Hey, everyone! I meant to mention in the video that I realize Mohammad is muslim. However, here, he is talking about atheism in general so I borrowed it for our purposes. Though most of what i say applies to both. Thanks for being here!

@patobrien235

8 ай бұрын

No need to apologise, all religions are the same, Fake

@derekallen4568

8 ай бұрын

I loved the point you made about the pilot of the plane going down. They will never throw their hands up in the air and start praying. They'll try everything to restart the engines or get the plane out the stall or nose dive. The last thing on their mind will be prayer. A surgeon operating on a patient, who goes into cardiac arrest or starts hemorrhaging, will try everything except prayer to save their patient. Only the people who have no control over the situation will pray.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

yes, i think its quite telling.@@derekallen4568

@danieltempas6062

8 ай бұрын

No worries, you’re good.

@jojobizarrelivingstone594

8 ай бұрын

No way this dude said that athiests aren't in falling planes 😂 what do we have a sixth sense now apparently?

I was 17 years old when I experienced a school shooting. I hadn't been going through my deconversion process for very long at that point, and I was obviously quite young, so I was a likely candidate to have one of those "return to god when faced with death" moments. After hearing the gunshots and seeing students running by my classroom, the fear kicked in and the only thing on my mind was animalistic panic. I tucked in against the wall and waited helplessly, not knowing if my classroom would be the shooter's next stop. After a few minutes, the thought of praying did pop into my head. Even in that moment, the most traumatic moment of my life, I didn't pray. The idea of praying and my decision not to do so happened within a few seconds, I didn't agonize over whether or not I should follow through. The conditioned response popped into my mind, and I immediately realized that prayer would do nothing to change the circumstance I was in. I began mentally preparing myself to fight if the shooter entered my classroom, something I would not have been prepared for if I spent that time praying instead. The shooter ran out of the building shortly after he fired off his shots, and thankfully no one was fatally injured. Every person in the building that day was traumatized for life, but we all survived. Healing trauma without god can be difficult, but I feel like it is more genuine healing. Instead of having a one-sided conversation with someone who has never shown me that they are there, I learned about how trauma impacts the brain and scientifically-backed methods of treatment. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work, but at least the results are real and measurable rather than based in self-delusion.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thank you so much for sharing. These points are so good and important!

@leslieyancey5084

8 ай бұрын

Wow… I’m so sorry you went through that. Can’t even imagine how terrifying that must’ve been for you! I like what you said about prayer being a conditioned response to fear. Right after my deconversion, I had a panic attack and my first response was to pray because that’s what I’d always done. That’s when I realized that prayer was just a crutch, and I didn’t need it anymore!

@annemurphy8074

8 ай бұрын

Very well said! Thanks for sharing and trauma like you described is brutal to go through but healing is possible and as you said, it is very hard work. I know this from personal experience too.

@Djax111

8 ай бұрын

Incredible story, and I am thankful you and everyone else were able to walk away from that. Thanks for sharing

