Why Is He Pointing a Gun?

April 14, 2009 By Guest Contributor 66 Comments

You try to guess the underlying message in the following video (brought to you by the same group that began the Creation Museum):

(via The Daily Dish)

Filed Under: General 66 Comments
  • Dennis N

    What the?

  • http://atheistlibrarian.blogspot.com Adam

    F**k!! What the hell is wrong with these people?

  • http://blaghag.blogspot.com/ Jennifurret

    I don’t think blatantly obvious messages can be described as “underlying”

  • http://www.romsteady.net/blog/ Michael Russell

    This video is in extremely poor taste, especially after Anthony Powell.

    http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/19165557/detail.html

    Nothing quite like saying that if you aren’t one of God’s people, you’re going to die.

  • http://denkeensechtna.blogspot.com/ Deen

    “If you don’t matter to God, you don’t matter to anyone”? And a guy aiming a gun? Does this means that atheists can be shot, because they don’t matter? I just can’t figure out how else to interpret this…

  • Edward Forest

    Wait, so the phrasing is, “If you don’t matter to God…” So God will have some blond kid shoot you? How is this supposed to say evolution is evil again?

  • http://www.anatheist.net James

    I saw a print version of this advertisement but not the video. And what the heck is up with having a child point the gun?

  • Chal

    Well that was just weird. And very, very creepy.

  • cassiek

    Wtf? And I agree with Jennifurret; this is as subtle as a sledgehammer to the back of the head. This also confirms my suspicion that fundies are sociopaths. If one is convinced that without fear of god there would be rampant killing and looting, one must really want to murder and pillage deep inside.

  • http://www.dwasifar.com dwasifar

    +1 for Jennifurret and Cassiek. The obvious message is that a world of atheists would be a world of amoral criminals and murderers.

  • Siamang

    There’s an old print version of this from a few years back. I wonder if I can find it.

  • http://noguyinthesky.blogspot.com/ No Guy in the Sky

    They say we do not have morals…..lol

  • Siamang
  • http://www.slightlysouthofsane.com Tony Miller

    The people that fall for this kind of advertising are desperate for that “something” they can’t find in life.

    My hope is that people will see this and realize it’s nothing more than terror advertising and encourage others to think for themselves.

  • Flawedprefect

    My wife would kick his butt. That’s ONE person I matter to. Then there’s my Italian mother. That kid’s got ONE gun? He better start running if he shot me.

    Honestly – is this their next tactic? To say “if you’re an atheist, you’re a nihilist”?

    Well, at least we’re prepared. Cheers, Friendly A for showing us this.

  • Siamang

    I’m curious.

    I think there’s two ways this could be taken. Or maybe three.

    Is it:

    A: A world without religion is amoral, and so you may get shot.

    or

    B: If you don’t believe in God, we Christians will kill you.

    Or is it C: A little bit of both. Like if you ask AIG it’s A, but secretly, just a little bit, they hope you’ll kind of fear it’s B if that would make you a believer.

    I’m saying C. What does everyone else think?

  • gmcfly

    I think AiG has been pushing the story that teaching evolution leads to school shootings.

    You know, since evolution in the natural world is the same thing as social darwinism. And because fear of our loving God is the only thing that kept me from committing mass murder today.

    There’s no *facepalm* big enough for this.

  • http://www.slightlysouthofsane.com Tony Miller

    Also, a young, blonde white kid? Hitler claimed to be Christian. Hmmmmmmm.

  • jemand

    and what I’ve told people several times when this *argument* comes up:

    “would you prefer your neighbor not kill you because she doesn’t feel like it or because the voices in his head haven’t ordered him to yet…”

  • Richard Wade

    Hemant, where did you find this? The print version linked to by Siamang appears to have been displayed by AiG back in 2006. Is this video a recent revival?

    This is the most reprehensible, contemptible attempt at intimidation I have seen a Christian organization do in a long time. To answer Siamang’s question, I think it’s “C,” a mixture of A and B, but mostly B. I take it as a direct threat to me, personally, and I want to do something about it. Some gun-happy paranoid could take this as encouragement to go blow away a few atheists he knows. If this has been dug up from some dusty video cashe, that is one thing, but if this is being used by AiG recently, I want to fight back.

  • http://friendlyatheist.com Hemant Mehta

    I don’t know if it’s being used recently, but I saw it on Daily Dish. I’ll put an attribution above to avoid confusion.

  • http://blaghag.blogspot.com/ Jennifurret

    Siamang, I initially took it to mean B.

  • http://skepticsplay.blogspot.com/ miller

    This is the sort of thing that I imagine apologists are always apologizing for.

  • debg

    This is exactly the kind of things that scares us atheists back into the closet. This is very bold of them, indeed. Imagine if an atheist organization had put together a similar video.

  • http://www.limetwists.com Cole

    Wow..just…wo-.. I think I threw up in my mouth a little.

  • http://wearethefounders.com Kawlinz

    @ debg

    “This is exactly the kind of things that scares us atheists back into the closet. This is very bold of them, indeed. Imagine if an atheist organization had put together a similar video.”

