuit?" Dawkins concludes, "But that higher intelligence would itself have had to have come about by some explicable, or ultimately explicable, process. It couldn't have just jumped into existence spontaneously. That's the point."

Stein states afterwards in a voice-over, "So Professor Dawkins was not against intelligence design, just certain types of designers, such as God."

 

[sayak83]

I know what you mean. I used to love watching nature documentaries, but I stopped watching them because everyone seems to think it absolutely necessary to mention evolution to explain everything. Over and over and over.



You've got to ask yourself, complexity aside, when they developed a heart or blood first. Why would one develop without the other?

You really want to talk about evolution again? Why talk only with atheists though about the topic. The idea that committed theists, even many devout Christians fully accept evolutionary biology because of its scientific soundness is difficult for you to process?

To answer this question of yours...blood developed before the heart. Small organisms do not require a specialized pump to drive blood between the few cells of their small bodies.

 

[blü 2]

I'm not.

So you're complaining about the incompetence of the atheists chosen for the video, not that atheists generally can't answer 'simple questions' about atheism, right?

 

[LuisDantas]

Uh-huh.

Boy... I am sorry for you.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

You don't think that atheists have desires? Don't you think that everyone has desires?

Atheists have desires. So what? That isn't all you claimed. You claimed (or at least implied) that they were ignoring ideas of God so that they could fulfill their desires without compunction. Which implies that their desires go against "God's will" for them. Which implies that their desires are sordid in nature. Which all points to you believing that atheists are bad people who want to remain bad people and so do not believe in God in order not to have to "own up" (via accountability, remember?) to their wrongdoings. And you made all this implication in your insignificant little internet post all because you are judgmental, are unable to leave that task to God, and lean in quite heavily to bigotry.

See there? I didn't imply anything. I maintained my accountability and came right out and said what I mean. It's not all that difficult.

 

[shunyadragon]

But you haven't watched the video. You haven't had time.

The people portrayed as atheists are obviously poor actors.

 

[ChristineM]

It's sort of enlightening watching these atheist pressed for answers with simple questions. Like they've been indoctrinated up to a point which they accept and they are lost beyond that simple point. Then he starts talking about Hell. Pity.

And another hate the atheist post.

What is hell to an atheist? A device created for a 14th century divine comedy and some very odd art.

 

[Willamena]

I watched 5 minutes, so far.

Atheism is not "something from nothing."

Edit: The image of "something from nothing" as atheism, versus "something from God" as theism, is an attempt to apply the law of causation (a law operable only within the 'system' of the creation) to God. The laws within the system are not lawful (operable) outside the system; and, in any case, "God" should be above the laws of the creation, not subject to them.

 

[shunyadragon]

And another hate the atheist post.

What is hell to an atheist? A device created for a 14th century divine comedy and some very odd art.

It is an older concept that goes back to myths including Hades God of the underworld. Hell has variations in the various mythologies of ancient cultures.

 

[Windwalker]

Why talk only with atheists though about the topic. The idea that committed theists, even many devout Christians fully accept evolutionary biology because of its scientific soundness is difficult for you to process?

That is exactly the flaw of his justification for the denial of evolution. It is assumed in his mind it does away with God. It does not. I've pointed this out to him, that all evolution challenges is his peculiar literalist reading of the first chapters of genesis, and that there are many, many theists who have no problem with this because they don't read Genesis as a book of science.

He ignores this. Instead, makes a straw man that evolution and atheism go hand in hand justifies his denialism. Anyone who thinks differently than the ways he has adopted from others to think, must be wrong, because he sees it the way he does. Allegory and metaphor are not actual things in scripture, apparently. The problem isn't the science. The problem is ignorance of how to read and understand cultural mythologies.

 

[ChristineM]

It is an older concept that goes back to myths including Hades God of the underworld. Hell has variations in the various mythologies of ancient cultures.

It does, I have visited the gates of hell in 3 countries and in my opinion, been there, I've certainly heard no religious story as horrifying.

However, the Christian hell was not so colourful until Dante and Bosch did their work.

 

[Earthling]

The people portrayed as atheists are obviously poor actors.

You know this for sure? If so, and I doubt it, how do you know?

 

[shunyadragon]

You know this for sure? If so, and I doubt it, how do you know?

They did not present coherent believable views of atheists. It is a total shame.

 

[shunyadragon]

So you're complaining about the incompetence of the atheists chosen for the video, not that atheists generally can't answer 'simple questions' about atheism, right?

They are incompetent atheists, because they are actors, and poor actors at best.

 

[QuestioningMind]

From the time I posted the video to the time you responded leaves you very little time to have watched much of it. The interviewer explains that the evidence is given to us. We know it. Atheists deny what they know for their own desires. Accountability.

This is the sad pathetic argument of a theist with terribly weak faith. They have to pretend as if EVERYONE actually believes in their delusion, because to do otherwise forces them to face the very real possibility that they've been fooling themselves for years.

 

[Earthling]

This is the sad pathetic argument of a theist with terribly weak faith. They have to pretend as if EVERYONE actually believes in their delusion, because to do otherwise forces them to face the very real possibility that they've been fooling themselves for years.

You only say that because you think evolution is necessary for you to live an amoral lifestyle. It isn't. They were doing that long before evolution.

 

[QuestioningMind]

You only say that because you think evolution is necessary for you to live an amoral lifestyle. It isn't. They were doing that long before evolution.

No, I say it because you are desperate for confirmation of your delusional fantasy. The only way you can cling to it is if you convince yourself that everyone else shares your delusion as well, but just won't admit it. You even have to go so far as to pretend as if you know I live an 'immoral' lifestyle, as if your God has given you the magical ability to read a few posts on a forum and know EVERYTHING about the person who wrote it.

So sad to see you frantically attempting to bolster your delusion with these childish OPs of yours.

 

[Jose Fly]

It's sort of enlightening watching these atheist pressed for answers with simple questions. Like they've been indoctrinated up to a point which they accept and they are lost beyond that simple point. Then he starts talking about Hell. Pity.

Ray's argument seems to be little more than "If you're an atheist, then you have to be able to explain the origin of everything including the universe itself. If you can't, then your atheism isn't warranted and it makes more sense to believe in God".

IOW, an hour-long God of the Gaps argument.

 

[CruzNichaphor]

It's sort of enlightening watching these atheist pressed for answers with simple questions. Like they've been indoctrinated up to a point which they accept and they are lost beyond that simple point. Then he starts talking about Hell. Pity.

That video sucked.

I only got 15 minutes in before I shut if off - 15 minutes I'll never get back.

What a waste of time.

I don't consider myself an atheist necessarily because I don't really think the question of god is really that important.

But that video is just totally obnoxious drivel.

The atheists being interviewed all seem like sound people who have perfectly well-founded opinions and beliefs; the interviewer seems to be asking ridiculous questions that don't really go anywhere meaningful.

Absolute garbage.