I see that Tony Blair lost the Canadian audience’s vote by 2:1 at the close of the Blair/Hitchens debate on religion being a good thing.
Peter Hitchen’s played dirty, of course, by being terminally ill with cancer, and Blair was unfairly handicapped by being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousand, and being obscenely rich as a result of it. You just can’t trust these atheists to play fair!
I’ve had my own little debate as a result of posting the Armstrong & Miller sketch about vampires on the Alpha course on YouTube, now heading for the 9000 views mark.
Here it is – sometimes good-natured, sometimes not, mainly from America, based on Google’s analysis …
To TAofMoridura
You sound like you're on the bandwagon, churning out the same rhetoric. I maintain that it is naive to think that a world without religion would be at peace. It is in man's nature to fight over the limited resources around them. Whether you believe a supernatural force said a piece of land belonged to you or you believe it's your ancestral home you will claim that land even if blood is to be spilled. Just today, N Korea are apparently starting on S Korea over some land dispute.
To samut07
The bandwagon is religion's message - I respond to it.
I don't believe that the world would be totally at peace without religion, but it would have an infinitely better chance of peace, because religions are ancient, irrational superstitions that destroy rational thought, and are at the root of most world conflicts.
Mankind will always compete for land and resources, and will tend towards violence, but this would be moderated by reason, negotiation and compromise without religion.
TAofMoridura (reply to an obscene and abusive poster whose post I deleted.)
Atheism is an individual belief, not a creed or political system. Stalinist communism was a dogmatic creed with exactly the same components, minus the supernatural, of a religion - a supreme leader whose word could not be questioned, unchallengeable dogma, silencing of criticism, persecution of unbelievers, and of course, no democracy.
I belong to no creed, no organisation of atheists - I do belong to a democratic political party, and can challenge the party line at any time.
To TAofMoridura
Actually, conflicts on this earth are rooted in land disputes, power struggle, ideological differences...There's a big bandwagon that a lot of people are riding saying religion is at the root of conflict, as if to say that without religion, mankind would be at peace with one other. That's lazy thinking. Funny clip though :
To samut07
Of course not - the Papacy who launched innumerable wars and proroms, the Jews claiming the land that Yahweh gave them and murdering their Palestinian brothers, the Muslims extremists murdering in the name of their God, the fundamentalist Christians in America who urged George W. Bush to destroy Iraq - they are all blameless.
And the omnisicient, omnipotent, omnipresent creator of everything had nothing to do with, and can do nothing about it. Of course it's not religion fault ...
totally amazing best comedy sketch i've seen for ages can't stop laughing
Jesus' sense of humour? I can think of at least two puns: "He who has ears to hear let him hear" while talking about the parable of the sower. (Ears of wheat? Get it?)
And then there's Simon's nickname - Peter = a rock = Rocky; and so you get the famous line, "You are Peter (Rocky) and on this rock I will build my church". I works better in the original and , funnily enough, in French where the equivalent of Peter is "Pierre" - literally "Rock".
Wine at our Alpha, too. But no vampires as yet.
To MorayCCR66
Stretching interpretation a bit Moray, but fair enough. My two first names are Peter Paul, which one might say is Rock Little. Reversed, it give Little Rock, but since I am a Scot with no Arkansas connection, I prefer Little Pebble - I'm not a tall man!
Jesus used humour all of the time. It's like picking up one of these mill stones, dragging it over to the sea, tying it round your neck and chucking yourself in.
Peter, you don't need a bath, you've just had a mikvah bath. (Jesus wasn't washing dirty smelly feet—as most preachers say—they were ceremonially clean.)
Whose head is on this coin? Pay unto Caesar etc… the crowd would have been laughing at this humour.
Jesus had a brilliant sense of humour if you understand it.
To bigapb1
If he had a sense of humour, it would have to be black humour, in the face of the horrors that afflict and have always afflicted our world, from natural disasters to the persecution and torture inflicted by Christians on Christians and non-Christians alike - the burnings, the auto da fes - and the horrors of war, of nuclear bombing of civilians.
Virtually every major conflict afflicting our tortured and confused planet at the moment has religion at its roots. Is Jesus laughing?
