Religion: Students swap Bibles for porn (Video)

Hell doesn't exist and neither does the Christian god.

Explain to me in serious terms, what fire is and how it can burn forever. Let alone burn something forever.

Fire is a reaction between oxygen and a fuel source in which the bonds of molecules are broken apart and release heat and light.

Tell me Melvin, how does one burn -forever-?

i like how you put TRUTH in quotes. its like you don't even believe the bullshit coming out of your own mouth

Agreed!

Haha. Footbaths, HELL YES!!

agreed.

porn chicken and global warming :D

They are trading smut for smut.

Maybe you should learn how to comprehend what you read.

maybe you should learn to comprehend what you read..

Does someone have a selective memory about the content of the "Good Book"?

How should I comprehend Lot having drunken sex in a cave with his daughters?

I think I do a good job of comprehending what I read. The problem is I question what I read and do not accept it on face value but take into consideration that these tales were handed down for years before written and when copied over the year the words lost the same meaning for the time they were copied.

The song of Solomon is a loooooong way from smut. It's one of the most beautiful things to come from that mythology.

layman's translation: "Damn, she fine!"

you picked a funny icon to be defending the bible thumpers with. as far as i know House is an atheist.

so who is right?

i dont think love is the message in a porn flick..come on you cannot be that stupid..

Where is love when you are threatening people with hellfire and damnation?

You took that seriously?

Do you think a god exists? If you don't, you're an atheist. Simple as that.

To deny that something exists is not at all acknowledging its existence, that's nonsensical. I deny that elves exist, how does that acknowledge their existence.

Also, keep in mind their claim isn't untrue. Maybe it is "disrespectful," but it's factual.

this reminds me of a story I've heard about a philosophy final:
The professor puts a chair on his desk, and says, "prove that this chair does not exist."
Correct answer: "What chair?"

From their point of view they would think religious groups on campus are disrespectful. I can only speak from my experience, but I have been handed flyers and preached at. I have had people knock on my door and ask me for "a minute" of my time. I am not saying that a comparison to pornography has a one to one resemblance with the examples I pointed out, but if you scoured the history of events like this, I feel you would find things equally shocking.
Moreover, why would one assume it is bad to be compared to pornography, everyone loves pornography even though they might deny it. Maybe they are trying to say that everyone loves jesus or something.

it kind of does. when someone recognize a word doesn't this recognition make real the word? gives it meaning? well I'm not saying that "GOD" exists, but the 'idea' of a God is what influence religious people. If I throw the word 'elf' you know what I'm talking about even if you don't believe or know as a fact that elves don't exist. So in a way you acknowledge the existence of the idea. well this is abstract and my current english is not enough but i'll tell you a personal anecdote:
me: " I'm atheist"
my friend: "who you don't believe in?"
me:"..."

now we should clarify what is the meaning of atheism (greek: a: "without" or "not", Theos: "deity") http://www.drtimdallas.com/ABJLessons/Atheism.pdf

so is it Without God?, or Against God?

In my case, because i couldn't make a clear meaning of atheism and because I was raised catholic (not very orthodox), atheism wasn't the answer. I realized that religion was a way of control, ancient people grabbed things around them and explained them in way that will ensure some kind of behavior of society, which in time became power and so on. I guess that thanks to religion we are were we are now but for me (and I want to believe that we've evolved since the cavemen) religion is obsolete, anyways this is out of topic.

Your argument is totally pointless. You're using the existence of language to validate the presence of an omnipotent supernatural being? You don't see anything stupid about that?

Look, I recognize the word "zombie," that doesn't mean that they are REAL just because there is a word to describe the concept.

A "word" cannot be made "real." A word is either a sign that points to some tangible thing in the real world or a concept in our minds. But a word alone doesn't make anything exist.

Furthermore, the Greek roots of the word atheist are irrelevant. Its modern definition is to lack a belief in any god. Even if it didn't mean that, you could just come up with another word that correctly describes your belief.

You're getting too wrapped up in the labels, just answer a simple question. Does an all-powerful, all-knowing, supernatural being exist in this universe?

