Ricky Gervais | Religion VS Atheism, Colour TV Talk Show part + dialogue

Ricky Gervais | Religion VS Atheism, Black and White Stand-up part · Colour TV Talk Show part + dialogue

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Ricky Gervais | Religion VS Atheism
Entertainment Infinity | 16.I.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYnjDCZUV6A&t=264s

I

5:12 "unlike religious people I look at all religions equally"

That's like me saying (not quite true either) "unlike scientific people, I look at all scientific theories equally". I wouldn't say that, since I actually don't, I prefer the ones that square with my religion, perhaps a bit like you disprefer the ones that most dissquare with your scientific theory.

Congrats to loving science, many people from a working class background a generation or two before yours do or did.

I found, Christianity could explain more than "science" as it is usually conceived of ("God did it" not being a scientific explanation, evolution, heliocentrism and big bang being "discoveries" and so on).

• 1) History
• 2) Man.

If historic sources go "a miracle happened" I don't have to go "were they hallucinating or lying?"

If computers can't think at all, and apes can't learn to speak (they can't learn the meaning of "not" even if they certainly have a "don't do it", nor of past tense, nor of future ...), that is cannot learn to think rationally, I don't have to pretend this is what man's mind ultimately is akin to, and developed from or along lines of.

II

5:55 OK, in other words, your parents were not totally convinced, intellectually, their Christianity had a direct pragmatic value overriding intellectual concerns, and perhaps that is the same with your atheism?

My grandmother was a lot like that, and she was atheist (or on and off such, sometimes quarrelling with God over not hearing a prayer prefaced with "God, if you exist" and sometimes dissing her daughter - my ma - for giving me a religious education and very outspokenly).

I think, part of her reason of being atheist was, like her dad, she was a social climber. With poverty, well, in a way I am too. But I am not willing to barter Christianity away to climb socially.

III

7:20 "you're saying you believe because the alternative is too terrible"

Well, that would be one extra reason. Annihilation is not very comfy as perspective. I believe there is eternal damnation, because I don't wish even my worst enemies total annihilation.

IV

7:30 "I can't help what I believe any more than you can"

It's a bit like what one could say of any other lifestyle choice.

Not true.

When I look for a future, and means to it, it is actually my choice not to look for employment, but for editors - in the sense of printers and commercial sellers of what I have written.

Those who don't agree with what I write would, if not necessarily remind me, all of them, definitely remind themselves of that.

Obviously, Calvinists don't agree, they think God has chosen for you.

At least Calvinists as popularly thought of.

Similarily, if you think you are "thinking basically as a computer thinks" - that being a complex arrangement in matter and the output not being thought in or to computer, but being thought (or thought content) to those reading the screen or subjected to its alarms and disturbances, as homeless people are, sometimes (like where light switches on if you move an arm), to us this is the content of someone's forethought ... - if you ignore that the "output" needs a non-computerlike you for it to be actually "thought" even subjectively to you, you will of course think the accidents which "programmed" you make free will impossible.

V

7:40 "there are two thousand seven hundred eighty odd gods"

How many of them would if transferred to Christianity look, not like an alternative view of God, but like an angel or a demon?

How many further would look very much like how Scots and Irish and Icelanders view fairies?

There is the God of the Bible (not too many alternative versions), there is the Ahura Mazda of Zoroastrism, there is Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva of Hinduism, there is the Platonic God, there is the Aristotelic God, there are the "retired creators" in Amerindian lore. Or in Lithuanian Paganism (where God is less important than Perkunas the Thunder-God, where Velnias is more Hades than Satan ...).

That's about it. Oh, there is of course the Muslim one as well ...

VI

8:32 If life is all there is, what do you do facing martyrdom?

I'm not saying all Christians do prefer martyrdom over apostasy, over changing sides, if given the choice, but some of us do, and on our view, rationally so.

VII

9:12 Injustice makes your blood boil? Sounds like a hangover from Christian morality.

VIII

9:24 Oh, religious intolerance is of course nothing you could be guilty of ... how about irreligious intolerance, then?

IX

9:47 "the other is an organised body that uses that for power and corruption"

Extremely bleak view of organised religion, you definitely have some intolerance against that.

If not a religious, perhaps an irreligious one.

But you know, would your distinction be sth you applied to science?

I respect the thirst for knowledge, as long as it's an individual need, you know, but there is a scientific establishment which is an organised body using that certainly for power and money and perhaps (at least against Young Earth Creationists) for corrupt cornering of opposed intellectuals.

X

Dialogue under I:

T Jones

Hans-Georg Lundahl you made a faulty analogy. Ricky is saying that he believes religion is all false, that’s how he treats it. Your analogy acknowledges you don’t treat all science as false. So not comparable.

Now Ricky does (as most atheists do) cherry pick the specific examples of religion he mocks - which means certain extreme views like creationists. He also disparages Christians much more than Muslims. So in truth his statement is false.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@T Jones There actually is one religion he believes is true : Western Atheism.

[T Jones]

[Hans-Georg Lundahl man that was one long strawman logic fallacy by you - you didn’t address what I actually said and instead made this entire fairy tale of my position. That’s two posts by you and two logic fallacies.]

[Hans-Georg Lundahl]

[@T Jones I posted a continuation of my previous post before seeing yours.

It was part of an ongoing comment on the video.]

XI

Dialogue under II

T Jones

Hans-Georg Lundahl now a black and white fallacy by you. It’s not a socially climb OR keep religion as you suggest.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@T Jones I was replying to his concern about his parents having a pragmatic reason for Christianity.

But it is often true that people raised lower class do have pragmatic concerns, somewhat overriding intellectual ones.