hethsixoespa,

First, I like your parakeet.

Second, if the religious would keep their beliefs in their churches and homes, we wouldn't need to be out here expressing our views. Unfortunately, the religious feel the need to knock uninvited on our doors, get into our government and attempt to get into our lives.

We have a president who claims god told him to invade Iraq. Sam Harris said it well:

http://www.slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/archives/002304.html

We have the religious trying to control women's bodies. We have the Jehovan's Witnesses knocking on our doors. We have the religious flying airplanes into buildings. We have the religious trying to pass morality laws.

Being "preached at" is not a natural consequence of disagreeing with most people about most things. People don't preach in disagreements about politics, art, music, books to read, what television program to watch or how much time to spend on web forums.

Being "preached at" is a consequence of having opposing views about religion. Please note that I didn't say "expressing opposing views" to that person. If you read some of the other threads in this forum, you will see examples of messages we have received from people that contacted us out of the blue.

If religion were kept in churches and homes, the Rational Response Squad wouldn't be so very necessary.

Anybody else see this:

The DVD offer is a scam

The video features snopes.com, but when I searched snopes for the article, I came up with nothing. Anyone know what's up with it?

Shaun

Indeed it is hard to avoid those who oppose your views no matter what you believe and considering such everyone should be well versed in what they believe so as to be able to defend it if they feel necessary.

Indeed religion has caused much upset in the world throughout history and for most of it I would not attempt to justify, especially what I hear from those who would claim to be a fellow Christian with me.

To Susan,it's actually a Sun Conure, a small species of Parrot...and he is a very good pet, but if you like birds and would consider getting one, make sure you don't mind being able to hear him yell from across the street.

True enough, you said that explicitly after all. I was just pointing out why most people around here don't typically follow that kind of mindset.

I used to raise parrots--African greys and Senegals, specifically. I've had my current pet, a double yellowhead, for almost twenty years.

I'm very busy today and will be through January 1st, so for the most part I'll be keeping my posts short. I will try to weigh in on your other thread if I see something. I just wanted to give you some food for thought here....

There is a common ground among Shermer and Harris, and that is simply: the need to speak up. So with that said I think you should make sure that at the minimum, you speak up even if it's the non-confrontational type. I think it is important for me to note, that the non-confrontational style of Shermer is extremely important in the discussion about science and religion. I've said this in the show, but imagine he's the good cop and we're the bad cop. I see theists as generally unwilling to change their beliefs, if simple non confrontational reasoning was good enough to steer people away from religion, then religion wouldn't exist today. So as I see it, there is a truth, a truth that Shermer offers that many theists are unwilling to accept. Here is where I see the Dawkins, Harris, and RRSs of the world playing a role. Imagine a pill of truth, Shermer has the pill but the theist is unwilling to accept the pill because he already knows the truth: God exists. Well Dawkins and I are here to take that pill and shove it down your throat, we're here to use blunt almost insultive (yet true) language that makes you realize that there may be some need to research further. Sure you may be turned off by our tactics but we make a lasting impression. Essentially, Dawkins and I have taken the pill of truth and lodged it in your throat. It's stuck, you can't get it out, and it's not going anywhere, you still are a theist. Now along comes Shermer with his glass of water. He's pure, polite, kind, and would not say anything of an insultive nature to your face, he makes the pill easy to swallow. It's my opinion however that the Shermers of the world (which could be you should you choose) would be much less effective without RRS, Dawkins, Harris, etc. The theist would not need to swallow the pill with your water, as the theist wouldn't even have the pill in his/her mouth.

Again, don't forget, the common ground amongst Shermer and I is that we both speak up, don't forget that. FWIW, Shermer called certain beliefs of theists "moronic" at a lecture in Philly I attended. When I asked him how that coincides with his kid gloves technique, he noted that he was amongst friends, and didn't feel the need to be as polite with his language.