@Bugg...0_o

8 ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing such a traumatic event. While nowhere nearly as horrific, I, too, was a teenager when I found myself in a situation where I was facing death. (If you don't mind, I will go into detail on the off chance hearing my situation could save someone's life if they find themselves in a similar situation.) I was mostly agnostic at the time, with perhaps some lingering belief on occasion. I had been floating down the river on a tube (it's a thing that Southerners do because we have f■ck all else to do down here), and there was a small waterfall across the river. I had went over it before, but the dam lets out water sometimes, plus just differences in the water levels due to rain, made it a bit different each time. This time, as I went over, the tube slipped out in front of me and I went feet over head into a roll as I went over. It was a small waterfall, but there is something called a plunge pool that is formed below them where the water eats away at the rock right below them and the boulders get pushed forward, creating a pocket where on 3 sides you have rocks and stone, and straight up you have the weight of a river trying to force you back down (moving from side to side wouldn't work because the falls went the width of the river. Maybe I could have found a weaker spot that way, but I didn't think about that, and it's a risk of making things worse, not that I could really tell which way was any direction!) No matter how hard I pushed off the rocks I was slammed back to the bottom of the plunge pool. After probably only about a minute of this (it felt like an eternity) I came to the realization that I was going to die. I knew in that moment there was nothing else I could do (I was sort of right), and there was no point fighting. I felt a sense of calm and relaxed my body waiting for the inevitable...... and because I was no longer trying to fight a literal force of nature, relaxing my body meant that the water could just spin me around a few times and pop me out! (I doubt this would happen every time, but I think it's the most likely way a person could survive. ) I think about my response though. How much stronger my faith would have been had I been a believer, and instead of calmly accepting the inevitable, I had spent those moments praying, only then to be "miraculously" spat out to safety (because like what happened irl, I would have relaxed and had the same result.) It could have been the atheist turning to God salvation story I told at church on Sundays from the pulpit for all I know. So in this instance I'm really grateful that I didn't throw up that hail Mary that Brandon speaks about in this video. I also wanted to add here that it's kind of an interesting juxtaposition with your story. Mine was just luck that prayer would have had the same effect that a calm acceptance of my death would have, while in your situation it could have actually made it more likely that you wouldn't have survived. (☆I have more to say about this below. ) So when taken together, when the believer says "Well you stand to lose nothing by giving it a shot", that's clearly untrue, much like Pascal's wager. ☆ I'm separating this out because it's more of a personal comment and less on topic. I just wanted to say I'm so angry for what you had to go through. As a parent, I have imagined my child in your situation many times. Her school has had several lockdowns from threats (the whole school system gets locked down even if it's the highschool that gets the threat, so starting in 2nd grade she's been through about 4 so far. She's in 4th now.) Even before her first lockdown they did drills, which are scary enough for a neurotypicial child, but she is, idk how they word it nowadays, but they used to say high functioning or mildly autistic, both of which I know have fallen out of use because they aren't exactly accurate, but you get a clearer picture of what she is like by the description. Also she is extremely intelligent, which makes things harder for her because she has peiced things together on her own that her peers haven't even considered. Plus, being liberals in a heavily conservative area, I have had to be brutally honest about many things before I wish I had to have been, for our own safety. And facing a global pandemic as a disabled person in poor health, I was extraordinarily lucky to survive, and knew I would be if I did, so again I had to have frank discussions of things with her before I wanted to in case I didn't survive and she had to go live with conservative relatives. And again, because I don't lie to her (even though if I can I try to minimize the torrent of horror that is every new day it seems like anymore), I don't try to hide the truth from her that her generation has been given a raw deal all around when it comes to economics, the climate crisis, and rising authoritarianism, etc., all of which are going to screw them over the most. (I try to address these concerns honestly, but if possible round off the sharpest edges, and not go into gory detail if possible, but when pressed I am honest, even if on occasion my answer has to be "that's something we are going to have to wait a while before getting into." ) And I somehow have to try to instill a sense of hope and willingness to fight back, and help her learn to cope with the anxiety all of this causes. But the choice is that, or try to shelter her from the truth, but that means I'm not talking out strategies to survive if a shooter does come, and while I've told her statistically it's very improbable that it would happen at her school, and less so that she would be a victim, the risk is still there, and thinking about it ahead of time offers her the best chance of coming home, so we have to discuss it. She was the one bringing it up even, because she had concerns about what she saw in the school's plans and layout (issues with windows and doors, plus kids being too loud during the lockdown.) I'm angry for you that, at a time you were supposed to be carefree, you were instead given a traumatic experience that will affect the rest of your life in one way or another. I'm angry for all of the kids like mine that are having their innocence stolen because it's just not possible in a world like we have now. And if there is a God (🙄 doubtful), God help those who are responsible for this, because I can only imagine the hell there will be to pay when my kid's generation grows up, because I suspect a reckoning is coming. I suspect they know this as well, which is why they are losing their minds trying to find ways to avert it, so I guess that's one reason to have hope.

