The Root of All Evil - The God Delusion

[System_Zero]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ8_bIji7gQ (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4xIi-TwY-Y (Part 2)

A very interesting documentary that highlights all that Religion does wrong in it's attempts in what it believes its ultimately right. And exposes fundamentalist Christians as nothing more than the mirror opposite of the Talaiban.

It's a lengthy watch but it does get you think.

[Inactive Cargo]

Who'da thunk Christianity is fucking up society (http://www.1337.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16595)?

[System_Zero]

This doesn't focus solely on Christianity, but on with both Jewish and Islamic faiths.

[Inactive Cargo]

They're the same, though - all wrong.

[System_Zero]

The videos don't compare crime rates and murder to religion. But it's right up your alley. Just them both beginning to end. You'll enjoy the 25 minute mark of the first video.

[Shins]

Good video.

Few observations:

Dawkins focuses squarely on the how's in comparing science and religion. While he definitely offers a lot of insight and support for the scientific view, he kind of sidesteps the question of "why" most of the time, which I think it the bigger reason that religion is so ingrained, accepted, and sought after: it offers a pretty simple rationale for being alive, fits every person with a purpose, and allows for affirmation by large groups of like-minded people.

I'll have to pick up the book and see if he doesn't delve deeper into the answers of why supplied by science and religion, respectively. I think it'd be cool if he would've shown more of the personal philosophy that works well with a scientific explanation of the how's of the universe. Bit of a missed opportunity there.

Another thing is how Dawkins subtly idealizes a world without religion. While I do think a more secular world would be a step up from what there is now, I don't think it'd be a benign intellectual paradise by any stretch of the imagination. People will always find something to kill, segregate, and wage war over. Religion is an excellent tool for that now. If it's gone, something else will take its place.

I also lol'd a bit at the Freethinker's Group in Colorado. After Dawkins harped on the sheep of Catholicism at the very beginning of the video, he didn't make any correlation to the pent-up group of like-minded atheists congregating together to bolster their own viewpoints.

ps: that second part of the video cut off a bit short; seemed like there should've been more.

[FistFighter]

Atheism is kind of religion, too. Rather than saying "There certainly is a God," it just says "There certainly isn't a God." They're both questions of faith, really. I don't think it's possible for people to be completely faithless unless they have no opinion whatsoever.

[Derpinguin44]

Atheism is kind of religion, too. Rather than saying "There certainly is a God," it just says "There certainly isn't a God." They're both questions of faith, really. I don't think it's possible for people to be completely faithless unless they have no opinion whatsoever.

Not necessarily.

Atheism is the belief in total....nothing. Therefore it couldn't exist.

"I believe in nothing."-
"Then propose how you exist."

[Shins]

Atheism is kind of religion, too. Rather than saying "There certainly is a God," it just says "There certainly isn't a God." They're both questions of faith, really. I don't think it's possible for people to be completely faithless unless they have no opinion whatsoever.

Philosophically speaking, there is a similarity, but at present, atheism lacks the kind of unified structure found in the major religions. It's harder to pull together people around atheism for this reason, since there's nothing universally applicable beyond a common lack of belief in any kind of divinity.

I think that certainly, there is always potential that atheists could eventually form some manner of dogma, which would inevitably reach a schism, necessitating any number of splinter protestant atheist factions. But that hasn't happened yet, which I why I think that calling atheism a religion in the same way the theistic movements are isn't an accurate statement, given the connotations that come with religion today.