You guys know he's doing a stand up show in Brisbane on Monday yeah? He's playing Melbourne tonight, I just can't afford to go this time around but I saw him a couple years ago and he's well worth going to see.
Dont like Brandt but that was good the way he let them talk about their views.
Then pointed out some holes in their views.
The worst thing you can do to an extreme view is to try to silence it.
You get it out into the open and the more people discuss it the closer they get to the truth about the view.
i saw russell on tuesday night and the audience was eating out of his hand. he is very charismatic and damn hilarious. his comedy is extremely vulgar in parts and at other times very philosophical. he engages in a lot of word play comedy which really appeals to me.
he does come across at times as a bit of a pseudo intellectual though. i doubt he has studied most of the shit he talks about in any detail. but then again he is a millionaire A-list hollywood type so he can say what he likes right?
I saw this a couple weeks back and was actually surprised at Brand's eloquence. I thought he was just a bit of a clown but after I got over the horrible cockney way he talks I thought he was quite interesting to listen to.
Anyone know if this was this filmed in the UK or the US?
I've watched bits and pieces of Brand around the place, and think that he's entertaining and eloquent, but there's also been a fair few times where he's come across as the caricature of a new age shallow idiot.
So i guess you were one of those chumps that ate right out of his hand, yeah?
I wasn't implying that they were chumps, I was implying that the audience were enthralled with what he had to say. Brand has an engaging delivery. He actually came down off the stage and walked the entire floor audience with a 100m mic cable giving people kisses, hugs and photos. There was only one security guard about 30m behind him.
I'm... not ashamed to admit that I hate bullshit and respond negatively to it? I do it about every topic, from conspiracies to science denial to alternative medicines to religious fantasy "facts".
If you watched the vid, you would see that they were both arguing about what the magic man in the sky from middle eastern mythology wants, and they both knew that they knew his one true will.
And hell, just because your "contribution" was so facepalm worthy - calling it a matter of "Internet" atheist complaining about religious oppression is a bit of a strawman, considering that I learned to be this way while being forced to go to churches and christian youth groups for decades, and never said anything about oppression in my criticism of those two, only pointed out that they were just two people having a witchdoctor disagreement, and both validate the other.
nerf is a militant and extreme atheist. In fact, the majority of this forum is an atheist in arms circle jerk that get together outside of the internet and talk about how religion makes people blow each other up, not realising they are the ones blowing each other up with cocks in their mouths, so in reality not a lot of talking happens in these circles but more humming, moaning and gagging. Not that that there's anything wrong with that because homosexuality is A OK right poofs!
and before you respond with a wall of text nerfy filled with logic and reason, do tell me more, in the post after. Seriously, i am so disengaged with this topic that I want to hear more!
Not always, and in the times that i do, i guess I get a kick out of it. Bandwagons and sheep shit me and I like being the one that swims against the tide (for a lack of a better analogy), though within reason not just for the hell of it, evidently with this very same post.
talk about how religion makes people blow each other up
My primary issue is and always has been that you're letting yourself, and encouraging others to, be lied to. Playing along with fairy tails which I grew out of as a teen. Being scammed by witchdoctors.
I put being lied to up there in the core things which humans shouldn't do to each other just based on our common desires, along with rape, murder, and slavery, and so seeing witchdoctors/shamans/imams/priests/l ron hubbard/kim jong il/joseph smith/jim jones/braco/whoever lie to you, makes me extremely upset - particularly because it's been done to me and my family.
I have the same disdain for all bullshit across the board, it has nothing to do with just your religion.
nerf i think you have a duty to let everyone on the internet know that religion is just unacceptable these days. you will be swimming against the tide, because totally rational religious enthusiasts are literally everywhere on the internet, but i believe in you and your cause. god speed. i mean, speed.
nerf i think you have a duty to let everyone on the internet know that religion is just unacceptable these days. you will be swimming against the tide, because totally rational religious enthusiasts are literally everywhere on the internet, but i believe in you and your cause. god speed. i mean, speed.
Fixah, why do you purposefully do this to yourself? Jeering when you have a chance to reason?
You obviously don't get what people's criticisms of what you've been indoctrinated into are, yet when somebody explains you just switch to slippery avoidance?
and when somebody explains to me what? the big bang theory or the theory of evolution? please i got no time for that shit. Be thankful you're getting a rare glimpse of me with all my jeering remarks this Friday but I won't be here for long so do enjoy it while you can.
tried what for ages?and when somebody explains to me what? the big bang theory or the theory of evolution? please i got no time for that shit. Be thankful you're getting a rare glimpse of me with all my jeering remarks this Friday but I won't be here for long so do enjoy it while you can.
