How Atheist Values Help Correct Religion's Mistakes | Rob Bell
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Spiritual teacher Rob Bell believes that atheism is eroding certain religious teachings, and it's a good thing. Bell's latest book is "How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living" (http://goo.gl/DW7wMQ). Read more at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/videos/rob-bell-on-atheisms-positive-effect-on-religion Follow Big Think here: YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink Transcript - The beautiful things about a thinking atheist which I think most atheists are thinking – I should say that again. The beautiful thing about atheism is just the refusal to believe in something that’s destructive or misguided or bad for the world. And some gods should be rejected. What I find so fascinating is how many people I know or how many of my friends who are atheists when we talk about the god that they don’t believe in, I don’t believe in that god either. And some people who when you will ask them so you’re an atheist. Tell me about the god you don’t believe it. And they tell you about the image of god they were handed perhaps growing up. You think the only healthy response to that image of the divine would be atheism. Rejection of that. So religion has done horrible things in the world. A lot of violence has been done in the name of god. And the atheist says I refuse to participate in something that brings destruction and chaos to the world. Now the really interesting thing to me is what do you do with wonder, mystery and awe? What do you do with all of the fascinating cosmology, quantum physics? What do you do with all of the fascinating things where we keep learning new things or human consciousness? Who is the me that stands of observation of me? What does it mean to be a self? Where is personhood located? So I begin with our great mysteries and the idea of a divine being who is somehow guiding the whole thing takes a leap. Of course it takes a leap. But what I find fascinating is none of us have slaves. And a generation ago we did. So a couple of generations ago in America people did. So what is it about something that was a standard cultural practice that we now say that is wrong and unjust. Or you think about women’s rights or the rights of our LGBT brothers and sisters. How many people do you know offer their children as sacrifice? None. And yet that was a normative practice in the ancient world. So what is it about the human story – we’ve been here what – 13.8 billion years? Read Full Transcript Here: http://goo.gl/RUXAJ4.
Comments
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Does he really think slavery ended here just a COUPLE generations ago?
This is such a bad video that it should be removed. -
this is really the height of arrogance.
according to 99% of all atheism on tv it seems like: an atheist cant get through a sentence describing religion without being insulting.
why is that ? i guess because all the popular thinkers and/or leaders of atheism insult religion all the time. so what else can you do when thats what you learned.
its all insults .. -
'Spiritual teacher.'
This is getting stupid. -
1:55 "a generation ago we [had slaves]". A generation is the amount of time it takes to go from being a baby to having babies of your own, which is about 30 years. Americans did not own slaves in 1986.
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13.8 billion years?
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totally misrepresented what atheism is what a tool
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Big Think should not assume. It should think. Just because we do not know something does not mean there is a supernatural explanation. We are becoming more moral, probably, because we are considering ourselves to be one big clan instead of rivaling clans. There is no them. There is only US. In this mental frame of mind, the golden rule is all we need.
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Only thing I disagree with: I'm sure people a few generations ago knew slavery was wrong, it's just that the Industrial Revolution was getting to the point where slavery wasn't the most effective method of production anymore. That's why the Union won the civil war, because their factories were more efficient. But yes, people like Jefferson Davis used the Bible to condone slavery.
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Atheism is being destroyed by the dumb American atheists who see everything in black and white.. so I no longer associate myself with them.
I prefer to call myself a free thinker and/or atheist and/or a follower certain schools of thought and philosophies.. but most importantly I don't give anybody the right to label me as one thing or the other. -
its and Islam and Christianity that have brought destruction to the world... so the Muslim and Christian atheists want us to reject all religion. that's stupid.
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I totally agree with this video
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nonsense.. there is no evidence of god. the numinous does not equal god
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Every time I hear Rob Bell speak I'm reminded of when C.S. Lewis says in The Screwtape Letters that hell's greatest creation would be a materialist magician
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Yes, but your whole believe is based on the bible. The bible is quite horrible. Without the bible where is the connection to god?
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Consciousness is totally explained by neuroscience. The origin of the laws of physics, or rather how they are what they are, is unknown. So what? Modern science is around 400 years old, there are things we don't know, get over it. And I have met hundreds of atheists. I never heard someone say "oh only this religion is not true". We believe no religion is true, and that deism is untrue.
For your question why we are moving forward. A human evolved to have "good" sides and "bad sides". An extremely pacifistic human would not get favoured by natural selection in prehistoric times, and an extremely agressive human would not get favoured by natural selection in prehistoric times. We have the ability to do both, and we have done both. Yet there is a trend where we see: oh, no wars means no death and destruction and all these things we do not like, let's reduce these kind of actions. The same is true for all other things we see as "good". The whole reason why we see them as "good" is because they have positive effects on us, that is why we prefer that. That is why we, when time passes on, chose these trends, because they are the most pleasant. -
Big Think - That name now seems really sarcastic.
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Yes, really, we are just a biological organism, there is no such thing as magic. By the way we have not been here 13.8 billion years, that is the age figured for the universe, the earth is 4.5 billion years old and we have not been here through it's entirety.
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powerful message weakened by a misguided ending. to paraphrase Daniel Dennett, we do have souls and those souls are comprised of physical matter in the brain. don't be so quick to belittle 'mere' synapses and cells, as these are among the components that make a meaningful experience of the universe possible to begin with.
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just because you are religious it does not mean your actions are religious.
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