He lost me at, "Let's get real, because the truth of the matter is this, I personally believe-"

How nice of him to acknowledge that it would take a crisis impairing my judgment, to make it more likely to appeal to God. I find it odd that he considers this to be an argument in favor of his religion. Him telling us to get real, is pegging the irony meter.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

agreed! i was surprised how bad this 1 minute argument was.

@bpnation37

8 ай бұрын

The meter is broken beyond repair

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Ive seen a few comments but not much. Maybe he is using another account as theres still a few good trolls

@user-ki1ty5xg9z

8 ай бұрын

I often take issue with Hijab's approach and arguments. But, to be fair, he was asked to make a _one-minute_ pitch. It's difficult to make a "rational" or "philosophical" argument in that amount of time, so he proposed a thought experiment concerning immediate existential crisis. And so the questions become: What would you do when faced with the sudden, unexpected, unavoidable prospect of death? What does your reaction reveal about your _true_ approach to life?

@stevewebber707

8 ай бұрын

@@user-ki1ty5xg9z He didn't propose a thought experiment. He posed a scenario, than made unfounded claims about what would happen, leading to an unwarranted conclusion. Experiments involve testing a hypothesis, which was entirely absent. Making assertions about a hypothetical scenario, is not a thought experiment. I don't think a thought experiment on what we would do when faced with imminent death can make for a good thought experiment. That's not the sort of question that can be answered absent the actual experience. That said, I have heard a number of people recounting of their firmly remaining atheists throughout "foxhole" experiences. And as I alluded to in my first comment, what could be demonstrated at all? At best that a mind under extreme stress isn't going to be as rational. That he wants to appeal to conclusions drawn in an irrational state, tends to imply that he wants people to believe for irrational reasons. I agree that a one minute pitch isn't much time to make a strong argument, but who exactly constrained them to do 1 minute pitches?

"Any single person who says they KNOW what happens to a human being after they die is either a liar or a fool." - Unknown (attributed to several)

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

One of the only things that can be known is that there are many things we cannot know.

@dinard38

8 ай бұрын

To me it’s the height of arrogance when someone thinks that they know the mysteries of the universe. How the universe came to be (god spoke it into existence), what happens after death (we end up in heaven or hell for eternity). I believe that, in ancient times long before science, humans feared death. The idea that they would no longer exist probably terrified them. So someone started inventing stories about an afterlife. “No no! We will exist, but just in another form in another realm where we will dance in the beautiful meadows with our loved ones and eat nuts and berries forever.” Once those beliefs started taking off, others realized they could use it for control. “Yes yes. This is all true. HOWEVER! There are certain rules you have to follow while you live and only I know these rules.” Thus religion was born. 😉

@lancethrustworthy

7 ай бұрын

Somebody said religion began when an idiot met a con man. I think it was Clemens/Twain @@dinard38

My big problem with his argument, that isn’t pointed out enough when theists do this, is that he’s putting words in our mouths and telling us what we believe rather than asking us what we believe and giving us the benefit of the doubt that we’re being honest. They don’t just do this to atheists, they do this to anyone who doesn’t believe what they believe. Like telling Helenists that they don’t actually worship the gods of Olympus, they worship the monotheists most convenient boogie man; the devil. Or telling Orthodox Christians that they are worshiping the paintings in their church. Or telling Catholics that they don’t actually worship Jesus, they’re secret pagans. It’s a lying, intellectually dishonest, manipulative move to tell people what they believe, lying by putting words in their mouths. If he were to ask me what I would do in that situation, and have done when I thought I would die, I would tell him that as a secular Stoic I simply accept the fact that I will die. I firmly believe that when we die we experience what I romantically call “The Eternal Sleep”; a loss of consciousness akin to the deepest most dreamless sleep you can experience as the processes that give rise to your core consciousness and personality stop when the processes responsible for life stop. He can manipulatively scoff at this idea and use his imagination to make up counter arguments, but it doesn’t change the fact that I disproved his argument. I proved that I don’t believe what he says I believe, which is the crux of his argument. Whatever criticism anyone has of my beliefs, it doesn’t change the fact that it is what I believe and that I don’t believe the horse crap that people like him say I believe. Oh, and I AM a soldier. So they can take those “no atheists in foxholes” argument and shove it. Death is a natural consequence of life stopping, not a punishment or reward for our faith or deeds in life.