Personally what I find works best is a combination of both methods and knowing when to use them. Someone who says to you "I've been considering giving up my religion" is not someone who you want to shove a pill down their throat, and I'd be an idiot for trying to do so. They are saying to you, "hey I found this pill, could you help me swallow it." Know who you're talking to, and adapt accordingly. The trick is to remain consistent in what you think and say, even if you engage in varying degrees of civility.

My response to Marcus at Transplant Ministries:

Great video! I love how you pointed out that Marcus technically comitted the unforgiviable sin and if Christianity is correct, he's going to hell, too!

30 seconds in I was writing this atheist a comment about how he'd had been brainwashed by Christians who rationalized incorrectly how to blaspheme the holy spirit and I come to find out he was a Christian. His logic was shitty from square one. For those who don't know the website he's promoting is known for being crap amongst Infidel Guy fans.

Shame. To quote J.G. Thirlwell, in "Heuldoch #7B": "Why are the pretty ones always insane?"

Iruka-

Greetings fellow bird lover.

Having a relationship with God is more simple than you think. First of all, having a relationship with anyone doesn't imply that you see them, like being friends with someone across the country or the world. You can maintain communication with anyone, never see them, and still have a close relationship with them. The key to a relationship is love and communication. Not just romantic love, but brotherly love, or perhaps family love...and communication is what maintains a relationship. It's that simple. I can have a personal relationship with God by loving Him, as He also loves us, and by communicating with Him, i.e. prayer.

VioletKitty responds to the Blasphemy Challenge! lol For those who don't know as far as we can tell Violet Kitty is the only person in the history of the world who has ever had an atheist jihad declared on them.

Captain Awesome declares atheist jihad on Violet Kitty from

Violet Kitty responds to the Blasphemy Challenge with this video, would someone please explain pascals wager to her. In fact someone on behalf of the RRS should just make a thorough video on pascals wager for us to post in the future:

Violet Kitty claims to be standing up for the non existent Christ (re: blasphemy challenge)

By questioning the very basis of this project I realize that I will probably be flamed, and piss some people off on here, but oh well; I’m a philosophy student, it’s generally what I do. I recently saw on the news, and littered throughout the internet community what is called a “blasphemy challenge“, presented by those who claim to be members of a “Rational Response Squad”. The idea of the challenge is to “commit the ultimate sin” and blaspheme or deny the holy spirit publicly on a website to get a free copy of Brian Flemming‘s DVD “The God Who Wasn‘t There“.

Most videos that I have had the patience to watch contain an atheist individual saying something like “I (insert name), in response to the blasphemy challenge by the Rational Response Squad deny the Holy Spirit”. Sometimes there is a bit more, perhaps adding “and I am not afraid” at the end or “through rational deduction I have concluded there is no holy spirit, but generally these types of videos are the videos I’m seeing. The videos usually contain the following: introduction, simple denial of the Holy Spirit, and that individual expecting a free DVD. Now, rationality is a difficult thing to pin down in the field of epistemology, but generally rationalists commit themselves to the claim that philosophically or epistemically you ought to have good reasons for your beliefs, which can be, and are usually stated. If statements are made like “I deny the holy spirit” without any good reasons presented then philosophically and epistemically that is not a rational response. One can rationally conclude, if I may, that the mere denial of the Holy Spirit is not a rational response, nor is it a good philosophical response.

The “Rational Response Squad” asks an atheist to merely deny the Holy Spirit that is all. The challenge is to get several people to deny the Holy Spirit, not present good reasons for that denial. During this challenge the Rational Response Squad encourages everyone to participate, from little children to the elderly. Now I’m not entirely sure what Flemming or the Rational Response Squad desires in doing this challenge, perhaps it’s to annoy Christians, perhaps it’s propaganda, the latter of which may be interesting to continue to think about.

Reason has always been presented as the “good way of thinking”, in all cases of violence reason and rationality has played some part, violence is always a sufficient solution to a more complex problem. While religion may be responsible for many deaths, it seems to me what is frequently called “reason” or we describe as reason is present in every war, murder, and execution in the west. What has been called “reason” also seems to share what I thoroughly detest about religion: in the words of John Raulston Saul reason is “A narrow system swollen into ideology. With time and power it has become a dogma, devoid of direction and disguised as disinterested inquiry. Like most religions, reason presents itself as the solution to the problems it has created.”

