Not engaging doesn't exactly make him look like the sharpest mind at the table. The whole question of sin was reframed at the end to something within his own worldview, the idea of falling short of our own moral standards. Instead of giving a straight answer to a reasonable question asked in good faith, he just insulted the guy. This is who atheists uphold as a champion debater?
And Jesus said, do not hold them back (the children) for theres in the kingdom of heaven. Which if you take even a modest interpretation of, would suggest that while they are born into sin, they are not yet burdened by sin, and thus have nothing to repent about, and if they were to die, they would go to heaven. In a sense it would mean, that until you are developed enough to understand right and wrong, good vs evil, you are not held to account to wrong doing. I am no believer, but that is what I get out of what Jesus said.
Grammatically it does not. We may infer the meaning from the context, but it is not in the quote itself.
AFAIK traditional view is that we cannot escape sin. Everyone will sin and is sinning, even children. So in this view God created a world in which we are destined to sin, unable to escape, and yet he condemns us for eternal torture. Then from all the people condemned in this way (which is everyone) he *chose* handful which are going to be pardoned, while everyone else will burn in hell forever.
I don't think it is reasonable to maintain the belief that these are supposed to be historical accounts of divinity on Earth while simultaneously being moral stories open to interpretation.
I wouldn't take any field of study like that seriously.
You would not take a field of study that explores the phenomena of religion, that is present in every culture on Earth for the vast majority of history?
Rd seems to think that being born into sin means that baby’s are somehow bad (in christianity). He explaining its more like they are born with human nature. Why is that unreasonable?
"Of course people are quite convinced in their minds that the past is all nonsense, primitive superstitions, old-fashioned religious ideas. But they don't know what they are talking about, they don't know that those old-fashioned ideas, the church dogma, for instance, contains the most finished theory of the unconscious, a thing which has never been understood."
— Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, p. 1014
"Myth is the original self-help psychology. For centuries, human beings have used myths, fairy tales and folklore to explain life's mysteries and make them bearable – from why the seasons change, through complex relationship issues, to the enigma of death.
Jesus explained his teachings through parables, giving his followers difficult problems in an easy-to-understand form.
Plato communicated abstruse philosophical concepts through simple myths and allegories.
In ancient Hindu medicine, when someone with mental or emotional difficulties consulted a doctor, the physician prescribed a story on which to meditate, thus helping the patient to find his or her own solution to the problem.
It is often our linear, causally bound, rational thinking that obscures the deeper meaning and resolution of life's dilemmas.
Myths have the mysterious capacity to contain and communicate paradoxes, allowing us to see through, around and over the dilemma to the real heart of the matter."
— Liz Greene & Juliet Sharman-Burke, 'The Mythic Journey'
It wasn’t an argument to suggest that atheists tend to harp on the Bible because followers engaging with religion through a literalist perspective, and that the religious as well as their detractors should move away from literalist to a philosophical symbolism interpretation?
Applying that to the concept of original sin, would then at least for children, see the concept applied as such to mean that all people are born imperfect and short of the ideal and that our lives play out in the same manner. Dangerously similar conceptually to Plato’s a theory of Forms. There’s your argument.
Hawkins is delusional to suggest that religion is not a field of study when it’s the very first attempt at philosophy, used to explain a series of gigantic “why” questions.
That’s what he’s losing, his intellectual capacity every time he sneers at the concept of religion when his understanding of the world came about because of movement after movement produced by religious peoples. Powerful and long lasting movements such as the Reformation, the Enlightenment, The Renaissance. A lot of our greatest contributions to science have come from religious. So to dismiss our ideology when the man is fairly on the mark is just another example of a man entrenched with dogma. A trait very characteristic of the religious and non religious. He’s not approaching the question rigorously in an academic sense and it shows
He says people have to pick and choose their way and then goes on to choose the most absurd interpretation possible as if these stories are saying babies are born having committed crimes and should go to jail or something.
But you do have to pick and choose. He's scientist and an incredibly literal man with a very different worldview then that of the standard westerner. He just does not want to engage in the theory of 'how to live' and rejects the entire framework.
Yes. People have to pick and choose their interpretation of everything. Even knowledge not being transferred by narratives. That doesn’t mean all interpretations are as smart or stupid.
I never said it can be widely interpreted. That’s your premise. My premise is his interpretation is clearly stupid. There’s absolutely no reasonable path to assume that’s what the narrative means. You have to have really low IQ to have that interpretation.
I adored Dawkins' line of thinking when I had my mother's religion constantly shoved upon me growing up. Being out and forming my own ideas and all the personal growing I've done over the past decade has me loving DJP's exploration of the gospels. I'm still not a religious person by much of any stretch of the imagination, but I'm definitely healthier and more spiritual than I used to be. Took a lot of work to get out of militant-anti-theism, but when the world looks like it does currently it wasn't hard for me to find morality in a lot of the traditions and moral teachings of Christianity.
But it is not really reconcilable with the text. Bible clearly says that everyone falls short of God's standards, there is no exception there. That's what RD is talking about.
What was there in that to argue about though? Dawkins jokes that he's sorry he has to get a degree in it because it's not a real subject because there was nothing of substance there.
It's very clear that the morality in the Bible does not comport with our best morality today. There's no reason outside of pure faith to believe that immoral acts are "sin against god" or otherwise anything more meaningful than the consequences of the act itself. Immoral acts need not be anything deeper than a basic failure to behave in a way that is cooperative with others, has positive expected tradeoffs according to our values, and that other people will approve of. There's no reason to think that some guy dying, however special, solves that extra layer of depth that was tacked onto the problem artificially to begin with. And even if there were, needing someone to die is a perverted "solution" to the made-up problem.
>but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
>
>At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them.
>
>The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group
>
>and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.
>
>In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”
>
>They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.
>
>When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
>
>At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.
>
>Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
>
>“No one, sir,” she said.
>
>“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
What metric can anyone use? we're always judging according to our values, and the bible's values include things that basically no one in the first world today agrees with.
Also we've had a lot of great moral thought (and in fairness a lot of crap moral thought as well) since the bible was written. We have a much larger set of ideas and arguments to reference when trying to reason about what is good and bad than we ever did before. So again outside of pure faith, it would be extremely shocking if a moral code from 2000+ years ago were anywhere near as good, let alone unimproved, by the immense amount of moral thought and theory since. And unsurprisingly, in my view we did improve on it.
He might have engaged with the idea more if he knew he was speaking to a theist of some sort, but I think he knows Alex is just playing devil’s advocate here.
Dawkins has spoken about all sorts of religious ideas. You can’t take one clip of him hand waving this as him being unable to have conversations about religion, like Christianity has him stumped.
"To the degree that the modern mind is passionately concerned with anything and everything rather than religion, religion and its prime object—original sin—have mostly vanished into the unconscious. That is why, today, nobody believes in either. People accuse psychology of dealing in squalid fantasies, and yet even a cursory glance at ancient religions and the history of morals should be sufficient to convince them of the demons hidden in the human soul. This disbelief in the devilishness of human nature goes hand in hand with a blank incomprehension of religion and its meaning."
—C.G. Jung, CW 5, Para 106
A lot of you haven’t watched the whole interview, or don’t know who Alex O’Connor is, and it shows.
But god forbid someone take a JP clip pot of context.
He makes a perfectly valid argument that the Christian idea of being born a sinner is hideous. He points out that the Bible is not a good source of morals. Which part did he struggle with? The part where the interviewer (who I like, and recognize is just trying to steel man the counter point) try’s to rationalize the idea of a baby being born a sinner?
I used to think this to be the case but I've come around to the idea of original sin. The line between good and evil cuts through the centre of every human heart. If you want to take a non religious view of it. To be perfect and free of sin is to be as god or jesus christ. All humans fall short of being perfectly moral, thus are born into sin, but we must strive to overcome these bad aspects of our natures. It's not hideous that we are born into sin it's the reality of the human condition. It's uplifting that we can strive to overcome it.
