British comedian Ricky Gervais always has a lot to say. Sometimes he says it on Twitter and often it’s about the ludicrous nature of religion. Here are 10 of his finest philosophical moments in a 140 characters or less.
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Haha damn this is hilarious =D
made my day.. i love this man
Fucking hell, he’s shit now, isn’t he?
kinda yeah..
Hit a little too close to home, did they?
I analyze your comment as being highly presumptuous.. Some of us are just bored shitless of hearing both sides in this pointless garbage go on and on and on, especially when there are actual everyday issues that such a person could be raising awareness of
Nice role of distraction you play, Ricky.
If the truth is presumptuous…then fine…it is what it is!
Bit confused; on the whole, Comedians typically do take everyday issues and raise awareness through comedy. Sending money rather than prayer for example is an everyday issue that the world could learn from; especially if it had been tweeted by Beyonce, Rihanna and Katy Perry…
Agree! Comedy dressed in Bitterness/Hatred isn’t funny! Comedy is free
So comedy is free, because that’s just how it is or because you say so? (Sounds familiar?) And comedy can’t be bitterness/nor hatred cause it’s free? Are you the person who wrote the bible?
Love Ricky Gervais!
One day u gonna regret this…
Just sayin
is that a threat? are you going to elaborate?
How’s that then?
Also, ending a statement with “Just sayin” makes you look like an incredible douchenozzle.
You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face when there turns out to be a god, but not the one you worship. Or maybe it is your god, but he rewards healthy skepticism and punishes blind gullible belief. Just saying.
“Just sayin” as in “This is my conclusion from my intuitive model of magic causality and my wishful ranking of punishment-deserving immoralities and I have no inclination to hear disagreements since nothing could possibly change my view on this or in any way influence my preferred way of operating my mind in this world “?
Your own god would scoff at you.
quit trying so hard to sound intelligent. the level of your insecurity is pathetic
And this is a pointless troll response.
Try to sound more intelligent.
Terrific response Leto – thank you.
someday…in 4,000 years when we’re already dead?
you guys are so cute!! 😀 ‘one day you’ll regret this!! when we are in heaven and u guys in hell!!’ ooh yeah that scares us.. seriously, religious people are borderline retarded, let it fucking go
Borderline?
This isn’t really very funny. I’m not standing up for religion, but this just isn’t witty or clever, and it’s full of standard religion-bashing misconceptions.
standard religion bashing – yes
misconceptions – not a single one
That’s why it’s standard religion bashing: because it’s always been true, and it always will be. All of these anti-religion arguments have become standard, because no religious apologist has come up with a new argument for a few hundred years. Essentially, we’re all still saying “It’s your move” — and only getting back the same tired old stuff as before.
So don’t be surprised at the lack of originality. These are all responses to religious apologia, and if there’s nothing new to respond to, then the responses can’t really change in substance either. But at least he’s doing it in good form.
So long as people believe in nonsense, there will be other people out there calling them out on it. Cheers.
AMEN
Have you ever had a spiritual encounter? or witnessed something spiritual?
I watched Startrek in the 60’s does that count
No, and neither have you.
Spot on…again and again.
It’s not meant to be witty or clever, he’s pointing out the obvious.
The title is smartest Ricky Gervais tweets about religion, not funniest
Standard religious defence, “that’s not funny”
It is to funny …. people who don’t think it is funny are taking it personal because they feel stupid for believing all their life and don’t want to admit it or let it go
“misconceptions”???
In what way are any of the above tweets misconceptions?
Ah, great. Will someone contact the philosophy departments at universities around the world and let them know they can close up shop and go home because some arrogant prick comedian has just sorted out the God issue via Twitter. Gervais shows that atheism is no guarantee of intelligence.
That won’t help. Philosophy departments will continue to exist and will continue to churn out bullshit year after year about things nobody cares about.
Now, I’m not saying that there are no useful sides of philosophy: the philosophy of science, for instance, is very important, and philosophy of consciousness and the mind is another example.
But the difference between these and the philosophy of God, or the philosophy of UFOs, or the philosophy of the Tooth Fairy (you see where this is going, hopefully) is that we know science exists; we know that the mind exists; so far there has been no proof for any of the other stuff.
The existence of university departments is not proof of the validity of, well, anything. There are departments of homeopathy in some places; departments of chiropractic; departments of research into supernatural phenomena. None of these are valid.
There are still departments of sexology teaching debunked theories from the 70s, departments of psychology teaching Freud as though it were gospel, departments of linguistics treating Chomskyan structuralism as is it’s in any way meaningful, etc. etc. etc.
Also, unlike some people, Gervais isn’t pretending to solve anything. He’s just being hilarious.
