Clips from Various Atheist Speakers

August 22, 2011 By 19 Comments

There’s no rhyme or reason to why these atheists (and not others) are included in the awesome compilation below but, damn, is it fun to watch:

MegaZeusThor also made a (non-autotuned!) compilation of science educators. It has Neil deGrasse Tyson. Does anything else even matter?

Now, let’s hope people randomly stumble onto those videos…

(via MegaZeusThor)

Filed Under: General, Science 19 Comments
About Hemant Mehta

Hemant Mehta is the chair of Foundation Beyond Belief and a high school math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago. He began writing the Friendly Atheist blog in 2006. His latest book is called The Young Atheist's Survival Guide.

  • http://www.alise-write.com Alise Wright

    If something has Neil in it, absolutely NOTHING else matters.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Reg-Metcalf/1031110428 Reg Metcalf

    hate to pick nits, but “atheism: a LACK of belief in gods”?!! c’mon! geez! i don’t know about you, but i wouldn’t be an atheist if i experienced it as a “lack” of something. I experience it a “freedom” from the irrational. so to whomever it may concern: please reedit your video: “atheism: the freedom from belief in gods”. Thank you very much!

    • http://twitter.com/MegaZeusThor Mega Zeus Thor

      First you’ll have to convince these 2 communities to change their definition of atheism. (as they’re where I referred to):

      http://www.reddit.com/help/faqs/atheism#Whatisatheism
      http://www.atheist-community.org/

      That said, if you have different labels or that work for you, that’s fine.

    • Anonymous

      I like your take on it, but I would probably say that the freedom from believing in gods is an emergent property, not a definition.

    • Anonymous

      I prefer “lack of belief in gods” actually.  I simply have no reason to believe in them, so I don’t.

    • http://annainca.blogspot.com/ Anna

      I also prefer “lack of belief in gods.” It emphasizes that we’re not making any positive assertions.

  • Renshia

    Thanks, that was just great.

  • http://gretachristina.typepad.com/ Greta Christina

    “There’s no rhyme or reason to why these atheists (and not others) are included in the awesome compilation below…”

    All white men but two. All white.

    People: We HAVE to stop doing this. We HAVE to stop automatically putting white men front and center as the most iconic representatives of our movement. It is keeping our movement weaker and more limited than it has to be.

    • http://twitter.com/MegaZeusThor Mega Zeus Thor

      I’m happy to take suggestions. Post some links of atheist speakers that you would like to see represented.

      I’ve seen one of your presentations on diversity, and I enjoyed it. I even considered including it here, but it didn’t fit with the theme of the other videos. Also, my YouTube account is limited to 15 minute videos.

      “We HAVE to stop automatically putting white men front and center”. I agree, which is why I put some thought into this. I was more concerned about the content of what they were saying and the how well the particular clip worked with the rest.

  • usclat

    Bravo! Excellent! I’m sure there are so many other video clips like these that could be compiled into a collection of some of the best secular responses to religion/mythology/faith. Again, bravo!

  • nova

    “This video contains content from Channel 4, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.”
    Oh, come on! I am in the UK! If there’s a place where I should be allowed to see it that would be it!

  • http://antigold.myopenid.com/ Jude

    Penn Jillette is wrong.  The 900s are history in the Dewey Decimal System; the 200s are religion.  Dewey is such an ethnocentric classification model that most of the 200s are set aside for Christianity; everything else is shoved into one tiny part.  That’s when I stopped listening to the video.   It’s one thing to make a mistake; it’s another to always act superior to everyone else the way he does–like, oh, I’m smarter–I read this book, the Bible, and the only reason people believe in it is because they’ve never read it.  Baloney.

    • MariaO

      I agree. But worse for me was the what Bertrand Russel said: “Either a thing is true or it is not.” There are so many, many important things that cannot be dichotomised in that way. A simple – but relevant - example: “X has consciousness”. If X is a table: false; is X is you, dear reader: true. But what if X is a snail? a bee? a salmon? a cat? a gorilla? a neanderthal? or a future megacomputer? It simple canot be true or false, but a case of degree. I thought Russel was a clever man – maybe this was condecendingly for popular consumption? (All of which has little to do with religions.)

      • Michael Appleman

        I think that is more of a case of not knowing rather than anything else. Something is true or false even if you don’t know. Or even if no one knows.

        • MariaO

          No. The world is more complex than that. There are many things that are something between true and false. To think otherwise is simplistic.

          • Michael Appleman

            If X has a tiny amount of consciousness, then it has consciousness. I don’t see the problem.

    • SimplyAtheist

      Complains about a mistake.. Spells Balogna wrong.