@pansepot1490

8 ай бұрын

There’s ONLY atheists in foxholes. Why should people try their best to avoid a quick entrance into heaven if they truly believed that’s where they are going?

@uknowme1811

8 ай бұрын

But of course, silly you. The Theist knows you better than yourself.

@nickshaw6085

8 ай бұрын

Thx for your service!

@harrynyirenda284

8 ай бұрын

Indeed, there is no reward nor punishment when we die

@drewj4297

8 ай бұрын

As I see it, I’ve already been dead for an eternity. I didn’t even notice. After this life, I’ll have the same experience

I was recently in the emergency room and needed immediate surgery. It was abnormally busy so I was on a waitlist - a very long waitlist. I prayed to the gods, this time specifically Brigid, as my wife is Irish. I prayed for peace for my wife and daughters as they were scared, for skill and protection for the doctors and nurses as they worked on those ahead of me, for the other patients to be safe and well, and yes, for myself. I'm fine. The surgery went well. I was moved up on the waitlist due to my situation. The doctors and nurses were professional, compassionate, and dedicated to their craft. I suppose Mr. Hijab now needs to convert to Celtic Paganism and light a candle every morning to the Goddess of Healing. He is more than welcome to the Winter Solstice festival, too - I bake cookies, so there's that.

I do not say this lightly, you have some of the most easy to digest, insightful videos I have ever seen. I have spent over a decade going from True Believer, to liberal Christian, to skeptic, to hard atheist. I have so many creators and scholars to thank for that. But the videos you have put out are the strongest cases I could take to a believer to challenge them and get them to think deeper about the problems in their beliefs. Thank you so much for all that you do. I hope this channel continues to grow exponentially, bringing truth to as many people as possible.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thank you! that is so lovely to hear. All I want is to be able to effectively reach people who are like I was and ease their religious harm. I appreciate this!

@2msystems740

8 ай бұрын

Cannot agree more.

@user-lc9tk1yd9y

8 ай бұрын

I agree.

@jackwhite8238

8 ай бұрын

Dude is a undercover genius really? Don’t let your head get big B. Lol

@VioletWonders

8 ай бұрын

Agree 100%!!

A situation like this actually made me realize that I`m an atheist. 11 years ago I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The night before my brain surgery I was standing outside the hospital smoking a cigarette when I thought, is this when I`m supposed to pray to god and beg for my life? The idea of it made me feel like a coward and a hypocrite, almost a little angry too. I said to my self, magic and fantasy? You have got to be kidding me! Then I thought, well, you can`t get much more atheist than this. Have called myself that ever since. I think the nose diving plane would be pretty similar for me

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

thats really interesting. thanks for sharing. So glad you are still here!

When I was a flight attendant we had an emergency situation requiring us to prepare passengers for a possible crash landing (a huge Boeing 767 with about 200 passengers and 11 crew members). Our excellent training kicked in we prepared our passengers in the brace position, strapped into our jump seats and expected the worst. A lot of emergency vehicles lined the runway ready to put out the expected fire and rescue the injured. Thankfully our skilled captain landed the plane without incident. I was a believer then but, thoughts of a god never entered my mind. A mental review of emergency procedures were running through my head. I was doing my job. I did not call on what I now believe to be an imaginary deity who could help no one. No hypothetical situation here - this was the real thing.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing! yes, there are so many examples out there of his claims simply being not true!

