I've always thought the same thing, too, and I don't get it either. I don't get what's wrong about changing your mind. I mean of course, someone who changes their minds all the time and for no reason might not be reliable. But someone who does because of new information is the kind of person I want making decisions that affect me.
Now, I understand where the stereotype comes from. It comes from politicians who just pretend to believe what would have them elected at any given time. Then, holding them up to promises makes sense, as if the second they're elected they just do the opposite, well people have a right to feel cheated. That's not what they voted for.
It's been blown out of proportion though, with anyone apparently susceptible to be accused of flip-flopping.
Great video Bob. I was pretty harsh on your past few videos, but this “flip-flopping” business is something that I completely agree with you about. I'd like to throw in that I think the “flip-flopping” stigma is based in no small part on America's society still being misogynistic, and viewing thoughtfulness, indecisiveness, and concession, as primarily “feminine traits” which are somehow thought to be bad, or at least something that people don't seem to want in their “red-blooded american alpha man” leaders.
Hey how did Romney get to be your governor? I thought Mass. was “notoriously” liberal. At least it has that image in the rest of the country.
Bob, what the fuck…. are you TRYING to lose fans? Or is your ego so big that you think you can do a show on politics without losing the rest of what is left of your fan base.
Its like, man….. heres this really smart guy with great taste in video games, he also has a lot to say, and almost all of it is worth listening to…. but damn, now he's starting to make a shitty spoofs or satires of whatever the hell. Oh well, at least over-thinker episodes are worth watching despite the long intros and unnecessary cam-whoring. At least he still gives good movie revie… but wait, these aren't movie reviews, these are just a bunch of audio clips of a grown ass man bitching about how painful it is to get paid to watch movies and post videos on the web….. then you had to get into politics….. ugh.
Please stop? Theres this part of me that thinks we can still get along because I just spent 3 hours playing Ocarina of Time on my 3DS…. but then you go and say shit thats just unforgivable like how married people aren't honest because they're married and how black people should be excluded from resident evil games simply because their ancestors were slaves and….. no.
At this point the only reason I'm still watching your videos is to learn how to refute your arguments.. don't do this. If you continue these shenanigans i'm going to have to waste my time elsewhere.
Here's the problem, though; like you pointed out with Romney, what happens if you flip-flop to the position that's wrong? I hate to bring up Obama again, but he's reversed his position too often to the bad decision (renewing the Patriot Act, keeping Guantanamo Bay open, maintaining Bush's wasteful spending policies). And I fully believe that, like with Romney, a politician should be punished if they change their mind to support a bad policy.
This is a topic that has annoyed me for quite some time, although I'll admit the video came off as rather too acerbic for my tastes.
Coupled to this problem is the fact that we've entered perpetual campaigning. It used to people that people would campaign, get elected, and then they were willing to compromise and discuss matters because they weren't under a microscope. Now I'm not suggesting we blithely let the government govern without being watched, but do we need talking heads on the news dissecting every such action every night?
If you'll allow a gaming analogy, since Morrowind every subsequent game that Bethesda Game Studios has developed has been announced later in its developement cycle and the developers have been progressively quieter about their games. While there are a number of reasons here part of it is the knowledge that whatever they say will be dissected and the scraps will be pushed to their logical limits – often with a chorus of Pro and Con gremlins frothing in the thick of things.
When every action taken by politicians is fodder they don't become more honest and more transparent, they start saying what the most vocal harridans want them to say and covering up everything else. Again, I'm not suggesting that politicians be free of scrutiny, but there is no reason that scrutiny needs to involve evisceration. At the moment politicians are catering to the campaign machines rather than the people.
I wasn't too sure about this new venture after the first video, but I think you improved quite a bit with this one. It's alright to be passionate about something and I don't mind dropping a well timed cuss here and there, but too much anger and too much swearing…Well it's like cooking: a little spice gives the meal a nice kick; too much ruins the whole thing. So great job here.
I will be honest though and say that the still photos of you…sorry but they just aren't doing it for me. I imagine they're meant to serve the same purpose as the Big Picture faces, but those cartoonish stylized images also are effective in disarming the audience and keeping things from getting too tense. The photos of you…I'm sorry but they're just kind of awkward. You probably can't use the Big Picture photos (and probably shouldn't in any case), but unfortunately I'm not sure what to suggest replacing them with. I was going to say try images of old school powdered wig patriots but then you might run the risk of the audience thinking you're commenting on the person. Hmmm…I'll have to think about this.
How can anyone with a different political view point even have a conversation with you Bob when you make it very clear you think anyone who disagrees with you is stupid to the point of being sub-human? You didn't bring up any points to support your argument, you just spent four minutes insulting, and throwing up straw-man arguments. You basically paint anyone but the hard core left with a massively broad brush.
It's too bad too because I agree with you on the topic. Regan didn't start out as conservative as he eventually was, and often reached across the isle to get things done. He'd be crucified by today's standards.
The problem with Kerry wasn't that he flipped. It's that he voted for the war, but then tried to act like it was all Bushes fault. A large part of the 2004 election was about the war and the Democrat side tried to hang it purely around Bushes neck. People knew that both men were on the same side when it came to starting the war, and it wasn't like you could time travel and change the past anyways. The question was what to do now that it was started, and not enough people agreed with him on the direction he wanted to go. Trying to blame Kerry's failure on his change of mind isn't accurate. He lost because: “He voted for X, X didn't work, you're going to lose.” X, in this case, being the war.
@Adam: I agree that the pics of Bob don't work as well as those in the Big Picture. I think it might be partially because the BP ones are only face-shot, which emphasises facial features and makes them more expressive, yet relatable, and partially because, being drawings, they can be more cartoonish. I'd suggest faceshots of yourself, Bob, to be then traced or otherwise cartoonised if you know anyone who can do that. Might work better, although then it IS very similar to the BP ones, wouldn't want you to run into trouble.
Honestly, with these pics, I'm not always sure what you're trying to convey, despite how exaggerated the postures are.
@Chris if the problem with Kerry is that he voted for the war, why vote for someone who not only did, but wants it to keep going, as opposed to someone who now wants it to stop? Using things against one another during an election is sadly the way these things go, I doubt you can point at Kerry and say he was wrong to use such or such argument against Bush, and can't look at Bush and find similar instances of arguments that probably shouldn't have been used.
Also @Chris, I agree about Bob's tone. I winced when he talked about switching from a reasonable position to a wrong one. I'm pro-choice myself, Bob, but is there any reason you couldn't say “what bothers me isn't that he changed his mind, but that he changed it from a position I agree with to a position I don't agree with”? Did you have to say his position is “wrong”? Of course, anyone thinks their position is the right one, that's why they have it. But it's hard for people to listen to you as a reasonable person when you sound like you consider anyone who disagrees with you to be wrong on principle.
I understand how easy it is to get passionate about these things, but this video wasn't about abortion. It was about flip-flopping. I feel it hurts your point and message when you say things like that.
keep it up. don't let the haters get to you. i am constantly amazed at certain posters who *routinely* bitch about your stuff, but keep coming back to watch more! i've disagreed with some of your direction in the past, but to so overtly hate what you're doing, yet still crawl back for more (while chastising you) just doesn't make sense.
OT it was really weird, what happened this last gov. race in CA. Whether you like him or not, it was weird to hear how Jerry Brown's 1970's policy positions decisions were SO relevant and indicative of his ability to serve. That said, he did get elected.
No, I'm sorry. “Thinking” and “Believing” are in EXACT opposition to each other.
Why?
Believers trust their convictions, whether they be gut instincts or inherited from others, to a fault in which the only research they do on the subject is in order to validate the beliefs they already hold.
It's faith, and faith is BULLSHIT. Faith is, by definition, believing something is true when the evidence clearly doesn't exist to support it, and when the evidence opposes the notion point-blank.
I defy you to tell me how you used “logic and reason” to reach a position of religious belief. I'm serious, lay it on me. “Pascal's Wager?” That it's safer to hedge my bets on a vengeful all-powerful post-mortem torturer existing than not?
Yeah, I think Yahweh, God of War, would see through a ruse like that, and given his track record, not be too pleased about it. You don't choose your beliefs; belief in anything comes when your sense of reason is satisfied with the answer.
