17 replies to this topic

[Live Forever]

Here is the link to the full episode of the 30 Days (a great show by the way) episode where an atheist lives among a group of hardcore Christians in Texas for a month. Lots of interesting scenarios, like being lectured about evolution. Kind of eye opening.

http://video.google....937330320385668

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[jdog]

[spectate]

[jdog]

Oh man...

To hear what this one lady said at the end of the show during the bible study, "she brought up these questions...it gets you thinking..."

I'd be willing to bet that 97.5% of fundamental christians out there have not thought. It's kind of sad.

Oh yeah, and the christian father was...how to put this nicely...and idiot.

[Live Forever]

Here is another religion based 30 Days episode:

A practicing Christian goes and lives among Muslims for 30 days:



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[JohnDoe1234]

Wow, those were great!

[biologic]

Nice videos [thumb]

Who here wishes that they were the atheist who got paid to do this kind of thing [sfty] . I know I do.

[JohnDoe1234]

I sure wish I was... I feel that I would be able to handle myself very well in that situation.

[Aegist]

Same. I'd relish the opportunity.

[DJS]

If I were involved in the experiment they'd probably kicked me out of their house when I presented them with a copy of Nietzsche's The Antichrist. [sfty]

oooo, and them leaving The Case for Christ as reading material in my bedroom would be an awesome starting point. I'd go through it with them page by page and point out all of the flawed logical.

[knite]

If I were involved in the experiment they'd probably kicked me out of their house when I presented them with a copy of Nietzsche's The Antichrist.  

oooo, and them leaving The Case for Christ as reading material in my bedroom would be an awesome starting point. I'd go through it with them page by page and point out all of the flawed logical.

Well in this case, you would be acting like a jerk, and noone wants to listen to a jerk.

Arrogance about your superiority would also be the wrong approach. I would say your position on religion is most likely superior, but that does not in any way mean you as a person are.

Anyways, I cant watch the vid yet as im traveling and the internet is crap here, but I would say a good double wammy of empathy and logic would go a long ways, if not to turn their beliefs, to at least let them understand the atheist viewpoint, which is probably all you could really expect in 30 days vs. a lifetime of belief.

[Live Forever]

The wife did seem a lot nicer than the husband in the video. She seemed to empathize with the atheist lady a lot more. The husband was kind of just a jerk. (and not very bright to boot)

[samson]

If I were involved in the experiment they'd probably kicked me out of their house when I presented them with a copy of Nietzsche's The Antichrist.  [sfty]

oooo, and them leaving The Case for Christ as reading material in my bedroom would be an awesome starting point.  I'd go through it with them page by page and point out all of the flawed logical.

Psch, OLD. I'd take the books and make a strawman out of them. Now THAT, people, is creative.

Anyways. Insulting religious people rarely ends in anything productive (although it sure is fuckin' funny), so that's that. Religious people are very touchy about their faith (evidently), and throwing The Antichrist on their face is going to make much more than cause interesting reactions, even though you might have hope that such a 'divine' book might rub something on them.
You wanna play with them, you play with their rules. That means no poking holes at their logic, no controversial language, and absolutely NO, and that's a no with big fucking capital letters, referrals to Nietzsce.

[DJS]

knite: Well in this case, you would be acting like a jerk, and noone wants to listen to a jerk.

I believe it is as Dawkins wrote, you can challenge someone's opinion about almost anything, but the second you broach the most important topics of all, topics concerning ultimate meaning, suddenly you have crossed over some imaginary line in the sand and have become a bastard.

With a social experiment such as this one, both parties should know going in that there is bound to be a clashing of frameworks. So they present me with some of their literature, I present them with some of mine. They critique my framework, I critique theirs. What's the problem here?

I believe knite that you are holding a double standard.

Samson: Insulting religious people rarely ends in anything productive (although it sure is fuckin' funny),

Well, I don't see my actions as being insulting, but rather challenging. If they were to take it as an insult, then that is their problem. I personally enjoy when people put up spirited challenges to my framework, and I am never offended unless they possess ulterior motives that run counter to arriving at the truth.

BTW, in real life I am a very polite person who rarely engages in dialog that lacks utility, however in this type of social experiment (with zero real world consequences) a good deal of my motivation for going on the show in the first place would be personal entertainment. So why not make things as entertaining as possible? [sfty]

[DJS]

Also, besides from personal amusement, I would be (seriously) curious to know how the average Christian framework would deal with an extensive and focused 30 day assault from an uber-rational mind. I mean, the atheist woman that they selected to participate seems fairly intelligent, but the naturalistic framework she operates from (which imo is a suboptimal framework to begin with) isn't adequately developed. As is most often the case, a large portion of her repertoire involves the pop-ritualizing of scientific topics and the occasional sprinkling of anecdotal evidence. The interaction between the two stagnant frameworks in the video gets old and predictable rather fast.

Imagine instead a situation where the Christian memeplex was exposed to wide range of subject matter -- anthropology, archeology, physics, metaphysics, cosmology, ontology, epistemology, psychology (paticularly evolutionary psychology and its analysis of religious thought), history, natural history, paleontology, etc etc etc.

Of course, a memeplex that has evolved and survived successfully for thousands of years probably has a number of defensive mechanisms to prevent its deconstruction. I'd be willing to bet, even if I conducted myself in an extremely polite and non-threatening manner, that such a comprehensive challenge would result in a "fight or flight" response, which is the equivalent of the memeplex going into "lock down mode" and shuting off potentially deleterious interaction.

[biologic]

Well in this case, you would be acting like a jerk, and noone wants to listen to a jerk.

or it was just playful sarcasm...

Edited by biologic, 04 April 2007 - 01:50 AM.

[knite]

If I were involved in the experiment they'd probably kicked me out of their house when I presented them with a copy of Nietzsche's The Antichrist.  

oooo, and them leaving The Case for Christ as reading material in my bedroom would be an awesome starting point. I'd go through it with them page by page and point out all of the flawed logical.

Well, the reason I think you would be rather unsuccessful (and less than polite), is that with these actions you make it very clear to them that you have absolutely no intention of listening to their side. And in the end, unless you have to ability to consider the issue from their side, to believe their belief for a time, or at least remember a time clearly enough when you did, you are not going to get through to them, which (I believe) is the whole point.

For instance, it may (or may not lol) come as a surprise to you that these people do not much care for logic. It is not about the logical progression of their story. I would bet however, you could make some progress if you asked them why their God demanded faith without any proof, why obedience without communication, and THEN came up with the logical arguments to support those questions.

[dimasok]

Nice video but I think that in the end it's pointless because at the end of the day:
Atheistic woman goes underground.
Religious family goes underground.

Their beliefs have zero real-world signifiance but as long as they're alive and if that makes them feel better, bicker away all you want.