Monday, March 24, 2008

Mr. Seeker-Sensitive Megachuch Pastor

2 comments:

Edward said...

That is about as stingingly humorous as it is true. I love it!

Anonymous said...

That's cute.

After I play it, though, YouTube lists other videos available. Did you watch the one on "How do we know Christians are delusional?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVuw1wEuaAQ

How do we answer this fallacious argument? The truth is that the majority of people are religious today, and this has also been true throughout history. Therefore it's "normal" to be religious. There are only a few atheists in the world, and they only appeared in recent times, and only in Western cultures. Atheists are not religious, and are therefore outside the norm, which means atheists are "abnormal." The cartoonist drew the picture incorrectly. The atheists are the abnormal few living in a bubble, and the normal people standing outside the bubble are the majority, and they are religious! The atheists are the few who live in a bubble and don't believe in God. The normal people live in the real world and are religious.

So if they were wrong about their position relative to the world, are they wrong about there not being any scientific studies that find benefit due to prayer? Yes. There are studies showing that on average, patients who practice their faith (especially prayer) have better outcomes than patients who don't.

The rest of the video's accusations and claims have errors as well. For me, their disparaging comments on the Mormon faith story seem somewhat successful in questioning its truth, but their attack on Islam is less successful for me, and the attack on Christianity is even less successful. They use the word magical incorrectly in describing several items in their Christianity list, and that immediately weakens their position.

For the viewer who doesn't firmly know the truth, though, the fast pace doesn't give the viewer time to think through the fallacies in the presentation. Also, the plot line plays to emotional responses rather than logical thinking. The combination might sweep some viewers into thinking that the presentation is actually a logical argument that proves Christianity is bad, when in fact the presentation is a fairy tale written by an atheist. (Wouldn't that qualify as an oxymoron?)