And if I was in your your shoes, here's how I would answer that anecdote.

me: " I'm an atheist"
my friend: "who you don't believe in?"
me:"I don't believe in any supernatural being. Anything that cannot be demonstrated to exist does not have a sufficient reason to be believed in. This applies to any supernatural claim from anyone on earth, whether that claim is religious such as the Christian god or if it's some just random person off the street insisting that ghosts really do exist."

well what can i say? it's pointless for us (you and me) to discuss over the existence of a Divinity because we both believe in tangible and provable things. I just don't like the label "atheist", by itself this label creates more conflict than clarification. Like you state in your profile "I believe in results, not labels."
however, i read, i think on current, about a year ago about a new trend called "noners" that word or label works better for me.
The concept of a word does create stuff. take the word economy for instance, you can't touch it, taste it, see it, nor feel it, and yet all the human kind modern live is around that concept, the same applies to math and so on. things, words have meaning because humans gives them meanings.

All it means to be an atheist is that you don't believe in supernatural gods, so I can't really understand why the label bothers you. It's true isn't it? Is it that the word has a social stigma that makes it unappealing? Or is it that it requires you to explain yourself to other people?

Also, who are the noners? I've never heard of them.

As for your point about words, the word economy does not "create" an economy. Words like "economy" or "democracy" refer to concepts, in this case concepts about social organization.

I agree that words have meaning because humans give them meaning, but they also only have meaning -for- humans. When human beings create words, they don't affect the reality that surrounds them. This is why we can have words that have meaning, like "god," "zombie," "divine," "magical," etc., that don't actually exist in reality.

Maybe they'll have a good old fashioned bible burning like Radical Christian groups burn books about homosexual relationships.

That would be fair, but it would unnecessarily incite violence against the Atheist group. Let's not stoop to the level of the zealots.

Respect is earned, not given.

And it's true! It's not as if they've made something up here.

But it's -true-, how many times do I have to say that?

I understand that this hurt some people, but what do you want me to say? That they're right but they shouldn't say anything because it hurts peoples' feelings? That's stupid.

And considering that the bulk of this crowd believes that these people are conservatives who are always railing on about how bad "political correctness" is or that these atheists are going to burn in hell for all eternity, I can't say that I'm too sympathetic with those who are offended.

Listen to Pat Robertson for about 5 minutes, then we can talk about "disrespect."

So even though they're right, they shouldn't speak their mind because it's "disrespectful?"

This is essentially what you're saying.

Good point....but the hostility on their part hurts their argument. Stuff like this is the reason people take religion too seriously.

They're not being hostile though, people are projecting their feelings onto them because their idea is controversial.

Being hostile is saying something like "Christians are immoral and don't belong here."

I guess, but the idea is supposed to be uncomfortable.

At least they gave out porn, that makes up for it to me.

People are being radically religious because of radical atheists. that doesn't make any sense.

I think that the problem with the idea that there is a more respectful way to get their point across is that there really isn't. People with religious conviction are less likely to listen and/or pay attention to someone else of a different theistic belief when discussing matters of religion. And I'm pretty sure that they are less likely still with someone with no theistic belief.

That aside, I don't think the point of this is to make friends. I think the point is to force people to question their own beliefs, and if you do it successfully it usually ends up pissing people off because you take them from their comfort zone and place them waaaaaay outside it.

I've already explained this to you.

I'm not saying that you can masturbate to the bible as if it were pornography. What I'm saying is that it is content equivalent, far worse in fact, than most pornography out there.

This is a fairly simple concept, the content of the book deals with themes far more "inappropriate" than pornography. That's as far as this goes.

Yeah, that's a great point.

That's part of the reason why I don't have much sympathy for those who are offended. You can't practically say anything about religion without offending someone because the beliefs themselves demand irrational defense against criticism.

First off, just so you are aware, I am not offended by this in the least bit. Second, I think it is a far cry to say mentioning sexual themes in a historical/mythological context is content equivalent to graphic displays of sexual conduct meant to arouse. Apparently, there is no changing your mind on this, so I will leave it at that, after I trade my "Faces of Death" videos to my 8 yr old nephew for his "Gi Joe" DVDs. Same content right? Furthermore, you are confusing the purpose of this bible-swap. It is not trading pornography for pornography, it is trading smut for smut. Trading something indecent with no extrinsic value for something else that is indecent with no extrinsic value. (I personally think the bible does have value outside itself)

As long as your metaphor comparing the bible to "Faces of Death" and porn to "G.I. Joe" we're cool.

