The "Good News" of Christianity

[PeaceNikki]

A clip from Dan Barker's talk at Skepticon 4. He talks about how ridiculous the "Good News" of Christianity is, and the moral bankruptcy of hell.

[Tobin S.]

1. There are some good analogies in there that highlight how ridiculous religion is.

K&R

[mountain grammy]

2. Hear the "good news"

or burn in hell. What a concept. Love this post.

[colsohlibgal]

3. The Truth Is Nobody Knows

They have been maybe brainwashed in their youth or susceptible later.

But in the end nobody really knows the truth of any of this. Something should not have sprung out of nothing but it did. How that came about is a mystery.

I thank my parents for not ramming any religion into me or my sister when we were young and impressionable. So...I am agnostic, something caused all existence but none of us can really know how it all happened.

[Arugula Latte]

5. That's why it's best to start with the premise that nothing exists ...

then, if evidence surfaces, then you can start to piece together the bigger picture. Starting with the assumption of all this very specific nonsense (god/s, heaven, hell, afterlife, angels, punishment-reward system, etc.) in the absence of any evidence is ridiculous. Yet, in this society, that is what is expected and the norm.

[Duppers]

14. Exactly.

That essential point is too often overlooked.

[edhopper]

10. I understand your sentiment

but actually there is some good physics out there about why "something sprang from nothing" and it isn't that it "shouldn't have.

Plus the various religious explanations are falsifiable on several grounds. Both scientific and philosophical.

Nobody knows all the answers, but there are things we do know and things we know that aren't real. There is no mystery to who started the universe, because their is no who.

[Duppers]

15. Edhopper above is right!

I find reading and watching scientists like NDT and Lawrence Krauss enlightening, especially Krauss's book A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing.
http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/145162445X

Whatever the origin of the universe and life within it, religions cannot legitimately explain anything. Period.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. Pascal's Wager---go with Islam.

I would have enjoyed seeing more of this talk. I liked the way he put things.

[PeaceNikki]

6. Thanks for prompting me to go look for more of it.

He is the founder of FFRF.

[onager]

8. Sexist!

The FFRF was co-founded by Anne Nicol Gaylor and her daughter, Annie Laurie Gaylor, in 1976 and was incorporated nationally in 1978. - the Cesspit Of Lies, Wikipedia

Anne Nicol Gaylor died just recently. She had a very long and productive life, annoying Xians.

Newbies/Spies - no, I don't really think PN is a sexist. That's an in-joke about the DU Thought Police who happily don't infest this group. Besides, I thought I should put in a disclaimer, otherwise PN might hunt me down and kill me in my sleep.

And if the message of Xianity is "Good News," here are some other examples of good news...

Archduke Franz Ferdinand Assassinated In Sarajevo
Hitler Invades Poland
Mass Suicide in Guyana
Unelected Supreme Court Elects GW Bush

[PeaceNikki]

9. Doh, thanks for the correction! That's what I get for reading a quick blip on him and not the whole

piece.

Also, despite being a godless, heathen infidel with the lack of fear of burning in hell, I totally don't kill people!

[progressoid]

12. Thanks.

Gonna listen to the whole thing!

[MindPilot]

7. Even the nice Christians who want me to listen to them have to own this.

Your wish for me, should I choose not to embrace your beliefs, is perpetual torture. The concept of hell as retribution for non-belief is fundamental to Christianity, so don't tell me *you* don't want that.

It is an ethically reprehensible and barbaric philosophy.

My wish for you is that you simply STFU. See the difference?



Check out the "sharing the crank mail" section of FFRF's Freethought Today newspaper for a small sample of how the "good news" is spread. And it is just a small sampling; many can't be published because they have to be treated as real threats and handed over law enforcement.

[progressoid]

11. I don't think many Christians even understand this.

I know a few in my family that have studied it and wrestled with this problem. But most are ignorant (willfully or otherwise) of it. They just go with the simplistic "Jesus loves me" crap and don't bother thinking beyond that.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

13. The good news is that you are a worthless, scummy, piece of shit.

Because "Eve" in a fairy tale, was "beguiled and I did eat" of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

Because every person ever born excepting Mary, the Mother of Jesus, has original sin, then every person needs the magic solution---substitutionary atonement by a fictional guy named Jesus.

The good news drives some people into severe depression. The good news is emotional and mental abuse of millions, pushing them into unearned guilt and shame. How can a god worthy of respect, let alone devotion, condemn a finite human being with a finite lifespan, to an infinite hell of torture? Especially if the dead person has discarded his body and only has a soul? You can't give a soul third-degree burns. That takes heat and flesh.