Hm, I don't think that's how religions actually got their start. Most primitive religions are polytheistic, and most of those are in fact mother-goddess cults, or otherwise have prominent female personalities. It's nice to imagine that all religion can be boiled down to paternalistic, Yahwist explanations about the natural world (for which I have little but contempt), but in fact the picture is much more complex than that and I'm afraid that this video only encourages arrogance by dangerously oversimplifying things.
That said, the video does a good job skewering a lot of the faulty arguments for Biblical literalism. I just wish the makers hadn't made it look as though all religious people are that ridiculous.
"Hm, I don't think that's how religions actually got their start"
That is more than likely, Any attempt to distill religious thought to a 8 minute video will oversimplify things. What is definitely likely is that every line of dialogue in that clip represents a stage in the development of religion.
I don't think it was meant to portray how religions get started, but the oversimplistic thinking of the average Christian today. Yes, there are some Christians who have actually thought their religion through and some Christian apologists who have really thought their religion through, but based on the questions asked at any given Dawkins speaking event, it's obvious that most Christians haven't thought about this any deeper than the characters in this cartoon.
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Hm, I don't think that's how religions actually got their start. Most primitive religions are polytheistic, and most of those are in fact mother-goddess cults, or otherwise have prominent female personalities. It's nice to imagine that all religion can be boiled down to paternalistic, Yahwist explanations about the natural world (for which I have little but contempt), but in fact the picture is much more complex than that and I'm afraid that this video only encourages arrogance by dangerously oversimplifying things.
That said, the video does a good job skewering a lot of the faulty arguments for Biblical literalism. I just wish the makers hadn't made it look as though all religious people are that ridiculous.
This might be the best youtube video on religion that I've ever seen.
"Hm, I don't think that's how religions actually got their start"
That is more than likely, Any attempt to distill religious thought to a 8 minute video will oversimplify things. What is definitely likely is that every line of dialogue in that clip represents a stage in the development of religion.
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 4/10/2009, at The Unreligious Right
Gotta love the NonStampCollector, one of my favorite youtubers!
I don't think it was meant to portray how religions get started, but the oversimplistic thinking of the average Christian today. Yes, there are some Christians who have actually thought their religion through and some Christian apologists who have really thought their religion through, but based on the questions asked at any given Dawkins speaking event, it's obvious that most Christians haven't thought about this any deeper than the characters in this cartoon.
I loved the Aussie accent. It made me think of Banana man Ray Comfort. Beautiful.
This sounds like a transcript of a class taught by William Craig.
I fail to see how the compression of the whole process into a few minutes, rather than a few thousand years, makes the conclusion any more risible.
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