No, what I literally just explained to you was my problem with religions/faceman's conspiracies/alternative 'medicines'/etc above, which you then ignored because it didn't give you the straw man 'atheist' that you wanted, and then started sneering. It's not about some fear that you're going to blow anybody up, nor a concern which I only exhibit towards your religion.
And yeah, when I was a pentecostal, I argued against evolution too. I know what it's like when you play these games of "let's believe mythology of ancient country x because others told us that as children". Imagine how stupid it would be if somebody believed in Zeus or the giant turtle which carried the world on its back, that's what you are doing when you're having fun with setting your standards of evidence impossibly low and letting whichever scammer gets to you first in life spin you an extremely tall and incredulous magic tale (suspiciously simple and human-like at that, just like primitive humans reasoned that the world was carried on the back of a turtle, or that the universe grew as part of the norse world tree, they simply extrapolated everything by looking at the things around them that they knew - and then some middle eastern primitives get that 'a man made it' - just like they knew at the time. It's up there with santa clause brings presents at christmas level of childish bullshit, and adults really are doing themselves a disservice by refusing to outgrow it).
You tried giving honest answers about your religion and beliefs, then gave up, didn't you? You made heaps of posts and then threads would die or the threats headed in different directions.
Please don't tell me you are one of those dolts who say "evolution and the big bang? But it's just a theory!" because that is just really really dumb.
dolts huh, woooow dude..for someone who's been on the forum for years openly declaring jihad Islam as my religious Abrahamic belief; a belief in God and in creationalism, what do you reckon? just take stab in the dark. Besides, i don't know about you, but I could fine a million and 1 things to do other than waste hours on about how the universe came to be on a forum filled with smug atheists.
You tried giving honest answers about your religion and beliefs, then gave up, didn't you? You made heaps of posts and then threads would die or the threats headed in different directions.
Yes i was open for discussion and attempted to answer any questions but i quickly saw how futile it all was. Now I don't bother. I really gain nothing out of it anyway and it's merely time lost that i'll never get back, so now i just stick to jeering remarks because at least i get entertainment value out of it.
Talking of other things to do, time's up! cheerio!
Your problem here isn't that your'e dealing with "atheists", it's that you're dealing with an ex-religious person who has been burned by such scams as you are now and actually feels sorry for you, who also has an extremely low tolerance for bullshit. My (well known) frustration is the same across all topics, way beyond being limited to religion, and it has nothing to do with being an "atheist" (meaning not a theist, which of course I must be if I think that religion is bullshit - it's the result, not the source - there's no divine prophet commanding to spread "not believing" by the word or the sword, so you can throw out any preconceptions that this is about following some evangelical doctrine, it's purely born of my own frustration and disappointment for you).
Please don't feel sorry for me, i have come from a war torn country of decades and I have taken every opportunity i could get a hold of to get to where i am today as a person, and i only have God to thank for it and not anyone else. I have no regrets whatsoever and as it stands I have nothing to lose and only more to gain. You could say I am like fucking Max Payne only he is fictional and i'm real living the here and now.
I think the 10 commandments is some damn good moral direction.
I don't believe that a god exists. From my limited knowledge, religions are nothing more than a money making scam since the birth of mankind as we know it.
Nothing wrong with homosexuals either, I really don't think they have that much of a choice in their sexual compass as you or I do.
Please don't feel sorry for me, i have come from a war torn country of decades and I have taken every opportunity i could get a hold of to get to where i am today as a person
Too bad, I'm going to, but that's not why I'm feeling sorry for you. I'm feeling sorry for you for having had done to you what was done to me, the complete raping of your mind by scammers. The confounding of your innate human desire for truth which you almost certainly share the same with me.
and i only have God to thank for it
Compare this to other superstitious claims about the workings of things. "Whatever I was doing when x happened thus caused x", "My health is all because of goji berries", "I crashed my car because my star sign was at the opposite zenith at the exact same hour", "My cancer receded after I ate a spoonful of sugar and so should you, and definitely don't you listen to them cancer doctors." (if you look across the board at religious vs irreligious countries/communities/individuals, you'll notice a trend that doesn't fit with your claim that gods help people - why is god helping the people who don't believe in him more? You can dig the hole deeper and complicate the theory with whatever you can make up to fill the holes, or you can just realise that you're writing fiction to support an answer that you're holding before good enough evidence for it, and that the god idea was flawed to begin with and doesn't deserve to be defended that way).