There is, without doubt, proof of UFOs. Alien lifeforms however, not yet. …
^lol at this guy
Agreed. The misuse of UFO as a term needs to be called out more often… I see UFOs every bloody day, not being an aeronautical or bird expert and having sub par vision. I thought ‘they’ found fossilised bacteria on Mars though?
Thanks Loopy Loo – great post
>Gervais shows that atheism is no guarantee of intelligence.
Who claimed it was?
Atheism is simply a lack of belief in God. Nothing more, nothing less. And it doesn’t claim to be!
Not really. Atheism is the belief that there is no god. Equally hard to prove, actually. Play it agnostic, if you cant live with potentially being wrong.
Wrong about that…
Atheism is a lack of belief in the claim of all gods. It is not a belief that there is no god. There’s a difference.
Agnositism is the position of not knowing.
They are two completely different words about completely different things and they’re not mutually exclusive.
A gnostic would be one who knows there is a god. Since no one can know for sure, agnostic is the default position.
So we’re all either agnostic theists if we believe (although why would you without evidence), or agnostic atheists if we don’t. Until someone can produce decent evidence for their claim that a god exists, atheism is the default position. I don’t believe in your god because you have no evidence for your god.
Then there’s the anti-theist. Different again, and again not mutually exclusive. An anti-theist not only believes that there is no god, but also vehemently disapproves of the gods on offer.
Personally I use all three at once to describe myself, although I find agnostic redundant and rarely say it (too many people use it in the wrong context and so I avoid it to avoid confusion). I am an atheist and anti-theist. I don’t believe in any of the proposed gods, and I don’t believe that (with what we do know about the universe) there is any other kind of god out there, nor would I worship one even if it turned out there was.
No atheism is the factual understanding that there is no proof of a god. Belief doesn’t come in to it, other than on that basis refusing to accept the belief that there is a god.
Sure, but he also shows that blind faith is a guarantee of lack of intelligence.
Does being religious provide any guarantee of a certain level of intelligence? What does faith or absence of it have to do with intelligence? Just curious…
I could not agree more with your point. Being religious (or not religious) is no indicator of intelligence (or much else I suppose). My point was directed at the popular/trendy smugness of people who endlessly mock or attack those who, having spent time and thought on the matter, arrive at more nuanced views than ‘because the Bible says so.’ or ‘All theists are tooth-fairy-believing morons’ or, as Johnny wrote above, ‘blind faith is a guaranteed lack of intelligence’.
Actually if you read the numerous studies… it is in fact.
Personally, I would say that calling Ricky Gervais unintelligent is a sure sign of lack of intelligence.
Because before this you thought that atheism was a guarantee of intelligence?
Not at all. But Gervais and many other populist atheists like him imply it all the time.
I disagree. What they imply is that the belief that there is an invisible man in the sky who controls the universe with magic is idiotic. Just as idiotic as believing that there’s a fat man in a red suit who lives at the North Pole and has flying reindeer, who on Christmas Eve (for no particular reason) visits every house on the planet delivering presents thanks to the use of magic.
They are both, given our understanding of how stuff works, stupid ideas to believe in for a rational, adult person. So to believe in either you must not be thinking rationally. To not believe, simply means you haven’t fallen in to that trap… for whatever reason.
Intelligence is not a pre-requisite for the later.
Philosophy?
No. You really mean Theology. The fact you don’t even know you mean that means that I guess theism is no guarantee of intelligence. But, we knew that already.
You mean Theology departments I take it? I think you have just shown your lack or intelligence sufficiently that others need not worry about your thoughts on them….
Funny how several other witty intelligent people on this list disagree with your conclusion on the purpose and worth of debating my comment, isn’t it?
And no, I don’t just mean Theology departments. I have never met a philosophy professor (and I’ve met one or two) who views the ‘god’ question as outside the remit of philosophy – no matter how strong their atheist convictions are.
You are right in one particular thing –> atheism really doesn’t guarantee intelligence (why should it?) but you are kind of saying that Ricky lacks the intelligence and you base your judgement on those presented quotes and.. in that case I really do think that you are either wrong or .. you lack the intelligence (or just the understanding of the meaning of the word “intelligence”).
Few tips for you:
1. Since when making fun of sth that lacks evidence and is unprovable and undetectable in any possible way while still being referred as real by vast majority of people that can’t even agree to the ‘description’ of that thing, is unintelligent or even irrational?
