Keane "Pagans are idiots" (atheist, religion)

[MaddLlama]

I don't know if Keane actually made the video, or if someone else did with his audio. But, whoever made the video was certainly...well...misinformed.

[robtex]

Originally Posted by MaddLlama

I don't know if Keane actually made the video, or if someone else did with his audio. But, whoever made the video was certainly...well...misinformed.

Brett did make the video. He makes all of his videos and they are under his profile. He is on a mission to show the short comings of Christianty. I have watched about a dozen of them. He is a de-converted evangelical Christian.

[MaddLlama]

Originally Posted by robtex

Brett did make the video. He makes all of his videos and they are under his profile. He is on a mission to show the short comings of Christianty. I have watched about a dozen of them. He is a de-converted evangelical Christian.

Ok, I believe you. =) I don't much pay attention to youtube, so I didn't even think to look at the username it was under.

He seems to be misinformed about a lot of things, I noticed, in watching some of his other videos. I got particular amusement out of his little thing on the pronounciation of "Jesus" (apprently the greeks pronounced it like the Mexicans - hey-suus, which sounds similar to "hey, Zeus", therefore Jesus never existed). If he was a Christian before, he must have been a stupid one.
It's obvious that he didn't go out of his way to find mature, knowledgable Pagans for this "study" he was doing. I think he does what a lot of Christians do - he went into his "study" with a preconcieved notion of the immaturity of Pagans and cherry picked his subjects to fit with his views. It's incredibly easy to find some goth teenager hanging out in front of Hot Topic at the mall who will tell you why she thinks The Morrighan is so cool, but it actually takes effort to find people who take thier religious seriously and know what they're talking about. Same thing with Christianity, it's easy to find an extremeist, but not as easy to find someone who's normal. It'salso not that easy to find someone who is interested in talking to a complete stranger about thier religion.
Does the fact that this fad-type attitude is so prominent in Paganism say something bag about it? Not really. I think it just says that Paganism offers something that other faiths don't, and teenagers who are confused, or rebelling have an easy time latching onto it. People forget that as a teenager you think you know everything, but you really don't, and nothing is really all that serious.
Keane is just like a teenager, actually - he's angry, insecure, and thinks he knows everything about religion. Clearly, he doesn't know much of anything on the subject.

Heh, you know you're a smart and influential public speaker when your greatest work of intelligence can only be found on YouTube.

[Radio Frequency X]

Originally Posted by MaddLlama

According to some atheist who apparently thinks all Pagans are stupid, worthless hippies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEjk1Ruu2FQ

Some pagans are stupid hippies, but most are not.

[Mike182]

wow, youtube is difficult to post a thesis on

you can only post 3 comments at a time, here is what i'm posting on there for the guy who posted that to respond to.

Originally Posted by Me

1) there are a lot of what i call "fluffy bunnies" in the pagan religion, but if you actually look for a decent, established group, instead of people on the street, you will have better luck in your study of religion.

2) a lot of Pagans do not use illegal drugs - i myself being Pagan do not.

3) we don't contribute to society? we do our jobs, pay our taxes, keep our families, vote, what more are we obliged to do? form political parties? why? why is forming a politcal party a requirement for a religion to be valid? that point was bull.

4) candles? a lot of eastern religions use candles and incense, they are aids in meditative states - besides, how is the usage of candles a criticism of a religion? as a student of religious studies you should start to take a more empathic approach.

5) Pagan is an umbrella term for a variety of beliefs - Hinduism has a bigger variety of beliefs than Paganism does, you're not calling them idiots. most Pagans understand their personal beliefs and traditions, but not other traditions - why should i as a pagan study a tradition i'm not involved in?

6) Pagans attacked your respectful questions? from the sounds of it, i don't know what exact questions you asked, but it sounds like you heavily implied from your observations that they are just rebellious kids, and not at all serious about their religion - that would inflame me, perhaps you should concider this and attempt another study.

7) i have no objections to you asking "hard questions", the world needs skeptics and critics.

8) i completely agree with you that Christianity plagerised a lot of Paganism, but i would ask you not present Paganism as being basically Christianity because there are key differences - without going into massive detail on what i thought would be obvious, Christianity has One Triune God, Paganism can be Polytheistic or Pantheistic.

9) i didn't understand what you were getting at with your "i'm an atheist, so i can buy a car" argument... were you saying that because you are a skeptic, you aren't going to be suckered in by liers etc? if so, are you then saying that Pagans are naive and will accept anything? if so, i know a lot of Pagans who are down to earth, intelligent, skeptical individuals, my personal experiences and knowledge contradicts this point, if that was indeed the point you were making.

if you actually read this and think about it, thanks.

Mike - Pagan.

[sparc872]

Man oh man, it's people like this guy that give atheists a bad rap. I found it pretty hard to listen to the ignorance he was spouting off.

[BFD_Zayl]

*sigh* this is the third time this week my blood as felt like fire, c'mon people i don't have enough meds for this...and just alittle thing for Keane...GOTHS ARE NOT PAGANS YOU IGNORANT INEPTUS!!! *cough* ok im done....btw ineptus means fool in latin, just so ya know

[Mike182]

Originally Posted by BFD_Zayl

*sigh* this is the third time this week my blood as felt like fire, c'mon people i don't have enough meds for this...and just alittle thing for Keane...GOTHS ARE NOT PAGANS YOU IGNORANT INEPTUS!!! *cough* ok im done....btw ineptus means fool in latin, just so ya know

the only possible connection between Goth culture and Paganism is that Goths are more open minded towards Paganism and the Occult than any other group, so a lot of people identify as both Pagan and Goth... but one does not necessitate the other, i too wish people would get that into their heads some times.