@DennisMSulliva

8 ай бұрын

Kudos to you.

@EchoS1x

8 ай бұрын

Isn't it great what training can do for you? I was in a profession where I was put in really dangerous situations. I relied on my training and experience. Not on invisible sky person.

@manarcabrera2528

8 ай бұрын

The invisible god would do nothing in the event of tragic event. I was in tower 1 on 9/11. It was my quick thinking that got me and my friends out to safety not the invisible god.

@DennisMSulliva

8 ай бұрын

@@manarcabrera2528 i am glad you escaped. You know the saying? With applied science, we make jet planes. and big buildings. With applied religion, they crash the planes into buildings.

Four preachers are on sabbatical and sharing a hotel room. They're sitting around talking and one preacher says: "Brothers, there is a matter that I feel very badly about, and I would like to confess, that sometimes I have lustful thoughts." After a moment, another preacher says,"Well Brothers, I too have a slight infirmaty, sometimes I take a sip from a bottle I have hidden in my desk." A few seconds later, another preacher says," Sometimes I get into the tithes and take a bit more than I should." So all eyes are on the fourth preacher. He gets up, puts on his coat and heads for the door. The first preacher says, "Don't you have a little imperfection that you would like to share?" "I'm a Gossip, and I got to go."

As an atheist if I was going down in a plane I would call my family and spend my last moments telling them how much I loved them. My family was always there during the hard times and showed me love. A god was never there when I needed it most. So if a god doesn't get my attention in my last minutes it should understand that it reaps what it sows.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Love this answer!

@BluStarGalaxy

8 ай бұрын

Thanks for the response! @@MindShift-Brandon

So his argument is: “people driven by emotions and stress do stupid things therefore there’s God!” Great argument actually! It’s just that it helps to make a slightly different point obvious: not all beliefs are true and people sometimes believe in stupid BS…

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

yup, he's doing our work for us today.

It's no use asking apologists to stop using those tired, futile arguments - that's all they've got.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

for sure, its more for the listener on the fence. I do not expect Mohammad to change his ways lol.

Brandon, you should create a “But I Digress” hall of fame compilation. The two minutes prior to that is your most impassioned arguments...and creates the highest level of apologetic discomfort. 😆

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

ha, thank you so much. I am not sure I could stand to go back and watch the last 100 videos to compile it. Maybe someday someone can do it for me lol. thank you!

@ahsokaventriss3268

8 ай бұрын

Yes, please! Brandon, @mindshift, this is a FANTASTIC idea!

@ahsokaventriss3268

8 ай бұрын

@MindshiftSkeptic lemme learn some editing skills, and I will be happy to do it! Gimme a few weeks!

Yo, ex-Muslim here. I want to add some insight. At least in my branch of Islam there is this doctrine that everyone on this planet KNOWS that islam is the truth, they're just too proud. There is also this belief that everyone who ever lived had a chance to know about the truth. They say, "if they wanted to become Muslim, God would tell them about Islam". Like let me get this straight, I'm supposed to want to join Islam even if I've never heard of it?

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thanks for the added context. I am aware of this idea, and it is as silly as the rest of religions ideas. Just making things up inside the religion to protect it from scrutiny.

@miguelatkinson

8 ай бұрын

@jashindisciple8512 wait am interested what's the name of that doctrine

@jashinsdisciple8512

8 ай бұрын

@@miguelatkinson if you're asking about the sect then its wahhabist but the name of the doctrine is a whole is Islam

@cygnustsp

8 ай бұрын

Old school Jehovah's Witness literature used to claim that Christendom knew that Jesus returned invisibly in 1914 and established his kingdom at that time but were too proud and arrogant to admit it, putting their faith in men instead of Jesus, and that would mean their destruction at the hands of the United Nations and eventually by Jesus himself. It's absolute insanity but there are a lot of people here in late 2023 who think the whole world is lying and the earth is actually flat with a domed container. They seriously believe rockets cannot work in outer space, which is faked, all in San attempt to mislead people from believing the earth is God's special creation and there's no such thing as galaxies or exoplanets and that nobody knows what stars, or even our sun is and everything revolves around us because the Bible says the earth is motionless. After all it was god stopped the sun and moon, not stopped the earth from rotating. I can almost kind of get the "vaccines are bad" thing, or false flag operations people but the god must exist thing is quite insane to me.