I feel safer living my one life as a free being with a mind, and disbelieving all religions for the explicit reason that on every front of confirming their validity, they have failed, miserably. I CAN'T belief them, and any religion that tries telling me that faith, blind belief, is a virtue, and that I'll be rewarded or punished on the basis of whether it failed to convince me or not, is a religion that waved the white flag and outright told me it had no answers, only vague promises and threats that nothing can keep.
When I hear the religious threaten me with Hell, I know it's a trap for the weak-minded, who don't realize that they're favorite scare-tactic is an admission of defeat, and an appeal to the non-thinking ape that no longer commands this body.
Another great episode. So what if it's just Bob bitching about how fuck-awful this country's politics have become. Not enough people do that in a straight faced manner. Posted this on facebook.
@Avistew The point was, as culpability for the war goes, Kerry didn't have clean hands. So the strategy to denigrate the war and put the blame all on Bush didn't work. They put too much time into that ineffective strategy. If Kerry had never voted for it, that strategy might have worked. Both men were for it, though, so you couldn't contrast on the derision to go to war.
His new position did help him with the people who wanted to end the war. There just weren't enough of those people to swing the election for him. It's more about the mood of the American people about the war at the time rather than him changing his mind.
Also, I don't mind that Bob has a different political view than I do. It makes some of his observations more interesting since I get to see it from a different side. I don't appreciate his denigration of everyone who disagrees with him. I'd be happy to look at the information that lead him to his views, but that's not what he gives here. His statements that 'this is right' and 'this is wrong' is backed up as well as some one claiming 'god says this is right' and 'god says this is wrong'. If you want to claim to have superior reason, then present facts and evidence to convince people you're right. His claims are just based on him having superior morality backed up by nothing.
So do you believe everything that Zeitgeist, Eved3nc3, Penn & Teller, the Four Horsemen, or any other wannabe-intellectual atheist figures tells you, or is it something else?
I'll post my process of becoming a religious nut-job in overly simplified statements:
All my life I thought there was a God, in 2007 it donned on me that the Bible is His revealed word, and there is no logical reason to think otherwise. Lastly in 2008 I became a Calvinist and so all my thought power is used to understand and rationally explain my faith (trust) in Christ. Which also includes sifting through all the political and cultural baggage that has been heaped onto it for nearly 2 millennium.
@ Bob: Much better than the last one when it commes to communicating a clear and relatable message, and explaining that message well. You argued a single point, and you argued it well. The issue is far less complicated, yet clearly, a lot of people still disagree with it. The majority of comments here that are against it appear to be ad hominems, and that's also good. I mean, it's not ideal, but on the bottom line, if your opponents are attacking you and not your arguments, you're usually doing a bang up job on your arguments.
At the end of the day, a lot less of this piece was oppinion.
I also want to say, in regard to the subject, that this is not an entirely new trend. It has always been costly to change your mind, but in some cases, it's more so. The John Kerry debacle really was an outlier, but back in the 50'es, a danish prime minister who felt completely cornered went to the podium in parliament, and uttered “you have a point of view till you take a new one”…and for whatever reason, because he flip-flopped in the most ballsy manner possible, he wasn't particularly punished over it.
Sadly, it probably still has to be emphasized with more conviction than “I changed my mind”.
“I took a new point of view”, tho, now that's good. Whether or not it's right doesn't come into it, you just seized the fucker. Grabbed it by the neck. Now it's yours. You don't have to admit you were wrong, even if that's the implication, you only have to admit that you were compelled to take the new position.
I think the problem with Romney is partially that he doesn't appear strong enough. If people think you flip-flopped and you don't even defend it, you appear weak.
It still ties into the fact that americans demand a strong leader, but you can be ponderous even while you're strong. Just don't pussyfoot around it.
@That guy with the long name made of numbers and letters
“Oh no we're the majority in America and in the entire world and yet we're soooooo oppressed.”
If you don't like being labeled as a stereotype, stop being stereotypical.
Working at Wal-Mart and listening in to conversations had by “The Folks”, those thoughtful and even-tempered bunch of people, I sometimes wonder how we survived this long as a country.
Their minds are childish, their beliefs are warped, they hardly ever actually READ the book they claim to believe in, and the part that always makes me laugh is that their very lack of intellectual curiosity gives them an incredible amount of pride. It's like listening to a sheep explaining how noble he is for never leaving his pen.
tl;dr Stereotypes exist for a fucking reason. Yes, even atheist stereotypes.
So you believed something all your life, and then decided a specific version of said belief was infallibly true without any evidence and you are claiming that belief and reason aren't in conflict?
There are plenty of logical reasons to doubt the veracity of the bible. Like the several thousand different denominations that all claim theirs is the truth. A perfect message from a perfect all knowing being would not be capable of being misconstrued.
I won't even go into the bit where the bible endorses rape and slavery.
Actually the existence of God was just self-evident fact and there is enough research on the Bible to have apple supporting evidence to acknowledge Jesus.
Are those examples of logical reasons? Because they are very poor examples.
How many of those denominations are actually right and consistent according to scripture? Not many.
Why can't perfect scripture be misconstrued? Humans are the ones reading it after all and creating their own doctrines through eisegesis.
As for “rape” and “slavery,” according to your own logic because you used those words in a sentence you endorse them as well. Obviously that's just silly right?
Provide said evidence. If there is as ample evidence (keep in mind that the bible cannot be used to prove itself, so all evidence must come form extra biblical sources) as you claim, it should be easy.
“How many of those denominations are actually right and consistent according to scripture? Not many.”
Neither are you, so its irrelevant. Shall I go down the list of bible prohibited things that are commonplace today? Or do you want to save face and abandon this particular line of discussion.
“Why can't perfect scripture be misconstrued?”
Because the purpose of communication is to communicate. Failure on either end is still failure. Being capable of being misunderstood is a flaw. A pretty serious one, what with its ability to cause some 90% of the worlds population to be condemned to hell…over a typo. Unless of course you are an adherent of unconditional election. In which case you have the issue of god being an evil malicious sadistic asshole.
“As for “rape” and “slavery,” according to your own logic because you used those words in a sentence you endorse them as well. Obviously that's just silly right?”
Your retort sure was. I was referring to the parts of the bible where GOD endorses slavery and rape. Not just where they happen, but where they happen because of him and it is presented as a good thing.
The rampage the israelites go on after escaping egypt is an excellent example. Poor Midianite women.
Bob, I have to say that I've never really cared about your politics all that much when it was just another entry on your blog. This new format makes it all a lot more interesting. It even makes US politics look like a diving-off point for bigger, broader, more universal things.
@Dave from Canada: Heh, smackdown. Sorry I wasn't here for most of it.
@Luke: Yeah, buddy, I don't listen to anyone in particular, and if such people were ever wrong, they'd adjust their position upon understanding this if they truly behave in a secular manner.
But yeah, you've provided us with nothing in the face of our arguments. Suddenly you decided to be a Christian. No reason given.
You mention how “self-evident” god is, and I'll tell you right now how and why that's a load.
I don't mean to project, but whenever I hear that, usually it's because they can't answer the question of the infinite regress.
That's fine, neither can scientists yet, really. Though there is a lot of speculation that non-existence is NOT the default state of the Universe, and that it is in fact, impossible for fundamental reasons at the heart of physical law.
This however, is far from claiming that because we have no answer for what “started” everything off (if anything) that we substitute the most complicated, unnatural skyhook possible in a god.
You tell me; does it make more sense that the Universe occurred through simple and natural means, or that some massive celestial intelligence came similarly and less believably from nowhere and fashioned the Universe, it's laws, it's planets, stars, people and animals in one fell swoop.
If “something” cannot come from “nothing”, then where the Hell did this sky-daddy come from?
If we know anything, we know that intelligence, even of the most rudimentary sort, can only come about after extensive and gradual natural selection. Certainly intelligent beings can MAKE other intelligent beings if they know how (ie, computers), but the original intelligence has only ever been found as a late-in-the-game result of extremely gradual mutation and selection.
In short, it's not reasonable or logical to choose a quick, unexplainable intelligence over a long, gradual, natural process.
If your god exists, prove him, with compelling evidence. If you can't give a good reason for believing it exists, a reason that holds up against scrutiny, then you are being irrational. And if you live your life according to this thing you can't justify to exist, you're even more-so. As such, it only serves to weaken and confine your mind.
I agree with you that the existence of God is not self-evident and saying so is certainly not any form of proof. But have you considered this:
You say that belief occurs when there is not sufficient evidence to prove the existence of something or the truth of an idea and I think that's a fair statement. And if the existence of God is not self-evident, than faith or belief is required there.
