The Unholy Trinity Tour

[Rafterman]

Some of you may be familiar with The Unholy Trinity tour that took place in the spring featuring lectures by Seth Andrews, Matt Dillahunty, and everyone's favorite AronRa. Seth is the host of the Thinking Atheist podcast and the author of the book Deconverted. Matt, among other things, is the host of the Austin TX based cable access show The Atheist Experience. And AronRa, well, he's just ******* awesome.

So while Seth is taking a little vaca, he has posted the three half hour lectures from the tour to his podcast site. The first two were posted yesterday and today and the third will be posted tomorrow.

I post these here because I know some of you enjoy these guys. More importantly to me, I have to give them credit for helping me to take that final step to publicly "come out" as an atheist - after having mounting doubts that started all the way back in my childhood. So for those of you struggling with your faith for whatever reason, I encourage you to give these guys a listen. Who knows, you might decide to take the same leap that many of us have. Alternatively, they might even make you a better christian. If nothing else, you'll know a hell of a lot more about the bible, religion, and faith in general.

http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/

[DeWitz]

I only had the time to view the first third of Seth Andrews' presentation. He seems like a direct, level-headed commentator on the vicissitudes of growing up in a "believing" family and having doubt constantly urged out of him. This appears to be a reasonable, non-threatening and enlightening lecture series that could help doubters and believers alike. Good post.

[Rafterman]

I only had the time to view the first third of Seth Andrews' presentation. He seems like a direct, level-headed commentator on the vicissitudes of growing up in a "believing" family and having doubt constantly urged out of him. This appears to be a reasonable, non-threatening and enlightening lecture series that could help doubters and believers alike. Good post.

I'm glad you like it. I typically don't watch the videos and simply listen to them in podcast form. Dillahunty's was pretty interesting as well. He tells of his invited participation in a four day debate with Church of Christ preachers.

But I do like Seth's approach and he has a wide variety of guests covering all sorts of topics. I've certainly learned more about religion, christianity, and the bible listening to him over the past few months than I ever did in 30+ years of sunday sermons, sunday school, vacation bible school, etc.

[Davros of Skaro]

You beat me to the post.

I wonder if there's any Q&A video Seth will be posting?

[+Paranoid Android]

I got 9 minutes into the first part (oops, noticed I've started with part 2) and realised that the "doubt" he'd been referring to for the last 8 minutes was entirely rational in the sense of a literal six-day creation event. I wonder if he ever considered a non- literal approach to Genesis instead of ridiculing the scientific inaccuracies found in the text.

Oh I see. At the 13 minute mark he chalks it up to "God glasses". Surely there is no other answer possible

As you can probably guess I'm writing as the video is playing...

As an aside I thank God for the expertise of doctors and their passion to heal. I also thank the doctors themselves

I don't think Communion was ever intended by Jesus to be ritualised the way it has.

And on that note I'm unfortunately off for work-related meetings so I can't finish the remaining 11 minutes, so far I've seen nothing to think Seth is showing the doubt he's suggesting, except to uber fundamentalism and literal Genesis reading. But then, I'm wearing God glasses, aren't I?

[eight bits]

I've watched Seth and Matt's videos, and I will watch AronRa if they post his talk, Both Seth and Matt address a very specific kind of fundamentalist Protestant believer. I undersatnd that Matt is truthful when he says that he confronts a broader spectrum of believer on his show, but this video is about his advcentures with a specific fundamentalist Protestant denomination.

Fundies are easy to find in the United States (and the tour venues seem to emphasize places where it is especially easy to find such people). Like the United States generally, fundies have a suspicion-or-contempt for intellecutals. Their faith and their ignorance of science go hand-in-hand, I am not at all sure that either one causes the other.

I live not too far from where Matt does, New England. Not only is our area friendly to intellectuals, but fundamentalism is rare. We poll as the least religious area in the USA, and the believers we have are long on Roman Catholics, Episcopalians (the American branch of the Anglican Communion) and Unitarian Universalists - all churches with long and strong histories of intellectual accomplishment and Christ-based humanism. Our signature religious denomination, the totalitarian "Pilgrims," have long since turned first into the ubiquitous (hereabouts) Congregationalist Church (from which the Unitarian Universalits sprang), and now the United Church of Christ - nothing like the similarly named *** that Matt talks about in the video.

Now, all totalitarian religion has some things in common. The hip Episcopalian voting for the openly gay bishop and looking forward to his eventual lesbian successor is much closer to the Shari'a demanding fanatic than either would like to admit. Who abdicates any part of their critical faculty to an invisible talking presence they've read about in a book are soulmates. But the social problems they create are not the same.

