This one’s been doing the rounds. I swiped it from Scotteriology.
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“How to convert an atheist”.
1. Draw a couple circles on a piece of paper.
2. (Step 2 is never clearly explained but I think it involves miracles).
3. Sit back and watch as the heathens spontaneously convert en masse.
Lolzzzzzzz
;0)
Pretty dumb argument.
1. Argument from ignorance – Because our knowledge is incomplete, we should infer that there is a God?
2. Didn’t prove anything with the display – admitting that there might be a 0.000001% chance that there could possibly be a God, doesn’t prove anything either. Because if something is outside our knowledge as she correctly pointed out that most things are, then doesn’t that mean that an infinite amount of possibilities exist? What about Ra? Allah? Vishnu? Thetans? Or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Why infer that it’s only the Christian God?
Having a possibility of something doesn’t mean we should believe it.
Stupid argument.
3.
“Don’t you think it’s possible for God to exist outside your knowledge?”
me: “absolutely not because your god is a self contradictory fairy tale and can’t exist in the real world. It’s not a matter of how much knowledge a person has it’s a matter of logic and reason. Also, if I’m agnostic, so are you, so please shut the hell up.”
Very well said. That was such a simplistic contrived exercise that I cannot imagine it working on anyone. The kid probably gave her the answers she wanted to shut her up and now knows better than to talk to idiots.
I also like Richard Dawkins’ statement that he is only an atheist about one god more than the believer does. Certainly there were many religions that pre-date Christianity, wouldn’t it seem that one of those would be more likely to be true than one only 2000 years old.
The worst selling point for Christianity is the Bible. It is such a hodge podge of conflicting ideologies that nobody could really know what “god” or “jesus” wanted them to do. It reminds me of the US tax code that is several thousand pages long and even IRS employees cannot reliably give you answers about tax questions. And both use this confusion as a way of bullying the weak into compliance.
Living in the “deep south”, I deal with a lot of fundamentalists. When they assert that every sentence is the divinely inspired word of god I love pointing out the contradictions and asking which one of the two is truly god’s inspired word, or perhaps god changed his mind at some point.
As far as the circle, I would ask her to show where on the circle I could find absolute physical proof that god exists and that it is the god she has selected to worship. Might there be other points where Allah, Ra, Krishna and the FSM are proven to exist that she hasn’t found?
At least she didn’t spout off about Jebus and the Spooky 3 she just kept saying “God”. Which God? Who’s God? We know and admit that we don’t have all knowledge, but she would be unwilling to admit that her beliefs may not be true.
“They don’t see any rationale for that.”
Stay tuned while I demonstrate how to approach an atheist with a perfect rationale!
“I’m very interested in your conclusion… why you think you’re an atheist.”
I’m going to talk to you like you don’t know what you’re talking about, because I think the reason you’re confused is that no one has drawn a big circle on a piece of paper for you before.
“Are you a sincere atheist?
Are you a used car salesman?
What they don’t seem to accept is that logic that would work on them is bad logic. Every reason they believe, it’s because someone used an argument like this to explain it to them, and they think they’re being more clever.
I don’t think that the plan is to convert atheists. I think that the video purpose is to show that even atheists have to accept a god, so the believers stop asking questions if the god is real. The video is to make the believer stay in their believe and not to other to check out the atheists.
Cute.
What always amuses me is the theist’s *insistence* that the True God rests within that tiny little circle of their own that would go in the circle of all human knowledge. I mean, what are that chances of that?
Especially when different flavours of Christianity believe slightly different things. So everyone’s knowledge of the great, almighty, unchanging, omnipotent, omniscient God is slightly different. It almost constitues proof that their god (or any god) doesn’t – and can’t – exist.
“It almost constitues proof that their god (or any god) doesn’t – and can’t – exist.”
Or, of course, that they could all exist. Strange that Christians, so keen to share the knowledge of their God, don’t seem to want to accept that conclusion.
‘Slightly’ different things?
Man, there are sects of Christianity that are so far apart, I can’t see how they can even claim to be the same religion.
My brother and I were raised Southern Baptists. Living in Georgia, where the schools are consistently in the lowest 5 when rated against other states, my parents sent us to a private school. The best one they could afford was a Catholic College Prep school that was also a military school. We would go to church on Sunday and religion classes during the week. The same verses were often cited with radically different interpretations or other verses were selected that fit more with their world view. It made both of us question religion, since we were told in both places that these were the only possible interpretations, even though they were more often than not at odds. We are both now atheists, though I did explore virtually every religion along the path, looking for something that I could believe in. Eventually I decided that what I need to believe in is reality.
Our sister, the oldest of us kids, wanted to stay in public schools and she is still a Baptist. I think having to look at the contradictions that were made extremely clear over the five years I spent in that school were what freed me from the conditioning I had experienced as a child.
“Eventually I decided that what I need to believe in is reality.”