@thedeebo410

8 ай бұрын

Islamic apologetics are hilariously incompetent. At least Christians have had to dress their arguments up with fancy-sounding names, but Islamic apologetics are basically just the examples of fallacious reasoning ripped right out of a textbook. "Everyone already agrees with me really, so nyeh nyeh" is so infantile that I'm amazed when a fully grown adult says it. It's some hard core copium for sure.

From a Simpsons cartoon: Homer is in a life threatening situation. He begins to to pray. "I've never believed in you before, but if you do exist, please save me Superman!"

@bubbafowpend9943

8 ай бұрын

I also appreciate his, "Jesus, allah, buddha... I love you al!" and the timeless, "save me jebus!"

What do the feminists have to do with that? How he combined the two in one sylogism is beyond me 😄

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

I know, I had to just skip over it to stay on topic, but was hard not to make it a side point.

@riluna3695

8 ай бұрын

The steel-man argument I came up with while trying to figure that out was that a man-hating feminist (as opposed to equalists) would in a time of war, alongside other men, be forced to set aside their distaste to survive, and in the process may find that some men are reliable in a pinch and can overall be good people. I certainly hope he meant that, rather than the gross alternative that "women will find that they need to rely on men because they're not strong enough to save themselves", but....considering how Islamic countries typically view women, I think my steelman might be the real strawman D:

@ianchisholm5756

8 ай бұрын

@@riluna3695 His argument is 'you believe what I believe.' This applies both to his views on God and on women. Mohammed Hijab *knows* that the Quran is absolutely correct when it says that everyone believes in Allah and that women are the property of men.

@Nancy20012

8 ай бұрын

@@riluna3695 I think it's likely the latter considering how he views women ..

@TheHeavyshadow

8 ай бұрын

@@riluna3695 Oh, that's also an interesting idea. My understanding was something along the lines of "You claim to be a feminist, yet you would shoot at a female enemy combatant!"

I was once presented with the "If you're in the middle of the ocean" scenario. My answer was "A drowning man clutches at straws."

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Perfect

@chrisgrill6302

8 ай бұрын

I've been at sea in a small open sailing boat and got hit by a squall, blown closer and closer to a reef with huge waves breaking over it. I was only about 20 meters away when the squall passed and I was able to regain control. Utterly terrifying but prayer never even occurred to me.

This reminds of the moment in "The Simpsons" movie; an alien ship lands is plain sight of everyone, all the people in church run across the street to the bar, and all the people in the bar run across the street to the church.

It is not only thoroughly enjoyable to listen to your voice of reason, it's absolutely fantastic to learn skepticism from you and what it means. I heard the "there are no atheists in a foxhole" argument a million times but never put this much thought into it. You broke it down so naturally, so easily, so logically. I'd say thank God for your channel, but I'd rather thank you... so, thank you for putting in the time and making the effort. We, random strangers on the internet, truly appreciate this!

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thank you so much for this very kind comment!

So I have a rather traumatic past, and have almost died 3 times. I’ve also saved 52 people from overdose, seen people shot, seen people die, too many awful things. I would often be saying something like, “please live,” or please stay alive,” or “please let us make it through this,” over and over again. This could be seen or heard as prayer, and it helped my anxiety in the situation. It was, however, more of a mantra said to myself than a prayer to a god.