However personally seismic it may have been for Seth to discover that the Earth wasn't really created in just under a week six thousand years ago, the majority of living Chrisitans have never thought that it was. No more than that any living Christian thinks that God fooled "the Jews" into thinking they had crucified Jesus. About a billion people do believe just that, for the same reason that the Christians think that Jesus was crucified - it says so in a book.

I'm all for resisting totalitarian religion, but Seth's breathless discovery that there are contradictions in the Bible is simply irrelevant to the majority of people who admire the Bible. And Matt errs when he dismisses how much it matters that ***'s are young Earth creationists - yes, it does matter, a lot, for the kind of person you're dealing with, and how effective "I don't know" will be as a revelation of a new and exciting way to think.

ETA: The ordinary and usual abbreviation for the Church of Christ, Capital C + small O + Capital C offends the profanity filters. Apparently, the guardians of decorum can't spell. I suppose we are to be grateful that we rarely discuss poultry at UM

Edited August 8, 2014 by eight bits

[StarMountainKid]

I only watched video #2 and all the guy did was choose quotations from the Bible that were either contrary to related quotations or quotations that described impossible events.

Believers do the same thing, pick and choose quotations that support their position. What's the point, and what does this method prove or disprove?

[Davros of Skaro]

Here're the direct Youtube links.

UnHoly Trinity Tour

Matt Dillahunty

Seth Andrews

AronRa

Here's the tour's promo.

Edited August 8, 2014 by davros of skaro

[Davros of Skaro]

The most recent "Did Jesus Exist" debate, if anyone is interested.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CWrUdMfbNQs

[Rafterman]

Thanks for all of the comments.

I find it interesting that so many can look at the contradictions in the holy books and completely set them aside and still go on believing as they do. To me, that's a MAJOR problem. Things either happened the way the "divine and holy truth of the lord" said they happened or they didn't. And if all evidence supports that they didn't, then how can anyone trust anything else? If you're someone who can set aside parts of the holy books as not applicable or simply "well, we just don't do it that way anymore", how do you know? Maybe the entire western world is wrong on the whole slave thing and we should be following the bible to the letter? Who gets to make that decision?

I remember being in 2nd or 3rd grade and wondering how exactly a man and a woman who had two sons (one of whom was murdered) ended up populating the entire planet. And then later realizing that it happened all over again a couple thousand years later. How exactly? One can fill volumes with the discrepancies and the responses from apologists tying themselves in knots trying to explain them. But to me, it boils down to this - if all of this is such a great "truth" and our literal eternal souls are on the line, why is it all so convoluted to the point that only 31% of us on the planet even accept it as the truth? And even among those 31%, there is a huge division and argument over who is really going to heaven. Take Church of Christ - roughly 5 million followers and they feel they are the only ones who are true christians and are going to heaven. Why is the "truth" so hard?

[Davros of Skaro]

Thanks for all of the comments.

I find it interesting that so many can look at the contradictions in the holy books and completely set them aside and still go on believing as they do. To me, that's a MAJOR problem. Things either happened the way the "divine and holy truth of the lord" said they happened or they didn't. And if all evidence supports that they didn't, then how can anyone trust anything else? If you're someone who can set aside parts of the holy books as not applicable or simply "well, we just don't do it that way anymore", how do you know? Maybe the entire western world is wrong on the whole slave thing and we should be following the bible to the letter? Who gets to make that decision?

I remember being in 2nd or 3rd grade and wondering how exactly a man and a woman who had two sons (one of whom was murdered) ended up populating the entire planet. And then later realizing that it happened all over again a couple thousand years later. How exactly? One can fill volumes with the discrepancies and the responses from apologists tying themselves in knots trying to explain them. But to me, it boils down to this - if all of this is such a great "truth" and our literal eternal souls are on the line, why is it all so convoluted to the point that only 31% of us on the planet even accept it as the truth? And even among those 31%, there is a huge division and argument over who is really going to heaven. Take Church of Christ - roughly 5 million followers and they feel they are the only ones who are true christians and are going to heaven. Why is the "truth" so hard?

I posted these videos before, but at the very least watch the second video which is the shortest and straight to the point.

The Science behind irrational beliefs.

Neil Degrasse Tyson on Religious People

Dr. Sapolsky "Dopamine Jackpot"

Science Show "The Chemistry of Addiction"

Science Show "Why Am I Hallucinating?"

Dr. Michael Shermer "The Pattern Behind Self Deception"

Edited August 15, 2014 by davros of skaro