Amen to that.
Just what I thought! Yep. She convinced me. I will therefore look for a group of sincere seekers like me who can help on my search. I’ll start with these: Advenstists, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims. I’m sure to find God if I seek hard enough and want it earnestly in my heart!
Sorry, us Buddhists can’t help ya – no gods here. But I do hear there’s a lovely few thousand if you just keep going towards India…
God of the gaps reasoning. As popular as ever.
It’s not a very persuasive case for your god when you’re argumenting for his existence by fitting him into hypothetical, unknown, and unknowable areas rather than pointing out where we can find him in actual, specific, real-world areas.
We don’t know everything. We do know some things with a great amount of certainty, however, and these facts contradict many theological claims, particularly the ones based on literal biblical interpretations. There was no Adam and Eve, no worldspanning Flood, and for that matter, why should we believe all the fantastical claims of angels, water-walking, heavenly afterlife, etc, when every other religion has similar fantastical claims, with just as little evidence outside of their particular holy scripture – ie. none. We can’t technically know if these things are true, but neither is there any compelling reason to assume they are. Telling us they could theoretically be true isn’t convincing in itself; you’ll have to back it up with something else, because if we’re limited to hypothetical could-be’s then all religions are equally likely – something which I doubt this lady is willing to concede.
“…why should we believe all the fantastical claims of angels, water-walking, heavenly afterlife…”.
Well, here’s ceiling cat on his day off:
http://www.picshag.com/show.php?f=pics/012010/jesus-cat-big.jpg
OK… X marks the spot for Jesus… so where is Santa Claus on that map?
. . .or leprechauns, or the FSM, or ghosts, or Klingons. . .
Glinda: “Are you a good atheist… or a bad atheist?”
The only good atheist is a … Sorry, wrong blog.
“The only good atheist is a … ”
One that’s coming out of a post coital fugue state?
The only good atheist is….
Not a moral relativist philosopher.
Are you good? Define good.
That which consistently supports human flourishing.
polar bears might disagree
Tell em to shut up and have a Coke.
I always admit that there could be beings so powerful in some corner of the universe (or multiverse) that they could be considered godlike in comparison to humans. However, I see no evidence that any such beings have any effect in my world, nor any evidence for souls or an afterlife.
If (according to the believers) god is indeed everywhere and everything, then he/she/it should encompass the whole circle and therefore your knowledge would have to consist of knowledge of this being.
If god exists outside your “circle” of knowledge, then god is not everything.
On the other hand… Thanks her amazing map, we can conclude that knowledge of god can be found between history and language. So old (wives) tales…
precisely my thought!!!! they’re saying that god exists everywhere *except* in the circles of atheists, so god is finite. buzzzzz
Well she started well and initially seemed somewhat open to a discussion, but she pretty much lost me as soon as she betrayed herself by asking why people *think* they are atheists. To completely brush aside someone’s (probably) carefully chosen identity like that is quite insulting, and while there is a far greater basis for it since she was most likely born into the faith, I doubt she would be at all happy if someone asked her why she *thinks* she is a Christian. Then we got into the ‘logic’ which was simply “you don’t know everything, therefore there is a personal god who changes people’s lives”. What?
That’s an enormous leap of faith to go from we cannot be sure there isn’t a god out there somewhere (not that knowledge and place are at all the same thing) to there being a god that happens to be the particular one she believes in. As others have said, this logic validates Ra and Thor and Isis and the Flying Spaghetti Monster in equal measure to Yahweh and Jesus. Probably more because at least the FSM isn’t a self-contradiction.
Do any arguments with theists boil down into anything other than having faith? What I see here is someone thinking they’ve cleverly disguised the faith argument as logical deduction, simple enough for someone who thinks they’re an atheist to understand.
I once attended a lecture by the distinguished theologian James P Mackey (although I know, of course, there are many who might regard the term ‘distinguished theologian’ as an oxymoron!). The man is a former RC priest (left to get married), has been professor in several different universities, has a list of peer-reviewed articles as long as my arm, and has publised a shed-load of books. During his lecture one of the students asked him about proof for belief in God. He tapped his chest with his finger and said ‘you either know it in here or you don’t.’ So I guess the answer to the question: ‘Do any arguments with theists boil down into anything other than having faith?’ would have to be ‘nope.’ There it is.
The FSM is the better choice for vegans or vegetarians, since eating altar bread (representing part of Christs body yummy ;-/) as the Cathlics do seems a little to human flesh like to me…
But paste without meatballs is an abomination, blasphemer.
I’ll be the first to admit that my personal knowledge is a very small percentage of the sum total of human knowledge. However, within my own sphere of personal knowledge, there are things that easily demolish the idea of omnipotent, omniscient, personally involved deities in general, and the Christian God(s) in particular. It is not necessary to know everything in the universe to draw a firm conclusion on this point.