Again, nailed it 👍🏻 I was 22 yrs old, no direction in my life, no support from family (disconnected emotionally and verbally), thrown into a stressful life situation where I became a father, stepfather and had a new wife with a chronic illness.. went to a Foursquare church, hungover, dehydrated and low blood sugar, heard an emotional sermon from the pastor that everyone wanted as their dad and accepted Christ. I told myself the reason I was feeling so sick was God cleaning out my soul... after that, chased God for 10 yrs, took 10 more for me to slowly realize what I actually did.. or didn't do. All emotional, no evidence.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Man, what a sad and unfortunately all too familiar story. We are so easily manipulated and this religion is just a disease on our brains.

@Azho64

8 ай бұрын

Wow Im sorry you went thru that. 🫂

@DennisMSulliva

8 ай бұрын

Welcome to the real world. Early, or late comer, all welcome.

@CatDaddyGuitar

8 ай бұрын

@@MindShift-Brandon the (more) scary part is that, being on the fringes of the darker elements, it could, possibly, just as easily been a gang that promised me support, family and a purpose. So, I guess it could have been worse 😂

@CatDaddyGuitar

8 ай бұрын

@@DennisMSulliva thanks..yep, right back where I started 😂 With, at least, a small amount of wisdom. Honestly, the best thing I ever did was stop drinking 15+ yrs ago.. that enabled me to think. It turns out, I'm not such a bad guy, regardless of what was drummed into me.

I am too from a muslim background but i live in India. My family isn't religious which is ofc the best thing. In the past few years it was me who turned to religion bcoz that's what u do right to be a better person. Although i was practicing my religion I was always felt something was wrong. Because they r things that I cannot agree with our scriptures but I still used to put my faith above intelligence. Perhaps it was due to growing up amongst Hindus and eastern culture which completely different from Abrahamic religions. But finally I was looked into other religions. And I eventually listened to what atheist had to say. TBH i really didn't like the term first when I was little. But now I finally am convinced of how empty the promises of religion is and how flawed God's plan is and religion does more harm than good. I really liked your video about criticizing heaven. Keep it up. Love from India and former Muslim.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thank you for this!

As a proud agnostic atheist who still asks God for help whenever I'm looking for my kids for more than 5 minutes outside, I really appreciate this video. Yep, I'll grasp any straw, no matter how unlikely, to find them.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

No shame in that!

Ooh!! The never ending religious manipulation tactic of fear!!! Quick to judge Quick to anger Slow to understand Ignorance and prejudice And fear walk hand in hand Neil Peart

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

wow, yes!

@cygnustsp

8 ай бұрын

Part 3 of the Fear trilogy, which actually has 4 parts.

Brandon, I’m glad you mentioned the fact that nature is not just all the pretty stuff, but that it is mostly harsh and cruel and indifferent. A great book for the theist, or anyone who thinks that “nature is beautiful” is: “Mother Nature is trying to kill you” by Dan Riskin.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

oh, looking it up asap, thanks!

@sm8johnthreesixteen

8 ай бұрын

It is both--beautiful AND can be hazardous, even deadly.

@Trigger-xw9gq

8 ай бұрын

@@sm8johnthreesixteen Agreed, although the beauty part is just a subjective viewpoint/opinion of us humans because it makes us feel good when we look at a kitten or a butterfly, whereas the deathly part of nature is absolute.

@Trigger-xw9gq

8 ай бұрын

@@MindShift-Brandon You can even find a brief interview with the author online.

@sm8johnthreesixteen

8 ай бұрын

I never thought that the beauty of majestic, snow-covered mountains, color-streaked skies at sunset, the red and orange and yellow of fall foliage, etc., would be considered subjective.