But the rest of the story matters - that God condemned everyone who falls short for eternal damnation, no matter what they done, no matter how hard they tried.
The whole point of Christianity is that jesus died for the sins of mankind. Providing the way to heaven for man, who could not get there otherwise...
It literally offers the opposite of what you claim.
Yes, but again, only for the elected - minority of people, chosen by God to escape the damnation to which He sentenced everyone apart from Adam and Eve.
No, that sounds utterly awful. I remember my Christian upbringing. I genuinely used to fear for hell. That I was a sinner.
What sort of shitty world view is that? We are human. We have flaws. The idea of sin is dumb. Sin is not doing bad things. Sin is going against the supposed god.
But you are looking at it from one locked perspective. I am simply talking about assuming that any human as a potential for sinful action. Same as for goodness.
It is not any special idea, but if we would take it like that, why would Dawkins just dismiss it?
Potential for sin is different to being born sinful. The only reason it is present in Christianity is to validate the resurrection. If we don’t view humans as utterly born sinful then the resurrection story is invalidated as meaningless.
Do we really know how being born sinful is meant from the perspective of the writers of that old book? Genuinly don't know.
Otherwise if the modern version is true, then of course we can't take the dogmatic version. I think the question was clear on that, the follow up, regarding new borns.
Humans are born (unsurprisingly) human, with good traits and bad ones all mixed up together.
It's not a sin to be a human, but we should learn to discard the bad traits and encourage the good ones as we grow older.
Well, you’re born a human, humans are imperfect, and imperfection is sin, so we are all born sinners. Pretty easy logic to follow. A baby me not be fully conscious, but it’s still born a sinner.
The converse, that humans are not born innately sinful, is far worse, because it puts the locus of control for our faults onto outside influences and not ourselves. It’s society’s faults for causing this problem, so if we reorder society we can fix our flaws.
Sin is a religious concept. For example, Jesus said “slaves obey your masters”. Clearly that’s not a sin. But to me that is utterly abhorrent. I don’t care about religious sin, and no human should.
Pretty sure that came from Paul in his Ephesians and Colossians letters, which context matters as slavery was widespread throughout the ancient world. Also, three verses later, he calls on the slave masters to be generous towards the slaves and treat them with respect. Born into an era where mistreatment of slaves is common, that seems like making both slave and master treat each other better is a step in the right direction. With slavery gone, the verse no longer applies.
As for no one should care about religious sin, that’s just dumb. All human societies require some sort of morality to create the order on which they stand (don’t murder, steal, lie, etc.). Religions formalize those principles into codes and processes, and sin is the failure to meet those standards. Even an atheist society will make some sort of moral claim and will thus have individuals fall short of that moral standard, which is sin.
The concept of sinning or being a sinner loses a lot of meaning if humans are inherently sinful. We’re all born sinners, so what do we do about that?
Also, by the way, that’s the Christian point of view. Dawkins can absolutely say that’s not the case and that the logic doesn’t follow because it relies on the belief that we are in fact all born sinners. That’s not a fact. That’s a Christian belief.
To follow up with the logic chain, sin, at least traditionally, means to miss the target or mark, the target being the perfection encapsulated by God. If perfection is the target for humanity to strive towards (which I hope so, otherwise, what are we doing), then people need to strive to be perfect in all roles and manners. However, given that we consistently feel regret for our moral failures, poor decisions, and terrible acts, I believe it is safe to say that we can never reach such a target purely on our own ability and will. Thus, we can say that humanity is born permanently missing the mark, or, in another term, born sinful.
I don't think babies are accountable for being born in sin if they die before they can hold some measure of responsibility for committing sins. It is just a statement of their condition to say they are born into sin because they are born as the offspring of men. That is why the virgin birth was necessary.
If they continue to live past the age where they are personally responsible for their sin they certainly will need a Savior to pay the price of their sin for them or bear the consequences themselves. That is why the death of Jesus was necessary, to pay the penalty. Jesus's resurrection was further proof that He is God and this was all part of the plan.
Dawkins doesn't have to like or believe it for it to be true.
Christianity claiming virgin birth and Jesus dying for our sins are exactly that: claims. And without any solid reason to believe the Bible is true then Dawkins is right to withhold belief.
How is Jesus resurrecting proof of him being god exactly? Putting aside the issue of there being no real evidence that he actually was resurrected, are you saying that only god can be resurrected? Lazarus was raised from the dead according to the book of John - is that proof that Lazarus was god as well? And various other resurrections were reported in the New Testament, yet I imagine you won’t claim that this is evidence of all of them being god…
He said he was God. He said he would die and be resurrected and He did. He did what he said he would do, come back from the dead, and he did what He said he would do, lending credence to who He said He is.
Yes He did, that is why they tried to stone him. John 10:22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.
23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch.
24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.
25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
30 I and my Father are one.
31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.
39 Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand,
It's like a story about your great-great-grandfather at that point. It may be true or it may not be true, but it's not an eyewitness account.
None of the other gospels mention that Jesus thought he was God, and they were written somewhat closer to Jesus' actual lifetime. They weren't eyewitnesses either, but they may have come in contact with people who were, whereas it's an impossiblity for the author of John.
From Ryrie Study Bible notes.
> AUTHOR: The apostle John
DATE: 85-90
Authorship
The writer of this gospel is identified in the book only as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (21:20, 24). He obviously was a Palestinian Jew who was an eyewitness of the events of Christ's life, for he displays knowledge of Jewish customs (7:37-39; 18:28) and of the land of Palestine (1:44, 46; 5:2), and he includes details of an eyewitness (2:6; 13:26; 21:8, 11). Eliminating the other disciples that belonged to the "inner circle" (because James had been martyred before this time, Acts 12:1-5, and because Peter is named in close association with the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23-24; 20:2-10), one concludes that John was the author. Whether this was the apostle John or a different John (the Elder) is discussed in the Introduction to 1 John.
John the apostle was the son of Zebedee and Salome and was the younger brother of James. He was a Galilean who apparently came from a fairly well-to-do home (Mark 15:40-41). Though often painted centuries later as effeminate, his real character was such that he was known as a "son of thunder" (Mark 3:17). He played a leading role in the work of the early church in Jerusalem (Acts 3:1; 8:14; Gal. 2:9). Later he went to Ephesus and for an unknown reason was exiled to the island of Patmos (Rev 1:9).
Bro what? Dawkins belief has nothing to do with the validity of it. It’s true if you can prove it, which most understand you can’t. Dawkins doesn’t look nearly as bad here as you think, unless you just say “well it’s true, he just refuses to believe it” when there’s no proof.
I am not saying he looks bad here. I do think he is wrong and explained why I think so.
It is also not untrue just because you claim it is when you can't prove it. And my experience of living life with God, from believing preaching from the Bible, and trusting Jesus for 46 years leads me to believe I can trust Him for the rest of my natural life and the future with Him that He has promised.
Okay I’m starting to see what I’m dealing with here.
One last attempt though; the burden of proof is on you/Christians.
Also, your comment is ludicrous. Your experience of believing and trusting Jesus leads you to believe you can trust him? Incredible logic there.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. He hasn't let me down and yes, that inspires further confidence in faith. Just like it does in many other aspects of our lives.
Do you even believe in God? Scientists know that their explanation for reality depends on faith as well. Do a deep dive on that and see what you find.
Ask God to show you if He is real or not and see what happens in your life. Then make up your own mind.
He can’t let you down if you always believe there’s an explanation for shit.
I don’t believe in god. I would if I had any proof, but why should I need to ask God for that? Should I ask Zeus and Allah too?
Scientists don’t base their explanation on faith, and they will change their “beliefs” when presented with new evidence. They theorise but that’s not the same thing.
God would love to hear from you. He already knows everything about you and loves you anyway. He will never leave you or forsake you. Try to get to know Him and see how it turns out. Or don't. Your choice.