Her argument works equally well in reverse. If her knowledge is confined to a tiny little circle within the greater whole, isn’t it possible (even likely) that she simply doesn’t know the facts that would demonstrate that deities do not exist? The best you can do with her argument is come to the conclusion that you can’t demonstrate with any certainty that your own beliefs are true, because no matter how much you know, there is always more knowledge beyond your circle.
I will grant that there’s always room for a deity of the gaps, but such a deity’s scope and influence are sharply circumscribed by what we do already know, and the possibilities grow smaller every day.
Voice inflection is everything to a theist.
Try it out… say “god loves you” in the voice of Andrew Dice Clay.
Now, say it in the slow, kind (although half judgmental and childish) voice of this lady.
It doesn’t matter what it is they’re saying. If you use this type of inflection, the listener is going to be in a more vulnerable state and be more willing to listen. Say it like a buffoon, and it sounds absolutely ridicuous. This lady comes to the table with absolutely no argument… just a sincere-ish voice tone.
Now, say “2+2=4″ in the Dice Clay voice. Yeah… you sounds like an idiot… but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. Why? because facts don’t need a special delivery… they just need evidence to back it up. The theist relies completely on emotion. This is what I’m learning to deal with in my own life when faced with family members on the subject. Nobody cares about facts… they care only about their emotions.
The agnostic should have said. “OK, I will let you win this debate only because you are going to die soon!!!!” ;)
Bye, guys. I’ll be going back to Jesus now.
;-)
Nah, try something new! It’s a big circle, and it’s got Thor in it. Why settle for the guy who got nailed, when you can go with the guy with the hammer?
No, no. Her impeccable logic leads irresistibly to Jesus.
Her impeccable logic pointed to “god”. Isn’t Thor the god of thunder? Or is it god of bigass metal hammers that can make you fly?
As long as we are on the subject, is anybody else stoked to see the upcoming “Thor” movie? Now THERE’S a god I can get into! I mean, besides having a kick-ass Marvel hero and being directed by Kenneth Branagh, it’s got Natalie Portman!
Hehe!
lol that ones great.
Talking of circular reasoning! :) I thought it was funny. And while I was truly grateful, that she didn’t invoke the typical preacher voice yapping – my attention wandered off, after she listed what should be in the circle of knowledge. Separating Math or Geology from Science was something that made me doze off – until I heard her mentioning “Intelligent Design” at the very end – and I knew I was well off, having taken a power nap.
Since I’ve never posted a comment here, I suppose it’s only fair to put my cards on the table at the beginning and say that I’m an Anglican priest. And so on to the video!
Hmm … ok, so the cheesy graphics are easy to make fun of, & it’s kind of obvious that the ‘truth’ she’s building up to is her version of the truth (she did throw intelligent design into the mix after all), so I’m sure a lot of other people who believe in God would find her an uncomfortable person to have a conversation with (you have to feel sorry for the poor nephew – sounds like a rabbit caught in the headlights!).
But does she have a point, even if badly made (circular logic, anyone)?
Her argument is that once a person ceases to be certain that there is no God, then technically they are an agnostic. For her, of course, that would be the ‘thin edge of the wedge’ from which to start working on a ‘conversion.’ However, her approach is based on putting people into little boxes: atheist; agnostic; believer. People aren’t as neat as that, though. Life is messy and grey. I think, for example, that most people of faith will admit, if they are honest, that they struggle with doubt also, at least on occasion. Faith, as experienced by most, is a spectrum of greater or lesser doubt, rather than an absolute sharp divide between ‘believer’ and ‘atheist.’ So ‘proving’ that her nephew is an agnostic is rather meaningless. Deep down everyone is an agnostic. Even the scary guys who tell you you are going to burn in hell if you don’t believe precisely what they believe (I suppose they’ll have me double-damned for saying that!). Even ‘let me draw you a picture’ Auntie.
I’m sure ‘Circular Auntie’ is well intentioned (one of the saddest ‘truths’ of religion is the inability of many to accept respectfully the positions of those of other faiths or none), but I think what she was doing in the video belittles the individual. Her way is to say: ‘you know so little, the universe is so big, who do you think you are? you slug, you worm, bow before the majesty of MY god!’ it treats atheist as if they are morons, which they are not (at least no more than average, I presume – I haven’t done a survey! But I think Richard Dawkins has something somewhere about how smart athiests in general are ;-). Which is bound to be offensive to anyone who has a made a conscious and informed choice to live their lives as an atheist.
For what it’s worth, I think faith connects the individual with the infinite (or rather, helps them understand their connection). It builds them up & helps them see their own infinite meaning and worth (which I know a lot of readers of this blog will see a wishful thinking!). So I certainly have no plans to start engaging others in a ‘let me show you a circle’ conversation any-time soon!
Welcome, Levi!