    Very good point, anyone care to make a couter-video with a little kid and the line “If God matters to you, you don’t matter to me”. I wonder how quickly it becomes a shitstorm.

  • Kc

    So much for the tired phrase “God loves everyone”…

    I took the video to mean that if one doesn’t believe in a god, that they are worthless and better off dead.

    I hope someone in a suicidal state doesn’t see this video and decide to end their life because of it.

  • Harknights

    So the message is. “We’re not saying we may kill you…were just saying.”

    Nice.

  • Ashleigh

    Oh MY FSM!

  • http://religiouscomics.net Jeff

    It seems the Christians have some major house-cleaning to do within their own ranks.

    I’d imagine that 90% of Christians would be appalled by this video. Of course this is the same 90% that do nothing to challenge the other 10% of their “brothers in Christ”.

  • JB

    I took it as a rehashing of the whole “if-there’s-no-God-then-we’re-just-a-cosmic-accident-and-noone’s-morals-or-ethics-are-more-right-than-anyone-else’s-so-people-can-murder- (and rape, etc, etc.)-and-noone-can-say-it’s-wrong” bullshit.

  • cassiek

    Siamang, I think my first impression was choice A, but actually C is probably closer to what I feel after a little reflection. (And a really strong margarita.)

  • Eddie

    Well, I see the obvious impression that is giving us atheists. If you dont matter to god, you dont matter to anyone, so lets kill you. It comes off as a bit of threat. Almost seeming to say atheists should be killed.

    “Thinking” from their perspective, what they are probably trying to say is a bit of that “no atheists in foxholes” thing.

    If no one cares for you, including god, who will care if you die. Or, might not someone kill you, since no one values you.

    It is actually a lot more dehumanizing than the more obvious impression i stated at first. The question is basically:

    If you dont believe in god, aren’t you essentially worthless?

  • Justin jm

    F**k!! What the hell is wrong with these people?

    Perhaps they are projecting. If they would go out on a murder spree without God to hold them back, then they have no morals. They do not want to admit this to themselves, so they attribute their lack of moral understanding to us.

    Morality is a difficult subject, what with moral dilemmas and the naturalistic fallacy and such, but to simply say that we cannot have worth or values without God is intellectual laziness. Face it, AiG is about a 1 on the Kohlberg stages of moral development.

  • Robert Thille

    I’m no lawyer, but that looks very close to an illegal incitement to violence…

  • http://www.out-of-the-muse.blogspot.com Kait

    “If you don’t matter to God, you don’t matter to anyone”….Okay, it’s saying that if you don’t have an innate reason for living, then why live and defend your’s and other people’s life? You life doesn’t have meaning outside of God’s design. And humans can try to think and do good – but only end of doing what they feel like. This could mean killing someone because they feel like they can justify it. But if you have an innate meaning to living your life, then killing is wrong no matter how you feel.

  • Vincent

    but if they believe what they say, then we all matter to god.
    Don’t they mean to say “if god doesn’t matter to you, nobody does”?

  • fmitchell

    Sorry, does God regularly publish a list of people who don’t matter to him? What does this even mean? I thought the party line was that we filthy heathens reject God, not that he rejects us.

    Anyone, to us atheists, this is like saying “If you don’t matter to Captain Ahab, you don’t matter to anyone.”

  • http://chaoskeptic.blogspot.com/ Iason Ouabache

    I don’t get it…

  • Richard Wade

    This is a candid look into the shallow and anti-social character of the person who created it. Every time a Christian theorizes about the terrible ways people in general would behave if they didn’t have a sky policeman threatening them with punishment, we don’t learn anything about people in general, but we learn volumes about the Christian who is speaking. I agree with Justin jm, these people are at Kohlberg’s Level 1 and they will never get beyond that.

    Jeff is correct. Probably 90% of Christians would find this objectionable, but 99.9% of that group won’t actually object. No, they’ll sit on their apathetic asses mumbling about love, forgiveness and grace, while their lunatic brethren continue to become the Taliban of the West.

    I am getting madder and madder about this.

  • Richard Wade

    I found this page at Answers in Genesis, seemingly an explanation of the video’s meaning. Basically they try to link what they say are the consequences of evolution to school shootings, genocides, mass murders and all sorts of mayhem. It is remarkably lame, naive, narrow-minded and willfully ignorant. In short, it is classic AiG.

  • http://www.otmatheist.com hoverFrog

    “If you don’t matter to God, it doesn’t matter because the police carry guns”

    This advert is for gun control right?

  • http://www.woofkitty.co.uk SAMIZDAT

    What the furry hell>??????

  • Cherie M

    This is wrong in so many ways – among them using a CHILD to demonstrate their point.

    This is repulsive. In response to the action, I took it to be B and looking at the message… I don’t see it of trying to scare someone into converting so much as “be quiet or you’ll be sorry” tactic, like debg noted.

  • Lost Left Coaster

    Ugh…was that kid threatening me? “Believe or die!”

    It must be comforting for Christians to know that they are immune to gunshots. Here I thought that with a country that is 75% Christian and with extremely high rates of gun violence, some Christians must be getting killed by guns, but I stand corrected. I’ll watch my atheist ass when I’m walking home at night.