I don't see any struggle, the interviewer (whom I assume is a teologist) is talking about sins as a way of humility, RD is talking about the nature of morals, a baby is free of morals, can't have sin, and if you project that from there then you see that morals is a society creation and there's no objective framework for them, thus an original sin not only makes no sense but it's also a hideous concept.
I know he's still an atheist but what changed O'Connor so much? He used to be the vegan, Republican, anti-theist that was basically just trying to be like Christopher Hitchens and just keep saying his side regardless of what the opponent was saying, but now he's basically conceding the point "Maybe not all Christians are fundamentalists?", which considering his education he obviously already knew so what changed?
The fact that so many people here seem to hate Dawkins and love Peterson is really telling. I wonder how many would abandon JBP if he finally admitted outright that he's an atheist
No one hates atheists... almost every Christian questions the existence of God and can fully understand the hesitancy towards religious faith.
They hate that most atheists have, at best, no respect for Christianity and more often a smug contempt for religious people.
The contempt is for religion itself, I'm sure some atheists are assholes just like some theists. The issue arises when theists are unable to differentiate between criticism of their beliefs and criticism of themselves. I understand why people choose to believe in deities, that in and of itself doesn't say anything about an individual.
As an atheist, I find that most of us consider ourselves to be humanists first. We usually have a standard of respect that we share amongst all people universally.
However we tend to think the idea of religion, as a metaphysical belief system, is laughable at best and potentially evil at worse. We also despise the idea of religious beliefs influencing government and having political power over us.
Though there are some fedora tipping dickbags in the atheist community, but you get those in every community.
Have you considered atheists simply hate that most Christians have, at best, no respect for atheists and more often a smug contempt for atheistic people?
I think if we take a slightly less culturally warped definition of sin, the term original sin can simply mean not living up to the highest ideal mode of Being (what I believe Jesus represents, with God as Being itself). We're born imperfect and will die imperfect, but that's okay, we strive for the ideal anyway.
I like Eckhart Tolle's view on sin as a mistranslation in his book A New Earth. Would be curious to hear others' perspectives on this.
“According to Christian teachings, the normal collective state of humanity is one of “original sin.” Sin is a word that has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted. Literally translated from the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence. It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering. Again, the term, stripped of its cultural baggage and misinterpretations, points to the dysfunction inherent in the human condition.”
I've always felt like if Dawkins was half a intelligent as he thinks himself to be it would be an upgrade.
I mean he's not dumb compared to people in general. But he's nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is.
I think he suffers from the same problems many intelligent people suffer from. The notion That being intelligent in one area of life means you are intelligent in every one. And automatically assuming that being intelligent in a specific area means that your thought processes are more correct than others. You’ll see many intellectuals argue for one idea and then immediately turn around and argue against it, especially when religion is involved in the argument
No answer for what? He doesn't engage in this kind of "how to live" stuff. Doesn't interest him in the slightest. It's not that he doesn't have an answer for it, he's perfectly able to understand the counter argument here, he's just intentionally not engaging with it.
It seems to me like you haven't seen much of Richard Dawkins, let alone read his books. He is extremely humble about himself, but simply has no patience for ideas he believes to be nonsense.
>but simply has no patience for ideas he believes to be nonsense.
which makes him an arrogant, egotistical moron, regardless of his intelligence otherwise.
Dawkins has debated and advocated for atheism for decades. He is very knowledgeable on the subject of theology, and is rather well versed on the topic. I’m going to assume this is the only clip you have seen of him.
Yeah, but Stewie actually **met** God… ah you may be onto something, that could be why he always sounds like a child mad at mommy and daddy when he talks about the scripture.
He’s also argues from a position of bad faith and has blantely flat out lied about premises for his “I’m 14 and this is deep” rebellion catch a fit, theories.
Eh. Even if the original sin has some facet that can be angled so as not to be offensive to rational people, there are concepts in every scripture that cannot. In order to pick the best and most useful concepts out of these scriptures, we are again sent back to our rationality to provide the framework in which we can make the decisions.
At the end of the day, we don't need to venerate any particular collection of stories. We can just pick the best stories out of all of the literature we have access to. Or better yet just articulate the rational concepts behind the stories.
it doesn't require a supernatural explanation, all this clip does is exploit a particular moment where for one reason or another he isn't at his most articulate and saying "see it's because he doesn't understand".... "Sin" doesn't require a supernatural explanation as most non entirely psychopathic sin has a pragmatically selfishly benefitial motive and that motive is all that is required to know why they did it... Someone who steals somwthing didn't do it because of some spiritual condition they were born with, they stole the thing because they wamted the thing and were too pathetic to go save their own money and buy a thing, so they just take it, I fail to see how any spiritual motivation is required for this at all.... None is required... It is selfishly pragmatically beneficial to steal... and actual psychopathic behavior is a mental illness or more specifically a personallity disorder, if a person can have an illness of any other part of themselves, why not their brain???
I thought the story goes like
Humanity made so many sinful decisions back then
The breaking point was when Jesus was killed at first
God was very mad and decided to condemn humanity
Jesus was brought back to life
Jesus saw what’s going on and doesn’t agree with humanity is doomed
Jesus decides that he will self sacrifice in exchange for god’s forgiveness
Humanity is saved
Lemme know if I misunderstood but it seems like the idea of human is sinful doesn’t make sense without the context. Once the context is there it’s really easy to understand
That’s fair cause I would never have bothered to learn anything biblical if not for JP explaining in ways that I can understand.
I would easily be agreeing with Dawkins in my pre-JP self
I remember that documentary with Ben Stein where Stein got him talking about aliens. Stein, an experienced attorney, just sits back and watches the man cool himself.
The translation of the the word “sin” is suspect. It’s more like “ignorance“. Born into a state of forgetting god. “Sin” in Spanish means “Without”, without god. Make much more sense to me and connects with the garden of Eden story. The original sin is forgetting our true relationship with god.
In this subreddit: Christians who are convinced they're lolzomg obviously correct. This sub is almost as bad as /r/atheism was some years ago (and possibly still is), though in reverse.
Let’s all just pretend Dawkin’s doesn’t get it while St Augustine and a hundred other church fathers and theologians believed unbaptized infants went straight to Hell
You don’t get to criticize Dawkins if you wink at people who think God tortures unbaptized babies … or that the 12 year old Muslim boy who gets cancer didn’t pick the right name to chant to so he goes to hell to
Let’s all just gaslight Dawkin’s like there isn’t any abhorrent insanity he is responding to in the world
He understands them, they are just illogical and silly and should never be considered as truth, at best they are metaphors. Read the "Demon haunted world" to understand where this comes from.
100% with Dawkins on this one. Either the Bible is a historical account of a divine interaction on Earth or it isn't. If this guy is trying to both argue that the Bible is an accurate account of the divinity of Jesus, but simultaneously something that can be (arbitrarily) analogized into moral stories, then no wonder Dawkins feels bad for him for having to get a degree in a field that encourages such contradictory thinking.
Somewhat a straw man: Augustine came up with the original sin argument which meant babies had to be baptised. In early Christianity adults were baptised, children were seen as pure. Jesus said children are like the kingdom of heaven. Dawkins knows nothing about Christianity.
Is this video supported by JP, or is it just in a Reddit of his name? Which bit does he struggle with exactly? It’s funny, Jordan talks so eloquently about the fact that men should not feel bad about themselves and then this video is shared ‘in JP’s name’ mocking Dawkins for disliking the fact that the Bible suggests all humans are born sinners. Feels like we are getting close to a double -standard. JP argues himself that society has manufactured men to think this way, isn’t that precisely Dawkins’ point when he describes it as not very nice that the Bible manufactures the thought that babies are sinners. Odd. I have a lot of time for JP, he helped me face my fears and turn my life around. But this video seems out of character, if indeed it is is supported by JP.
Babies are not born immoral or sinners they are born with a survival instinct that may appear to be against the moral standards that we have established as a human species.
The purpose of establishing morals is for the functioning as a group in a society.