But wouldn't you also say it's logical that while there is no evidence to support the existence of God, there's also no evidence that would definitively disprove his existence either? In which case, wouldn't your choice to not believe in any form of religion without any definitive proof that none are actually correct also constitute a form of belief in itself, to the effect of “I believe that God does not exist?”
If we're going on pure logic and reason, I would also have suggest that the idea that all intelligence is the result of gradual natural selection is somewhat of an assumption, isn't it? I mean after all, we can only judge it based on intelligence here on Earth since we have no experience with any form of life beyond out planet, galaxy or plane of existence if you will. That would be the equivalent of a creature that can only exist in the dark depths of the ocean deciding there can be no form of life outside of the seas by the simple reason that it hasn't encountered it.
I would also suggest that keeping your mind free from confinement doesn't only mean casting off the chains of dogmatism, but also keeping it open to possibilities beyond our current level of science and experience. Is that not logical?
@ Tim: “But wouldn't you also say it's logical that while there is no evidence to support the existence of God, there's also no evidence that would definitively disprove his existence either?”
Here's the problem with that. There is an INFINITE number of things I cannot disprove. I can't disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the great invisible, intangible dragon standing in the middle of the road, or the Great Juju at the bottom of the sea.
I can never know with ABSOLUTE certainty that the Abrahamic Judeo-Christian God isn't just some big cheat, shaping the Universe to APPEAR to have formed naturally as some cruel trap against the skeptics he evidently doesn't value.
No, I'm REASONABLY certain, and that's all I NEED to be. I know the history of this religion and the many mutations it's undergone. I see the traps in scripture designed to appeal to the best and worst of us, and I've evaded them.
Occam's Razer is such a handy thing; it doesn't rule out the probabilistically unlikely, outright, but it does offer a good mindset in looking for the simplest explanation.
I find it much more likely that out of many needs, religions formed by human hands.
The Bible, and every such holy book I've encountered, offer us a view on reality that is patently inconsistent with what we've discovered to be true. The claims, actions and knowledge deities pass down in them show that these so-called superior beings have as much understanding of the Universe they supposedly created, as the humans who took the dictation all those thousands of years ago.
No, I am not absolutely certain, but in the M. Night Shyamalan movie we call religion, I've been paying attention. I've seen the director's attempts to fool me and lead me away from the reality of his plot-twist. Sorry Menaj, but Bruce is a ghost. I'm not fooled.
“If we're going on pure logic and reason, I would also have suggest that the idea that all intelligence is the result of gradual natural selection is somewhat of an assumption, isn't it?”
Well, then the question is, how, aside from natural selection, does life emerge?
Natural selection is the only mechanism we've ever found that explains the existence of life. Upon the Big Bang, and subsequent supernovae, this Universe was just a mashing of energy and atoms crashing into each other. In this chaos, it took billions of years for one star to explode, forming complex elements in the resulting nebula. These elements converged back upon each other to form our Sun, and allow a solar system with rich chemical diversity. Our Earth formed in the Goldilocks-zone, with the right chemical mixture to allow the one in a billion shot of the natural formation of the self-replicating molecule, DNA (possibly RNA). From that, it took most of Earth's lifetime for DNA to replicate and mutate so that true cells, and eukaryotic cells could allow for multicell life. After millions and millions of years, a single truly intelligent species emerges. Us.
Unless worlds exist in which spacetime warps and speeds up time GREATLY relative to us, intelligence takes a long time to occur naturally.
Hoyle might have been wrong in his analogy of the twister and the scrapyard, but for a god-like being to be created spontaneously at the beginning of the Universe, he's right on the money. At any rate, such a being wouldn't be a god, because it would be of the natural world. It would be mortal, it would be finite in all aspects. All gods are SUPERnatural.
Now, I know what you might be saying. Our Universe COULD have been initiated by intelligent beings traversing a Multiverse. But I'd bet everything I own against that being the truth, and I'd bet my LIFE that such beings developed via SOME form of natural selection.
I'm open to a feasible alternative, but first someone has to think of it. How can you get from raw energy/material to a complex, intelligent being naturally? Gradual change over immense lengths of time, thus far, is the ONLY sound theory. If you have one, provide it. Myself, I'm not clever enough.
OK Bob, I've found both these political videos interesting and you gave good explanations for what I consider very sensible views, but they just sound too much like you sitting on the couch in a bad mood bitching about something that's pissing you off on the news. Which is something I do too, but I never feel a need to share it with other people. Sure they've got rational commentary in them, but you also do things like call you're opponents neanderthals and the GOP “these assholes”, which just strikes me as bad taste. I realize that these videos are supposed to be entertaining, and the whole “angry rant” tone usually does a good job of that, but that doesn't mean you have to use nasty ad hominems.
That being said, I hope you make more of these, because I really do think you have a unique voice in politics.
The sheer amount of passive-aggressive anger in all of your posts is beyond hilarious.
I'm an Agnostic and I think you're all a bunch of idiots.
Maybe you guys should read a little bit about Epistemology, Empiricism, the Socratic Method, and Methodological Naturalism.
If it were possible for any phenomenon to be considered “supernatural” (outside the realm of having an natural explanation), then by definition, it would be impossible to test such a phenomenon using natural means.
In other words, since it is impossible to test the supernatural using any natural (scientific) means, then it is also impossible to know with any certainty that anything supernatural exists, therefore we simply disregard the existence of the supernatural when devising theories and performing experiments.
I was wondering when the agnostic apologists who don't understand what agnostic means would arrive.
“The sheer amount of passive-aggressive anger in all of your posts is beyond hilarious.”
You know, I've always felt that any argument that could be boiled down to the phrase “u mad?” isn't worth making. Our anger, real or imagined has no bearing on whether what we say has any logical value…so why even rbing it up?
Some of us are taking positions because we've tried to gain as much information about the subject as possible and make an informed decision. Some of us apparently just up and decided. One of these is the right way, and one of these is the the wrong way to figure shit out.
You trying to pull a South Park by telling us we are both wrong is equally invalid unless you can back it up.
The talking down of religious people as stupid, against science, and reason is just incorrect and born really just born out of ignorance of history. The church trying to suppress scientific advancement has been popularized in recent years but it simply isn't true. I'd recommend reading Dr. James Hannam's books
The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution
and
God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science
You don't have to believe in god, but don't lay false claims on religious people simply because you're too stupid to know better.
I guess we must have imagined that whole business with the sacking of alexandria, and the dark ages, and the forced repentance of Gallileo.
I guess the pope never claimed condoms cause aids, no religious person ever tried to force creationism into the classroom, and the muslim world such a haven for scientific advancement.
You'd be right. Using natural science to decry supernatural science, WOULD be circular reasoning.
…IF we had ANY proof of the supernatural existing to begin with.
One. Give me ONE example of something supernatural that CANNOT have a natural explanation. I guarantee that you won't do it. I'd be willing to bet everything I own, and my very life, that you will not show me anything that can ONLY be explained via supernature.
The supernatural is something WE invented to explain functions and effects we had no understanding of. I mean, fucking MAGNETS, how do THEY work, yo?
But even hypothetically, just as the natural cannot perterb the supernatural, the supernatural, by definition, cannot interact with the natural. The moment it does, it MUST be part of the natural world. It's that simple. If something can interact with the atoms and energy of our natural Universe, then it is PART of that natural Universe.
@Chris Evans:
Oh…did you just bark up the wrong tree…
I don't read creationist books. Can't really. You see, I'm allergic to bullshit.
Galileo. That's the only example I NEED, but I will provide others.
You tell me with a straight face that Galileo wasn't set upon by the Catholic Church like a pack of wolves.
They had a MAJOR cow with him discovering craters and mountains on the Moon. They had a MAJOR cow when he demonstrated that other planets had moons of their own.
He was persecuted and ostracized for threatening their religion with facts that contradicted their teachings.
And tell Giordano Bruno (who said that earth rotates around the sun) that religion doesn't persecute science. This man was burned at the fucking stake.
And religion has ALWAYS done this. They keep whatever science gels with their beliefs and even celebrate when they think it supports them, but EVERYTHING that has come at odds with that has been met with the fiercest opposition, with NOTHING rational to back it up.
