This is the Funniest Video I Have Probably Seen...and Intelligently Done

See what you think:




HT: Advocatus Atheist.

First published 8/15/2010

32 comments:

Keith Sewell said...

John,

Its superb! But I also just discovered Betty Bowers through DC.
Hard to say which I like better.

BR,

Keith

Thom Stark said...

All of Non-Stamp Collector's stuff is amazing. I have over forty of his videos!

Keith Sewell said...

Another comment:

The cartoon's end seems to be pretty accurate. Just read in TCD: Ezekiel 20:25-26 - "Morover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life; and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the LORD."

And the Christians are worshiping this guy.....?

Thom Stark said...

That's an important passage, Keith. It features prominently in a couple chapters in my forthcoming book. The NIV tries to "solve the problem" by adding the word "over" in their translation, so it's not that Yahweh "gave them bad commands," it's that he "gave them OVER TO bad commands."

Of course, the Hebrew cannot be legitimately rendered that way at all, but it satisfies them I suppose.

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

Here's a non-funny non-video (intelligently done though)... see what you think...

Anonymous said...

Lvka, whoever you are, why do you insist on trying to answer everything I post, and what does your post have anything to do with the video. If you do not attempt to directly answer the questions or arguments in this video then you have done nothing to defend your faith.

Come on now, this time. Give it a go, will you? No more skirting the issue. Answer the questions in the video or don't bother posting here.

Keith Sewell said...

Of course, the Hebrew cannot be legitimately rendered that way at all, but it satisfies them I suppose.

Thom,

Perhaps it’s a case of small remedies satisfying small minds. The distinction here between "gave them" and "gave them over to" seems so minor in relation to the heinousness of what the ‘The LORD’ is saying that I’m surprised his followers bothered with it.

Thom Stark said...

Keith,

I agree with you of course. But for fundies it's the difference between God giving them bad commands, and God allowing them to do what their "wicked hearts" were inclined to do on their own. But as I said, either way, it's pretty shitty of God.

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

why do you insist on trying to answer everything I post?

I'm 27 and unemployed.


Answer the questions in the video

1. God saving plane from collision.

2. If what "people do while they're not wearing any clothes" is so unimportant, why do you decry rapes, incests, paedophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia, and so on?

[There's a similar verse in the Qur'an condoning polygamy and anal sex on the grounds that Allah is too high up to care about such things: but then why did He bother ordering the stoning of adulterers and homosexuals? it's interesting how groups who supposedly hate eachother (like atheists and Muslims) have so much in common (as far as double-standards are concerned)].

3. Christ died to destroy death. He rose to give us life. He lived a holy life to make us able to lead a holy life. He suffered to give us the power to overcome suffering. He was tempted to make us able to resist temptations. He suffered and died for others to make us able to die and suffer for others. He loved others more than Himself to make us able to love others more than ourselves: In short, He became like us so that we might be like Him. -- do you consider this a meaningful and satisfying explanation for the Cross and the Incarnation, or do you need more?

4. Hell and Heaven are internal states of the soul. (For instance, addictions lead to depression even in this life: it's not an external or 'imposed' punishment from God: it's simply evil bearing its own distasteful fruit and 'reward').

5. God regulated slavery to make it more humane (or as humane as possible), by forbidding all kinds of inhuman abuses: he neither created it, nor invented it.

6. Circumcision had a medical aspect, of bodily hygiene; it also symbolized renouncing excesses [since the foreskin was an excess] (see Christ's message of giving many alms to the poor and needy; fasting; being celibate; etc).

7. God did not create unclean animals (Genesis 1:24-25). The separation of the clean from unclean animals (or of the Sabbath from the rest of the week-days) symbolized the separation of Israel from the Nations. When the later was abolished, so were its symbols.

[Why was Israel separated from the Nations at first? For the same reason a company, for instance, creates (shapes) a team of well-trained experts, and then sends them to instruct others].

8. Everything DID came from nothing. (from atoms to feelings to dinosaurs to self-awareness...)

9. The 'misoginists' who condemned rape?

10. See #1.

11. Do you deny the massive world-wide floodings that occured at the end of the last ice age?

12. God should've stayed put and done absolutely nothing to stop the Egyptians from opressing the Jews and making them kill their sons? Or what are you suggesting?

