The Most Evil Idea in the New Testament - Richard Dawkins

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[MgtowRubicon]

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods and they are unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." -- Marcus Aurelius

[SpacemanSpiff]

“You are born in sin. We can’t be good without him” is a very effective recruitment strategy.

[tobeboom]

Think of the idea. You have roughly 80 years on earth. If you don’t get it right during that 80 years, having not a shred of evidence outside a book that reads horribly and brutally, the father that loves you will either burn you for all eternity or allow you to kiss his feet for all eternity. Who on earth would ever do that to one of their own children who they truly love? Nobody! It’s absurd on its face.

[karencampbell]

As a little child I could not get my head around all the contradictions. I couldn’t understand the notion of Jesus hanging on a cross meant we could be forgiven. Where is the logic?

[leylandbarr]

My mother was born in 1911 told me she read the Bible to decide for herself if religion had any validity.
She was 17 when she read it, ( in 1928 when the majority population had a religious faith ) .
She said it was the most disgusting book she ever read, full of murder, rape, incest, deceit etc. that she never knew about.
“ Just a lot of stories written by old men ( no women) to indoctrinate the population”, and through fear, made to believe we’re all born of original “sin”.
The mechanism is to have POWER over their subjects promising redemption if they follow their religious leaders and THEIR teachings.
Her father must have her prompted to read the Bible as he went to France in World War One (from New Zealand) believing in Christ, and came back an Atheist, and also a staunch anti-royalist.
It’s not hard to work out why he changed his beliefs.

[richarddeluen]

One word. Indoctrination. If religion wasn't even mentioned until a person was 18, they'd never fall for this rubbish

[X.Draxius]

As a kid who grew up in a rural Christian area but thought very logically, I questioned everything I was told. I was quickly taught to "fear God" so much that I became deathly afraid to keep questioning it. As a very young child, when the people you trust most tell you that you'll burn for eternity (after explaining what eternity means) if you keep asking questions, you stop asking questions and you fear everything those people tell you to fear.

I moved out of that town at 18 to go to college. By 20, without the influence of small town Southern baptism, I had met enough atheists that I felt safe questioning things and realized quickly that I never once believed a word of it. Turns out, I was just terrified to even think about it. The Christian indoctrination is basically "instill fear at the core of this person's identity when they're developing children" whether they know it or not.

It's the ultimate blasphemy to teach people such fear and convince them that it's love; then they grow up thinking that by using anger to instill that same fear in their own children, they will legitimately believe that they love their child by making that child terribly afraid of some vague nonsense concept completely detached from the world they live in. It keeps people afraid, it skews the perception of love, it prevents people from caring about the world around them, it gives you the most screwed up idea of what it means to be a good or bad person, it completely destroys your ability to think critically or question things...it's just absolutely despicable. It's vile and I hate it so very much. Christians want to be good people, but their instructions may as well have been given to them by their devil copying God's handwriting.

[DinoDiniProductions]

The reason why the church needed people to believe that were are all born in sin was so that they would become dependent on the church.

[mwflanagan]

The respect that you and Richard show for each other is wonderful to behold. Neither of you is insulted to be challenged, and you patiently allow each other to fully explain your positions without excessive interruption. Well done, as usual, Alex. Thank you for this series of videos.

[miikavihersaari]

Alex, I admire the way you interview people. You're critical and you aim to be objective and fair to both sides, and you respect the people you interview. Even though I don't share your worldview (I am a Christian), I think everyone can learn a lot from how you conduct these interviews. Keep up the excellent work!

[tommcdonald]

I'll say again: I'm a Christian and I appreciate the way in which you challenge things. Not as colorful as Hitchens and not as vitriolic as Dawkins. Straightforward, good-faith arguments. Thank you.

[JamesRavencroft]

1:38 - "Surely he never said 'my death is necessary for you to be saved from sin'"

*Matthew 26:28*
"For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." This is interpreted by many Christians as an indication that Jesus saw his death as a necessary sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins.

[andrewg.carvill]

One of the most profound Catholic theologians of the 20th century, Henri de Lubac, wrote a book called "The Drama of Atheist Humanism". In the book, he did a very Thomist thing: in order to truly respond to the proponents of atheist materialism, he started by examining their thought in great depth. Otherwise he would only have been responding to his own preconceptions about atheistic materialists, and he knew this. Alex O'Connor seems to me a person professing atheism who extends that same courtesy to Christianity. He tries to understand it before responding to it.

[czarlito_]

You got Dawkins to agree with the idea of being born in sin on a poetic level. Congratulations Alex! 😄

[Bearzo]

“How do you stand it?” Literally lol’d

[leonardgibney]

Organized religions are political movements pure and simple about power and control. Their clergy don gaudy robes and convince you they represent God, that's power. Tell you you're a sinner so that you're in thrall to them and need them for redemption, job done! We'll I'm not a sinner mate, l obey the law and harm no man.

[OmniversalInsect]

I definitely agree with him on this. Sure you could say original sin is a metaphor for how no human is perfect and that we all fall short of our moral judgements, but what it's actually saying is humans are inherently evil and we are obligated to surrender our freedom to this supposed god. It just sounds like the perfect manipulative technique, selling someone the cure for an illness they don't have.

[MgtowRubicon]

"Parents don't own their children. You are the caretakers of those children. You are instilled with a responsibility to raise responsible members of society and to teach them the minimal things that they will need to carry on a productive life when you're not around." -- Matt Dillahunty

[normbale]

Believing in and endorsing a literal Hell is the ultimate perversion.

[lifetimevic]

So god sent himself to die on the cross to forgive us for a sin that we didn't commit??? Even then he could have just forgiven us???? How stupid is the whole story!