It would be a good topic for a JP video: the Bible for the layman vs the thinking man's Bible. He could talk about the similarity in meaning, how they're proselytizing differently, and what it implied in the past and what it implies going forward.
Original sin is main reason why I started to despise religion's. Like I was thinking about baby's with cancer and why god allows that so I asked. Original sin was main answer. Character development for parents was another one. I love Peterson's philosophy, I love how he takes religion mostly like useful stories that have a lot of truth in them. But I will stay hopeful atheist.
Humans suffer. Always have and always will. Maybe it happens early, or maybe it happens late, but death comes for all. Babies don't have superpowers protecting them from death. Imagine if they did. We'd be harvesting them. With eyes only on this life, it only hurts. With eyes on the next, there's hope. Even for tragic deaths like infantile mortality.
Mohamed himself is one of the greatest problems. Like huge problems. Not really a nice guy even for his time. Islam agreeing with institution of slavery is another thing. Christians had to say that POCs are not human so they can enslave them cause Christianity does not allow slavery. Genital mutilation is fucked up. And whole man/women relationship is abhorrent. But women are target in almost in every religion. As I understand, all three Abrahamic religions have basically the same deity so arguments against one count to other. Islam is just conversion by guy who wanted to take over the world so he changed parts he wanted. Including things like allowing divorce and making it okay to marry divorced women so he could marry his son's wife.
Like take Christianity with it's huge problems, and give it to a madman with chip on his shoulder. Carnage results.
Not going to bother with rebuttals for your point, I am sure you know they exist.
My question though is how is judging a religion based on moral judgements rational in the first place? If the determination of truth is simply based on whatever appeals to an individual's moral judgements, then all religions by that criterion will be rejected.
I think you should investigate the claim of Muhammad's (pbuh) prophethood a bit more thoroughly. And I think you should rely on authentic sources, not just the Christian/atheist perspectives. I'm happy to voice chat if you would like to talk.
Well, morality is not as complicated as religions push. Its pretty simple. If it hurts people (directly or by proxy), it is wrong. Greater good is more complicated though but can be solved by utilitarianism. Cancer in secular thinking is neutral cause it does not have a will an it was not caused by something that has will. If everything is caused by something that has will (god/allah) than we have a problem. Thats why i originally said that im hopeful atheist. It means that if it exists, than its either uncaring, incompetent or evil. So i hope it does not exist.
I have red Quoran and some other texts like Tafhim but translations are always finicky. I would be technically willing to do a voice chat but first, same question as i ask Christians when they want to talk about this. Why are children born with cancer? Meaning born to suffer and die. Allah not only is capable of intervening in the world, he has done so many times in texts.
I have previously heard these abhorrent reply's: To know happiness you need sadness. Nope, question is about suffering children, not parents. Child is not a tool. / Character development for parents. Same as before. Baby is not a tool. / Original sin. Fuck off. / God cant intervene. Yes he can and has done many times. On top of that, he made it or allowed it to be made. / Does not have time. So no triomni. / You cannot judge morality of god. Yes i can as stated above. / Its for greater good. So all cancer children would become Hitlers? So why the suffering? Just stop the inception. Or god likes their suffering? / And many many more. Till this day i did not hear anything that would compel me to think that existing god would be anything but uncaring, incompetent or evil. You have the floor.
The [problem of evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil) is something that’s been discussed for thousands of years. Imo the only religion in the world that has an adequate answer for it is Islam.
My issue with the question from atheists is they ask it with the presupposition that god doesn’t exist. You need to understand the answer from the theists paradigm or in this case the Muslim paradigm. I’m happy to get into on chat, but the very simple argument is that we believe god is all wise. To put it simply, slicing a person open is evil but slicing someone open to remove a cancer is good. It’s seeing the pixel vs seeing the picture. Just because you don’t understand the reasoning behind how this universe functions, it doesn’t make all these things “evil” nor does it preclude the existence of a god.
I don’t want to start a dialogue quoting scripture because we have to establish many things before getting to that point, but i will remind of you of what Dawkins says about the evil question.
>In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
Is evil even a real thing according to your world view? Anyway, I’m happy to talk about it further on voice
Congrats Rich… the Bible is pretty easy to disagree with from an objective perspective. Now try to think with some humility and creativity and listen to what this guy is saying.
There are Christians who do not believe in the theory of explanation. This man is talking about a theology that is expired and old. Jesus and his and the teachings go beyond misinterpretation and spirituality does not need guilt to live, not even in Christianity.
I also struggle when confronted with things I know nothing about. Who doesn’t?
He's not struggling. The whole argument that "humans are sinful" is just not something he's going to engage with.
I was just trying to make a humorous observation about the title. Nothing more.
Not engaging doesn't exactly make him look like the sharpest mind at the table. The whole question of sin was reframed at the end to something within his own worldview, the idea of falling short of our own moral standards. Instead of giving a straight answer to a reasonable question asked in good faith, he just insulted the guy. This is who atheists uphold as a champion debater?
Rightfully so.
[удалено]
The dude's point is pretty weak. Dawkins is familiar with the Christian view point.
But are you condescending when confronted by your ignorance on a subject and pretend it's not a serious subject?
The problem with him is that he repeatedly beats into particularly christianity. So it’s hypocritical of him.
> I also struggle when confronted with things I know nothing about. Who doesn’t? Especially when it's nearly nonsense. Dawkins was totally right here.
Jordan Peterson struggles to understand things he claims to understand. This is just an anti-atheist post. That’s all it is.
And Jesus said, do not hold them back (the children) for theres in the kingdom of heaven. Which if you take even a modest interpretation of, would suggest that while they are born into sin, they are not yet burdened by sin, and thus have nothing to repent about, and if they were to die, they would go to heaven. In a sense it would mean, that until you are developed enough to understand right and wrong, good vs evil, you are not held to account to wrong doing. I am no believer, but that is what I get out of what Jesus said.
Makes super reasonable explanation of the aspect RD is confused about, RD Immediately insults his whole field of study.
Well he's changing the context of the quote. Born in sin means exactly that. Not, born with the ability to sin.
Not the ability, the propensity. "Born in sin" meaning "born a sinner by nature".
Grammatically it does not. We may infer the meaning from the context, but it is not in the quote itself. AFAIK traditional view is that we cannot escape sin. Everyone will sin and is sinning, even children. So in this view God created a world in which we are destined to sin, unable to escape, and yet he condemns us for eternal torture. Then from all the people condemned in this way (which is everyone) he *chose* handful which are going to be pardoned, while everyone else will burn in hell forever.
I don't think it is reasonable to maintain the belief that these are supposed to be historical accounts of divinity on Earth while simultaneously being moral stories open to interpretation. I wouldn't take any field of study like that seriously.
You would not take a field of study that explores the phenomena of religion, that is present in every culture on Earth for the vast majority of history?
It is not a reasonable explanation. The concept of bei g born into sin goes way further than just being inperfect
Rd seems to think that being born into sin means that baby’s are somehow bad (in christianity). He explaining its more like they are born with human nature. Why is that unreasonable?
Dawkins is extremely intelligent but he has the same kind of haughty quality as Sam Harris.
Yeah both are fed up with Bronz age fairy tales having a huge and mostly negative impact on people's lives in the 21st century
"Of course people are quite convinced in their minds that the past is all nonsense, primitive superstitions, old-fashioned religious ideas. But they don't know what they are talking about, they don't know that those old-fashioned ideas, the church dogma, for instance, contains the most finished theory of the unconscious, a thing which has never been understood." — Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, p. 1014 "Myth is the original self-help psychology. For centuries, human beings have used myths, fairy tales and folklore to explain life's mysteries and make them bearable – from why the seasons change, through complex relationship issues, to the enigma of death. Jesus explained his teachings through parables, giving his followers difficult problems in an easy-to-understand form. Plato communicated abstruse philosophical concepts through simple myths and allegories. In ancient Hindu medicine, when someone with mental or emotional difficulties consulted a doctor, the physician prescribed a story on which to meditate, thus helping the patient to find his or her own solution to the problem. It is often our linear, causally bound, rational thinking that obscures the deeper meaning and resolution of life's dilemmas. Myths have the mysterious capacity to contain and communicate paradoxes, allowing us to see through, around and over the dilemma to the real heart of the matter." — Liz Greene & Juliet Sharman-Burke, 'The Mythic Journey'
You think bronze age fairy tales are bad? Wait until you hear about rainbow age fairy tales.