But does she have a point, even if badly made (circular logic, anyone)? Her argument is that once a person ceases to be certain that there is no God, then technically they are an agnostic.
And this is why her argument fails right from the get-go. Atheism is not about certainty, because it is not an epistemological position. It is an existential one. As William James once pointed out, regardless of what you call yourself or how sure you are about your position, when it comes to matters as live and momentous as to whether there is a God or not, you can only *live* your life as if a God exists or as if a God doesn’t exist. Christianity exhibits an awareness of this in similar doctrine, with the excoriation of the “lukewarm” and so-on, and it not being enough to mouth phrases but instead to actually live one’s faith, yes?
As the woman in the video correctly points out, nearly everyone is aware and would gladly concede that in the entire breadth of human knowledge, each of us is possessed of only a sliver. To the extent that we are aware there are things we do not know, we are properly agnostic about possibilities that rest outside our knowledge, so long as those possible things are not directly excluded by what little we do know. As such, an agnostic who does not call themselves an atheist would not say that what they know excludes the possibility of God, whereas an agnostic atheist would argue that while they cannot be certain, what they do know seems to exclude the possibility (or at least the probability) of there being a God existing just outside the zone of their knowledge.
It is a mistake to think of the epistemological stance of agnosticism being somehow exclusive with the existential stance of atheism. They are basically independent.
Oh, you Anglicans and your laid-back ecumenical attitude. :-)
I do prefer the theist who is willing to discuss religion over a cup of tea.
For what it’s worth, I think faith connects the individual with the infinite (or rather, helps them understand their connection). It builds them up & helps them see their own infinite meaning and worth (which I know a lot of readers of this blog will see a wishful thinking!).
Out of curiosity, how do you respond to folks whose faith convinces them that humans are worthless sinners in the hands of a righteous God? If seems that many strains of Christianity try to tear down humanity and make their connection to the infinite a one-way affair. But this is never-the-less a form of faith.
Respond? My dear VorJack, you seldom get the chance to respond to folk like that! My reccomnedation is to smile, nod, edge slowly toward the door, run like the Dickens once you’re through it, and pray for them when you get to a safe distance ;-) … Seriously though, I can’t tell you why some people express their faith in that way. Neither can I tell why there is so much that should be beautiful in the world that people make ugly. What’s worse, even as we grind into dust something that is wonderful, we know exactly what we are doing and a part of us weeps … even as we continue to do exactly what it is that causes us to weep.
But the point is you seem to be giving credit to the tool for how some choose to wield it, rather than to the wielder. If religion can lead to conviviality but it can also (it seems, just as easily) lead to misanthropy, then that lands religion in somewhat neutral territory from the utilitarian perspective you were advancing. This is true also of individual religious devices. Many Christians in history used the Bible to (in good faith, using the text and the hermeneutic tools available to them) argue that slavery was condoned, if not encouraged, by God. Later, some Christians took that same text and argued the opposite, that slavery was an abomination to God and a moral stain; they too argued this in good faith, using the text and the hermeneutic tools available to them. Regardless of which (if any) is the *correct* interpretation of the text, from a pragmatic point of view the text has cashed out as neutral, as equally useful to both sides of the argument.
Religion can lead to people finding peace and a feeling of transcendence and a warming reach into the unknown. It can also stultify and degrade, close minds and close hearts. The deciding factor in each case is not the religion itself, but in how people choose to let it affect them. Much like, well, everything else.
Hi Elemenope – that wasn’t the point I was making. Humanity has a beautiful world with a lot of beautiful things in it given to us by God/nature/evolution/chance or whatever you fancy … and we as people often delibrately chose to make a mess of it … I would have thought that that is something that atheists and theists could agree on?
I think we do agree on that point. I was responding to your response to Vorjack’s response to this:
“For what it’s worth, I think faith connects the individual with the infinite (or rather, helps them understand their connection). It builds them up & helps them see their own infinite meaning and worth (which I know a lot of readers of this blog will see a wishful thinking!).”
Faith does that for some, and so do many other things. As VorJack pointed out, it is just as likely to do the opposite. Given that, it doesn’t seem like faith recommends itself special in this regard, that’s all.
Golly – these blog-posting thread thingys are hard to keep track of … and I thought theology was tough!
…and I thought theology was tough!
It reminds me of the old paradox about smoking and praying.
Well said, Nope! If religion is a tool to be wielded, then why not replace a blunt instrument like religion with sharper, better formed tools that do more precise work… like science, philosophy, secular humanism, etc. This is what frustrates me about those who follow religion… there are better tools available but they just won’t use them!!!!
This follows on from Elemenope’s ‘It reminds me of the old paradox about smoking and praying.’ Is the joke below what you were thinking of?
Cecil and Morris are walking to services and Cecil asks, “I wonder whether it would be all right to smoke while praying?”
“Why don’t you ask the rabbi?” says Morris.