2. Do you really know what the philosophers were saying about many things and especially about hmm.. not god in general but about the absolute? Do you even know how it relates to the religious doctrines? Hmmm.. do you KNOW what philosophy was and is? (I think you should know all those things if you are judging a man that is criticising or ridiculling religion)
3. (This point kind of relates to the previous one but it’s kind of different) Why do you think/assume that the concept of god should be sorted out on the ground of philosophy? I’m asking this question cause as far as I know –> if something exists then it can be perceived in some way and examined in some way. By “in some way” I mean that not everything can be perceived but we can see some predictable outcome the thing we want to examine create (if it exists). And as you may guess this doesn’t apply to god and I can guess that after reading this you would think or say that ‘he’ is out of our cognition but.. in general, it means that such ‘thing’ doesn’t exist.
Btw –> did you know that many philosophers were believers? Do you know what impact does it have on their assumptions and considerations about the absolute? And last thing –> do you know that probably all arguments for god’s existence were refuted? The previous question leads to another one –> do you know what that means? I will give you some hint about the last question –> what can we say about the infallibility of the ‘thoughts’ of the philosophers?
Ps. What about the credibility of the philosophers?
Hi, there’s a lot in this response – a huge amount of which I agree with. I think you make the point well that this is a complicated and nuanced topic – one to be enjoyed respectfully over multiple glasses of wine. You ask a load of different and interesting questions – most of which my response is ‘I don’t know’. But I would add ‘neither does anybody, really’. Therefore when we make fun of each others’ beliefs there should be a limit to the mockery, and a basic level of humility & respect.
Ricky Gervais, and people like him, show none of this respect. The only ‘smart’ aspect of his tweets is his skill at exploiting the populist atheist meme (not that atheism is a fad at all, just the particular Dawkins/Hitchens flavour of it). No doubt Gervais will sell more tickets because of his god-bashing believer-mocking tweets – which is unarguably a very clever tactic.
Great. This freak Theocrat is invokingblasphemy laws. The next think theses cultistswill bedoing is what theyare really goodat:killing people that mock theirpathetic imaginary sky zombie, and for mockingthe cannibal,vampire cultistssilly Sundaytheatrics.It is the Age if if reasonand hightime we dumpoedthis primitivetribal baggage.
I agree, Tharris Nogaud. You make some good points – nontheists haven’t matched across the globe for centuries, suppressing and/or killing everyone who believes differently. No, that would be the BELIEVERS in Christianity or Islam (most notably). Let’s stop reading this silly crap and concern ourselves with watching Gervais’ and Izzard’s brilliant disregard for religion instead. It’s far more entertaining. 🙂
‘Atheism is no guarantee of intelligence.’ Neither is condescendingly referring to someone as ‘some arrogant prick comedian’ on a website.
And Thank You for being the exact example found within #7. You dumb dumb.
Oh c’mon. I don’t ‘hate’ this guy at all. And his atheism has zero baring on how much I like him. Some of my best friends are atheists 😉
Did he say anything about philosophy? Nope.
He is talking about institutionalized religion, which in fact is nothing but evil, it has brought tenfold as much suffering and hatred as it has good during the lifespan of our Earth, and should rightfully be bashed for it.
People can believe in whatever they want, but when religion stands in the way of children getting the care they deserve and people around the world getting help instead of prayers when they need it; there is something seriously wrong.
I don’t see any direct reference to ‘institutional religion’ in his tweets – in the 140 characters he has available he just makes fun of any concept of ‘god’. He belittles what is a complex and deeply nuanced problem that has never and may never be fully solved. Of course, it’s pretty difficult to make arguments in 140 characters – but then Twitter isn’t the place to have the argument. That is my main criticism. There are better ways to argue for atheism, and far better atheists.
Of course institutional religions should be bashed – but that doesn’t properly address a full argument on the nature and/or existence of god. Oh, and to the ’cause of evil’ point. While nobody can argue that institutionalised religion has caused untold misery, the wars and misery of the 20th century hardly give better evidence for a purely humanist ideologies.
What the hell are you talking about?
Great response.
Philosophers have a hell of a lot more to think about than God… Did you mean Theology maybe? There are NO guarantees of intelligence as you have so clearly proven.
I completely concede that philosophy is far more than simply the god debate. But to clarify, I was being facetious.
Penetrating dissection of his ‘tweets’ that John. Of course we all know his intention was to settle the God ‘issue’, or was is it to have some fun with the silly beliefs of others? Hmm I wonder…
I’m all for making fun at the beliefs of others – including my own. If Gervais is viewed as ‘smart’ simply because he’s funny, then I’d agree.
No one here said he’s smart, you however hint a lack of intelligence because of a few funny tweets.
no i believe thatd be common sense
Let’s face it – we are all born atheist; some of us are wise enough to remain so throughout our life, satisfied with the magic and beauty of nature.
This.