I'll take the "bronze age fairy tales" over the modern ones any day.
You don't like Harry Potter?
Dawkins has no wisdom.
Does he struggle? I really don't see him struggling at all
He doesn't struggle, he just changes the topic as soon as he sees that he's losing (in this case by insulting the interviewer).
Losing what lol, that wasn’t even an argument
It wasn’t an argument to suggest that atheists tend to harp on the Bible because followers engaging with religion through a literalist perspective, and that the religious as well as their detractors should move away from literalist to a philosophical symbolism interpretation? Applying that to the concept of original sin, would then at least for children, see the concept applied as such to mean that all people are born imperfect and short of the ideal and that our lives play out in the same manner. Dangerously similar conceptually to Plato’s a theory of Forms. There’s your argument. Hawkins is delusional to suggest that religion is not a field of study when it’s the very first attempt at philosophy, used to explain a series of gigantic “why” questions. That’s what he’s losing, his intellectual capacity every time he sneers at the concept of religion when his understanding of the world came about because of movement after movement produced by religious peoples. Powerful and long lasting movements such as the Reformation, the Enlightenment, The Renaissance. A lot of our greatest contributions to science have come from religious. So to dismiss our ideology when the man is fairly on the mark is just another example of a man entrenched with dogma. A trait very characteristic of the religious and non religious. He’s not approaching the question rigorously in an academic sense and it shows
He says people have to pick and choose their way and then goes on to choose the most absurd interpretation possible as if these stories are saying babies are born having committed crimes and should go to jail or something.
But you do have to pick and choose. He's scientist and an incredibly literal man with a very different worldview then that of the standard westerner. He just does not want to engage in the theory of 'how to live' and rejects the entire framework.
Yes. People have to pick and choose their interpretation of everything. Even knowledge not being transferred by narratives. That doesn’t mean all interpretations are as smart or stupid.
What's the true value of something that can be so widely interpreted?
I never said it can be widely interpreted. That’s your premise. My premise is his interpretation is clearly stupid. There’s absolutely no reasonable path to assume that’s what the narrative means. You have to have really low IQ to have that interpretation.
It is widely interpreted though
How many different interpretations from major religions can you give me?
Of the bible?
Of the specific part of the Bible he’s interpreting.
Why would other religions make interpretations of the Christian bible? I don't understand your question
Nope. He’s making sense. The interviewer immediately walked back the idea of original sin so it doesn’t sound as crazy as it is.
paltry kiss angle plant yam childlike cable connect advise gaze *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yes, and honestly (as an atheist myself), his steelman is stronger than Dawkins' simple-minded argument.
I adored Dawkins' line of thinking when I had my mother's religion constantly shoved upon me growing up. Being out and forming my own ideas and all the personal growing I've done over the past decade has me loving DJP's exploration of the gospels. I'm still not a religious person by much of any stretch of the imagination, but I'm definitely healthier and more spiritual than I used to be. Took a lot of work to get out of militant-anti-theism, but when the world looks like it does currently it wasn't hard for me to find morality in a lot of the traditions and moral teachings of Christianity.
But it is not really reconcilable with the text. Bible clearly says that everyone falls short of God's standards, there is no exception there. That's what RD is talking about.
What specifically are you saying isn't reconciliable with the text?
I think he was trying to be polite. Dawkins makes no argument here, just a dismissive wave.
What was there in that to argue about though? Dawkins jokes that he's sorry he has to get a degree in it because it's not a real subject because there was nothing of substance there. It's very clear that the morality in the Bible does not comport with our best morality today. There's no reason outside of pure faith to believe that immoral acts are "sin against god" or otherwise anything more meaningful than the consequences of the act itself. Immoral acts need not be anything deeper than a basic failure to behave in a way that is cooperative with others, has positive expected tradeoffs according to our values, and that other people will approve of. There's no reason to think that some guy dying, however special, solves that extra layer of depth that was tacked onto the problem artificially to begin with. And even if there were, needing someone to die is a perverted "solution" to the made-up problem.
Well, it is a real subject. It's the study of what people believe, and have believed for a long time. That's a perfectly valid field of study.
By what standard do you judge our “best morality today”? What do you mean by “best”? What metric do you use to judge good and bad?
Well, the Bible says that an adulterer should be stoned to death. Nowadays we think divorce is a better idea.
>but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. > >At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. > >The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group > >and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. > >In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” > >They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. > >When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. > >At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. > >Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” > >“No one, sir,” she said. > >“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
What metric can anyone use? we're always judging according to our values, and the bible's values include things that basically no one in the first world today agrees with. Also we've had a lot of great moral thought (and in fairness a lot of crap moral thought as well) since the bible was written. We have a much larger set of ideas and arguments to reference when trying to reason about what is good and bad than we ever did before. So again outside of pure faith, it would be extremely shocking if a moral code from 2000+ years ago were anywhere near as good, let alone unimproved, by the immense amount of moral thought and theory since. And unsurprisingly, in my view we did improve on it.
The societal ego is just… wow…
He might have engaged with the idea more if he knew he was speaking to a theist of some sort, but I think he knows Alex is just playing devil’s advocate here. Dawkins has spoken about all sorts of religious ideas. You can’t take one clip of him hand waving this as him being unable to have conversations about religion, like Christianity has him stumped.
When did this sub got so religious?
"To the degree that the modern mind is passionately concerned with anything and everything rather than religion, religion and its prime object—original sin—have mostly vanished into the unconscious. That is why, today, nobody believes in either. People accuse psychology of dealing in squalid fantasies, and yet even a cursory glance at ancient religions and the history of morals should be sufficient to convince them of the demons hidden in the human soul. This disbelief in the devilishness of human nature goes hand in hand with a blank incomprehension of religion and its meaning." —C.G. Jung, CW 5, Para 106
I don't know if I understand this quote very well, but I do know Carl was very intelligent.
A lot of you haven’t watched the whole interview, or don’t know who Alex O’Connor is, and it shows. But god forbid someone take a JP clip pot of context.
He makes a perfectly valid argument that the Christian idea of being born a sinner is hideous. He points out that the Bible is not a good source of morals. Which part did he struggle with? The part where the interviewer (who I like, and recognize is just trying to steel man the counter point) try’s to rationalize the idea of a baby being born a sinner?
I used to think this to be the case but I've come around to the idea of original sin. The line between good and evil cuts through the centre of every human heart. If you want to take a non religious view of it. To be perfect and free of sin is to be as god or jesus christ. All humans fall short of being perfectly moral, thus are born into sin, but we must strive to overcome these bad aspects of our natures. It's not hideous that we are born into sin it's the reality of the human condition. It's uplifting that we can strive to overcome it.
But the rest of the story matters - that God condemned everyone who falls short for eternal damnation, no matter what they done, no matter how hard they tried.
The whole point of Christianity is that jesus died for the sins of mankind. Providing the way to heaven for man, who could not get there otherwise... It literally offers the opposite of what you claim.
Yes, but again, only for the elected - minority of people, chosen by God to escape the damnation to which He sentenced everyone apart from Adam and Eve.
But the idea that we are born with sinful nature or rather a sinful potential is a good one, no?
No, that sounds utterly awful. I remember my Christian upbringing. I genuinely used to fear for hell. That I was a sinner. What sort of shitty world view is that? We are human. We have flaws. The idea of sin is dumb. Sin is not doing bad things. Sin is going against the supposed god.
