Rational Belief is Bad!

Today, we unfortunately don't get any evidence or arguments for god, instead we get a bunch of pontificating on how god belief should start out emotional, and then when you've come to believe for emotional reasons, that's when it's time to engage in post-hoc rationalization.

Yay?

Sources:

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[elcarpe]

"a smooth talking salesman that preyed upon your passions" - sounds a LOT like televangelist, priest or apologist to me.

[sbushido]

"A twinge of humility."

I never ceased to be impressed by how these people can think they have a close personal relationship with the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the near-infinite universe, who died for their sins...and think that they're being humble.

[noradrenalin]

For a man talking so much about humility and modesty, Ginger Jesus here comes across incredibly arrogant.

[tompaine]

This guy did a great job of convincing me that I need to revisit some of my decisions by showing me they're as unfounded as his belief in a god. Bravo?

[FuriouslySleepingIde]

I hate the request for us to just try something that will convert us as a test. It's never a simple test. It's always "Heads I win, Tails you lose" or "Heads I win, Tails we flip again."

To use this guys example. I'm willing to try your unlocking ritual. I'll tap three times on my head and say "peanut butter sandwiches". If the door opens, I'll admit you were right. If the door doesn't open, you will admit that it is rational for me to reject your claims.

I'm not going to pray with you or go to church with you as a test unless you will accept that a negative result is legitimate.

[jannettb]

His descriptions of people throwing money at smooth talking salesmen and basking in love bombing is very telling of the people he surrounds himself with...

[percenthealth]

Funnily enough, when I was still a believer living in a cult of my parents' own invention, we were "learning" about various types and signs of demonic influence. One of them was "intellectualism". I was confused, and asked my parents why an honest pursuit of knowledge was a sign of demonic influence, and they said something about how an obsession with learning about the physical world tends to make people neglect their spiritual growth, and leads them away from God. I was not at all satisfied with this answer.

Later on, when I was still a believer but resisting some of the more culty aspects of their religious and family life, I tried my best to give sound reasons as to why I was disagreeing with them. They accused me of being influenced by demons of intellectualism, and told me that I was on a "dangerous path" that could lead to atheism.

Now, 3 years later, I am an atheist. Funny how that works.

[HikaruKatayamma]

Growing up, I moved a lot. My mother took me to Sunday School every week and that taught me a very important lesson: Nobody knows what the bible means. None of the churches agreed on everything, and people kept telling me that the other people were mistaken or didn't know what they were talking about.

When I was 13, I got annoyed by this and read the bible from front to back and decided it was horse shit. It confirmed that the entire religion was based on denial of the facts IN the bible as well as anything outside of it. Every time I pointed out contradictions in the bible, those "knowledgeable biblical scholars" would come up with the most ridiculous excuses.

[sergeykoshelev]

Boys and girls, don't forget your definitions:
Pride: thinking about oneself too much.
Humility: thinking that trillions of galaxies each with trillions stars with multiple orbiting planets all spanning vast and immeasurable space, all of it, created for a unexceptional group of an unremarkable species on an average planet orbiting a common star in a far corner of spiral arm of a backward galaxy.

[robertadsett]

“You don’t see scientists publishing the logic behind an experiment without performing the experiment itself”. Actually you do, when either the technology isn’t available or the experiment requires large scale collaboration (and funding) this not only happens, it’s common

[tompaine]

Bertrand Russell would agree, I think, that religious beliefs aren't founded in rationality. From _Why I Am Not a Christian:_ "Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown, and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing—fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion has gone hand-in-hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. [...]

We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world—its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is, and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past, or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time towards a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create."

[Thoron_of_Neto]

Alternate title: "if you're not 100% rational, you can't reject my god for rational reasons"

[KingQwertzlbrmpf]

I hate the ontological argument. It's just so pointless and yet people that use it tend to feel so smug about it. "Hey look at me i'm so clever i'm using the ontological argument! I'm using words whose meaning i don't fully understand, admire me!"

[ajaxlewis]

Oh ffs, I'm on strong tablets for my anxiety and now I have to take on 7 billion other people's worries?! This probably won't go well...

[LOH__]

As a once extremely devout Christian this mad me more mad/sad than most videos. Like F anyone who would ever say this about me. I was happy and gave up everything for my faith my whole life before waking up and educating myself as a 30+ year old. Now 100% atheist and learning to be happy with reality.

[Sciguy]

When talking about personal experiences i usually get told that them having a personal experience definitively proves that their God exists. But if personal experiences prove a person's God, what about all the experiences that people from other religions claim to have?

[thehappyvulcan]

31:19
“Pride and humility are notoriously misunderstood!”
Oh ... The irony.



Yes, he himself is living proof of that.

[guystyle]

There's no punctuality like Viced Rhino punctuality — always enjoy the consistent upload schedule! Thanks, Rhino!

[nunyabusiness]

Just reading the title and thinking “no way. No possible way is anyone that self aware.”

[digigalbytes]

So his whole argument seems to be "I can't demonstrate god, therefore my feels"?