I actually have a copy of Flemmings DVD, and the reasoning and conclusion is questionable. The basic thesis seems to be that Jesus, the man in history, did not exist. This does not seem to be a very good video because the thesis rests upon the declaration that there is no real sufficient evidence that he did exist, and basically denying what scholars have often thought to be evidence for Jesus as evidence. Logically speaking this is incredibly fallacious; having no evidence and saying it is evidence does not lead to a good conclusion in any argument and is not a good rational argument. The thesis in general has been debated for a few years and recently been discarded by most scholars as a scholarly dead end, and some would say the thesis rests upon an error in reasoning by committing a fallacy known as the argument from ignorance. Perhaps this is why Flemming is giving away his DVD’s (that was a joke by the way).

So to conclude, I wish to encourage the individuals on this site to do several things. First, ask yourself whether responding to the blasphemy challenge is really a rational response to Christians. Second, question everything a person who espouses the best “Rational” conclusion. In several cases the "rational" conclusion is merely propaganda: reason and what is rational, or what counts as sufficient evidence is not clearly defined by that individual, nor is it a good rational response to just call their position the “real rational” position or say "through logical deduction I have concluded..." and leave it at that. Last I wish to encourage everyone to respond rationally to Christians: in other words give good reasons and arguments for your conclusions!

Good question Sapient, indeed it is also a simple question, but the answer is not all together easy to give so I hope this will satisfy your curiosity. The question is: do I believe in god, and if so which one? The idea behind the question, I take it, is: where hermeneutically do I speak from? What is my own position? Philosophically I am primarily concerned with phenomenological and epistemological claims about belief in god or lack there of. In laymen’s terms I consider myself a philosopher of and about religion. Religiously I would say I am of the Judeo-Christian tradition with the following “proviso” given by Richard Kearney in “The God Who May Be”: “…where this tradition.. offends [love and justice], I prefer to call myself religious in the sense of seeking God in a way that neither excludes other religions nor purports to possess the final truth. And where the religious so offends, I would call myself a seeker of love and justice tout court.”

My follow up question would be: Can you defend belief in god through reasoning as logically justifiable and tenable? And if so, how?

As a philosopher myself (having earned my MA three years ago), I can appreciate your points, drummermonkey.

I think that people don't try and justify, rationally, their blasphemy in the short videos because that was not the point of the challenge. IF people want to know why we deny the Holy Spirit, or gods in general, they can follow the breadcrumbs and read our reasons here. The challenge is simply to declare publicly that we are not worth trying to convert now since we're damned, that we truly do not believe (many theists refuse to accept that we actually lack belief), and show that we are sure enough about what we lack belief in to stand up and show people that we really mean it, and perhaps we are sure for a reason.

Per your points abut the historicity of Jesus, I can say that I don't tend to accept propositions that don't have sufficient evidence. To me, it really doesn't matter if Jesus really lived, but I am not convinced that he did. It's possible that he really did exist despite lack of evidence, but if that were the case, then what the New Testament claims would almost surely be false. Someone who did something that important would have some record from historians. Anyway, there are already threads about that topic, so I'll leave it alone here.

My justification for my lack of belief in any god is the utter lack of evidence for, lack of explanatory power of, and (in many cases) the logical impossibility of gods. I could just say "sure, there's a god." But if I did that I would not be adding anything to my understanding of the world nor explaining anything. God is a hypothetical being that does not stand up to scrutiny. If it gives people comfort, that does not lend credibility to its truth.

As a philosopher, I'm interested in truth. There is simply no reason to believe that the god hypothesis is true. That is, even if religion and theism hurt nobody and instead only helped people, I would still be interested in the truth of the matter.

As Sapient asked, do you have any reason to believe god exists? Because, if god did exist, I'd want to know.

Shaun

OK, who else did that redneck "Traditional American" send his dumb "Hey Atheists" video to?