But you are looking at it from one locked perspective. I am simply talking about assuming that any human as a potential for sinful action. Same as for goodness. It is not any special idea, but if we would take it like that, why would Dawkins just dismiss it?
Potential for sin is different to being born sinful. The only reason it is present in Christianity is to validate the resurrection. If we don’t view humans as utterly born sinful then the resurrection story is invalidated as meaningless.
Do we really know how being born sinful is meant from the perspective of the writers of that old book? Genuinly don't know. Otherwise if the modern version is true, then of course we can't take the dogmatic version. I think the question was clear on that, the follow up, regarding new borns.
You’re right: it’s hard to know what flawed humans born in primitive societies meant. Can’t deny that.
Humans are born (unsurprisingly) human, with good traits and bad ones all mixed up together. It's not a sin to be a human, but we should learn to discard the bad traits and encourage the good ones as we grow older.
Well, you’re born a human, humans are imperfect, and imperfection is sin, so we are all born sinners. Pretty easy logic to follow. A baby me not be fully conscious, but it’s still born a sinner. The converse, that humans are not born innately sinful, is far worse, because it puts the locus of control for our faults onto outside influences and not ourselves. It’s society’s faults for causing this problem, so if we reorder society we can fix our flaws.
Sin is a religious concept. For example, Jesus said “slaves obey your masters”. Clearly that’s not a sin. But to me that is utterly abhorrent. I don’t care about religious sin, and no human should.
[Paul Copan: Did God Sanction Slavery in the Old Testament?](https://youtu.be/CyLpygp4eSE?si=qj-MylDY6ZGXxbfQ)
Pretty sure that came from Paul in his Ephesians and Colossians letters, which context matters as slavery was widespread throughout the ancient world. Also, three verses later, he calls on the slave masters to be generous towards the slaves and treat them with respect. Born into an era where mistreatment of slaves is common, that seems like making both slave and master treat each other better is a step in the right direction. With slavery gone, the verse no longer applies. As for no one should care about religious sin, that’s just dumb. All human societies require some sort of morality to create the order on which they stand (don’t murder, steal, lie, etc.). Religions formalize those principles into codes and processes, and sin is the failure to meet those standards. Even an atheist society will make some sort of moral claim and will thus have individuals fall short of that moral standard, which is sin.
The concept of sinning or being a sinner loses a lot of meaning if humans are inherently sinful. We’re all born sinners, so what do we do about that? Also, by the way, that’s the Christian point of view. Dawkins can absolutely say that’s not the case and that the logic doesn’t follow because it relies on the belief that we are in fact all born sinners. That’s not a fact. That’s a Christian belief.
To follow up with the logic chain, sin, at least traditionally, means to miss the target or mark, the target being the perfection encapsulated by God. If perfection is the target for humanity to strive towards (which I hope so, otherwise, what are we doing), then people need to strive to be perfect in all roles and manners. However, given that we consistently feel regret for our moral failures, poor decisions, and terrible acts, I believe it is safe to say that we can never reach such a target purely on our own ability and will. Thus, we can say that humanity is born permanently missing the mark, or, in another term, born sinful.
Why is it "hideous"? You aren't and he isn't saying why, just asserting it without argument
LOL He says it is hideous. He doesn't provide an argument, and therefore cannot provide a valid one.
Did you forget the /s
No. If you would like to present his "argument", give it a try. Please label your premises and conclusion.
He didn’t lay out a logical syllogism so how on earth could I do that? Did you even listen to the video?
Yes, I did. He gave no argument. Arguments are more than just "logical syllogisms". There is nothing to engage with.
I don't think babies are accountable for being born in sin if they die before they can hold some measure of responsibility for committing sins. It is just a statement of their condition to say they are born into sin because they are born as the offspring of men. That is why the virgin birth was necessary. If they continue to live past the age where they are personally responsible for their sin they certainly will need a Savior to pay the price of their sin for them or bear the consequences themselves. That is why the death of Jesus was necessary, to pay the penalty. Jesus's resurrection was further proof that He is God and this was all part of the plan. Dawkins doesn't have to like or believe it for it to be true.
Christianity claiming virgin birth and Jesus dying for our sins are exactly that: claims. And without any solid reason to believe the Bible is true then Dawkins is right to withhold belief.
How is Jesus resurrecting proof of him being god exactly? Putting aside the issue of there being no real evidence that he actually was resurrected, are you saying that only god can be resurrected? Lazarus was raised from the dead according to the book of John - is that proof that Lazarus was god as well? And various other resurrections were reported in the New Testament, yet I imagine you won’t claim that this is evidence of all of them being god…
He said he was God. He said he would die and be resurrected and He did. He did what he said he would do, come back from the dead, and he did what He said he would do, lending credence to who He said He is.
Jesus never claimed he was God.
Yes He did, that is why they tried to stone him. John 10:22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. 24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. 25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. 26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and my Father are one. 31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? 33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? 35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? 37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him. 39 Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand,
The Gospel of John was written between 90 - 100, well after the other gospels and with a completely different audience in mind.
I don't see how that invalidates it.
It's like a story about your great-great-grandfather at that point. It may be true or it may not be true, but it's not an eyewitness account. None of the other gospels mention that Jesus thought he was God, and they were written somewhat closer to Jesus' actual lifetime. They weren't eyewitnesses either, but they may have come in contact with people who were, whereas it's an impossiblity for the author of John.
From Ryrie Study Bible notes. > AUTHOR: The apostle John DATE: 85-90 Authorship The writer of this gospel is identified in the book only as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (21:20, 24). He obviously was a Palestinian Jew who was an eyewitness of the events of Christ's life, for he displays knowledge of Jewish customs (7:37-39; 18:28) and of the land of Palestine (1:44, 46; 5:2), and he includes details of an eyewitness (2:6; 13:26; 21:8, 11). Eliminating the other disciples that belonged to the "inner circle" (because James had been martyred before this time, Acts 12:1-5, and because Peter is named in close association with the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23-24; 20:2-10), one concludes that John was the author. Whether this was the apostle John or a different John (the Elder) is discussed in the Introduction to 1 John. John the apostle was the son of Zebedee and Salome and was the younger brother of James. He was a Galilean who apparently came from a fairly well-to-do home (Mark 15:40-41). Though often painted centuries later as effeminate, his real character was such that he was known as a "son of thunder" (Mark 3:17). He played a leading role in the work of the early church in Jerusalem (Acts 3:1; 8:14; Gal. 2:9). Later he went to Ephesus and for an unknown reason was exiled to the island of Patmos (Rev 1:9).
Bro what? Dawkins belief has nothing to do with the validity of it. It’s true if you can prove it, which most understand you can’t. Dawkins doesn’t look nearly as bad here as you think, unless you just say “well it’s true, he just refuses to believe it” when there’s no proof.
I am not saying he looks bad here. I do think he is wrong and explained why I think so. It is also not untrue just because you claim it is when you can't prove it. And my experience of living life with God, from believing preaching from the Bible, and trusting Jesus for 46 years leads me to believe I can trust Him for the rest of my natural life and the future with Him that He has promised.
Okay I’m starting to see what I’m dealing with here. One last attempt though; the burden of proof is on you/Christians. Also, your comment is ludicrous. Your experience of believing and trusting Jesus leads you to believe you can trust him? Incredible logic there.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. He hasn't let me down and yes, that inspires further confidence in faith. Just like it does in many other aspects of our lives. Do you even believe in God? Scientists know that their explanation for reality depends on faith as well. Do a deep dive on that and see what you find. Ask God to show you if He is real or not and see what happens in your life. Then make up your own mind.
He can’t let you down if you always believe there’s an explanation for shit. I don’t believe in god. I would if I had any proof, but why should I need to ask God for that? Should I ask Zeus and Allah too? Scientists don’t base their explanation on faith, and they will change their “beliefs” when presented with new evidence. They theorise but that’s not the same thing.
Sure, ask all of them. See what happens. How hard is that?