Start with this: There have been a multitude of religions, populations who believed in supposed gods, priests telling everybody that they have the actual communication. Where did you gain information about this character called god? From people. And where did those people get it? From more primitive people before them. How often were primitive people right about pretty much anything? Well, basically never, half of human history has been throwing out the rubbish that primitive people dreamed up, and yet we're to believe that of all things they had everything about the entire universe worked out? (much bigger than say 'how to get clean water' or 'what is gravity' or 'how to cure disease' or 'are there other galaxies?' - we're to believe that they have the answer to the entire universe, but not those incredibly more simple things?).
Worse, we know from seeing people like L Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith, the ancient greeks worshipping zeus or whoever, that people make up religions extremely easily, and will to exploit others, and that simply whatever you will be born into, you will likely believe and find extremely convincing. We know that the human mind is flawed in this way. We know that it happens. Yet despite your source being identical to all other sources - those which must be scams if yours is true - yours is somehow more trustworthy? By what virtue? Because it was told to you and you're so much more special than all those poor misled Greeks and Hindus and Christians and Scientologists and whatnot? Because you were born into that one and the universe clearly revolves around you, and if those other people think similarly they're just not right about theirs whereas you are? What if you were born into being told by the village shaman that an angry ghost lives on top of the mountain and must be given tribute of blood or bananas, or more likely, that you must give power/wealth/sex to the shaman? Why does [favoured religious claim x] have all the same properties as all the others? Is that the best that your god could do? Creates the entire universe, wants to communicate with people, only does it in a way that looks exactly like a regular human scam? You don't want to say "Well that was really fucking stupid of you god, you made it impossible to differentiate between the creator of the entire universe and a multitude of regular human-made scams, there is no rational reason for somebody to listen to your religion over all the others, and it would make complete sense to presume a human scam a million times before presuming an actual real life all powerful god who acts impossibly suspiciously like a limited human fiction writer who couldn't even write a story which made much coherent sense under investigation" ?
We know from fiction that it's easy for humans to write things which aren't true. We know from history that there have been a countless number of incredibly tall claims which people believed fervently. We know from scams and pyramid schemes that it's extremely easy for humans to lie and give false answers, and easy to be misled.
We know that people will report witnessing magic for any old shit, to the point where most leading professional magicians seem to get so fed up with people scamming with these tricks, that they set out to bust them. We know that 'religious leaders' and miracle workers have a long history of protecting their power and wealth, and claiming to be the voice or representative or conduit to 'something powerful beyond' which they use to scare or promise. We know that regular human lying comes into play all the time here, yet some all powerful creator wanted to get a message through looking identical to one of those? Couldn't just, you know, paint it in the sky? Appear to each person? Of course it could. Yet all we have is something that looks identical to countless scams, and nothing like what an all powerful god could do.
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If you'd like, as a fellow former 'rejecter' of evolution / the big bang / etc, I can at least explain these concepts to you in rather simple terms (I think) so that you can perhaps at best have a chance to recognise how impossibly well backed they are (by actual evidence, rather than somebody simply telling you that x is true when you're a kid depending on where you're born). You can at least know what you're rejecting then, because as a former fellow 'believer of what magic stories people told me as a kid' - I know what I'm rejecting in religion, and why evidence becomes so much more convincing.
nerfy your extreme Atheism prevents you from exploring deeper aspects of Religion and Conspiracies.
Religion isnt just Invisible people and stopping gays marrying.
There are Philosophical aspects and wisdom built over thousands of years.
Religion is sometimes wrong but so is Science.
You wouldnt want ppl to stop believing in Science just because the Planet has stopped Warming would you ?
What the hell is this even supposed to mean? That's like saying "Extreme not a believer in astrology" or "extreme not a north korean" when criticizing North Korea.
If anything is "extreme" about me, it's an extremely low fuse for bullshit, which you spout like nobody else I've ever seen, but particularly bullshit done to me when I was young.
Religion is sometimes wrong
Oh I'm sorry, show me where "religion" was "right" and I'll be on my way.
believing in Science
Anybody who "believes" in "science" is an undereducated idiot. One recognises the useful historic accuracy of the scientific enterprise, and never considers its products more than the most accurate current predictions.
I am happy to go along with scientific theory like the big bang, Because I was not there at the time to witness it. Later on a new theory might come along and it may be more plausible. I will not believe that there is a a creator of the universe and that it watches over us and apparently does stuff and but at same time has everything planned out.