13. God avenging the fratricides of a despicable murderer is a bad thing? How exactly, since when, and by what logic?

14. See #10.

15. How can God be blamed for the short-comings and failures of men? I don't get it...

Jon Hanson said...

Talking about humane slavery is like talking about humane rape.

Christianity sure does a number on the moral mind.

Thom Stark said...

"5. God regulated slavery to make it more humane (or as humane as possible), by forbidding all kinds of inhuman abuses: he neither created it, nor invented it."

This is absurd. According to the laws of Moses (the supposed explicit instructions to Moses from Yahweh himself), a slaveowner was permitted to beat his slave, and if the slave died from the beating, the slaveowner was not morally liable, so long as the slave died slowly, and not immediately.

jwhendy said...

@Lvka:

Much of that article seemed to rest only on assertion: god is the foundation of morality. Look at how the atheist can't say anything about immoral actions x, y, and z because they don't believe in god and thus don't have any moral foundations [completely ignoring other reasons and sources of moral systems].

jwhendy said...

@Lvka:

Oh, and it's also hilarious how the whole thing starts out with:

1) a statement that it seems to be a "dogmatic atheism" that was held (an atheist by upbringing vs. one who was brought there through reason)

2) a nice diss to all other x-ianities except that of the Orthodox church. What a nice broad-sweeping categorization of "American Christianities" into the trash basket

Unknown said...

Wait. God *regulated* slavery?!?!?!?

Author of the fucking moral laws of the universe, lawgiver to mankind, and the bees he could do was take some of the edge off of fucking slavery?

So those keeping score: Lincoln outlawed slavery. Yaweh "regulated" it.

I'll take Lincoln.

Why are the apologists for the creator of the universe so incompetent. Or are some things indefensible?

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

@Lyka

you are hideously wrong on most of your points, and just wrong on others. i am going to look at one, point 11) Do you deny the massive world-wide floodings that occured at the end of the last ice age?

simply put, yes. and so does every geologist on the planet. a worldwide flood is impossible: there is not enough water on the planet, and if it happened, the earth's crusts would have collapsed in from too much pressure. this is naive creationism. we have had many, many localised floods (see pakistan) that to the people involved probably seem like the whole world, especially is, as in ancient times, you would not have left your area, and had no idea of the expanse of such things with no access to aeroplanes etc.

anywho, see robert cargill, phd, a christian who recognises such a silly claim here: http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/flood357903.shtml.

as for reasons why noah's flood did not happen as reported:

1 god did it because we were a sinful world. we still are, therefore it didn't work.

2 god killed unborn children and animals in the flood. what did they do to deserve the punishment. they had not committed evil.

3 it is virtually an exact replica of tablet xi from the gilgamesh, written 1000 years earlier. bloke receives exact dimensions to build a mssive ark for an imminent flood. takes animals and families on board to preserve life. lands boat on mountain after flood. releases dove and then raven. burns sacrifice whose odour pleases god. other parallels exist there too. now if this isn't dubious, i give up...it is clearly where noah's flood comes from.
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ THIS. IT IS STUNNINGLY SIMILAR.

4 china, egypt, babylon, mesopotamia, aborigines etc all have this legend, all predating hebrew one.

5 if deluge destroyed all, why do we have the writings and journals of people before, during and after the deluge?

6 flood accounts would mean everest was 15 cubits underwater. physically impossible. there is not that much water in the world.

7 the ark is physically bigger than a wooden vessel can be made, apparently by 50%.

8 clearly the gathering of all the animals is impossible, micro-organisisms and all, polar bears, penguins, condors, glowworms (how did they get there?)

9 ark's dimensions would have to be considerably larger to fit the animals.

10 population of 8 could not rebound in the fashion claimed. simply not possible.

11 rainfall would have to be 6 inches per minute. again, not possible. a category 5 hurricane gives 6 inches per hour.

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

(cont.)

12 the weight of the water would have disastrous consequences on the earth's crust, emitting noxious gases and eruptions, leading to potentially, a boiling sea!

13 there is no geological evidence for any of this

14 there are reefs that have been undisturbed in the world for 100,000 years. these would have been crushed and destroyed. they were not.