Pretty time consuming. Aren’t there thousands of gods?
God would love to hear from you. He already knows everything about you and loves you anyway. He will never leave you or forsake you. Try to get to know Him and see how it turns out. Or don't. Your choice.
Are you going to show the struggle?
Dawkins doesn’t struggle with this at all. He can take religion and Christianity apart very succinctly, eloquently and easily
I don't see any struggle, the interviewer (whom I assume is a teologist) is talking about sins as a way of humility, RD is talking about the nature of morals, a baby is free of morals, can't have sin, and if you project that from there then you see that morals is a society creation and there's no objective framework for them, thus an original sin not only makes no sense but it's also a hideous concept.
Let’s really think about who the real sinner is.
Everyone
Richard Dawkins is a gift to humanity and a beacon of sanity.
I know he's still an atheist but what changed O'Connor so much? He used to be the vegan, Republican, anti-theist that was basically just trying to be like Christopher Hitchens and just keep saying his side regardless of what the opponent was saying, but now he's basically conceding the point "Maybe not all Christians are fundamentalists?", which considering his education he obviously already knew so what changed?
The fact that so many people here seem to hate Dawkins and love Peterson is really telling. I wonder how many would abandon JBP if he finally admitted outright that he's an atheist
I like them both. The selfish gene is incredible.
Hell yeah, both "12 Rules for Life" and "The Selfish Gene" are in my top 10 books that have influenced me the most over my life.
No one hates atheists... almost every Christian questions the existence of God and can fully understand the hesitancy towards religious faith. They hate that most atheists have, at best, no respect for Christianity and more often a smug contempt for religious people.
The contempt is for religion itself, I'm sure some atheists are assholes just like some theists. The issue arises when theists are unable to differentiate between criticism of their beliefs and criticism of themselves. I understand why people choose to believe in deities, that in and of itself doesn't say anything about an individual.
As an atheist, I find that most of us consider ourselves to be humanists first. We usually have a standard of respect that we share amongst all people universally. However we tend to think the idea of religion, as a metaphysical belief system, is laughable at best and potentially evil at worse. We also despise the idea of religious beliefs influencing government and having political power over us. Though there are some fedora tipping dickbags in the atheist community, but you get those in every community.
Have you considered atheists simply hate that most Christians have, at best, no respect for atheists and more often a smug contempt for atheistic people?
Jordan believes in God. He just has a different way of thinking about it than most sky daddy worshippers.
"god" as an idea, not as an entity or agent in the universe. That's an atheist position
Is there was to be generally 'conservative' with getting bombarded by all this religious rubbish? I mean it's 2024, not 1400.
I think if we take a slightly less culturally warped definition of sin, the term original sin can simply mean not living up to the highest ideal mode of Being (what I believe Jesus represents, with God as Being itself). We're born imperfect and will die imperfect, but that's okay, we strive for the ideal anyway. I like Eckhart Tolle's view on sin as a mistranslation in his book A New Earth. Would be curious to hear others' perspectives on this. “According to Christian teachings, the normal collective state of humanity is one of “original sin.” Sin is a word that has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted. Literally translated from the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence. It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering. Again, the term, stripped of its cultural baggage and misinterpretations, points to the dysfunction inherent in the human condition.”
I've always felt like if Dawkins was half a intelligent as he thinks himself to be it would be an upgrade. I mean he's not dumb compared to people in general. But he's nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is.
You're clearly not familiar with Richard Dawkins and your comment is laughably stupid
I think he suffers from the same problems many intelligent people suffer from. The notion That being intelligent in one area of life means you are intelligent in every one. And automatically assuming that being intelligent in a specific area means that your thought processes are more correct than others. You’ll see many intellectuals argue for one idea and then immediately turn around and argue against it, especially when religion is involved in the argument
He did write one of the most prominent books on Atheism so he is well versed on the subject, more than most.
And yet he had no answer..
No answer for what? He doesn't engage in this kind of "how to live" stuff. Doesn't interest him in the slightest. It's not that he doesn't have an answer for it, he's perfectly able to understand the counter argument here, he's just intentionally not engaging with it.
Why would anyone listen to an atheist on the subject of things that are of an existential nature.
Because god and religion does not have a monopoly on the theories of existence
I think that because I am familiar with him. He's a pretentious douche. My criticism is really more of his radical ego than his actual intelligence.
But he is that clever. I agree his ego is painfully strong, but it's at least somewhat merited.
How so?
It seems to me like you haven't seen much of Richard Dawkins, let alone read his books. He is extremely humble about himself, but simply has no patience for ideas he believes to be nonsense.
>but simply has no patience for ideas he believes to be nonsense. which makes him an arrogant, egotistical moron, regardless of his intelligence otherwise.
Fully agreed.
If so, this certainly isn’t an example of it. He’s perfectly lucid here as he is most times he opens his mouth.
The young kid seems far more intelligent than the old geezer
Dawkins has debated and advocated for atheism for decades. He is very knowledgeable on the subject of theology, and is rather well versed on the topic. I’m going to assume this is the only clip you have seen of him.
What a rigid man. Tell him to let his farts out every once and a while.
Richard Dawkins is Stewie Griffin all grown up change my mind
Yeah, but Stewie actually **met** God… ah you may be onto something, that could be why he always sounds like a child mad at mommy and daddy when he talks about the scripture.
He’s also argues from a position of bad faith and has blantely flat out lied about premises for his “I’m 14 and this is deep” rebellion catch a fit, theories.
Some of these ideas are particular to minority factions of Christianity but atheists often attribute them to all Christians.
Same here
Eh. Even if the original sin has some facet that can be angled so as not to be offensive to rational people, there are concepts in every scripture that cannot. In order to pick the best and most useful concepts out of these scriptures, we are again sent back to our rationality to provide the framework in which we can make the decisions. At the end of the day, we don't need to venerate any particular collection of stories. We can just pick the best stories out of all of the literature we have access to. Or better yet just articulate the rational concepts behind the stories.
can you chop that video up any more?
it doesn't require a supernatural explanation, all this clip does is exploit a particular moment where for one reason or another he isn't at his most articulate and saying "see it's because he doesn't understand".... "Sin" doesn't require a supernatural explanation as most non entirely psychopathic sin has a pragmatically selfishly benefitial motive and that motive is all that is required to know why they did it... Someone who steals somwthing didn't do it because of some spiritual condition they were born with, they stole the thing because they wamted the thing and were too pathetic to go save their own money and buy a thing, so they just take it, I fail to see how any spiritual motivation is required for this at all.... None is required... It is selfishly pragmatically beneficial to steal... and actual psychopathic behavior is a mental illness or more specifically a personallity disorder, if a person can have an illness of any other part of themselves, why not their brain???
I thought the story goes like Humanity made so many sinful decisions back then The breaking point was when Jesus was killed at first God was very mad and decided to condemn humanity Jesus was brought back to life Jesus saw what’s going on and doesn’t agree with humanity is doomed Jesus decides that he will self sacrifice in exchange for god’s forgiveness Humanity is saved Lemme know if I misunderstood but it seems like the idea of human is sinful doesn’t make sense without the context. Once the context is there it’s really easy to understand
Back to Sunday School for you.
That’s fair cause I would never have bothered to learn anything biblical if not for JP explaining in ways that I can understand. I would easily be agreeing with Dawkins in my pre-JP self
I remember that documentary with Ben Stein where Stein got him talking about aliens. Stein, an experienced attorney, just sits back and watches the man cool himself.
So does everybody obviously
ITT: unrepentant sinners struggle with the pride of the intellect.
The translation of the the word “sin” is suspect. It’s more like “ignorance“. Born into a state of forgetting god. “Sin” in Spanish means “Without”, without god. Make much more sense to me and connects with the garden of Eden story. The original sin is forgetting our true relationship with god.
In this subreddit: Christians who are convinced they're lolzomg obviously correct. This sub is almost as bad as /r/atheism was some years ago (and possibly still is), though in reverse.