This is where prayer makes no sense, If god has everything planned out for us (this is what I hear from my christen up bringing) anything we do is is to its plan. There is no choice. No amount of prayer will cure someone of cancer, if that person is going to pass away there is nothing any of us mere mortals can do about it. When someone dies unexpectedly I hear "everything is ment for a reason" and some crap about Gods plan.
It's like thanking god that someone has come through traumatic surgery alright when the operating surgeon is standing there with blood still on his gown.
religion is like amway. It's a cult designed to bring more people online so upstream providers benefit.
Only an idiot would find salvation in gaining approval from an invisible omnipotent being. Believe in yourself ffs.
I liked how Russell Brand glorified meeting the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan Buddhists including the Dalai Lama infringed the civil liberties of their people just as the Chinese did.
Religion (like any witchdoctor) is a means for the minority to repress the masses by using undeniable gobbledygook. Watch the Borgias. Religion is such a basic con, it's brilliant in its efficiency.
infi, you and I are going to completely agree on something now, it's going to be uncomfortable.
Though I tend to think of religion as identical to the zynga model - rope enough in, wait for the few who provide the big payouts and consider the rest 'spam'. Though I don't think that it's entirely intentional for many of the religious leaders, more so it organically grew (evolved) into a self perpetuating scam, a virus that infects not the biological body as the host, but the mind, and ensures that it is defended in its most successfully evolved forms.
People who try and hard-sell atheism are just as annoying as people who push religion. Its not like religious people are going to suddenly go "OMG you're right, I shall completely adjust my belief system because of what you just typed on the internet!" and likewise for the atheists. It just becomes a big echo chamber where all the internet atheists jerk each other off while doing armchair science.
True enough, Khel. Religion is like politics, you stick to your side unless something shakes the foundations of your beliefs/politics. Don't forget religious types love circle jerking with their beliefs as much as hard core net atheists do.
I agree with Nerf generally on what he is on about. Organised religions are a great way to dodge tax and control people and the way they think, perhaps not control but influence.
That is why the ACL is sticking its nose into things. It should stick to doing christian things and helping its followers instead of putting pressure on politicians to try and make Australia more christian like. It reminds me of Egypt at the Moment, the president wants to change the constitution to be more Islamic. Nothing wrong with that per se but it will apply to those who are not Islamic too, that is the problem.
Not sure where this topic is going, Im just ranting things that come to mind when I read this thread.
The "you can never change anybody's mind about religion" argument isn't very convincing to the ex-religious.
People who try and hard-sell atheism
What exactly do you think that 'atheism' is? The only purpose of the word that I can understand is for describing people who aren't religious, it's not an assertion or ideology or teaching which can be 'sold', it's just 'everybody who isn't north korean' for example. In a world where many people are theists, we need the word to describe ourselves, but it's not a "thing" or a reason for motivation.
Tbh I don't even like to describe myself as an atheist any more because of people's continuous referral to it as a thing as if that's a criticism, I instead prefer to enter these discussions defining myself as a pissed off ex-religious person who is frustrated by humans scamming humans, since that is my actual genuine motivation.
this is correct and to extend on from this i believe it is only a matter of time now before the religion problem sorts itself out as more and more people get access to information earlier in life
I realise you're just trying to be intentionally inflammatory but that doesn't even make any sense, how would science save you from doing that in any way?
If you're going to make pointless posts intended only to annoy others they could at least be coherent.
The "you can never change anybody's mind about religion" argument isn't very convincing to the ex-religious.
You can't change their mind, if they're going to change, its something they have to come to in their own time, based on their own experiences, writing a wall of text on the internet isn't going to save anyone or change anyone. I'm sure when you left religion it wasn't because some random guy you didn't know came up to you and said "Hey, you know this is all stupid", it was a decision you came to based upon your own experiences. Think about how passionately you feel about your side of the argument, now imagine the people on the other side feel just as passionately, if not MORE passionately about their beliefs, how do you expect to be able to change their mind?
What exactly do you think that 'atheism' is? The only purpose of the word that I can understand is for describing people who aren't religious, it's not an assertion or ideology or teaching which can be 'sold'
Sure it is, you can sell anything. What I'm talking about is the people who try and force their views on other people because they're of the belief that their views are the right ones and they're 'saving' the other people by trying to get them to understand the 'truth'. Its just arrogant, no matter what side you fall on or what 'truth' you're espousing, to think that you have all the answers, to think that its your responsibility to somehow enlighten all these poor lesser people, and to think that your words are somehow powerful enough to change the minds of people who have their own firmly held beliefs. Its ridiculous, its just noise.
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