15 lots more evidence of fossil, radiometrics and isotopes etc mean that the flood clearly never happened.

16 how the hell did noah actually get all the animals on the ark without them trying to eat each other / the family etc?

17 asexual animals and hermaphrodites not accounted for

18 ventilation / food / faeces problems on ark

19 carnivores?

20 dna pool? no trace of this through dna analysis (ie we know we came from africa. the incredible human journey was a fascinating series)

21 all sea fish would have died from influx of fresh water.

22 all plants that do not rely on the seeds of noah to survive would die. there are many plants that reproduce other than seeds.

23 explaining it away as a local flood is contradictory to genesis, and would also not kill all the humans who were so evil. liquids find their own level, and so a local flood of that maginitude is physically impossible.

24 recent evidence suggests several explanations of flood story origin. one is a situation where some natural barrier in black sea broke, causing an inrush of water. i saw one, but have just thought that it could be apllied here, on a volcano program on the beeb the other week, wehre they have found that at one stage, the med was empty, with the atlantic held back by the gibraltar straits. these broke, and a monumentous onrush of water filled the med up in record time. i forget the figures, but it was phenomenal. it's amazing what science can tell you. usually some kind of fact.

etc

Paul Rinzler said...

But other than that, Johnny P, what evidence do you have about the Flood?

John Haugeland said...

This video would be a lot more compelling if it didn't get so much of Christianity's details wrong.

You know how scientists always make fun of those Christian debunking videos because the details they get wrong undermine their arguments, and they shouldn't be wasting their time in MS paint making video stock if they can't be bothered to get a little research done first?

Turns out that if you get a religion wrong, the religious people in said religion won't pay any attention to you.

Commence pretending I'm religious just because I criticized you.

Thom Stark said...

Well, I won't pretend that you're religious, but the fact is, there are all sorts of versions of Christianity, and this video gets a helluva lot of them exactly right. I know, because I've been a participant in several denominations that make precisely the claims he ridicules here.

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

as mentioned, read this excellent article:
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/flood357903.shtml

it debunks (from a christian point of view, too) the global flood myth from the textual point of view, and then the scientific one.

notably,
"o, allow me present some scientific evidence: there could not have been a worldwide flood as described in the Bible because there is simply not enough water in the earth’s atmospheric system to produce such a flood.

According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey, the amount of water in the earth’s atmosphere could not possibly cover the earth.11 In fact:

One estimate of the volume of water in the atmosphere at any one time is about 3,100 cubic miles (mi3) or 12,900 cubic kilometers (km3). That may sound like a lot, but it is only about 0.001 percent of the total Earth’s water volume of about 332,500,000 mi3 (1,385,000,000 km3)

If all of the water in the atmosphere rained down at once, it would only cover the ground to a depth of 2.5 centimeters, about 1 inch.

Additionally, because only 1.7% of the earth’s water is stored underground,12 there is not nearly enough water in groundwater storage beneath the earth’s surface to account for the amount of water necessary to flood the entire earth to the extent described in the Bible.

Simply put: there is not enough water in Earth’s atmosphere to raise the ocean’s levels over an inch, much less to cover Mt. Ararat with water from 40 days of rain. There is simply not that much water in the system.

Thus, in order to even entertain the possibility of a worldwide flood, one has to bypass all laws of physics, exit the realm of science, and enter into the realm of the miraculous, which many biblical literalists are willing to do. It is hypothetically possible that, say, the polar ice caps melted. This could raise the ocean levels beyond the 2.5 centimeters that all the earth’s atmospheric water could were it to all rain down, but even then the thaw would only slightly affect the world’s coastlines. Additionally, all scientific evidence points to larger polar ice caps in recent history, not smaller.13

Other fantastic scenarios could be offered to explain the flood. For instance, some might suggest that a colossal ice-asteroid could have burst into our orbit and melted, bringing with it an unconscionable amount of water into our atmosphere. But, even this desperate scenario poses a major problem for many biblical literalists who attempt to explain or prove the flood scientifically. The Bible says it “rained” and the “springs of the deep” opened, but mentions nothing about an asteroid. Likewise, were water to enter Earth’s system, where did it all go? To where did the water recede? Earth’s water cycle results in all water residing somewhere on Earth’s surface in the form of oceans, ice, and freshwater lakes, beneath Earth’s surface in subterranean reservoirs that produce springs and geysers, or in Earth’s atmosphere as moisture. So even if water could enter Earth’s closed system, where did it go?