Evolution, today, should NOT be a fucking debate. It's the truth, motherfuckers, adjust to it. Yes, the Catholic Church has lost some of it's teeth, and now endorses evolution, but it doesn't speak for the other thousands of sects that try, with the same ignorant arguments, to discredit it. And it is SO…fucking…SAD.
Then of course, we have radiometric dating. A nail in the coffin of the belief that the world is only 5,000 odd years old, so naturally the religious object to it's validity, without understanding that if radioactive decay WAS that fucking fast, planet Earth would still be MOLTEN.
That's the thing. ANY time that religious people deny scientific findings, in favor of what their holy-books say, they ARE being anti-science.
And it's DESTRUCTIVE. People go to faith healers instead of doctors, or just HOPE that “god will make them better!”. And then, of course, they DIE.
The Church interferes with Africa, and tells them that condoms will INCREASE the risk of HIV, and learning about witches causes a massacre of innocent children.
I'm sure that the original scientists were supported by the church back in the day; the church controlled EVERYTHING. If science were to be done, or art or anything, it was only going to be done by commission of the guys in power. This is why the vast majority of art from those times had SOME measure of religiosity in them. Gregor Mendel could only apply himself to his research on genetics by becoming a monk.
But if you're going to tell me, for a SECOND, that they weren't going to TURN on these scientists the SECOND they threatened the religion that kept them in power (and they most certainly DID) then you are lying (figuratively) to my FACE, and I don't appreciate it.
I just wanted to say that the other Tim is not me. I am an atheist. I believe both religion and it's followers are fucking stupid. Remember that in case you need to make a distinction from now on.
I did back my point up. Read it again if you need to. I think it is you who does not know what agnosticism is.
@ JDude
That's not really a contrary argument, you simply rephrased exactly what I said in your own words. Maybe you should also read what I said again.
I wrote IF the supernatural exists(which we don't know), then by virtue of the fact that it exists outside of nature, that it is impossible to know with full certainty whether or not it exists and is also impossible to reliably test, since we have no natural way to control a supernatural variable.
You're then demanding of me proof for something which I already said cannot be scientifically proven, and declaring victory. It's pretty easy to bet your life away that something which cannot be proven, cannot be proven. I'll bet my life away on a tautology any day, it doesn't mean anything though.
Atheism is based just as much in faith as religion, because both sides claim to know with certainty something that is impossible to know.
Please try to be a little more Socratic in the future. It may stop you from immediately spewing venom at anybody who disagrees with you.
Ugh. It's always been a pet peeve of mine when idiots try to “own” someone by correcting a minor spelling error.
Anyway, great video Bob. This is quickly becoming my favorite series of yours. And don't listen to people who tell you to tone down your opinions on any sides. As far as I'm concerned, the brutal honesty on what you think on either conservatives or liberals is always what attracted me to my favorite political vloggers.
Supernatural phenomena may or may not exist. Since we can't control it, then we just don't fucking worry about it, and we limit our studies to testing things which are natural.
I keep seeing a repeating, scene in my dreams, I'm weeping peacefully, in a green pasture of sheep who breathe deeply, relaxed on the grass, asleep when I see these factions, of masked men, with axes, creepin
I can see, that we're captured, but when I scream, the assassins begin laughing, and the sheep don't even seem to gather the fact that their masters are grabbin and smashing their backs in in a graphic fashion and draggin the cadavers past em
the sadness from those savage actions I had to fathom never passes, even though, they were so overtly imagined they show, actual patterns of what can happen to those trapped in the rapture of the Holy Ghost if they don't open their lashes
and focus on what matters most… before they cash in choke and pass and go in a casket, or blow in the passing wind over the ocean as scattered ashes and bone fragments just hopin their pastor was accurate
what kinda creator would make a race of people and make em act a certain way or else He deems 'em evil? HOW can You give a living being the freedom to breathe and then lead em into sea of decievers who greet em, see,
it's not a miracle, when you beat a disease [please] it's not a miracle, when you breed and receive a baby from a lady, it's nature, you can pray to a tree it don't mean the seasons are changing cuz you believe in the leaves
faith is a crazy made up way to explain, what you can't explain in way that you can't debate it, it's insane that we live in a nation, that's innovative enough to create a station in space but we still praise the pages of an ancient publication
considered great…. in the motherfuckin middles ages, I'm sick of the way this civilization blames their hatred on a simple fictional basis such as Satan it makes me sick to my stomach, it's just disgusting aint it?
and I'm sick of censorship committees, grippin the dicks of Christian Ministries who are admittingly, just letting any priest get a piece, of greased little boy keester and get away free while they celebrate Easter… Jesus, it's un-fuckin-believable
that you people still worship invisible entities, I mean, who seriously wants to live for infinity? are you kidding me? if you guys wanna censor a bigger lie, try the validity of a city sittin in the sky, where everybody who died is now living
better yet, convince me that the visceral presence of an invincible peasant will some-how better my fuckin intelligence and gimme some evidence, heaven exists, besides some lessons written by guys who couldn't technically give any relevant tips
except that I should be a celibate twit who cries like a bitch to a timeless spirit everytime that I'm fearing some shit the entire idea of religion's been queer since it was twisted to it's limit, now it's a just mere hindrance
Evidance of what? That there is a God? I said that was self-evident. Do you want the reasons why it is self-evident?
So which church is Biblically consistent? You obviously know which on it is. Also you list of prohibitions will probably be a list of activities forbidden by the Law such as the Sabbath. Christians are not under the law and beside no one CAN maintain the law.
Misunderstanding is a flaw of the reader. I'm not just talking about misunderstanding I'm talking about what is culturally and traditionally motivated. How is god a “evil malicious sadistic asshole” if He elects people?
Anyone who reads the Bible would know that God does not endorse slaver or rape. God has curses his enemies by having there women ravaged but that doesn't make rape good. Rape is bad as so God brings that and other bad things on his enemies.
“Rape is bad as so God brings that and other bad things on his enemies.”
I hope you're a troll, because that is one of the stupidest things I have ever read in my life.
When they say “rape is bad” it means that “you are bad if you rape somebody”.
What kind of a fucked up god would say “thou shant not rape, unless I don't like them, then you can sexually violate them all you want” That is just profoundly fucked up, Luke.
Traditional naturalism insists that everything in the universe can be explained naturally.
I am not a naturalist because I do not know whether the supernatural exists, so I cannot make such a claim.
I do not say that the natural world is the only means of understanding all of reality. I say that the natural world is the only means of understanding the natural world.
There is no sense in wasting one's time trying to use science to find evidence of the supernatural. There is equally no sense in wasting one's time trying to use magic to find evidence of natural science.
Agnosticism (or Methodological naturalism) does not claim there is no supernatural world. It simply claims that the supernatural can not be known by physical, scientific means.
@God believing Tim: There is absolutely no proof of god. Why would I believe in something when there is nothing to prove that he/shit/it exists. It's unfair to say that we should have prove that he/she/it doesn't exist because you can literally say that about any unfalsifiable figure. Even if there is a god, how do you know it's your god? How do you know that it isn't Zeus or the flying spaghetti monster? The burden of proof is on you. Not us.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
I to would appreciate a president who listen to reason.
Of course I'm sick and tired of the notion that believe and thought are in opposition.
I mean I became what most would call a religious nut-job though logic and reason.
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I've always thought the same thing, too, and I don't get it either. I don't get what's wrong about changing your mind.
I mean of course, someone who changes their minds all the time and for no reason might not be reliable. But someone who does because of new information is the kind of person I want making decisions that affect me.
Now, I understand where the stereotype comes from. It comes from politicians who just pretend to believe what would have them elected at any given time. Then, holding them up to promises makes sense, as if the second they're elected they just do the opposite, well people have a right to feel cheated. That's not what they voted for.
It's been blown out of proportion though, with anyone apparently susceptible to be accused of flip-flopping.
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Great video Bob.
I was pretty harsh on your past few videos, but this “flip-flopping” business is something that I completely agree with you about.
I'd like to throw in that I think the “flip-flopping” stigma is based in no small part on America's society still being misogynistic, and viewing thoughtfulness, indecisiveness, and concession, as primarily “feminine traits” which are somehow thought to be bad, or at least something that people don't seem to want in their “red-blooded american alpha man” leaders.
Hey how did Romney get to be your governor? I thought Mass. was “notoriously” liberal. At least it has that image in the rest of the country.