Cecil sees Rabbi Golden and asks, “Rabbi, is it permissible for me to smoke while I pray?”
“No, you may not. That’s utter disrespect to our religion and traditions!” quickly answers the rabbi.
Cecil goes back to his friend and tells him what the good Rabbi told him.
“I’m not surprised. You asked the wrong question. Let me try.”
Morris goes over to the rabbi and asks, “Rabbi, will it be ok if I pray while I smoke?”
To which Rabbi Golden eagerly replies, “By all means, my good man. By all means.”
If it is, I’m not sure I get the conection – but I like the joke!
Yes, that’s the joke/paradox to which I was referring (though the version I know is the one with monks and the pope).
Systems of thought that are so sensitive to perturbable conditions that merely changing the dependent order of actions in a question yields the opposite result? Yes, theology is special in its difficulty, but I think it is difficult in a way that betrays its tentative connection to reality.
“Out of curiosity, how do you respond to folks whose faith convinces them that humans are worthless sinners in the hands of a righteous God?”
The value of a thing is always determined by the Price One is willing to pay for it.
That’s some odd, random capitalization.
Levi said “My reccomnedation is to smile, nod, edge slowly toward the door, run like the Dickens once you’re through it, and pray for them when you get to a safe distance”
And that seems to be the real difference between the ‘Gnu Atheists’ and moderate or liberal Christianity. When we see that insanity, we tend to run towards it. Some argue passionately, while the rest point and laugh. The point is, it’s better to do something rather than nothing. The crazies aren’t a tiny minority, they are billions strong and they are armed. We can’t just run away and hope they come to their senses. We need to drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
I have a lot of problem with the humans are born sinful proposition, but it exists not only in religion but also in science. I love watching documentaries and have noticed a big shift in some of the ones dealing with extinct species. There seems to be a new default thesis that if we cannot find what killed off a certain species and humans were there, it must be the human’s fault. This seems a carryover from those who seem more interested in blaming humans for world problems than looking at the incredible things we have accomplished and look ahead to how we can fix these problems.
The original global warming statements were based on a computer model predicting trends over the next century and a half. Look backwards a hundred and fifty years and see what we thought would be the major problems today. In cities it was polllution, specifically horse poop dropped liberally on the streets by the horses that provided most of the transportation in that time. Things change in new and strange ways and rather than focus on blame, focusing on what can we do to change things is needed. The pervasive attitude that mankind is bad is probably carried over from religion and is just as destructive there as it is in religion.
I like Louis Armstrong’s its a wonderful world, looking not at the bad things but at the good. Enjoy what we have rather than feel guilty about some sin – be it religious or social – and the world will look brighter and we will solve problems that now look insurmountable.
While I like the sentiment, I think that not being willing to apportion out blame is a barrier that is keeping us from even begining to tackle problems that are significant in society. We cannot combat man-made climate change without first saying “yes, we did it, here’s how”. It would be rather like trying to reform a criminal without first acknowledging that they committed a crime. Blame certainly shouldn’t be the focus, but it is at times a necessary starting point to begin redemption or correction.
Certainly I agree with being willing to look at what we have done and finding ways to fix them. But when we focus more on sticks than carrots, its hard to make real progress. Businesses have shown that they come up with green solutions when it is to their benefit but otherwise, when attacked and protested, they tend to dig in their heels. And it gets even worse when we make “evil people did it” the default response is just as bad in Paleontology as it does Sunday morning in church. My point was that this is becoming just such a default when looking at extinctions. I have watched several in the last few weeks (I’m a documentary addict) that want to blame mankind for the extinction of all the prehistoric apex predators in North America when they can’t find another explanation. This is usually done with little evidence to back it up. Certainly primitive men would have on occasion killed saber tooth cats and short faced bears but it is unlikely that we slaughtered enough of them to cause their extinction and certainly the evidence they cite doesn’t support this as the major cause of their extinctions.
I think we have to be willing to look at what we have done and work together to correct damage that we have done, but at the same time we need to be realistic enough to also understand that usually those actions start before we have any real clue as to what effect might ultimately happen. I remember editorials talking about the requirement that cars have catalytic converters back in the seventies. They cited that it would change lethal carbon monoxide into CO2 that would only serve to make the planet greener. There are a few sources from that time that mentioned CO2 and global warming possibilities, but the majority were focused on controlling carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, lead and several other noxious gases that cars were emitting.
We seem to have lost sight of what changes we have made and haven’t given credit to ourselves for our efforts so far. Its got to be hard for industrial companies who have struggled and spent huge amounts of their profits to improve what comes out of smokestacks and car exhaust pipes that receive no credit but constant villification. “Humans Bad” is a strong stream in the environmental movement and their anti-corporate attitudes makes getting further cooperation difficult. Yes, a lot of the change was forced upon them, but I feel that we can as easily use a carrot, offering credits to those who go above and beyond, finding new answers that solve the problems.
the extinction of the apex predators probably came about because of the extinction of their prey, the megafauna, and there is reasonably good evidence that we did kill them off at least.
