Have You Had This Conversation Before?

It’s like every conversation I’ve had with my friends over my lack of faith.
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Yea – a longer version would have been nicer, although it did kind of bother me a little bit, I’ll admit.

And the ‘yea, I know’ seemed to be more in reaction to Bernie saying he was going to Hell, like ‘yea, yea. You tell me this every week.’

I thought it was well done by both Gary’s performance and Bernie’s smug arrogance. I’m sure this conversation has repeated itself often.

Wow, great video and it’s a little strange to see this right now because last weekend I had exactly the same type of conversation with my Christian girlfriend… well, ex-girlfriend now :-/

At the end of our conversation she asked “Will you ever believe in god?”. When I answered “Nope, for me your god is like Santa” she said that I was very “disrespectful” with her beliefs. Like Bernie, I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m going to burn in hell.

Lovely!

I would have liked for the grandfather and the girl to have found out that Mark is an atheist, and for the grandfather to be a little uncertain as to how to deal with an atheist who has just done something moral. Perhaps returning his wallet that he leaves behind or something. This whole notion that morality requires religion is what annoys me the most.

The only change I would have made is the portion where he asks ‘What harm does it do? Why try to kill the myth?’ I think that could have been greatly expanded. Otherwise, great video!

I’ve had that conversation more times than I can count.

I kind of found mark to be a bit smug.

Hmm there’s something familiar about all this. What could it be…

Not bad, but I have issues with the atheist’s non-sarcastic usage of the phrase “more truer.” Yeah, I’m a grammar Nazi.

Also, Israel’s not a theocracy, even though it definitely has a vocal religious faction within the halls of government. I mean, hell—they don’t even have an issue with gays in their military!

I sort of wish this had been written by an atheist and a believer, rather than an atheist and the straw-man religious doofus in his head. The atheist character seemed very well-spoken, whereas the religious character just spat out random bible quotations. Too bad — the religious folks I usually argue with are much more intelligent.

What would the more intelligent religious person have said?
Are there any intelligent religious arguments?

I would have liked for the grandfather and the girl to have found out that Mark is an atheist

The grandfather in the video is actually Gary, the person that made this video and I believe that’s his actual granddaughter he’s sitting with.

Gary did an outstanding job on this video. I can’t count how many times I’ve had conversations exactly like this myself.

@chicago dyke

-speak more about religious hypocrisy. the gay preachers getting caught with male prostitutes, the anti abortion preachers who had some woman in their lives terminate a pregnancy that was inconvenient, the preachers who preach in support of war despite “thou shall not kill,” super rich pastors with private jets taking monthly donations from the very poorest in our society, etc
-talk about how religious leaders manipulate people for money, and other things they want people to do, give or think. catholic leaders who supported the nazis, islamic imams exhorting people to become suicide bombers, religious leaders blatantly participating in politics for their own personal advancement, etc.

What does this have to do at all with the video? It was a discussion of the naivete of a belief in god.

JustSayin wrote:

Also, Israel’s not a theocracy, even though it definitely has a vocal religious faction within the halls of government.

Then why can’t people with no religious affiliation get married in Israel?

“A person who is neither halachically Jewish nor connected to another approved faith community cannot marry in Israel”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_Israel

This is not very good. Sure the message is spot-on and all, and the arguments are valid, but the film is made in the exact same way the fundamentalists make there films to “prove” the existence of a God: shitty dialogue, a resolute but pushy protagonist, and the confounded antagonist, it’s just so trivial.

And when have you ever seen a religious person stay so calm and allowing when their beliefs are being all-out attacked?

Every counter-argument to religion was presented and counter-argued in this, which is just unrealistic.

As a filmmaker, even though I agree, I do not support this kind of coy and redundant brand of film.

Meh, I really wasn’t impressed. The whole exchange seemed so forced and phony, rather unnatural. It talked like people on the internet, not people face to face.

Am I the only one going to call that smug asshole out on the towel head remark? !!! No, tell me he did not really go there. But he did. I heard it. How can you place any value on this film after that bit of bigotry?

Did the Christian actually come back with honor thy father and mother as “proof”? Seriously. Would have loved to be there to tell him to grow up with my mother and father and then freaking talk to me about honoring parental units.

It sucked. Just because platitudes that our non-believing asses liked were uttered for 8 minutes doesn’t mean it didn’t. It did.

And when have you ever seen a religious person stay so calm and allowing when their beliefs are being all-out attacked.

Um, I have. Many a time. Most eventually get to we’ll have to agree to disagree but there was Christian coworker once that he and I use to have fascinating discussions each defending our view but neither of us grew angry. For the nine months I worked in the cubicle next to his. If anything, he outclassed me. I still miss those conversations. When I left, we were in a deep discussion re AA vs. RR and we got there via a discussion of does religion do harm or good? Another Atheist was in the cubilce across from me and he was likewise respectful to him. I was temporary and they had both been working there for years and got along fabulously and I suspect still are. Maybe he could be calm because we didn’t treat him like he was ignorant to believe. Oh, and he was a classy guy period.

I sort of wish this had been written by an atheist and a believer, rather than an atheist and the straw-man religious doofus in his head.

Wow, you just called all my relatives straw-man doofuses. Thanks a lot. Maybe you have friends who are all into “sophisticated” theology that dresses up the imaginary in fancy words, but every Christian I know has basically those same arguments used in the video.

Laura, my grandfather was a very intelligent religious person. He’d been a professor at a Baptist seminary, and was somewhat drummed out of there because of his belief that the Bible was more useful metaphorically than literally. That said, he was definitely a believer in God, and in the works of Jesus, and he and I had a lot of wonderful discussions, even though he knew I was an atheist. He told me to “keep an open mind,” and I asked him to do the same.

As a fan of science, I strive to think scientifically, and therefore I can’t go around insisting that there IS NO GOD. All I can say is that I see no evidence of a God. And that, in fact, I’m not sure the word means much anymore, now that everyone has a different definition. Intelligent Christians I talk to often have problems with the Bible and with organized religions, and freely talk about these. But they do believe there’s more “out there” than just the natural world, and we respectfully disagree.

To me, a good theological chat is (almost) always enjoyable, especially if both parties go away thinking about the possibilities.

Pansies4me wrote:

I’ve come to the conclusion that if someday there was incontrovertible proof that the Universe had a Creator, I would be terribly upset, and would find it difficult to give up my atheism. I would have no choice, of course, if I truly believe that lack of evidence is what led me to this state in the first place.

But even if there were a ‘creator’, the most you’d ‘have to’ do is acknowledge it…..you wouldn’t necessarily have to worship it or ‘defer’ to it.

By the way AxeGrrl, you are the first person to ever respond to a comment I’ve made on any blog, ever. This sounds stupid, but thank you! I was beginning to think I just had nothing interesting to say. 🙁

Reality is pretty awesome without adding gods to the mix.

Precisely what I’m getting at…