Jeff, i am an atheist, although i haven’t always been one. I was force fed catholicism from birth, and fought like hell to break free of it. I’m only pointing this out to you, because not everyone had a choice on joining religion. So many of us were, quite literally, brainwashed. The greatest gift I’ve given my children is to have raised them without religion! My hope is that they feel one day, the way you’ve expressed yourself in your post. 🙂
Hope you find meaning in your life.
i hope you find meaning in yours, you condescending beehole
His meaning in life is to worship the invisible man in the ski from dusk to dawn, accept the authority of celibates, participate in mass delusion and punish himself for masturbating.
what kind of pathetic person needs a invisible man that theyve never heard or seen to find meaning in their lives?? lol
i find meaning in good food, beautiful nature, amazing music and gorgeous women.. what do i need an old man who doesnt want me to do anything fun for?
yes that sounds like me
What makes you think he hasn’t? The fact that he doesn’t believe in god? There are many other ways to “find meaning,” dude.
I always say you should play it safe and believe in God. Just in case. If it turns out not true you’ve lost nothing.
Must say, that whilst funny, those tweets are quite true!
Ok… so which God should I believe in to play it safe? Which religion should I follow? There are too many to choose from, and they tend to contradict each other a lot, so that’s not very helpful.
Also, if it turns out not true, you’ve lost a lot precious time of your only life (if you actually *practice* a religion, rather than just vaguely say you believe) on something that is without substance or significance. Whoops. I’d say that’s a pretty significant loss.
Read up on counter-arguments to Pascal’s Wager, which is what your stance is called. It’s a poor argument at best.
Pascal’s wager.
What’s the point in ‘pretending’? An all powerful God would know you were cheating him anyway. Either way, why would you want this? You can draw many comparisons between God and a sadomasochist dictatorship.
You lose your life, by living someone elses idea of how to live, not your own… wasted away in religiville…
Does that mean you believe in all the other gods that men have worshipped, such as Zeus, Odin, Allah etc, just to make sure?
That’s Pascal’s Wager, and it makes several assumptions:
*That out of the thousands/millions of gods, the believer’s god is the One-True-God ™, and is the right version of that god (Christianity alone has tens of thousands of denominations).
*That one can easily just make oneself believe something, despite the lack of evidence for it.
*That the god will reward those who believe “just in case”.
*That the god will reward believers in any case. Maybe it rewards (or at least doesn’t harm) skeptics, and punishes believers. Maybe the god is a total jerk and punishes everyone regardless.
*Maybe the god is a deist one that doesn’t know or doesn’t care about us, and in any case doesn’t want our worship.
*Maybe the god died or ceased to exist; some belief systems claim their god sacrificed itself to create the universe.
Hell, maybe this is all an elaborate computer simulation, and only those who believe will be allowed to continue on in the next, far greater version of the simulation. No-one can prove it’s not true. Of course, this shouldn’t be taken seriously without evidence for the claim.
I’d suggest you look up DarkMatter2525’s video “What If You’re Wrong?” for a humourous take on Pascal’s Wager.
Bullshit 😉
If god exists then there are 3 possibilities:
1. ‘he’ is good
2. ‘he’ is normal (good or bad according to situation)
3. ‘he’ is evil
In my opinion the 2nd option disqualifies ‘him’ from the name god cause it means that ‘he’ is not perfect and by that I mean that he most probably would not base his judgement on some unchangeable/absolute values or rules — ‘he’ would judge based on his feelings and that means that whether you believe in him or not won’t make any difference. The difference would make only the thing whether ‘he’ would like you or not and.. even worse –> his sympathy toward you could change any second. In other words –> in that case I prefer to live my life how I like without even thinking about such unstable ‘thing’ cause it won’t make any difference.
If god exists and is good then ‘he’ won’t care about whether someone believed in his existence and if he would care about it and will send every nonbeliever that was good and helpfull in his life then.. he would be evil.
In other words –> In the first option it doesn’t matter whether you would believe in ‘him’ and in the second option you have to decide whether you wan’t to serve such egoistic bastard.
The above considerations freed me and allowed me to think logically without any interruption about god’s existence and having all the possible descriptions of gods and my own considerations about what god (the absolute) should be like
I came to the conclusion that it’s highly unprobable that such ‘thing’ called god exists.
Ps. The thing you wrote is the Pascal wager thingy and it was refuted long time ago in probably many distinct ways. For example –> what if you choose the wrong god?
Have you ever had a spiritual encounter or seen something spiritual?
But what if you believe in the wrong god ?
This is one of the stupidest string of words anyone had mustered the strength to utter. I’m sure you’re an intelligent person… Don’t let yourself down.
is that the depth of your faith? …even if there was a god, that level of commitment wouldn’t do chap.
