Huh?

But then, if you matter to God he might still allow Satan to kill your family and livestock and smite you with festering sores (a funeral of sores!), just to see if you'll squirm. And his devotees are allowed -- indeed, commanded -- to kill the populations of whole cities, stealing the women and raping the cattle. About all I can find that the devout are NEVER allowed to do is buggery. (Noami and Ruth were apparently all right, though -- I guess, like any straight guy, Yahweh likes to watch girls together.) The rest is situational ethics. So even on their own terms, theists don't have any morality. Except for no buggery -- but aside from that, the sky's the limit.

I disagree with those who claim that only fundamentalists believe that without God you can't have morality; I have no reference to hand, but I'm pretty sure I've read non-fundamentalists who also believed it.

Lighten up Francis. We ALL matter to God. It's just that he's been kind of in a "hands off" mode for 2000 years or so.

Maybe it's a definition: "if you don't matter to God, [by definition] you don't matter to anyone." Then the video kind of makes sense: "if you don't matter to God, you are just a rude little boy who shoots guns at people." There is kind of a rhetorical problem in that case. (But nothing that couldn't be resolved by redefining a few more terms.)

This is characteristic of a new brand of hatred emerging in America that can best be described as Anti-atheism. It is as vile and dangerous as racism, anti-Semitism, and misogyny.

Will, Will, don't be silly. You can't use logic in arguing about god.

Try this one on:

If god exists, then the rules of logic and nature do not apply to god's actions.

Now apply modus tollens.

True. "Because the Bible says so" is a conversation stopper if I ever heard one.

Answer to that: "why should we care if the bible says so?"

"The Christian resolve to find the world evil and ugly has made the world evil and ugly."

If that isn't the most ignorant statement I've ever heard....

Two assumptions based on that video:

1) Humans do not matter by themselves, and that it is God who gives us our inherent value. Therefore atheists or people outside the Christian faith have no value.

2) There is no morality outside of God.

As for number 1, if people outside of the faith do not matter to God, then the coming of Jesus Christ as described in the Bible was unnecessary. Had sinners and outsiders not mattered, God would not have felt the need to save them. Second, if a Chrisitian does not care about the outsiders in some form of fashion, he/she is simply ignoring one of the most important teachings of JC.

As for number two, there are no statistics out there that I am aware of (credible ones, of course) that prove a higher rate of crimes in the atheist population than in the religious population.

There are so many good arguments against the Christian worldview, why make such a bad one?

Also, it wasn't an argument against the Christian worldview. It was an argument against the argument that "If you don't matter to God, you don't matter to anyone." Not mattering to anyone isn't a fault on the godless, it's the fault of Christians for not caring for that person.

I'm still learning, friend. Give me some room or either respond with your own better arguments.

That's pretty repugnant, but not as repugnant as the Old Testament. Or the New one.

what exactly is repugnant about the New Testament...i mean, i can kinda see a point with the Old Testament (though not really)... but honestly, Christian or not, who can find fault with the moral teachings of the New Testament?

No one has mentioned the gun yet. What? "If you don't matter to God, you should just die, and we'll get a rugged 14-year-old blonde boy to shoot you with a pistol?"

I think you missed the point... "If you don't matter to God" (ironic because everyone matters to God whether you believe in Him or not) is a symbol for the belief that God doesn't exist (don't confuse it with a claim that atheists don't matter to God because thats not what it's getting at) and thus, if such is the case, then by default "you won't matter to anyone"... Because without God, where does morality come from? Isn't murder, genocide and even the holocaust just survival of the fittest?

It's not murder if it's in the name of God.

(Need I add sarcasm quotes here?)

So there's a couple billion Christians or something. One of them makes a silly youtube video and this is suppose to say what about Christianity?

In my experience, the formulation "there is no real morality without God" (or something very close to it) is a pretty widely-held conviction among Christians, especially those of the evangelical variety. No?

If not from God, then where does morality come from? And if it is just a fabricated human conception, then why does anything anyone does (murder included), REALLY matter?

So there's a couple billion Christians or something. One of them makes a silly youtube video and this is suppose to say what about Christianity? If we make judgments about groups using the actions of their craziest member, none of them would look very sane.

Ron Paul anyone?

If your point was to find crazy videos on youtube, then you could do a much better job.

BTW, from the GSS, those that have strong beliefs about God (believers or atheists) are less likely to have self reported mental illness. Those that take the bible literally report about a quarter less mental illness than those that think the bible is "a book of fables".

Note the difference between the word "Christianity" and "Christianism" (or for that matter "Christian" and "Christianist"). If we switch religions, we're looking at "Islam" vs. "Islamism" and "Muslim" vs. "Islamist".

Also, given the AiG logo, I would say that this video was produced by a prominent group of Christianists, not a lone Christianist.

What sense is that?

To me, it's saying:

If you're stupid enough to think this is a compelling argument, then we want you on our mailing list.

You could still matter to someone but not matter to God.

The statement doesn't admit any valid inferences about the class of people who DO matter to someone. It's conceivable that no one matters to God, for just one possibility.

Also, (I think) this video seems comprehensible, although I believe it says something I don't agree with: If we were all atheists, then you'd be shot by random kids, because There Is No Morality Without God.

Oh wait, I goofed. You're right on the inference. But I still think the video makes sense, in its own very twisted way.