Also, the Bible says that if you are a lukewarm believer, then God will spit you from his mouth. It also talks about the dead churches in the Revelations, which people like this woman will surely accuse the Anglican Church of being.
How can you continue to believe in a Bible that pits churches against each other as well as pitting believers against non-believers?
I’m probably safe. Everyone knows that the proper translation of Via Media is ‘lukewarm’ :) …
LOL! But are you really safe? I would think that God spitting you from his mouth would be a pretty traumatic thing…
And gooey.
… and just how far could an omnipotent god spit you in an infinite universe?Gosh, you’d end up traumatised, gooey, AND a long way from home! :-) See what happens when you literalise a metaphor and take it too extremes! (not you, LRA – I know that wasn’t what you meant).
But how do you know which part is the metaphor and which part is literally what god is saying? Is the Garden of Eden a metaphor for the transition from hunter gatherer societies to warring agrarians, or the true story of man and woman disobeying god and humanity paying the price? Is Jesus walking on water a reality that happened when he met with his apostles or is it a metaphor for the power of faith? Or does it secretly mean Jesus was a ninja, an interpretation known only to a select few Masons who keep the secret hidden in the Lincoln Memorial under Honest Abe’s watching eye?
This is what happens when you have a text that doesn’t marry with reality and try to use it as an instruction manual – it comes down to reader interpretation to figure out what’s meant as a direct instruction and what’s meant as a figurative lesson, and at that point the reader is really reflecting themself and their conscience back out of the book. As Elemenope was pointing out, this makes the reader the agent here, and their book/faith becomes incidental to their actions rather than a cause of them.
She’s like a scary cobra. The way she bobs that head around slithering out those silvery words. Yikes!
“Don’t you think it’s possible for God to exist outside your knowledge?”
Definitely, but as we’re all in the Matrix anyway, it doesn’t make the slightest difference.
I love that this ends in a sales pitch.
I also really appreciate the comments above. I’m new to the site and there is nice open discussion happening. It’s a pleasure to see.
Welcome, Alex! It’s good to have you.
Here’s the problem I have with this video. The lady confuses belief and knowledge as one and the same. You simply cannot draw a circle of the totality of human knowledge and then place within that circle your “belief”, even if a lot of people hold that belief. We live in the scientific age where we can follow the scientific method and examine processes and test hypotheses and come to testable and repeatable conclusions. In this age, knowledge and belief are different things.
At one point in time this video could have been changed, “Here’s a big circle of all the knowledge about the universe. Now draw me a circle of your knowledge. Isn’t it possible that the Earth is the center of the universe?” Science is proof of tangible positives, she’s asking for the unprovable and untested acceptance of a negative. These are not the same things.
She is not confused. She know very well what she does and say. She uses wordplay, anchoring, manipulation at your subconscious level in such a slow way that you do not get noticed that your are put in some kind of hypnosis state. As long as she goes below the conscious threshold of detection that you are being manipulated your conscious does not kick in with the words “hey wait a minuter!” And start to ask questions.
I took a Sharpie and drew a circle on my desk. Then I slammed my head into the circle repeatedly. The effect was the same as that in the video (some pain, a few lost brain cells), but it didn’t take up five minutes and 13 seconds of my life.
Someone should tell her to draw a circle that represents everything, and then a smaller circle that represents her personal knowledge, and then ask her if it is possible that Brahma exists somewhere outside of her knowledge. Then explain to her that oodles and oodles of people believe in Hinduism. I’m sure she’d convert on the spot.
Wow, argumentum ad populum PLUS a diagram! Nicely done there retarded lady.
Wow, and there’s actually a line in her book of fairy tales that says anyone who doesn’t believe in her fairy tales is foolish. How could you counter that argument?
The bible predicts there will be people who do not find this nonsense at all convincing. I’m constantly amazed that anyone finds that argument compelling enough to use, that they themselves may have read the entire bible with a little bit of skepticism and reason until they got to that part, and were disturbed the great creator considered them a fool. OH NO!. The bible here is admitting it is nonsense, and encourages the weaker minds to stay weak, buttering them up by calling them wise, while blaming and name-calling people who have a sensible reaction to it. It’s nothing but a sleazy sales technique. You want to buy that car, the practical one with good gas mileage, room for 5, and fits comfortably within your budget? Do you want your neighbors and co-workers to think you are square, boring, no fun at parties? Do you want them to mistake you for your dad? No, of course not!
I know it’s the kind of line I’d throw in if I were making up a religion.
This is why I hate ‘proof texting’ – it generally proves nothing but how little the ‘proofer’ knows. Auntie June clearly doesn’t understand the source material. If you take a look at psalm 14 in the original Hebrew it quickly becomes apparent that it is not about atheism at all – it’s really more a lament by a monotheist living in a polytheistic culture that so many have fallen away to the worship of ‘false gods.’