  • http://www.dwasifar.com dwasifar

    Thank you, Richard Wade. I think the central point in that page is this:

    “Those who feel that neither they nor their actions matter to God lose their motivation to care for the lives of others or for their own life.”

    Which, of course, is complete crap. I think atheism increases caring about those things, because this life is the only chance we get to make it matter.

  • http://sanguinity.livejournal.com Sanguinity

    I think it’s referring to the belief held by many Christians that our human moral sense — our instinctive knowledge of certain kinds of right and wrong — was imbued by God, and is a direct expression of his love for us. And that if God did not love us, then none of us would know (via the psychic radio connection that is our inner moral sense) that shooting each other was wrong.

    As a PSA, though, it’s a little weird. Because they seem to be suggesting that God’s radio signal of morality is weak enough that Earth-bound preachers of evolution can cause people to not hear the radio signal of “God loves everyone”, and thus cause school shootings and stuff.

    Shorter PSA: God is trying to tell psycho blonde kid that God loves everyone, but psycho blonde kid is having trouble hearing God because all us heathens won’t shut up long enough to let the kid listen.

    (I’m basing this some on the literal text of the PSA, but more on conversations with Christian friends who are a bit flabbergasted that I don’t believe that there is an Ultimate Standard of Right and Wrong, and who seem to not understand how I’m managing to navigate the world in my apparently moral way without it. They can see that I am, but not how.)

  • http://quakeragitator.wordpress.com QuakerDave

    And of course we do realize, I hope, that many folks who claim to speak for believers DO NOT speak for ALL believers.

    We do, don’t we?

  • Emily

    Uh… doesn’t EVERYONE matter to god? I mean, according to most Christians i know… god loves everyone, even those who “sin” or don’t believe in him.

  • http://gaytheistagenda.lavenderliberal.com/ Buffy

    Those are some of the most hateful, vile people. Why do they insist on such hideous scare tactics? So sick and twisted.

  • http://www.atheist-r-evolution.com Paper

    Why can’t we as atheist sue these people? I mean if Burger king can get sued over a commercial with a ‘short mexican’ why can’t we sue this group for promoting violence towards non-believers or enforcing the belief that atheist don’t matter? You sure as hell can’t do this towards any OTHER kinds of people, why is it okay for them to do this for us?

  • hannah k

    wow. really?

  • CatBallou

    I was as puzzled as Vincent and Emily. “God doesn’t matter to me (because I’m an atheist)” does NOT equal “I don’t matter to god.”

    Aren’t these the same people who argue that god cares about everyone (even the people he’s sending to hell)?

  • Richard Wade

    Quaker Dave is right, no believers speak for all believers. My greatest frustration comes from the majority of believers who do not denounce those few who speak vile, inflammatory and destructive lies, passively letting them pervert their beliefs into institutionalized hate. The few end up “speaking for ” the many merely by default.

  • http://www,McFaddenArts.com Elizabeth McFadden

    YIKES!!!

    That video is horrifying! In part because of that very ambiguity that’s keeping us talking … perhaps what was MEANT, in this case, is ultimately less important than how people might reasonably be expected to understand it?

    I can easily imagine a scenario in which some hard-core religious types could see this as inciting them to attack non-believers.

    Or I can imagine a scenario in which someone already feeling suicidal takes this as a sign that they should complete the deed.

    Certainly, even groups like AiG are entitled to free speech — but this seems dangerously close to incitement to violence … and they definitely do NOT have the right to do that!

    Really. Horrifying.

  • LeoPardus

    Huh?!

  • http://yangandcampion.googlepages.com Margaret Y.

    What Richard Wade said.

  • http://lyvvielimelight.blogspot.com Lyvvie

    Because that’s just what Jesus would do.

  • http://www.myspace.com/youreundoingmybeltwronghun Tim D.

    This actually gives me a really good (non-violent) idea.

  • Pingback: It’s the Thought that Counts » Blog Archive » Violent fundies

  • Thom

    A) The video says, “If you don’t matter to God, you don’t matter to anyone.”

    B) The top of the AIG website states, “If God doesn’t matter to him, do you?”

    These two statements mean completely opposite things. The wording of [A] is a direct threat to any atheist viewer. There isn’t another way it could be interpreted. If they meant [B], they completely messed up the wording. But I have a feeling they meant to threaten people. AIG knew what it was doing.

  • more insanity and irrationality

    great..this is why atheists stay in the closet because of this messed up in the head shit..oh well lets just hope no one takes these ads 2 seriously i hope.

  • ian g

    this is revolting.

    i also find it revolting that these people need a skycop to tell them right from wrong. you should be able to do that your self. i’ve been braught up atheist, or agnnostic, and i havn’t killed any one yet.

    “love thy naybor” only if their forced.

  • shyrgil asuncion

    I think there was a man coming over him and he wanted to shoot it. suboxone treatment

  • Jetteryhibbard

    I think the he use is only a airgun.

  • shyrgil asuncion

    Are you kidding men? suboxone doctors