I like the fact that he thinks the Blasphemy Challenge participants are trying to be "naughty and wicked" and trying to go to hell.
The fact is, noone's doing it to be a rebel, like "Oooh, take THAT holy spirit, booya!"

See anything about needing to believe in God to show a lack of reverence or contempt? I don't. Leave it up to a Christian to redefine a word to their liking. What does it matter anyway? Nonbelievers are going to hell because (the character of) gods ego can't take it.

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary
Main Entry: blas·phe·my
Pronunciation: 'blas-f&-mE
Function: noun
Inflected Form: plural -mies

1. insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God or a religion and its doctrines and writings and esp. God as perceived by Christianity and Christian doctrines and writings

Two semi relatied things from with in this thread:

One: Atheist Jihad 2

Two: I plan on going through this list on YouTube. At least one released each day starting when ever I get that camcorder.

Hi, Hethsixoespa.

How old is your sunny? I bet he's changed since that picture. For everyone who isn't familiar with parrots, that sun conure is a baby that hasn't yet molted into his extra-gorgeous adult plumage. Even after he acquires his "adult plumage," he'll still be a baby for awhile.

Come August, I will have had my Amazon parrot for twenty years. When I first got him, I was still a Christian attending a Christian university. I named him "Gabriel" after the archangel..."Gabby" for short. I taught him how to say, "Hallelujah" and sing the first line of "Jesus Loves Me." Thank the God Who Isn't There he's long since dropped that crap from his repertoire!

I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Hethsixoespa, but when you communicate with "God," there isn't anyone on the other end of the line. What you're doing is communicating with a part of yourself. In The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James pointed out that all religions have an experience similar to what you feel when you communicate with God. In fact, even those who don't believe in a god can recreate the experience with a little bit of practice. I'm currently thinking of delving into Buddhist and Taoist meditation--sans superstition--to recreate the "altered reality" experience of the years when I believed in Jesus.

When I was just a little kid, a sense of wonder came over me when I thought about Santa Claus, his elves and the wonderful presents that came on Christmas Day. It was a "religious" feeling, but it certainly didn't make Santa Claus real. The truth is, there is absolutely no good reason to believe in a personal god. His existence is about as likely as the existence of Santa Claus. The only difference is that adults persist in the delusion of god, whereas they cast aside the delusion of Santa. The Greeks believed just as strongly in their gods as you do in yours, but no one believes in Zeus, Apollo and Athena anymore. The same thing will inevitably happen with Jesus. I just hope we make it through our delusional phase alive. I also hope we don't replace Jesus, YHWH and Allah with yet another delusion...ACK!

Think about your religious experiences. There is nothing you can point to outside yourself to prove the existence of your invisible friend. Think about the people you are talking to on this forum. Most of us grew up believing in and talking to Jesus, only to realize that no one was listening.

Once you're ready to admit this possibility to yourself (yes, it can be very scary!), you'll have real atheists to talk to about it, right here at rationalresponders.com. I had absolutely no one, but I was still able to think my way out of the delusion. It can be hard, but as Carl Sagan said, "It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."

Iruka-

My sun is about 11 months old now, we just got him last spring. And yes, that is a young picture of him, he is quite a bit more colorful now, and getting even more so. We named him Idgie, for no particular reason, and the only thing he can say yet is "up up", that we can understand anyway. We also have a 12 year old cockitiel and a 13 year old love bird. I love birds. I thought you might have been an amazon owner when I saw your little picture. They are quite the characters, I know of one who is 29 and can say all kinds of things and impersonate noises.

As to the rest, I will respond sometime on thursday, hopefully, very busy this week.

-Heth

I went out and bought a webcam, but now I need to try and get my mic working. I've un-muted the mic in sndvol32, but Creative's software for the X-Fi is not making it easy.

Awww, he's so cute.  "Those people are bad examples of Christians" followed by insult after insult an f-bomb, and more insults.  Not just insults directed at Flemming, insults directed at Christians as well. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faRDcqAFmCE