Simply put: there is no evidence whatsoever for a worldwide flood. In other words, it’s impossible. There is not enough water in the earth’s atmospheric system to even come close to covering all of the earth’s landmasses."

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

@John Haugeland

Please, then, evidence what it gets wrong.

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

@Lyka and Paul

furthermore, from the skeptic's dictionary:

If there were a universal flood, there should be a lot evidence left behind. The problem is that scientists who have studied floods and scientists who have studied the sedimentary layers of the earth can't find any traces of a universal flood. We should find the geology around the world "beginning with coarse-grained poorly sorted deposits of sand and gravel and boulders from the fast-water stage of the flood. Once a flood recedes, it can leave only one kind of deposit: a single layer of mud" (Prothero 2007: pp. 66). Instead, we find enormous variety around the world, but mostly we find sedimentary layers that were put down one upon the other over long periods of time. Donald Prothero writes that "in a supreme twist of irony," Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky:

is built upon the famous Ordovician rocks of the Cincinnati Arch, which span millions of years of the later Ordovician. If you poke around the slopes all around the area (as I have often), you will find hundreds of finely laminated layers of shales and limestones, each full of delicate fossils of trilobites and bryozoans and brachiopods preserved in life position that could never have been disturbed by flood waters—and each layer of hundreds represents another community of marine organisms that grew and lived and then was gently buried in fine silts and clays. There is no possibility these hundreds of individual layers of delicately preserved fossils were deposited in a single "Noah's flood." (Prothero 2007: pp. 62)

We'd also expect to find a universal flood would have done severe damage to the fossil sedimentary record, mixing fossils from all time periods as it ravaged the earth. But just as we do not find the universal layer of mud from such a flood, so too we do not find any rabbit fossils in the pre-Cambrian layer, nor any layers with both dinosaurs and humans.



there is also plenty more evidence against a global flood if you want it.

Paul Rinzler said...

Johnny P, I was afraid that you might respond the way you did.

My first post was sarcastic! You marshalled a bunch of evidence, certainly persuasive in its entirety and maybe persuasive even by single points you made.

Sarcasm sometimes doesn't come across very well online, I know that, I was hoping anyway.

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

Jon,


Your American ancestors raped and killed their slaves. -- Hence your subconscious comparison between the two.

But that's not implicit in the meaning of the term: -- let alone condoned by the Holy Scriptures.

Serving someone is one thing: being considered a non-human or a non-person is quite another.

The Bible speaks of ALL humans being made in God's image: NO exceptions. -- And the orders of stoning rapists made NO exception for when slaves were the victims. -- Period!

So, no: -- being a slave or a serf or a servant is NOT the same as rape, nor is the later implied by the former.


------------------------------

Thom,

"post hoc, ergo propter hoc" is a fallacy:

unlike today, natural mortality rates were very high in antiquity, so when someone died, the fact that he was hit by someone else more than a certain number of days ago may NOT have been the actual cause of death... and to punish someone with stoning when he may have in fact been innocent would have been an aberration. -- in this case, when the cause of death was uncertain, the loss of his servant was viewed as punishment, IF he was indeded actually guilty of the man's death...

When the cause WAS certain (man dieing the same day, establisghing direct and undisputed connection between hitting and dieing) the master was killed by stoning, no excuses.

And when the master injured his servant [or anyone else], he was forced to repay him [and release him, if he was a servant].


------------------------------

Johnny,

pay attention to what people [in this case, me] say:

"world-wide floodings" does not mean "the whole world being under-water" for the same reason "world-wide killings" do not imply the whole of Earth's population being killed.

Now, to the point: it's not a mystery to anyone that flood-myths world-wide, including those of Noah and Gigamesh, refer to the world-wide floodings that happened at the end of the last ice age.