To TAofMoridura
you know what americans like you need? you need to go get yourself a house in a Chaldean village in Baghdad and there you will see things holistically and not on your couch laughing at the evils of religion because I have seen enough of what atheism can do to last a milinium... If you think religion is bad, atheist fundamentalists fanatics are no better
To poster removed for obscene and abusive comment
A few corrections - I am not an American, I am a Scot. I don't find fundamentalist religion funny at all. It's millennium, not milinium. I don't have a couch to lie on. I have never met an "atheist fundamentalist fanatic", and neither has anyone else. And what has "a Chaldean village in Bagdhad" got to do with atheists?
To TAofMoridura
You never met an atheist fundamentalist fanatic, or seen one? There are a lot of atheists who say science can't prove God and evolution is automatically against God. Well, those people are in my opinion fundamentalists, as God is not something you can prove OR disprove, and evolution hasn't something to do with
To HubbyMe
An atheist is someone who does not believes in God, the benevolent creator of everything. Atheists take the scientific position that all we know about our Universe is based on hypotheses, subsequently validated by evidence.
For an atheist or scientist, everything we know is forever open to question, and must be re-evaluated against new evidence. The evidence supporting evolution is formidable and growing, but the atheist has an open mind. Religion offers only faith-based assertions
excellent dramatical short, I'll have to watch this again, maybe suggest a showing of it at the alpha course my CU is running :)
To MCTimemaster
I suppose if the Alpha course can convert vampires, then they are really cooking with gas ...
If your Dad was the one to invent farts then you've got to have a sense of humor!
To Tearfund
But if he invented TB, multiple sclerosis, torture, famine, floods, cancer etc. perhaps not so funny. Or does Dad only claim the good things and the minor ones?
I'm curious to know who made this. It's hilarious! Does anyone know who made this video?
To thezahls
The exceptional British comedy team of Armstrong and Miller – BBC
I don't know if they also wrote it, but if not, all credit to the scriptwriter - and to the casting and production values. Best I 've seen in a long time! Makes most British comedy seem like kid's stuff
I run the Alpha Course at my church, and think this is very funny. I have to take point with your comment that Jesus never displayed a sense of humour, I think he had a great sense of humour, many of the parables he told were full of humour. He certainly would have been a good person to have around for a party, after all his first miracle was turning water into wine!
To sbickers1
I admire Armstrong and Miller enormously - fine comedy actors. I never said Jesus didn't have a sense of humour - I just can't find evidence of it. Maybe something got lost - like so many other things in the collection of ancient manuscripts called the Bible (if you are a Chrisitian). Of course, even that begs the question of which version - take your choice form a mind-boggling variety.
I'm a Christian, and I don't find it offensive at all. Very funny actually.
I think that Jesus displayed some wry humour from time to time. Anyway, on point, as a Christian I find this sketch very amusing in the greatest British tradition of the gentle poking of fun. It says something that 'Alpha' is now such a recognised thing that it has become something of an institution to be ribbed.
To jdhchelt
Examples of Jesus' sense of humour? If his father had anything to do with the state of the planet,then he needs a sense of humour.
But it's all mankind's fault - misuse of free will plus a few interventions from tectonic plates, hurricanes, plagues, etc. But the church said the tectonic plates had free will as well ...
I see the Alpha Course as in the same business as the Church of Scientology, but a bit more happy clappy. Of course, the Alpha Course won't come and get me ...
To TAofMoridura
It might...
To jdhchelt
Surely not? I'm old enough to remember Scientology when it was just a pseudo-scientific article in 'Astounding Science Fiction', - Dianetics - a New Science of Mental Health - by a mediocre SF writer called L. Ron Hubbard - that was before it became a cult, then a religion, and big, big money entered the equation.
To TAofMoridura
I'm only joking. After all, this is a comedy video! I find the observational humour in this video - down to the overenthusiastic pretty girls that you don't have a hope with, and the vicar/curate all dressed down and relevant, is so close to reality that it amuses me each time I watch it. So beware because the Alpha police are coming for you! ;-)
To jdhchelt
It's the funniest thing I've seen in a long time, and I have watched it several time - it never palls. Makes the infantile comedy of, say, Michael McIntyre seem - well, infantile. It has edge without being obscene or abusive. But I must remember the great Lenny Bruce, and qualify that ...
We have wine at our Alpha courses.
To PaladinMark
An amusing little Transylvanian red, with a certain fruitiness cloaking its mordant quality perhaps?
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