Otherwise, I'm calling bullshit on your claim to intrinsic value. For every fuzzy Jesus scene, there's a genocide of the Canaanites, for every love thy neighbor there's a kill all the men and take the virgins for yourself.

So what should atheists do to try and change their perception? Its kinda difficult to reason with people who think you're going to hell for not believing in their religion.

I think most would agree that Westboro-Baptist-alienate-and-offend-everyone-besides-my-scene tactics has a poor success rate. Then again who’s to say these guys were trying to change perceptions instead of just having a laugh?

“Its kinda difficult to reason with people who think you're going to hell for not believing in their religion.”

Yeah but that stick points both ways. Theists reject atheism and atheist reject theism, neither can really lay claim to the moral or intellectual high ground. On top of that it’s a slap in the face to reality to make such a blanket generalization. Most of the western world is secular. That fact alone represents a massive confirmation of the reasonable nature of the (or some) religious.

True. I dont believe all religious people have the same beliefs as southern baptists. Some of my closest friends are practicing christians who know my position on religion and are very tolerant. I just wish people like that were more vocal than the "kill the gays" and "atheists arent americans" batshit crazy pseudo-christians.

I'll agree that neither side can claim the moral high ground, but the intellectual high ground?

Atheism requests scientific validation of supernatural forces as a prerequisite to belief in their existence. Theism asserts that belief alone is sufficient proof.

Religion or even deism is not an intellectual endeavor. It's the exact opposite.

No one is -unwillingly- a theist. No one wakes up and says to themselves "boy I sure wish god didn't exist but how can you deny it?"

The exact opposite is true of the vast majority of atheists who would very much like to have the preferred afterlife of their choice, but they know no such thing exists or at least can't be proven to exist even as a remote possibility.

Have you watched any of the atheist videos on youtube?

Atheists aren't any nicer to Islam and nobody has killed them yet. And people both threaten to and try frequently.

everything you say makes me feel dumber. please stop.

well genius tell me..what are those idiots trying to do???? its only dogma so far is to attack religion

It's to make people question stupid values, namely the idea that this is "the good book."

Tell me genius, what part of what they said is UNTRUE? None of it, the truth just pisses you off so you're angry about it.

It's ok guy, in about three hours you'll be over it and in about three weeks you'll forget that it ever happened.

were you trying to comment on a different story? this is about bibles and porn.

He also said, "Women are nothing but machines for producing children."

I don't think you should take all your life lessons from this guy.

Thank you for that superb example of an abusive ad hominem fallacy. Learn to think before you speak.

Bonaparte said it's the only thing keeping the poor from killing the -rich-.

And since when are liberals elite? What the fuck is this about? How many CEOs, generals, bankers, judges and other rich leaders are liberals?

Did he edit the post? Because nothing in there was abusive ad hominem.

They make a damn fine sammach too. j/k

I didn't edit my post. I am not sure what he is referring to.

Abusive ad hominem: attacking an individual's character as a means to discredit an unrelated statement or premise. Tell me where you don't see ad hominem.

I thought you were referring to the poster, not Napoleon Bonaparte.

In that case, you're whining about an ad hominem when Bonaparte said something that fucked up? Priorities man.

Plus, we're not dealing with formal deductive logic here. He may have committed a logical fallacy, but human relations are based on more than just deductive statements. Trust, for instance, is one thing not accounted for by deductive methods of logic. Calling someone a liar would be an ad hominem, but it might be -true-.

Abusive statements do not necessarily have to be fallacious, just like logic does not necessarily have to be deductive. There is, indeed, such a thing as an inductive fallacy.

Cheers for knowing what I'm talking about though.

Since a fallacy is an argument being made invalid by poor logical structuring, an ad hominem is -always- fallacious in both deductive and inductive reasoning.

It's only with more abstract thought, like critical thinking or the scientific method, that attacks on credibility can be valid.