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

paul

damn it, being a big sarcasm fan, i am annoyed i didn't decipher that one. i often fall foul of attempted sarcasm in posts. hey-ho.

lyka

that is unrealistic to think that that was an obvious distinction. either way:

1) world-wide floods are not concurrant

2) noah's flood claims to be worldwide. so your point is moot. biblically speaking, it was global:
genesis:
And(E) the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it(F) grieved him to his heart. 7So the LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them." 8But Noah(G) found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

...

"I have determined to make an end of all flesh,[c] for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth... For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.

and so on.

so, if the bible is to be believed, it was global (there are more biblical quotes).

now, a localised flood could not physically do this: "And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 20The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits[d] deep."

it's hilariously impossible. a localised flood would drain away and could never get that high, and 40 days of rain could never, not even remotely get that much water.

you can have as many ice ages as you like, but nothing, i mean nothing, could ensure that noah's flood happened. not even close. all the stats are impossible. plus noah was 600 and imaginary nephilim lived on the earth too, and the account is identical to the gilgamesh epic written 1000 years earlier.

other than that, though, it's a really plausible story. (i haven't even talked about the physical and technical impossibility of the ark).

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

Johnny,

myths aren't scientifically-accurate descriptions of historical events. -- But they DO refer to actual historical events. In this case, "Noah's Flood" refers to the end of the last ice age, during which massive, large-scale, world-wide floodings DID happen, and countless animals AND humans DID lose their lives.

For instance: America, Japan and the Indonesian islands were connected to Asia *by land* before the end of the last ice age. In some regions of Romania, there are forrests of mountain-trees growing on plains. Etc.

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

Lyka

noah's flood it no more 'refers to the flood of the last ice age' than Terminator Salvation refers to World War 1. The subject matter is the same - war / flood, but the actual event is different. noah's flood is out by some 10000 years or so. the details are completely different. the reality of what happened is completely different. the flood was not as big, the ark was physically impossible, and the animals living together on the ark provide about 100 reasons why it never happened.

the fact that there are some 500 flood myths around the world does not tell us that the myths happened. they tell us that large floods are relatively common, and that out of these events are born fantastical myths that have no connection with reality other than a flood.

it is like saying father christmas factually exists because we celebrate christmas every year.

flood myths do not factually exist because large floods exist.

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

Johnny,

it's not exactly "my own, private, and personal opinion" that flood-myths world-wide refer to the last ice age: it's what historians say.

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

Lyka

you need to show me the evidence that historians say that the flood myths refer to the ice age. if they do, so what? the point i was making was not what the flood myths referred to as their nugget of truth for the basis of their myth, but the fact that they are myth. ie, not historically true. as a christian, do you believe the noah's ark account? because ALL historians and geologists see this as myth. because other than 'flood', the entire story is ...myth. it didn't happen. and that, Lyka, is the point.

Victorian London 'happened'. Sherlock Holmes was a myth.


Ps, as for evidence that historians believe that flood myths referred to the ice age, there are 4 rival hypotheses:
1)localised floodings from rivers or seas (black sea, med sea)etc
2) tsunamis from volcanoes (eg mt thera)
3) tsunami from meteorite (eg in Indian ocean)
4) draining of lake agassiz as a result of the ice age.

i cannot find anywhere that seems to think all the floods are a result of the ice age. in fact, it seem it is the least respected theory for deluge myths.

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

Lyka,

moreover, it is also worth noting that you do not even mean the 'last ice-age' since we are still in it. ice ages last massive amounts of time. you probably mean the end of the last glacial period, some 18,000 to 12,500 years ago. the reason why glacial periods are not seen as the historical bases for flood myths is that they take thousands of years to warm up - a small amount of time in geological time, but large in human history.

the sort of flood myths in the world's religions depend on quick floods, not ones that take thousands and thousands of years to take hold.

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

glacial period = ice age.

(glacial = icy; period = age).


myth. ie, not historically true.

accurate, you mean.

Jonathan MS Pearce said...

@Lyka,

"Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of extra cold climate are termed "glacial periods" (or alternatively "glacials" or "glaciations"), and intermittent warm periods are called "interglacials". Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres;[1] by this definition we are still in the ice age that began at the start of the Pleistocene (because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets still exist).[2]"


point remains.