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Bob, what the fuck…. are you TRYING to lose fans? Or is your ego so big that you think you can do a show on politics without losing the rest of what is left of your fan base.
Its like, man….. heres this really smart guy with great taste in video games, he also has a lot to say, and almost all of it is worth listening to…. but damn, now he's starting to make a shitty spoofs or satires of whatever the hell. Oh well, at least over-thinker episodes are worth watching despite the long intros and unnecessary cam-whoring. At least he still gives good movie revie… but wait, these aren't movie reviews, these are just a bunch of audio clips of a grown ass man bitching about how painful it is to get paid to watch movies and post videos on the web….. then you had to get into politics….. ugh.
Please stop? Theres this part of me that thinks we can still get along because I just spent 3 hours playing Ocarina of Time on my 3DS…. but then you go and say shit thats just unforgivable like how married people aren't honest because they're married and how black people should be excluded from resident evil games simply because their ancestors were slaves and….. no.
At this point the only reason I'm still watching your videos is to learn how to refute your arguments.. don't do this. If you continue these shenanigans i'm going to have to waste my time elsewhere.
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@Robert
Maybe you should watch Bob's video entitled: “Building a Better Gamer” (Episode 33). That explains why you're wrong better than I can.
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Here's the problem, though; like you pointed out with Romney, what happens if you flip-flop to the position that's wrong? I hate to bring up Obama again, but he's reversed his position too often to the bad decision (renewing the Patriot Act, keeping Guantanamo Bay open, maintaining Bush's wasteful spending policies). And I fully believe that, like with Romney, a politician should be punished if they change their mind to support a bad policy.
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This is a topic that has annoyed me for quite some time, although I'll admit the video came off as rather too acerbic for my tastes.
Coupled to this problem is the fact that we've entered perpetual campaigning. It used to people that people would campaign, get elected, and then they were willing to compromise and discuss matters because they weren't under a microscope. Now I'm not suggesting we blithely let the government govern without being watched, but do we need talking heads on the news dissecting every such action every night?
If you'll allow a gaming analogy, since Morrowind every subsequent game that Bethesda Game Studios has developed has been announced later in its developement cycle and the developers have been progressively quieter about their games. While there are a number of reasons here part of it is the knowledge that whatever they say will be dissected and the scraps will be pushed to their logical limits – often with a chorus of Pro and Con gremlins frothing in the thick of things.
When every action taken by politicians is fodder they don't become more honest and more transparent, they start saying what the most vocal harridans want them to say and covering up everything else. Again, I'm not suggesting that politicians be free of scrutiny, but there is no reason that scrutiny needs to involve evisceration. At the moment politicians are catering to the campaign machines rather than the people.
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I wasn't too sure about this new venture after the first video, but I think you improved quite a bit with this one. It's alright to be passionate about something and I don't mind dropping a well timed cuss here and there, but too much anger and too much swearing…Well it's like cooking: a little spice gives the meal a nice kick; too much ruins the whole thing. So great job here.
I will be honest though and say that the still photos of you…sorry but they just aren't doing it for me. I imagine they're meant to serve the same purpose as the Big Picture faces, but those cartoonish stylized images also are effective in disarming the audience and keeping things from getting too tense. The photos of you…I'm sorry but they're just kind of awkward. You probably can't use the Big Picture photos (and probably shouldn't in any case), but unfortunately I'm not sure what to suggest replacing them with. I was going to say try images of old school powdered wig patriots but then you might run the risk of the audience thinking you're commenting on the person. Hmmm…I'll have to think about this.
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How can anyone with a different political view point even have a conversation with you Bob when you make it very clear you think anyone who disagrees with you is stupid to the point of being sub-human? You didn't bring up any points to support your argument, you just spent four minutes insulting, and throwing up straw-man arguments. You basically paint anyone but the hard core left with a massively broad brush.
It's too bad too because I agree with you on the topic. Regan didn't start out as conservative as he eventually was, and often reached across the isle to get things done. He'd be crucified by today's standards.
The problem with Kerry wasn't that he flipped. It's that he voted for the war, but then tried to act like it was all Bushes fault. A large part of the 2004 election was about the war and the Democrat side tried to hang it purely around Bushes neck. People knew that both men were on the same side when it came to starting the war, and it wasn't like you could time travel and change the past anyways. The question was what to do now that it was started, and not enough people agreed with him on the direction he wanted to go. Trying to blame Kerry's failure on his change of mind isn't accurate. He lost because: “He voted for X, X didn't work, you're going to lose.” X, in this case, being the war.
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@Adam: I agree that the pics of Bob don't work as well as those in the Big Picture. I think it might be partially because the BP ones are only face-shot, which emphasises facial features and makes them more expressive, yet relatable, and partially because, being drawings, they can be more cartoonish.
I'd suggest faceshots of yourself, Bob, to be then traced or otherwise cartoonised if you know anyone who can do that. Might work better, although then it IS very similar to the BP ones, wouldn't want you to run into trouble.
Honestly, with these pics, I'm not always sure what you're trying to convey, despite how exaggerated the postures are.
@Chris if the problem with Kerry is that he voted for the war, why vote for someone who not only did, but wants it to keep going, as opposed to someone who now wants it to stop?
Using things against one another during an election is sadly the way these things go, I doubt you can point at Kerry and say he was wrong to use such or such argument against Bush, and can't look at Bush and find similar instances of arguments that probably shouldn't have been used.
Also @Chris, I agree about Bob's tone. I winced when he talked about switching from a reasonable position to a wrong one. I'm pro-choice myself, Bob, but is there any reason you couldn't say “what bothers me isn't that he changed his mind, but that he changed it from a position I agree with to a position I don't agree with”? Did you have to say his position is “wrong”?
Of course, anyone thinks their position is the right one, that's why they have it. But it's hard for people to listen to you as a reasonable person when you sound like you consider anyone who disagrees with you to be wrong on principle.
I understand how easy it is to get passionate about these things, but this video wasn't about abortion. It was about flip-flopping. I feel it hurts your point and message when you say things like that.
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Flip flopping is “dragging our political process down into the mud”?
You know what REALLY is dragging our political process down?
YOU.
How the fuck do you get off calling 50% of the American electorate “mouth breathing troglodytes” because they have different political views than you?
Way to elevate the political discourse.
Oh, and here's a protip from the other side of the aisle:
The market for elitist gasbags denigrating Christian conservatives is fucking saturated.
We get it from Hollywood, TV, newspapers, radio, books, and now we get it from you.
Just what we fucking needed. The last few seconds of the day that weren't filled with liberal condescension and derision have now been filled.
Congratulations.
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keep it up. don't let the haters get to you. i am constantly amazed at certain posters who *routinely* bitch about your stuff, but keep coming back to watch more! i've disagreed with some of your direction in the past, but to so overtly hate what you're doing, yet still crawl back for more (while chastising you) just doesn't make sense.
OT
it was really weird, what happened this last gov. race in CA. Whether you like him or not, it was weird to hear how Jerry Brown's 1970's policy positions decisions were SO relevant and indicative of his ability to serve. That said, he did get elected.
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@Luke Kruse:
No, I'm sorry. “Thinking” and “Believing” are in EXACT opposition to each other.
Why?
Believers trust their convictions, whether they be gut instincts or inherited from others, to a fault in which the only research they do on the subject is in order to validate the beliefs they already hold.
It's faith, and faith is BULLSHIT. Faith is, by definition, believing something is true when the evidence clearly doesn't exist to support it, and when the evidence opposes the notion point-blank.
I defy you to tell me how you used “logic and reason” to reach a position of religious belief. I'm serious, lay it on me. “Pascal's Wager?” That it's safer to hedge my bets on a vengeful all-powerful post-mortem torturer existing than not?
Yeah, I think Yahweh, God of War, would see through a ruse like that, and given his track record, not be too pleased about it. You don't choose your beliefs; belief in anything comes when your sense of reason is satisfied with the answer.
I feel safer living my one life as a free being with a mind, and disbelieving all religions for the explicit reason that on every front of confirming their validity, they have failed, miserably. I CAN'T belief them, and any religion that tries telling me that faith, blind belief, is a virtue, and that I'll be rewarded or punished on the basis of whether it failed to convince me or not, is a religion that waved the white flag and outright told me it had no answers, only vague promises and threats that nothing can keep.
When I hear the religious threaten me with Hell, I know it's a trap for the weak-minded, who don't realize that they're favorite scare-tactic is an admission of defeat, and an appeal to the non-thinking ape that no longer commands this body.