That’s like saying “You’d better believe in Santa…you might not get any presents if you don’t!”
a belief in (any form of) God is detrimental to mental well-being.
actually, if you only believe for the sake of believing ‘just in case’, then you dont truly believe and god is gonna send u to hell anyway.. 🙂 so the safer bet is to enjoy yourself NOW, while you KNOW that you can, instead of torture yourself throughout life because there might possibly be an afterlife because a few guys said so 1500 years ago
So you are just afraid of God. You think what will happen if you don’t believe in God and it is true! Then you will be punished, hah? That’s why you are acting so conservative.
His is about the smartest thing I’ve heard a theist say about religion. The problem, however, is that you can’t believe in every religion – what if there turns out to be a god, but a different one than you believe in – nor do you use that philosophy for other aspects in life; you can’t live your whole life acting on “what if this might happen” and “what if this was true”.
What if there is a god who created the universe, established a system called evolution to ensure life would exist (any kind of life) and just walked away?
I am a Deist, and that’s what I believe. That means I DO believe in God – I just don’t believe in Religions.
And I don’t think God does, either.
Does that go for Islam as well Ricky?
No thought not
Of course it holds true for Islam you prat! God isn’t a Christian monopoly nor is the ridicule of believing in such nonsense.
Why then in Ricky’s tweets does he state only the bible?
not the Torah, or the Quran…
+1… What a great call Mark. The church is just too easy a target because if they dare speak up they are considered full of hate, etc. Irony is Gervais is revealing the state of his own heart here.
On the other hand, the Muslims would be protesting in the streets, burning his effigy and calling for a fatwa. The hypocrisy is astounding.
The fact of the matter is, ‘Allah’, ‘God’, whatever name one wishes to use, is but a figment of the imagination (and of a sun-crazed, desert dweller at that).
Ah, yeah, I’m pretty sure he has bashed them as well.
Are you saying “God” is limited to whatever deity it is you believe in (presumably Christianity) and doesn’t extend to all monotheistic nonsense?
… does he say anywhere that it doesn’t? Of course it does! It applies to ALL of them. That’s why he said “pick A GOD” (emphasis added)
Reading is not a process by which you make up what you think the author might have said. It’s a way of assimilating what the author ACTUALLY wrote.
What do you mean? Of course it does. Any and all deities, in fact. I don’t know why the most coddled group in America feel as if they are under attack, and that Islam gets a pass. For one thing, you’re not under attack. Every facet of society is molded so as to not hurt your sensitives butts. Second of all, All Allah is is another word for God. There is no pass given.
Of course it applies to Islam. He doesn’t believe in any God, not just the Christian God.
Pretty sure Muslims also believe in God, of course it’s aimed at Islam
Athiest means you don’t believe in any god or gods. That includes Islam. He doesn’t discriminate. That one is as ridiculous as yours. Happy now?
So what???
You’re not very familiar with this whole atheism concept, are you?
Of course it does. You probably know nothing about Ricky or his work if you think his criticism of religion did not apply to all the religions just because Christianity is used as the primary example in the above ones.
Think you’ll find his views go for all religion. They’re all a crock.
He is talking about God. And there is – by Christian and Islamic teachings only one God – so of course he’s talking about the Islamic and Christian god. He’s not attacking one religion he’s just pointing out how ridiculous belief in a nonexistent thing is. Well not just dangerous if you count all the wars that it has started and hatred that it has promoted in recent times.
Err, yeah it does. God = allah, zeus, flying spaghetti monster, vishnu…
No difference.
I think the answer is yes Mark Arnold
I’m pretty sure most of this tweets translate to Islam pretty well.
Of course it does, and all the other doltish religions that believe there’s only one God. Dopes! There’s millions of us.
Does Islam have a God? Why yes! I believe it does! So there’s your answer.
I am god and you are wrong
No.
You are Bill Spence.
He’s right.
Might want to start believing in Allah, Thor, Krishna, Odin, Zeus and any of the other 2000+ documented deities…just in case you’re wrong about them, too.
As usual, Ricky nails it.
As usual, a few weird comments from religionists.
J – believe me, it’s very funny.
John – he’s (rightly) slagging off religion – not philosophy (though a bunch of arrogant arseholes going round “thinking” could probably stand some slagging off.
Mike – He has.
Mike Arnold – He is talking about religion, it is taken as all religions (including Islam)
Bill – I always thought god’s name was god. Sorry about that. Spence eh? So a western European white man presumably – the Christians had it right all the time. Crazy to ever think you came from the Middle East. Anyway, nice to meet you. You couldn’t send me some money? Please? God Old mate!
Actually, god’s name is Helen.