I’d like to see her try this with Matt Dillahunty. He’d have a field day.
I’m sorry, “Aunt” or not, I would have choked this smarmy PoS about two sentences in…
My long stand against violence to women may be severely challenged if I ever run into this sanctimonious bitch.
She asked me at the closed-minded/open-minded question. The correct answer to that is “irrelevant.” Having an open or closed mind has nothing to do with facts. Prove your god exists and I’ll agree he exists. That’s neither open or closed minded.
Rather, lost me at that question.
Besides being irrelevant to facts, it seems a dangerous tact for a Christian to take. If a Christian cannot admit the possibility there is no God, THEY are close-minded. If, on the other hand, they CAN admit the possibility there is no God, they are not a Christian.
This is the same crap Ray Comfort pulls. It is easily shut down by asking if unicorns exist outside their circle of knowledge. Further, make the very pointed statement, I do not believe YOU, and stick your finger in their face. For some odd reason, they can’t cope with that little statement. It also has a tendency to make the frothing fundy suddenly feel inadiquate. They failed, and you pointed it out to them. Lastly, your knowledge is not needed for a determination on the existence of gods. They are makeing the claim, it is up to them to support that claim with objective evidence. (which they can’t provide no matter how hard they wave their arms)
Assuming she didn’t edit the conversation for us, let alone fabricate it completely, this nephew seems new to theological debates. Easy meat for her.
I think rather than new to theological debates he was told not to upset Auntie.
I think she made up her “nephew”.
Just because I don’t know everything doesn’t mean I don’t know anything.
/argument
I would have started by asking her what she meant by “knowledge”. Does she mean what people “know” or provable facts or absolute truths? “Knowledge” and truth are not synonyms. At one time common knowledge said the world was flat. Her “knowlege” includes the existance of a god. So that would be her circle. Mine would be a different circle. In fact, most “knowledge” within her big circle would be pure crap. So I am going to be quite happy with my small circle and ignore all the rest.
Nice sales pitch! I knew this had to be a lead in to a book, prayer cloth or some other holy relic she was selling. @@
As usual, in order to obtain this “knowledge that lies outside the circle of your knowledge” Just send money and all will be revealed. Same old, same old.
Listen again to her precise diction when she says the title of the booklet – she puts extreme emphasis on the T at the end of “hearT” and a brief yet present beat before she says “on”. I imagine her reciting her pitch over and over again, and the director saying, “Cut! No no no!!, it still sounds like you said “God’s Hard-on: Atheists and Agnostics.”
Three simple steps for converting an atheist:
1. Draw a circle or two
2. Tell the atheist that s/he is actually an agnostic
3. Soul saved
Make me puke!!! MMMBPLUPPPP!!!
lady, I don’t “think” I’m an atheist
I do however, “think” you’re a moron
This woman is mad. Her godf looks after her but what about the thousands of children die a day rom poverty
Who want tobelieve in her god, not me.
Read the bible lady it is wicked. Go to africa and do some goods works .
A fool says in his heart there is a god, because he has no reason or logic and believes in fairies. Silly,silly woman.
The question that no one is asking is why is it important to have a god? What is lacking in people’s lives that necessitates the need for a god? Why can’t christers, and mostly all other religious sects quit groveling in the dirt begging for something they could do themselves, get up off their knees, and solve their own problems?
Coming through Miss. last week I saw a sign on a church that said, “The fear of god is the basis for a strong family”. Can someone please explain how the chirster’s god is supposed to be a ‘loving god’ and at the same time should also be feared. Isn’t this a contradiction in terms?
Here’s what Wikipedia, the font of all human wisdom, has to say about the fear of God – check it out at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_God_(religion)
my circle of knowledge is not a circle, but an open loop, ever widening. and so far, no god.
My circle of knowledge is a Klein Bottle. Having some issues defining what’s inside and outside it.
The problem with the comments here is that we are trying to take a logical approach to an illogical argument. This poor benighted woman is living in a dream world and thinks that because the rest of us don’t agree with her views that we are wrong. To critique a christer is only to add fuel to their fire of belief and to make them more determined to convert the heathens.
This woman is having an ‘esprit d’escalier’ moment. This is the moment after a discussion at which time you come up with the perfect rebuttal. Not only is she asking the questions but she is suppling the perfect, well thought out (by her skewed logic) reply and not being challenged by her opponent. She is living in a fools paradise.
It is funny how some religious people try to boost up their arguments to get through to atheists on our level, because we are impervious to scripture, perhaps. They think they are clever to design what appears to be a logical argument, with logical answers, and demonstrate what a logical person would have to say. Similarly, Intelligent Design tends to gloss over the creationism with science-sounding words, detective work involving microscopes and DNA, no talking snakes. Her argument is exactly as persuasive as she thinks it is to people more like her. The little believers understand what atheism is, the more adorable they kind of are when they try to pretend that they know exactly how to get through to us.