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Another great episode. So what if it's just Bob bitching about how fuck-awful this country's politics have become. Not enough people do that in a straight faced manner.
Posted this on facebook.
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@Avistew
The point was, as culpability for the war goes, Kerry didn't have clean hands. So the strategy to denigrate the war and put the blame all on Bush didn't work. They put too much time into that ineffective strategy. If Kerry had never voted for it, that strategy might have worked. Both men were for it, though, so you couldn't contrast on the derision to go to war.
His new position did help him with the people who wanted to end the war. There just weren't enough of those people to swing the election for him. It's more about the mood of the American people about the war at the time rather than him changing his mind.
Also, I don't mind that Bob has a different political view than I do. It makes some of his observations more interesting since I get to see it from a different side. I don't appreciate his denigration of everyone who disagrees with him. I'd be happy to look at the information that lead him to his views, but that's not what he gives here. His statements that 'this is right' and 'this is wrong' is backed up as well as some one claiming 'god says this is right' and 'god says this is wrong'. If you want to claim to have superior reason, then present facts and evidence to convince people you're right. His claims are just based on him having superior morality backed up by nothing.
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@JDude:
So do you believe everything that Zeitgeist, Eved3nc3, Penn & Teller, the Four Horsemen, or any other wannabe-intellectual atheist figures tells you, or is it something else?
I'll post my process of becoming a religious nut-job in overly simplified statements:
All my life I thought there was a God, in 2007 it donned on me that the Bible is His revealed word, and there is no logical reason to think otherwise. Lastly in 2008 I became a Calvinist and so all my thought power is used to understand and rationally explain my faith (trust) in Christ. Which also includes sifting through all the political and cultural baggage that has been heaped onto it for nearly 2 millennium.
Were you looking for something more specific?
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@ Bob:
Much better than the last one when it commes to communicating a clear and relatable message, and explaining that message well. You argued a single point, and you argued it well. The issue is far less complicated, yet clearly, a lot of people still disagree with it. The majority of comments here that are against it appear to be ad hominems, and that's also good. I mean, it's not ideal, but on the bottom line, if your opponents are attacking you and not your arguments, you're usually doing a bang up job on your arguments.
At the end of the day, a lot less of this piece was oppinion.
I also want to say, in regard to the subject, that this is not an entirely new trend. It has always been costly to change your mind, but in some cases, it's more so. The John Kerry debacle really was an outlier, but back in the 50'es, a danish prime minister who felt completely cornered went to the podium in parliament, and uttered “you have a point of view till you take a new one”…and for whatever reason, because he flip-flopped in the most ballsy manner possible, he wasn't particularly punished over it.
Sadly, it probably still has to be emphasized with more conviction than “I changed my mind”.
“I took a new point of view”, tho, now that's good. Whether or not it's right doesn't come into it, you just seized the fucker. Grabbed it by the neck. Now it's yours. You don't have to admit you were wrong, even if that's the implication, you only have to admit that you were compelled to take the new position.
I think the problem with Romney is partially that he doesn't appear strong enough. If people think you flip-flopped and you don't even defend it, you appear weak.
It still ties into the fact that americans demand a strong leader, but you can be ponderous even while you're strong. Just don't pussyfoot around it.
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@That guy with the long name made of numbers and letters
“Oh no we're the majority in America and in the entire world and yet we're soooooo oppressed.”
If you don't like being labeled as a stereotype, stop being stereotypical.
Working at Wal-Mart and listening in to conversations had by “The Folks”, those thoughtful and even-tempered bunch of people, I sometimes wonder how we survived this long as a country.
Their minds are childish, their beliefs are warped, they hardly ever actually READ the book they claim to believe in, and the part that always makes me laugh is that their very lack of intellectual curiosity gives them an incredible amount of pride. It's like listening to a sheep explaining how noble he is for never leaving his pen.
tl;dr Stereotypes exist for a fucking reason. Yes, even atheist stereotypes.
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@ Luke
So you believed something all your life, and then decided a specific version of said belief was infallibly true without any evidence and you are claiming that belief and reason aren't in conflict?
There are plenty of logical reasons to doubt the veracity of the bible. Like the several thousand different denominations that all claim theirs is the truth. A perfect message from a perfect all knowing being would not be capable of being misconstrued.
I won't even go into the bit where the bible endorses rape and slavery.
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@Dave from canada
Actually the existence of God was just self-evident fact and there is enough research on the Bible to have apple supporting evidence to acknowledge Jesus.
Are those examples of logical reasons? Because they are very poor examples.
How many of those denominations are actually right and consistent according to scripture? Not many.
Why can't perfect scripture be misconstrued? Humans are the ones reading it after all and creating their own doctrines through eisegesis.
As for “rape” and “slavery,” according to your own logic because you used those words in a sentence you endorse them as well. Obviously that's just silly right?
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@ Luke.
Provide said evidence. If there is as ample evidence (keep in mind that the bible cannot be used to prove itself, so all evidence must come form extra biblical sources) as you claim, it should be easy.
“How many of those denominations are actually right and consistent according to scripture? Not many.”
Neither are you, so its irrelevant. Shall I go down the list of bible prohibited things that are commonplace today? Or do you want to save face and abandon this particular line of discussion.
“Why can't perfect scripture be misconstrued?”
Because the purpose of communication is to communicate. Failure on either end is still failure. Being capable of being misunderstood is a flaw. A pretty serious one, what with its ability to cause some 90% of the worlds population to be condemned to hell…over a typo. Unless of course you are an adherent of unconditional election. In which case you have the issue of god being an evil malicious sadistic asshole.
“As for “rape” and “slavery,” according to your own logic because you used those words in a sentence you endorse them as well. Obviously that's just silly right?”
Your retort sure was. I was referring to the parts of the bible where GOD endorses slavery and rape. Not just where they happen, but where they happen because of him and it is presented as a good thing.
The rampage the israelites go on after escaping egypt is an excellent example. Poor Midianite women.
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Dude, you work at Walmart?
I've heard only losers work at Walmart.
Why would I lower myself to respond to a mere minimum wage slave?
———————————–
Kinda sucks when someone takes a snotty elitist attitude and applies a stereotype to you.
Welcome to the club.
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Bob, I have to say that I've never really cared about your politics all that much when it was just another entry on your blog. This new format makes it all a lot more interesting. It even makes US politics look like a diving-off point for bigger, broader, more universal things.
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@Dave from Canada: Heh, smackdown. Sorry I wasn't here for most of it.
@Luke: Yeah, buddy, I don't listen to anyone in particular, and if such people were ever wrong, they'd adjust their position upon understanding this if they truly behave in a secular manner.
But yeah, you've provided us with nothing in the face of our arguments. Suddenly you decided to be a Christian. No reason given.
You mention how “self-evident” god is, and I'll tell you right now how and why that's a load.
I don't mean to project, but whenever I hear that, usually it's because they can't answer the question of the infinite regress.
That's fine, neither can scientists yet, really. Though there is a lot of speculation that non-existence is NOT the default state of the Universe, and that it is in fact, impossible for fundamental reasons at the heart of physical law.
This however, is far from claiming that because we have no answer for what “started” everything off (if anything) that we substitute the most complicated, unnatural skyhook possible in a god.
You tell me; does it make more sense that the Universe occurred through simple and natural means, or that some massive celestial intelligence came similarly and less believably from nowhere and fashioned the Universe, it's laws, it's planets, stars, people and animals in one fell swoop.
If “something” cannot come from “nothing”, then where the Hell did this sky-daddy come from?
If we know anything, we know that intelligence, even of the most rudimentary sort, can only come about after extensive and gradual natural selection. Certainly intelligent beings can MAKE other intelligent beings if they know how (ie, computers), but the original intelligence has only ever been found as a late-in-the-game result of extremely gradual mutation and selection.
In short, it's not reasonable or logical to choose a quick, unexplainable intelligence over a long, gradual, natural process.
If your god exists, prove him, with compelling evidence. If you can't give a good reason for believing it exists, a reason that holds up against scrutiny, then you are being irrational. And if you live your life according to this thing you can't justify to exist, you're even more-so. As such, it only serves to weaken and confine your mind.
It's your mind; FIGHT for it.
