I dare any single person to refute the ideas and philosophies that this video presents. YouTube - Science Saved My Soul. Just recently, I was contemplating suicide. Why? Because I've known for a while now that life has no true meaning, that there is no god that exists simply to grant me an afterlife, and that reality was very crushing. I knew that the decisions I've already made will likely haunt me for the rest of my life, that everything I aspired to do would be too difficult to attempt, that I would have to settle upon a life of wanting and unfulfillment. And just then, when my hope had been crushed by the fiery grasp of despair, a friend of mine shows me this. Would I have appreciated this video, these ideas, nearly as much if I had not been so depressed? Probably not, but I'm glad that things have happened the way they did.
Honestly this was one of the worst videos I've ever seen. Once you get past this guys ego and his very soothing voice you realize this is just another well put together anti-organized religion video by an angry atheist. I'm glad he is still open to the fact there may be a God out there, but still he raises so many moot points. 'Look what religion has made us do,' one could easily say the same about science. When has religion ever told us not to look at and question the stars or science? For crying out loud Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton were Christians and the latter invented a more applicable telescope for studying the stars. Yeah, the stars are amazing things and I love watching them and personally I think astrologists and astro-physicists have some of the best jobs, however that is the only thing I agree with in this video. I'm glad you second guessed yourself on your suicide contemplations. All 'religion' aside, I think that suicide, no matter how you look at it, is selfish. And I can assure you that there are people in your life who care deeply about you, whether you know it or not. And those same people would be devastated if you ceased to exist in their lives. My thoughts on the subject.
I didn't think people could sum up their entire post in a sentence or two deigning someone else. Alas...
"Just recently, I was contemplating suicide. Why? Because I've known for a while now that life has no true meaning, that there is no god that exists simply to grant me an afterlife, and that reality was very crushing. I knew that the decisions I've already made will likely haunt me for the rest of my life, that everything I aspired to do would be too difficult to attempt, that I would have to settle upon a life of wanting and unfulfillment." You don't know that.
any video containing Adagio in D Minor is enough to strike anybody's emotional core. YouTube - John Murphy - Sunshine (Adagio In D Minor) Rorak, watch Sunshine. That movie changed my life, and it contains very similar themes to this video.
There is no reason you have to reject religion to embrace science. The men that exploit religion do not define it.
Thank you for sharing that Kuroda. It was beautiful. The guy is right, contemplating the scale of the universe is an experience that words can't adequately describe. As for suicidal thoughts, I can tell you nothing that you haven't heard before, except to tell you that I'm glad you're here. Don't make any irrevocable decisions without talking to someone first.
As a christian I think this video is pretty ridiculous. He uses emotion to backup his ideas instead of evidence. And I know dealing with depression is difficult. My dad's actually a marriage and family counselor so he deals a lot with these issues. If there's one thing I can say without being disregarded as a religious fanatic, it's that I think you should talk to a counselor and/or read up on religion and try to gain a different perspective on it. Good luck though.
if only you realized the hypocrisy in finding "He uses emotion to backup his ideas instead of evidence." as something ridiculous. The video isn't about proving anything or disproving anything, it's a guy throwing out what he believes, if you don't agree then just move on. no need to call it ridiculous. why does he need evidence? if you can have faith in what you believe, why can't this guy? From my experiences in going to church, it's all about the emotion behind it, Not the evidence.
lol I KNEW that would happen Nah, dude, there is evidence in faith.. That's just all I can say. I've tried debating about it, but it came down the realization that faith is somethin between you and God, not you and humanity. Faith and belief is an internal thing. People can help guide you but it basically comes down to what you choose to believe As for my opinion? Other people get to voice theirs, so why point me out?
I watched the video on Metacafe, seeing as how the youtube version is blocked in Australia. Even excluding the oxymoron in the title that video was terrible, with terrible arguments to boot and without a clear message. No amount of Sunshine, Blade Runner or Arcade Fire is redeeming enough.
The state of mind of religion which is talked about in the video is not like this at all, and I certainly won't impede upon any sort of personal decision that you've made. In fact, I fully support the fact that you've found a belief that makes you happy. I have first-hand experience with religious oppression as a child, where my parents and family would've shunned me had I stated my feelings about life and god. It wasn't pleasant, I was forced to believe things that I just knew weren't true, otherwise, I'd go to hell. This is why this video hits so close to home for me. And religion doesn't use emotion to back up their argument? This video isn't trying to convert, it's trying to create a new point of view. Is it biased? Clearly, but it's simply a recollection of a first-hand experience that this person is simply sharing with the world. I was taught in church till about the age of 10, then I simply refused to go. Lately, I've read up on Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and the Muslim Religion, simply for more understanding of what makes people believe these things. I came to the conclusion that most often, it's due to either manipulation and childhood conditioning. People believe for fear of Hell, or they believe because it's convenient. One feeling that I can definitely reciprocate, is how religion steals these moments of pure awe and satisfaction, calling them religious experiences. Can these types of experiences be religious? Yes, but that doesn't mean that all of them are. In the video, his experience was just the opposite. Galileo and Newton were Christians because they were forced to be so. Atheists were slaughtered back in the day. I'm just glad that they found the need to discover more about god, and more about universe, by trying to learn about the world around them. That's more than many religious-thinkers can say nowadays, who just shut out everything but their own beliefs. Yes, that's a generalization, but that's also why I said many. I have lots of experience with these types of people, it just breaks my faith with humanity, it really does. The thought of the after-effects of suicide usually stop me in my tracks, and despite the countless hours of contemplation, it hasn't happened, simply because I know the devastation that it would cause. For a long time now, I've been looking for a meaning for my life. A reason to keep breathing. Religion told me to do it for god, but I wanted a reason that I could rationalize. And then I realized, I'm free to make my own destiny, my own future, my own meaning.
I understand that completely. I've been there. If you ever want to talk, shoot me a message. I don't know if what you need right now is someone to talk to, but it's an open invitation.
I didn't think it was a terrible video at all, I rather liked it. I have some disagreements which really amount to nothing more than a different perspective, but overall it was quite nice. So here's what I noticed. Around the mid-point, when he first starts in on religion, he says something to the effect of "whenever I have this great feeling (calls it a mind-gasm), religion is always there to swoop in and say, 'oh you had a religious experience'. And spiritualists pull the same ****". There's a pattern that I'm starting to take notice of, which is this: in a state of equilibrium, people tend to place great importance on clearly marginal things. We take no notice of massive, stable things because we can't change them, although they are much more relevant to our lives than the trivial things we dwell on. This is a very general, broad pattern of human behavior that I'm seeing everywhere. Back to the passage in the video I mentioned. Why is the emphasis placed on what amounts to a difference of a definition? The speaker and the groups he is complaining about are talking about the exact same thing, just viewed from different perspectives and described in different language. What is it that prevents any of us from seeing the massive similarities that have much greater influence on the overall state of things, and only see the differences?
There's a belief of existentialism or absurdism or the nihilist Überman or whatever (maybe all of the above, can someone help me out here?) that talks about the power if the individual to grant meaning to his own otherwise meaningless existence. I take a lot of satisfaction from that.
The source of the idea is obscure, but this is exactly the meaning that I gather from this video, which is why it was so affecting to me. The oxymoron was intentional, I thought that much was obvious. He wasn't trying to argue anything, and I got plenty of meaning and message from it. It depends on perspective, really, but don't think that the video was made purely for the sake of converting; it was made to share an idea.