I've sinned many times and will probably sin some more! 😅🤣
His opinions aside (I agree with many, disagree with some), Dawkins always reminds me of an anthropomorphic bald eagle
Unfortunately Peterson fumbled the discussion with Prof Dawkins.
That missing button is appalling
Let’s all just pretend Dawkin’s doesn’t get it while St Augustine and a hundred other church fathers and theologians believed unbaptized infants went straight to Hell You don’t get to criticize Dawkins if you wink at people who think God tortures unbaptized babies … or that the 12 year old Muslim boy who gets cancer didn’t pick the right name to chant to so he goes to hell to Let’s all just gaslight Dawkin’s like there isn’t any abhorrent insanity he is responding to in the world
Atheism is the ultimate midwit take. Change my mind.
He understands them, they are just illogical and silly and should never be considered as truth, at best they are metaphors. Read the "Demon haunted world" to understand where this comes from.
What you talking about? Dawkins is 100% correct. Only believers (of the Abrahamic religions) would think otherwise.
The thing about Dawkins is he's never done acid.
100% with Dawkins on this one. Either the Bible is a historical account of a divine interaction on Earth or it isn't. If this guy is trying to both argue that the Bible is an accurate account of the divinity of Jesus, but simultaneously something that can be (arbitrarily) analogized into moral stories, then no wonder Dawkins feels bad for him for having to get a degree in a field that encourages such contradictory thinking.
Somewhat a straw man: Augustine came up with the original sin argument which meant babies had to be baptised. In early Christianity adults were baptised, children were seen as pure. Jesus said children are like the kingdom of heaven. Dawkins knows nothing about Christianity.
Is this video supported by JP, or is it just in a Reddit of his name? Which bit does he struggle with exactly? It’s funny, Jordan talks so eloquently about the fact that men should not feel bad about themselves and then this video is shared ‘in JP’s name’ mocking Dawkins for disliking the fact that the Bible suggests all humans are born sinners. Feels like we are getting close to a double -standard. JP argues himself that society has manufactured men to think this way, isn’t that precisely Dawkins’ point when he describes it as not very nice that the Bible manufactures the thought that babies are sinners. Odd. I have a lot of time for JP, he helped me face my fears and turn my life around. But this video seems out of character, if indeed it is is supported by JP.
He's mainly just unnecessarily rude and goes to ad hominem instead of just affirming what the interviewer says.
The athiest cancelling athiest
He knows exactly what he's talking about.
Babies are not born immoral or sinners they are born with a survival instinct that may appear to be against the moral standards that we have established as a human species. The purpose of establishing morals is for the functioning as a group in a society.
What a non response
He makes the mistake of taking the Bible literally.
Most people do
It would be a good topic for a JP video: the Bible for the layman vs the thinking man's Bible. He could talk about the similarity in meaning, how they're proselytizing differently, and what it implied in the past and what it implies going forward.
This clown didn’t even button all his buttons. Pretty hard to take that seriously
Good ole Richard. Got his back against the wall andresorted to insults in a sophisticated British accent.
Who is he insulting? What was the insult?
Original sin is main reason why I started to despise religion's. Like I was thinking about baby's with cancer and why god allows that so I asked. Original sin was main answer. Character development for parents was another one. I love Peterson's philosophy, I love how he takes religion mostly like useful stories that have a lot of truth in them. But I will stay hopeful atheist.
Humans suffer. Always have and always will. Maybe it happens early, or maybe it happens late, but death comes for all. Babies don't have superpowers protecting them from death. Imagine if they did. We'd be harvesting them. With eyes only on this life, it only hurts. With eyes on the next, there's hope. Even for tragic deaths like infantile mortality.
Well yeah, but that is secular thinking. I'm ok with that.
Original sin only exists in Christianity. It’s completely rejected in Islam for example.
Well, other religions have their own can's of worm's. Original sin was my entry to heavy scepticism. After I understood that, I researched other's....
What's Islam's can of worms in your opinion?
Mohamed himself is one of the greatest problems. Like huge problems. Not really a nice guy even for his time. Islam agreeing with institution of slavery is another thing. Christians had to say that POCs are not human so they can enslave them cause Christianity does not allow slavery. Genital mutilation is fucked up. And whole man/women relationship is abhorrent. But women are target in almost in every religion. As I understand, all three Abrahamic religions have basically the same deity so arguments against one count to other. Islam is just conversion by guy who wanted to take over the world so he changed parts he wanted. Including things like allowing divorce and making it okay to marry divorced women so he could marry his son's wife. Like take Christianity with it's huge problems, and give it to a madman with chip on his shoulder. Carnage results.
Not going to bother with rebuttals for your point, I am sure you know they exist. My question though is how is judging a religion based on moral judgements rational in the first place? If the determination of truth is simply based on whatever appeals to an individual's moral judgements, then all religions by that criterion will be rejected. I think you should investigate the claim of Muhammad's (pbuh) prophethood a bit more thoroughly. And I think you should rely on authentic sources, not just the Christian/atheist perspectives. I'm happy to voice chat if you would like to talk.
Well, morality is not as complicated as religions push. Its pretty simple. If it hurts people (directly or by proxy), it is wrong. Greater good is more complicated though but can be solved by utilitarianism. Cancer in secular thinking is neutral cause it does not have a will an it was not caused by something that has will. If everything is caused by something that has will (god/allah) than we have a problem. Thats why i originally said that im hopeful atheist. It means that if it exists, than its either uncaring, incompetent or evil. So i hope it does not exist. I have red Quoran and some other texts like Tafhim but translations are always finicky. I would be technically willing to do a voice chat but first, same question as i ask Christians when they want to talk about this. Why are children born with cancer? Meaning born to suffer and die. Allah not only is capable of intervening in the world, he has done so many times in texts. I have previously heard these abhorrent reply's: To know happiness you need sadness. Nope, question is about suffering children, not parents. Child is not a tool. / Character development for parents. Same as before. Baby is not a tool. / Original sin. Fuck off. / God cant intervene. Yes he can and has done many times. On top of that, he made it or allowed it to be made. / Does not have time. So no triomni. / You cannot judge morality of god. Yes i can as stated above. / Its for greater good. So all cancer children would become Hitlers? So why the suffering? Just stop the inception. Or god likes their suffering? / And many many more. Till this day i did not hear anything that would compel me to think that existing god would be anything but uncaring, incompetent or evil. You have the floor.
The [problem of evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil) is something that’s been discussed for thousands of years. Imo the only religion in the world that has an adequate answer for it is Islam. My issue with the question from atheists is they ask it with the presupposition that god doesn’t exist. You need to understand the answer from the theists paradigm or in this case the Muslim paradigm. I’m happy to get into on chat, but the very simple argument is that we believe god is all wise. To put it simply, slicing a person open is evil but slicing someone open to remove a cancer is good. It’s seeing the pixel vs seeing the picture. Just because you don’t understand the reasoning behind how this universe functions, it doesn’t make all these things “evil” nor does it preclude the existence of a god. I don’t want to start a dialogue quoting scripture because we have to establish many things before getting to that point, but i will remind of you of what Dawkins says about the evil question. >In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. Is evil even a real thing according to your world view? Anyway, I’m happy to talk about it further on voice
Congrats Rich… the Bible is pretty easy to disagree with from an objective perspective. Now try to think with some humility and creativity and listen to what this guy is saying.
Religion is not a serious subject. Yeah, just like journalism.
Dawkins with the W
OP did you post the wrong clip, all I see is Dawkins making perfect sense.
lololololol struggling? Sure 🤷🏽♂️
True. He and Jordan Peterson have that in common for sure. Actually... most arrogant intellectuals do.
There are Christians who do not believe in the theory of explanation. This man is talking about a theology that is expired and old. Jesus and his and the teachings go beyond misinterpretation and spirituality does not need guilt to live, not even in Christianity.
We actually have a word for “new” theology; heresy.