I recently had an internet argument on facebook with a friend of a friend who quoted in his status some nonsense about atheists feeling soul-empty and longing for god to fill that space, of saying disbelief out loud but not being true to our heart’s despair without god in our lives. This solid belief that believers know better how an atheist feels than an atheist could not be argued successfully – it is in the bible, and many famous people agree (fallacious arguments he did not pull up until later). I had said that souls don’t exist because god doesn’t exist, his first response was a new one on me. A famous author had declared “There is no god,” and 10 years later to the day, he committed suicide. Pow! I mean, he made it 10 years, but fell apart in utter despair and longing for god that he earlier denied. Spooky that it was 10 years to the day. I mean, how little can someone understand anything, to themselves find that convincing and too eerie to be false, to dramatically pose that example as an argument against atheism, I mean it clearly illustrates what happens when you deny there’s a god.
If they understood, I think they would become atheists, as what often seems to have happened to our resident deconverts. The less they understand, the more obviously stupid their logic will be, even as they try very hard to approach our language and thought processes of the logical. It’s quite apparently impossible for them to do it and still have faith; it’s not that they knowingly use poor logic, it’s that poor logic is enough to be completely convincing to them. Other terrible approaches are, that we have to admit we have faith like they do (rather than put them down by their own qualities of understanding), or the extremely witless: “god doesn’t believe in atheists.” Pah-ha ha haha, that’ll get me.
Did he care to name said famous author with links to his announcement of god’s nonexistence and obituary.
It was Ernest Hemingway… I’m no literary scholar – I can only find that he may have expressed personal atheism through some of his writing and character development, and to have committed suicide, but he made up the 10 years to the day part (or copied it from somewhere), and the causation was merely implied as to obviously follow from his earlier statements. It pretty well ignores the possibility he may not have been an atheist (quotes from A Farewell to Arms are credited on many atheist sites but he is not listed in some comprehensive lists of known atheists); that A Farewell to Arms was published in 1929, and he committed suicide in 1961, “to the day” in particular ridiculous, but that is 32 years, not 10; and medically known facts about depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, the effects of electroconvulsive treatments, and a family pattern of suicide, which may have some link to hemochromatosis, or at least riding along with the hereditary alcoholism; nor millions of other people who live just fine, long lives, and have no problems with or without god.
It just seemed to him a neat and tidy little story that ought to have shut me up. I have to say it was pretty confusing to have all the facts and fears about a life lived without Christ shoved right in my face like that. Later on, he not only claimed it was foolish to deny the existence of god, but also FUTILE. I’m only not sure if he knows what futile means, but I had to cut out as I knew he was only satisfied by the answers he got from the bible (in which has recently been added, Ernest Hemingway’s biography).
She’s using my parents’ favorite tactic: ramble endlessly so that you’ll tell them anything to get them to stop.
Did no one tell her before turning the camera on that you could just as easily ask her to draw her own circle of knowledge within the “everything” circle, and say, “So, can you see that it’s possible that God does NOT exist outside your circle?”
Also, knowledge/certain vs. belief, etc., etc., what everyone else has said, hear, hear.
I would question the size of the circle, and the relevance of different kinds of knowledge. There are many things I know, or could know that have absolutly on bearing on theology. The rules for playing monopoly, or my knowledge of various explicitly fictional worlds, how they came to be created and the real life behind the scenes events that influenced the final product.
so when we start pearing it down how much of the relvent knoledge have we discovered already … well for one it wount be a circle but rather some collection of random points of near certainty surrounded by larger gray areas. And what of my particular knowledge … well that’s a smaller set of points with a lot more gray areas, of things I sort of know but don’t fully understand.
The end result is that my area of relevant knowledge does not leave vast tracts for god to hide in but rather odd shaped wriggly gaps.
Well put. I was just trying to visualize what you described, but “odd shaped wriggly gaps” really nails it.
A recent installment of XKCD actually seems relevent:
http://xkcd.com/804/
I love the float-text on that one.
Why does she “think” she is a Christian?
If she had been born in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran or a dozen other Muslim countries does she think she would still be a Christian? Why? Christians only make up 1/3rd of the planet’s population. Why is that do you suppose? Why after 2000 years of effort, do over 4 billion of the earth’s inhabitants still reject her fairy tale?
I think she’s missing something fairly obvious – our combined knowledge is much greater than one persons knowledge and experience. I have a certain amount of experience and knowledge, another person has a different sphere of knowledge and has experienced other things in their life. Get a couple of hundred of atheists drawing little circles representing their different spheres of knowledge in her big circle and pretty soon there’ll be no space left for any kind of god.
Nice one.