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@JDude
Here's a few thoughts for you:
I agree with you that the existence of God is not self-evident and saying so is certainly not any form of proof. But have you considered this:
You say that belief occurs when there is not sufficient evidence to prove the existence of something or the truth of an idea and I think that's a fair statement. And if the existence of God is not self-evident, than faith or belief is required there.
But wouldn't you also say it's logical that while there is no evidence to support the existence of God, there's also no evidence that would definitively disprove his existence either? In which case, wouldn't your choice to not believe in any form of religion without any definitive proof that none are actually correct also constitute a form of belief in itself, to the effect of “I believe that God does not exist?”
If we're going on pure logic and reason, I would also have suggest that the idea that all intelligence is the result of gradual natural selection is somewhat of an assumption, isn't it? I mean after all, we can only judge it based on intelligence here on Earth since we have no experience with any form of life beyond out planet, galaxy or plane of existence if you will. That would be the equivalent of a creature that can only exist in the dark depths of the ocean deciding there can be no form of life outside of the seas by the simple reason that it hasn't encountered it.
I would also suggest that keeping your mind free from confinement doesn't only mean casting off the chains of dogmatism, but also keeping it open to possibilities beyond our current level of science and experience. Is that not logical?
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Cool video Bob!
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@ Tim: “But wouldn't you also say it's logical that while there is no evidence to support the existence of God, there's also no evidence that would definitively disprove his existence either?”
Here's the problem with that. There is an INFINITE number of things I cannot disprove. I can't disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the great invisible, intangible dragon standing in the middle of the road, or the Great Juju at the bottom of the sea.
I can never know with ABSOLUTE certainty that the Abrahamic Judeo-Christian God isn't just some big cheat, shaping the Universe to APPEAR to have formed naturally as some cruel trap against the skeptics he evidently doesn't value.
No, I'm REASONABLY certain, and that's all I NEED to be. I know the history of this religion and the many mutations it's undergone. I see the traps in scripture designed to appeal to the best and worst of us, and I've evaded them.
Occam's Razer is such a handy thing; it doesn't rule out the probabilistically unlikely, outright, but it does offer a good mindset in looking for the simplest explanation.
I find it much more likely that out of many needs, religions formed by human hands.
The Bible, and every such holy book I've encountered, offer us a view on reality that is patently inconsistent with what we've discovered to be true. The claims, actions and knowledge deities pass down in them show that these so-called superior beings have as much understanding of the Universe they supposedly created, as the humans who took the dictation all those thousands of years ago.
No, I am not absolutely certain, but in the M. Night Shyamalan movie we call religion, I've been paying attention. I've seen the director's attempts to fool me and lead me away from the reality of his plot-twist. Sorry Menaj, but Bruce is a ghost. I'm not fooled.
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@Tim
“If we're going on pure logic and reason, I would also have suggest that the idea that all intelligence is the result of gradual natural selection is somewhat of an assumption, isn't it?”
Well, then the question is, how, aside from natural selection, does life emerge?
Natural selection is the only mechanism we've ever found that explains the existence of life. Upon the Big Bang, and subsequent supernovae, this Universe was just a mashing of energy and atoms crashing into each other. In this chaos, it took billions of years for one star to explode, forming complex elements in the resulting nebula. These elements converged back upon each other to form our Sun, and allow a solar system with rich chemical diversity. Our Earth formed in the Goldilocks-zone, with the right chemical mixture to allow the one in a billion shot of the natural formation of the self-replicating molecule, DNA (possibly RNA). From that, it took most of Earth's lifetime for DNA to replicate and mutate so that true cells, and eukaryotic cells could allow for multicell life. After millions and millions of years, a single truly intelligent species emerges. Us.
Unless worlds exist in which spacetime warps and speeds up time GREATLY relative to us, intelligence takes a long time to occur naturally.
Hoyle might have been wrong in his analogy of the twister and the scrapyard, but for a god-like being to be created spontaneously at the beginning of the Universe, he's right on the money. At any rate, such a being wouldn't be a god, because it would be of the natural world. It would be mortal, it would be finite in all aspects. All gods are SUPERnatural.
Now, I know what you might be saying. Our Universe COULD have been initiated by intelligent beings traversing a Multiverse. But I'd bet everything I own against that being the truth, and I'd bet my LIFE that such beings developed via SOME form of natural selection.
I'm open to a feasible alternative, but first someone has to think of it. How can you get from raw energy/material to a complex, intelligent being naturally? Gradual change over immense lengths of time, thus far, is the ONLY sound theory. If you have one, provide it. Myself, I'm not clever enough.
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OK Bob, I've found both these political videos interesting and you gave good explanations for what I consider very sensible views, but they just sound too much like you sitting on the couch in a bad mood bitching about something that's pissing you off on the news. Which is something I do too, but I never feel a need to share it with other people. Sure they've got rational commentary in them, but you also do things like call you're opponents neanderthals and the GOP “these assholes”, which just strikes me as bad taste. I realize that these videos are supposed to be entertaining, and the whole “angry rant” tone usually does a good job of that, but that doesn't mean you have to use nasty ad hominems.
That being said, I hope you make more of these, because I really do think you have a unique voice in politics.
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@JDude, Tim, Luke, and Dave
The sheer amount of passive-aggressive anger in all of your posts is beyond hilarious.
I'm an Agnostic and I think you're all a bunch of idiots.
Maybe you guys should read a little bit about Epistemology, Empiricism, the Socratic Method, and Methodological Naturalism.
If it were possible for any phenomenon to be considered “supernatural” (outside the realm of having an natural explanation), then by definition, it would be impossible to test such a phenomenon using natural means.
In other words, since it is impossible to test the supernatural using any natural (scientific) means, then it is also impossible to know with any certainty that anything supernatural exists, therefore we simply disregard the existence of the supernatural when devising theories and performing experiments.
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@Biomechanical
I was wondering when the agnostic apologists who don't understand what agnostic means would arrive.
“The sheer amount of passive-aggressive anger in all of your posts is beyond hilarious.”
You know, I've always felt that any argument that could be boiled down to the phrase “u mad?” isn't worth making. Our anger, real or imagined has no bearing on whether what we say has any logical value…so why even rbing it up?
Some of us are taking positions because we've tried to gain as much information about the subject as possible and make an informed decision. Some of us apparently just up and decided. One of these is the right way, and one of these is the the wrong way to figure shit out.
You trying to pull a South Park by telling us we are both wrong is equally invalid unless you can back it up.
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The talking down of religious people as stupid, against science, and reason is just incorrect and born really just born out of ignorance of history. The church trying to suppress scientific advancement has been popularized in recent years but it simply isn't true. I'd recommend reading Dr. James Hannam's books
The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution
and
God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science
You don't have to believe in god, but don't lay false claims on religious people simply because you're too stupid to know better.
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@ Chris
I guess we must have imagined that whole business with the sacking of alexandria, and the dark ages, and the forced repentance of Gallileo.
I guess the pope never claimed condoms cause aids, no religious person ever tried to force creationism into the classroom, and the muslim world such a haven for scientific advancement.
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@Biomechanical:
You'd be right. Using natural science to decry supernatural science, WOULD be circular reasoning.
…IF we had ANY proof of the supernatural existing to begin with.
One. Give me ONE example of something supernatural that CANNOT have a natural explanation. I guarantee that you won't do it. I'd be willing to bet everything I own, and my very life, that you will not show me anything that can ONLY be explained via supernature.
The supernatural is something WE invented to explain functions and effects we had no understanding of. I mean, fucking MAGNETS, how do THEY work, yo?
But even hypothetically, just as the natural cannot perterb the supernatural, the supernatural, by definition, cannot interact with the natural. The moment it does, it MUST be part of the natural world. It's that simple. If something can interact with the atoms and energy of our natural Universe, then it is PART of that natural Universe.
@Chris Evans:
Oh…did you just bark up the wrong tree…
I don't read creationist books. Can't really. You see, I'm allergic to bullshit.
Galileo. That's the only example I NEED, but I will provide others.
You tell me with a straight face that Galileo wasn't set upon by the Catholic Church like a pack of wolves.
They had a MAJOR cow with him discovering craters and mountains on the Moon. They had a MAJOR cow when he demonstrated that other planets had moons of their own.
He was persecuted and ostracized for threatening their religion with facts that contradicted their teachings.
And tell Giordano Bruno (who said that earth rotates around the sun) that religion doesn't persecute science. This man was burned at the fucking stake.