@Mark Arnold, atheists don’t believe in any gods, and includes Allah, so Ricky Gervais is having a go at all the delusional religious people.
Awesome! Quite funny indeed.
Why would he not include an Islamic god? Oh I get it, when he says ‘god’ you automatically think he means, YOUR special one and only god, gotcha.
The Tweets made me chuckle, but some of the replies/comments are just hilarious!!! I do love a good argument, especially when people stand up for religion, good on you, I’ll go get the stack of pier reviewed papers that have proved you wrong, and we can begin!!
Love Ricky Gervais! 🙂
Love the seasonal story aspect of this!!
‘Twas the night before rapture & all through the house ….
Come on Ricky give us a story.
I found these rather humourous.
Have you got nothing better to be doing that debating/deriding people over age old pointless bullshit..
You could be doing something constructive with your intellect, raising awareness of real issues rather than batting between polar opposites. Or are you just another instigator of distractions for the profane.
Besides, I thought most wars these days were resource based, usually instigated by the west. When exactly was the last religious war (and if you say Palestine/Israel then you are a double failure)
Palestine/Israel
Didn’t think my comments would make it lol…
Speak volumes indeed. Only mild criticism allowed eh..
I think they call that sycophancy
I am in fact god and must say, these tweets are funny as shit. But I am also vengeful, BURN RICKY BURN, I COMMAND THEE!
I am in fact god and I must say, these tweets are funny as shit. But I am also vengeful, BURN RICKY BURN, I COMMAND THEE!
Yes, it goes for ALL religions. Are you suggesting that insults against a religion might be met with violence from it’s believers? Surely your “god” can defend itself, being all-powerfuland all…? Have some Faith.
It seems that being religious removes your sense of humor and ability to find jokes about your belief funny. I am an atheist, I think its funny how people believe I am going to “Hell” 😉
It goes for all religions you muppet
I know your a comedian and trying to be funny… it’s just I didn’t laugh once???
I think it would only appeal to someone who has been hurt or burned by some religious people? In that case bitterness/hatred wrapped up like comedy is just weak????
I don’t know your past eperiences but you seem totally fixated on this god character?
yes I would like to know if this is the Islamic god?
It’s true what he says though… And if you believe in god ‘just incase it is true’ then you are wasting your one and only LIFE that you get. This also applies to Islam and the 10,000 other ‘gods’ out there.
Can’t fault his logic. Would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. All religions are equally nonsensical.
G wizz RG you are like a 4 year old that doesn’t want to go to church… Problem is “on ones death bed those jokes might just take on a worrying tone!!
even though i don’t believe in god i find this very insulting and if i find it insulting think about the people who do believe in god
There is nothing smart about self righteous judgement, doubt, sarcasm and mockery.
Ricky pretty well nails it.
Genius!!!
Why do Aethiests feel they have to be so zealous in their beliefs? I see so many posts on Facebook/tweets on twitter expressing views on religion, all from people who supposedly don’t believe that God exists and therefore shouldn’t really care. I’m not religious myself, but don’t feel the need to express this fact to complete strangers.
‘Why do Aethiests feel they have to be so zealous in their beliefs?’
you’ve gotta be fucking kidding right? yeah im surecathiests are the ones who push their belief onto others and wont accept any other explaination for life EVER.
also- if there is a heaven and a hell id much rather be in hell with all the cool ppl. heaven will just be full of snobby religious idiots going ‘I told you so’
I was visited by a (member of undisclosed religious sect) once. When I told him I was in fact an atheist, his eyes lit up and he handed me a magazine, along with the exclamation that it was “something I needed to read!”. The cover of this mag depicted several masked men throwing molatov cocktails at a church, replete with a cowering religious congregation. The title stated “Is Atheism Evil?”, and the accompanying article decided yes, in fact it was. Now I respect the need for religion and would not mock for the sake of venting, it helps people cope with life and death. All the same his promised follow up visit was met with quite some abuse, and from what I can gather Mr Gervais has in fact been met with similar fascism disguised as religion in his career – perhaps he feels he has a right to be outspoken. No surprise that most organised religions would almost certainly set their self against that principle, at least in these examples, or else the concept of organised religion is moot. Follow blindly or your following is without value…
Lol. I love it when people get mocked for their religion, race, gender and sexual orientation, it’s such a clever way of making comedy.
If you find it offensive when people say religion is stupid or make jokes about slavery and make homophobic comments then you just can’t take a joke.
Plus It’s extra funny when you make jokes about religious people being intolerant when you yourself are really really tolerant of their beliefs.
#Yolo
It’s extra clever to stereotype the few and apply it to the many. That’s really intelligent.
