A Panel of Atheists Discuss Religion, Science, and Morality

That was pretty good.

I kept waiting for them to make the point that an atheist’s morals are superior to a theist’s if they are only being good because of threats of Hell and bribes of getting to see their loved ones after death.

Now I will patiently wait for political candidates to explain how their religious beliefs will or will not affect their policies. Hopefully before the world ends. By being engulfed by the Sun.

I loved the comment about how it is “infuriating” when asked why you would want to preach about atheism. What is it atheists always complain about theists doing? Oh yeah, preaching about their religion.

I always get a kick out of atheists telling us how much more moral they are than everyone else.

And smarter.

Etc.

And then assuring us that they would treat the inferiors decently if they got control.

Why is it you call this “The Friendly Atheist”, Mehta?  You have as much as admitted the name is not accurate.

To continue to use it is Willful Dishonesty, and belies the claim that atheists are “more Moral” than their inferiors.

 “Okeydoke?”

No.

I always get a kick out of Theists telling us that without Religion, there is no reason to act morally and that they don’t understand why anyone who doesn’t fear their God and His threat of eternal torture wouldn’t do anything they could get away with, including stealing, murdering and raping. If you really think that then I really don’t want to you to ever lose your beliefs.

I need a citation for that “treat the inferiors decently if they got control” non-quotation. Name a name or it didn’t happen. Somehow, I think you are just projecting your own attitude onto atheists there and making it up.Take a look at northern Europe, where Atheists are now the majority in some countries. How badly are the theists being treated there? Fired? Forced to listen to Atheists deny God daily? Worst I can think of is that in some places Muslims are being told they can’t keep some of their cultural customs like burqas. Speaking of which, what would be your opinion of mosques and burqas becoming common in your neighbourhood?If lower crime rates correlate with being more moral then once again, northern Europe would be a counter example to your claim.I don’t imagine Atheists score much better than Theists on Intelligence Quotient tests. Still, keeping your mind open to accepting the unevidenced ideas of religion might spill over into other areas in life, increasing the chances of making poorer decisions.Something tells me you didn’t listen to the video. Why would you when your religion has already given you all the answers you need?

Did anybody try to convert the video to audio, and if so, did you have any luck?  None of the sites I usually use to convert YouTube videos is working.  

……and smarter….Humans actually do not know how stupid they are. I reason, the highest recorded IQ in humans is over 220. I doubt those people in that catagory can fathom everything. 95% of human have IQ of less than 130 and yet some among them claim to be intelligent. Atheists are so smart that they think agnostics are atheists. It is because of people like Dawkins that I no longer think of myself as an atheist.

I didn’t bother to listen to the talk as I never like one sided arguements. That is brainwashing.

The panelists struggled with the lack of a doctrine which delineates right and wrong. The golden rule is perfect for this, although they seemed to agree that it was inadequate. I’d love to know why….

You would have learned something about how they see using the atheist vs. agnostic labels. Food for thought.

They acknowledged that many people refuse the label because of the intensely negative associations that religious people assign to atheism, now and over the centuries past.

One observation I liked was that it didn’t really matter whether you couldn’t prove a negative statement such as that there are no gods; only whether you live your life as if there is a god or not. Call yourself agnostic if you like, but how much time do you put into staying on the good side of the god that might or might not be there?

If because of the possible existence of a god, you feel you need to do more than just be the best person you can be as a moral atheist might, what would that be? Praying? Begging forgiveness? Burnt offerings? How do you choose the appropriate rituals? Pick the wrong ones and you might be worse off than if you hadn’t. Pascal’s wager has always had that flaw.

One symptom of brainwashing might be avoiding other points of view because they threaten your precarious status quo.

With respect to Bush Senior’s disputed comment about atheists should not be considered citizens or patriots, the closest I think we can get to documented proof is the White House’s response to repeated pressure from American Atheists:

http://www.robsherman.com/advocacy/bush/thirdfax.pdf page 21 on Feb 21, 1989

Dear Mr. Murray:

Your letter of December 19, 1988, to President Bush has been referred to me for reply.  As you are aware, the President is a religious man who neither supports atheism nor believes that atheism should be unnecessarily encouraged or supported by the government.  Needless to say, the President supports the Constitution and laws of the United States, and you may rest assured that this Administration will proceed at all times with due regard for the legal rights of atheists, as well as other with whom the President disagrees.

C. Boyden Gray
Counsel to the President

So they never did confirm or deny the “citizens or patriots”, but it doesn’t seem like an unlikely sentiment for him to have.

Hemant is friendly. That doesn’t necessarily apply to the rest of us. I happen to be a bastard.

In any case, Randall, I wouldn’t sentence you to hell for even ten seconds, let alone for eternity – so yes, that makes me morally superior to you.

As far as being smarter than you is concerned – I’ve seen some of your other comments, here and elsewhere. It isn’t much of a contest.

Wow, nothing more courageous than a bunch of freethinkers – who always seem to think alike I might add – sitting around explaining why they’re obviously right, so no sense debating.  It’s a little like the kid saying ‘obviously I could beat you up, I’m just not going to lower myself to prove it.’  Yeah.  Right.  The type of stuff that made Archie Bunker think he was smart.  The difference I see between religious individuals and atheists?  Religious individuals believe in God and, despite atheist caricatures, respect the intellect (though I admit both sides have their fair share of individuals who might not).  Atheists, on the other hand, have disdain for something they can’t demonstrate to be false, and worship their own intellect to cover it up.  It’s a clash of worshippers when you get right down to it, though I think the more zealous award goes to the atheist worshippers of their own intellects.

“Inferiors”? What the fuck are you talking about? Get off this blog and get back on the Pat, Billy, Rush, Ted or Glenn blogs. Shit, we can’t get away from you energy-sucking myth-believing assholes! 

Hey dumb shit Agnostic, it wasn’t intended to be an argument! Didn’t you read that in the blog entry, even if you didn’t watch the video? Wow, it’s difficult not to get sideways with people like you. 

Why do I have the “feeling” that your moods are irrelevant to the conversation?

Hemant featured it early this summer 
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/06/02/in-god-we-teach-a-documentary/

And yes, thank you, it is a great documentary.