And religion has ALWAYS done this. They keep whatever science gels with their beliefs and even celebrate when they think it supports them, but EVERYTHING that has come at odds with that has been met with the fiercest opposition, with NOTHING rational to back it up.
Evolution, today, should NOT be a fucking debate. It's the truth, motherfuckers, adjust to it. Yes, the Catholic Church has lost some of it's teeth, and now endorses evolution, but it doesn't speak for the other thousands of sects that try, with the same ignorant arguments, to discredit it. And it is SO…fucking…SAD.
Then of course, we have radiometric dating. A nail in the coffin of the belief that the world is only 5,000 odd years old, so naturally the religious object to it's validity, without understanding that if radioactive decay WAS that fucking fast, planet Earth would still be MOLTEN.
That's the thing. ANY time that religious people deny scientific findings, in favor of what their holy-books say, they ARE being anti-science.
And it's DESTRUCTIVE. People go to faith healers instead of doctors, or just HOPE that “god will make them better!”. And then, of course, they DIE.
The Church interferes with Africa, and tells them that condoms will INCREASE the risk of HIV, and learning about witches causes a massacre of innocent children.
I'm sure that the original scientists were supported by the church back in the day; the church controlled EVERYTHING. If science were to be done, or art or anything, it was only going to be done by commission of the guys in power. This is why the vast majority of art from those times had SOME measure of religiosity in them. Gregor Mendel could only apply himself to his research on genetics by becoming a monk.
But if you're going to tell me, for a SECOND, that they weren't going to TURN on these scientists the SECOND they threatened the religion that kept them in power (and they most certainly DID) then you are lying (figuratively) to my FACE, and I don't appreciate it.
Read books, by ACTUAL scientists.
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This is Tim (the other m sucks one)
I just wanted to say that the other Tim is not me. I am an atheist. I believe both religion and it's followers are fucking stupid. Remember that in case you need to make a distinction from now on.
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Hey Tim, you misspelled “it's” wrong.
Before you open your yap about who is “fucking stupid” you might want to learn how to fucking spell.
The proper term is “its” because it's possessive…dumbass.
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@Dave
I did back my point up. Read it again if you need to. I think it is you who does not know what agnosticism is.
@ JDude
That's not really a contrary argument, you simply rephrased exactly what I said in your own words. Maybe you should also read what I said again.
I wrote IF the supernatural exists(which we don't know), then by virtue of the fact that it exists outside of nature, that it is impossible to know with full certainty whether or not it exists and is also impossible to reliably test, since we have no natural way to control a supernatural variable.
You're then demanding of me proof for something which I already said cannot be scientifically proven, and declaring victory. It's pretty easy to bet your life away that something which cannot be proven, cannot be proven. I'll bet my life away on a tautology any day, it doesn't mean anything though.
Atheism is based just as much in faith as religion, because both sides claim to know with certainty something that is impossible to know.
Please try to be a little more Socratic in the future. It may stop you from immediately spewing venom at anybody who disagrees with you.
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Ugh. It's always been a pet peeve of mine when idiots try to “own” someone by correcting a minor spelling error.
Anyway, great video Bob. This is quickly becoming my favorite series of yours. And don't listen to people who tell you to tone down your opinions on any sides. As far as I'm concerned, the brutal honesty on what you think on either conservatives or liberals is always what attracted me to my favorite political vloggers.
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tl;dr
Supernatural phenomena may or may not exist. Since we can't control it, then we just don't fucking worry about it, and we limit our studies to testing things which are natural.
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@Tim: I agree. Religion is pretty fucking stupid when you get right down to it.
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I keep seeing a repeating, scene in my dreams,
I'm weeping peacefully, in a green pasture of sheep
who breathe deeply, relaxed on the grass, asleep when
I see these factions, of masked men, with axes, creepin
I can see, that we're captured, but when I scream, the assassins
begin laughing, and the sheep don't even seem to gather
the fact that their masters are grabbin and smashing their backs in
in a graphic fashion and draggin the cadavers past em
the sadness from those savage actions I had to fathom
never passes, even though, they were so overtly imagined
they show, actual patterns of what can happen to those trapped in
the rapture of the Holy Ghost if they don't open their lashes
and focus on what matters most… before they cash in
choke and pass and go in a casket, or blow in the passing
wind over the ocean as scattered ashes and bone fragments
just hopin their pastor was accurate
what kinda creator would make a race of people
and make em act a certain way or else He deems 'em evil?
HOW can You give a living being the freedom to breathe
and then lead em into sea of decievers who greet em, see,
it's not a miracle, when you beat a disease [please]
it's not a miracle, when you breed and receive
a baby from a lady, it's nature, you can pray to a tree
it don't mean the seasons are changing cuz you believe in the leaves
faith is a crazy made up way to explain, what you can't explain
in way that you can't debate it, it's insane that we live in a nation,
that's innovative enough to create a station in space
but we still praise the pages of an ancient publication
considered great…. in the motherfuckin middles ages,
I'm sick of the way this civilization blames their hatred
on a simple fictional basis such as Satan it makes me
sick to my stomach, it's just disgusting aint it?
and I'm sick of censorship committees, grippin the dicks of Christian Ministries
who are admittingly, just letting any priest get a piece,
of greased little boy keester and get away free
while they celebrate Easter… Jesus, it's un-fuckin-believable
that you people still worship invisible entities, I mean,
who seriously wants to live for infinity? are you kidding me?
if you guys wanna censor a bigger lie, try the validity
of a city sittin in the sky, where everybody who died is now living
better yet, convince me that the visceral presence
of an invincible peasant will some-how better my fuckin intelligence
and gimme some evidence, heaven exists, besides some lessons
written by guys who couldn't technically give any relevant tips
except that I should be a celibate twit who cries like a bitch
to a timeless spirit everytime that I'm fearing some shit
the entire idea of religion's been queer since it was twisted
to it's limit, now it's a just mere hindrance
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@ Dave from canada
Evidance of what? That there is a God? I said that was self-evident. Do you want the reasons why it is self-evident?
So which church is Biblically consistent? You obviously know which on it is. Also you list of prohibitions will probably be a list of activities forbidden by the Law such as the Sabbath. Christians are not under the law and beside no one CAN maintain the law.
Misunderstanding is a flaw of the reader. I'm not just talking about misunderstanding I'm talking about what is culturally and traditionally motivated. How is god a “evil malicious sadistic asshole” if He elects people?
Anyone who reads the Bible would know that God does not endorse slaver or rape. God has curses his enemies by having there women ravaged but that doesn't make rape good. Rape is bad as so God brings that and other bad things on his enemies.
So you sympathies with the Midianites why?
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@ biomechanical923
I find it interesting that an naturalist bothers to lecture someone on truth since naturalism undermines knowledge and truth.
To understand what I mean go to youtube and watch there series titled “Naturalism ( Atheism ) is Irrational”
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@ Luke Kruse
“Rape is bad as so God brings that and other bad things on his enemies.”
I hope you're a troll, because that is one of the stupidest things I have ever read in my life.
When they say “rape is bad” it means that “you are bad if you rape somebody”.
What kind of a fucked up god would say “thou shant not rape, unless I don't like them, then you can sexually violate them all you want” That is just profoundly fucked up, Luke.
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P.S. I'm not a naturalist, nice strawman though.
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@ biomechanical923
Looking at your newly created commandment I see you are good at making strawmen yourself.
How are you not a naturalist?
You seem to imply that that the natural world is the primary (if not only) means of understanding reality.
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@Luke Kruse
Traditional naturalism insists that everything in the universe can be explained naturally.
I am not a naturalist because I do not know whether the supernatural exists, so I cannot make such a claim.
I do not say that the natural world is the only means of understanding all of reality. I say that the natural world is the only means of understanding the natural world.
There is no sense in wasting one's time trying to use science to find evidence of the supernatural. There is equally no sense in wasting one's time trying to use magic to find evidence of natural science.
Agnosticism (or Methodological naturalism) does not claim there is no supernatural world. It simply claims that the supernatural can not be known by physical, scientific means.
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@God believing Tim: There is absolutely no proof of god. Why would I believe in something when there is nothing to prove that he/shit/it exists. It's unfair to say that we should have prove that he/she/it doesn't exist because you can literally say that about any unfalsifiable figure. Even if there is a god, how do you know it's your god? How do you know that it isn't Zeus or the flying spaghetti monster? The burden of proof is on you. Not us.
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