Word I agree Sam, I dont know why all these people seem to have a heart of bitterness and hatred… cant be a healthy place to live in though…
Religion doesn’t deserve tolerance by default. It’s a club you belong to. A club of made up stuff. Race, gender, sexual orientation aren’t things you choose, they’re who you are, and by default intolerance towards them equals oppression. No one is born religious.
Obviously the existence of god is bollocks (I know that because I’m not a big daft twat or a 5 year old) but I am interested in hell. I mean in theory, could a Christian convert, just before death and get a transfer (via his/her new religion) to a none-Christian hell? They should think about it because my guess is that the Muslim hell would be full of stuff Muslims don’t like but we do – stuff like bacon and sausages and immodest bra-less women in mini-skirts. Plus there’d be porn. You get my drift? If I was a Christian ‘sinner’ who believed in all that shite, I’d be looking at what’s on offer in other hells.
A virgin gives birth to a male child; a winged horse descends from the sky, scoops up mohammed and off they go to paradise (that’s a suburb of Adelaide, by the way); the celestial tea-cup, orbiting just beyond Pluto or wherever, controls all; what next…?
Do you believe or have ever had a spiritual experience?
I’m partial to a 16 year old scotch.
Yeah same, plus I like red wine and Vodka lime and soda, but have you ever travelled and lived outside of the western world? you know roughly the other 85% of the world? PNG? Africa? its only the West.. that seem to think the spiritual world doesn’t exist?
That doesn’t mean they’re right, Anna.
Primitive cultures (like most of humanity) will always look to mysticism to explain things they don’t have any other way of understanding.
I agree that majority doesn’t always mean that it’s right, but spiritual things happening is commonplace in these societies.. if you did happen to have a spiritual encounter (if you haven’t already) would you be open to different ideas?
Been to a few places outside the “Western World” back in the early 70s. – nothing to sway me. What was really scary was the good ol’ US of A and the number of people who couldn’t get their heads around the fact of evolution. If by ‘spiritual’ you mean do I get a buzz when I see a spider shed its skin or watch as a chicken cracks its way out of the egg or I lay on my lawn at night in the height of summer and lose myself in the magic of the Milky Way and the Southern Cross, then, yes, I’ve had many a ‘spiritual’ experience – all involving nature but nothing supernatural.
Hey,
I completely agree with you on the buzz you get from nature, it does evoke wonder and emotion in me too.
I am talking about the supernatural if you call it that also can be described by the Oxford English Dic as – ‘non-material, intangible, other-worldly, unworldly, ethereal; transcendent, metaphysical
• rare extramundane, immaterial
the spiritual dimension of human experience’
I personally have had ‘supernatural’ experiences and so have many people in the world, which makes it extremely hard not to believe…
Yeah but what sort of drugs were you on? Do Father Christmas , the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny belong in the realm of ‘Supernatural’? Children are taught (nay, brainwashed) into believing they exist but when children realise that there is not a skerrick of evidence to support the existence of these entities they soon discount them for what they are – fairytales.
lol having experimented with drugs I def know the feeling of that experience 🙂 yes I believe in this world there are fairytales for children, in the movies true stories and make believe, but I’m talking about a spiritual encounter not Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy…
for example in Africa there are people who practice black magic… and can do some pretty out there stuff…I’m not saying its good at all, but I’m just giving you example of the spiritual world…
Voodoo is merely mental, hardly ‘spiritual’. Let’s just leave it at that, if it’s ok with you.
Anna, of course I’d be open to new ideas/experiences. But first, you have to define what the hell you mean by spiritual, ad demonstrate that it is in fact supernatural and not explainable in completely naturalistic laws.
I have ha extremely profound experiences in my life, with psychedelics, and just being awestruck by the natural world. So far science is way more profound than any made up spirituality.
Hey Justin,
sorry thought I was relpying to your comment but replied on the comment above ^^…
Claims of the supernatural are consistently debunked whenever put to the test. There is still no evidence for any black magic, only anecdote. I’m not saying all claims are lies, although some are, and some are merely people who have been duped. James Randi has travelled the world for years offering a million dollars to the first person who can prove a supernatural power/magic/psychic ability. I don’t care a shred for people’s personal claims of spiritual/supernatural experiences. If it can’t be recreated for demonstration, or doesn’t have clearly documented unbiased witnesses then it’s no better than fiction.
As a classic example of duped, consider the Salem witch trials. Here is a great example of people having “supernatural” experiences, that turned out to be nothing but natural causes. It seems like the supernatural claim is solid because it was so wide spread and happened so long ago, but once investigated it became apparent that something natural was the cause of the hysteria. Ergot poisoning. Ergot is the mould that LSD is made from.
The spiritual journey’s that many tribal/shamanic cultures embark on involve psychedelics like peyote, or datura. Ayahuasca and soma are both spiritual ritual drinks considered to contain DMT.
I took acid and had the most beautiful, completely atheistic trip. I didn’t need to see god, I experienced myself and the natural world around me in a heightened, synaesthetic state, and it was more profound than any spiritual experience could describe. The natural explanations for things are accurate and don’t need to be obscured with mumbo-jumbo/hocus-pocus, or indeed mumbo-pocus.
Why do you think the natural world is so hard for people to accept as it is? I mean, I can understand from a primitive viewpoint, before we as a species developed the ability to really investigate the world, sure, it makes sense to attribute things to deities. Kids do it all the time. Make up characters and imaginary friends to describe their world. Early humans did the same. But as we evolved and created a monotheistic culture, that God became the reason for everything, including the motivation/excuse for people’s actions. Things that did or didn’t happen were part of god’s mysterious will. It’s kind of nice because it shifts the burden of morality and ignorance on to something outside of the situation. It’s “the dog ate my homework” excuse. But as any adult knows, shit like that doesn’t go down well in the adult world. If you don’t grow up and do the work, you’re gonna fall behind. You not gonna get the promotion, the job isn’t going to get done. That’s kinda where we’re at, I think. We’re out in the workforce, doing our best to scientifically understand the natural world. Some of us are coasting through while others cover our lazy arses. We can explain so much, so many things that religions either ignored, overlooked, got wrong, or just couldn’t know about before scientific methods and apparatus developed. Why are so many people happy to live (metaphorically) like lazy high school students? The evidence gives us insight into wondrous things, and people just want it to be God, because then it is God’s problem. Basically, I am getting sick of readying about religious objections to scientific theories, and after a few days involved in several discussions on the topic I need to say, enough is enough. Grow up. Evolve. Stop trying to hold us back. There is no new argument and there’s zero evidence for any/every religion. Don’t bring it up again unless you have something we can use.
You can find a person, website, a group of people to give evidence for any claim, on the internet or in books, I think at the end of the day you have to do your research, which most educated people who believe in something do or have… but I could send you a hundred different links to argue my belief in the spiritual world, but 1. I did not come on here to argue and 2. If you can be argued into something you can be argued out of it too, which makes it well… pointless… because its not about his or hers or this other person’s experience theories though they are good to read… its about YOUR spiritual experience.. as long as you have peace in your heart with what you believe that is all that matters..
Evidence is not anecdote. A story is not evidence, it is assertion, and assertions are meaningless. Evidence is cold hard physical proof of something. If all that matters is your personal spiritual journey, then that’s great and all, but that doesn’t qualify anything. You said spiritual meant supernatural, and there is no evidence of the supernatural. So which is it? Is spirituality just a hippy word for “my opinion” or is it something tangible and significant. Because the former is dumb and the latter is yet to be substantiated.
LOL! The truth is always hilarious! Made my day!
I wonder why Ricky and certain other comedians choose to harp this topic when it will likely cause a significant portion of their potential audience to tune them out.
Steve, they do this because they are people, and as such they are allowed opinions. This informs their POV and worldview…and what they find funny. Ricky (like many of us) finds religion funny. Its effects are somewhat less humorous, but the basic system is funny. I’d say funny as hell, but I don’t believe in that either.
God damn, I love this guy!
I know this is all done in good humour but this is an interesting vid, not fond of any attacking stances but interesting points…https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckfrn5-86xU
This thought really touched my mind “I’ve never been insulted by hateful satanists for not believing in their devil. Only by loving Christians for not believing in their God.” That’s exactly how I feel now. I also found these religious quotes that helped me to overcome these bad feelings http://hardquotes.com/love-quotes/religious-quotes-stronger-faith
These are amazing!
Thought I would add nothing for no apparent reason at all 😀
And not once does he ever mention Islam. What a coward.
Love it! Ricky’s brilliant. Homeopathy however.. well there is proof now; ‘the healing power of water’ book shows how water holds vibrations and changes. It explains that they do have machines to prove this science works, and is already in use. The book tells you what that is etc. its just kept out of the mainstream to keep Big Pharma from competition. 😉
Ive been cured of many serious illnesses, and I didnt believe at the time! placebo doesnt work on animals either, if they dont know they’re being giving it and get well there’s proof as well. Just saying it is sound science.
Ricky Gerbrave faithsmashing the funDIES *tips fedora*
The Greatest Comedy act in the world is Religious belief.
For those that choose to participate in the act remember where are all just plain ordinary Human and there is nothing we can do about it.
Why does anyone take any notice of this sad, old troll? Oh yeah people don’t have lives.