I had a misdiagnosis of terminal cancer in '05 and lived almost 3 weeks thinking I was dying and had less than 6 months to live. I didnt blind an eyelash I didnt prayer to a gawd(s) I was at peace with it.When I found out it wasnt terminal but they didnt know what the football size tumor was when he told me it wasnt terminal I didnt handle not knowing what I had well at all. And also when my Dad passed last year it was the first time I lost someone who wasnt expected to die suddenly without the sky wizard daddy to pray for comfort but I didnt pray to a gawd(s) and quickly learned how to deal with it on my own without prayer never considered it once . Loved the topic and think it needs to be addressed more often.IMO

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing from your personal life. So sorry to hear about this issues. What a thing it must be to really believe you are dying and then not. I am sure it gave you some great perspective!

@Azho64

8 ай бұрын

TY for I now live by the motto of "It could always be worse" after meeting some of the people at infusion treatments and doctor appts.All because of a man I met when I started radiation treatments in '06,this man was going thru chemo,radiation ,just had part of his lungs removed and was about to go under the knife again to remove more of his lungs.And this wonderful man who has to have passed by now(which saddens me at the thought) always had a smile and kind word for those of us noobs.And talking to him for about 3 weeks (thats when his treatments were done) I realized at some point how the hell could I feel sorry for myself about my cancer when this man, who to me was much like Job , can go thru his trails and still care enough to comfort others despite his health. I found out he was an atheist also,so this man showed me that you didnt need an invisible "friend" who wasnt a "friend" for comfort or guidance .Where was he for this man?Etc.And this was when I just a few years earlier jumped into the atheist end of the pool all the way finally all the way .Before that I just dipped my toes in. Sorry if this doesnt make sense hard to type with teary eyes.

Ngl, a Muslim discussing terror onboard a plane going down surrounded by a flaming inferno is a bit dicey to start with. And "Yo, get real" is maybe bottom tier of things I've been told by some theist to convince me.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Yes, and all the irony!

@justadude7752

8 ай бұрын

Me thinks he would just say they werent "real" muslims🤦‍♂️

"Let's get real" he says, and continues with a fantasy...

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

It only gets worse

@juliabriggs1141

7 ай бұрын

“And when they are told, “Believe as others believe,” they reply, “Will we believe as the fools believe?” Indeed, it is they who are fools, but they do not know” Quran 2:13

I still want to unpack the "no feminists at war" line.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

I did but cut it as it took me way off course

@userequaltoNull

6 ай бұрын

I mean it's definitely true, have you ever met a female soldier? Or worse, a Female Marine?

@historiansayori2089

3 ай бұрын

Goes to show you how apologists hate anything that improves people’s lives tbh. Just blatant sexism, racism, homophobia, etc near all-around; it feels like a psyop sometimes

Mohammad can personally believe whatever he wants, but I've had three times in my life so far where I thought I was about to die, and I never called on his "creator" to save me, or even thought about life after death. I was going to die, that was it. The first time I was only 16, on a school expedition mountain climbing on the Isle of Skye. Our group lost our route the the summit in a snowstorm, and during a tricky traverse across an icy slope I felt my feet slip over the edge above a 100 foot drop onto sharp granite below. Then my ice pick started to slip. I called out to my climbing partner who reached over, grabbed my arm and pulled me to safety. He saved my life that day, not god. The second time I had a kidney stone (but didn't know at the time), and was passing out from the pain, sitting on the stairs in our house in London. By that time I was married, and my concern wasn't my life, or life after death, but that my wife would have access to my bank account (she also had her own, and we have a joint one), so she could use any money in there quickly. She called an ambulance, we got to the local hospital, and they diagnosed the kidney stone and prescribed medication to break it up so it would pass. No god, no creator required. The third time was also a medical issue. By now living in the USA, I had a severe bout of the liquid squirts from all orifices, probably due to a Norovirus infection. I was sitting on the toilet, and called out to my wife to help me. She came in to find I had fainted from the pain, and was about to tip forward and possibly through the glass door of our shower, opposite the toilet. She caught me before I tipped, and I came to seconds later, unaware of what had happened, holding a bowl of vomit. No thoughts of life after death, just imminent death. I recovered from that one with a few days in bed. No god, no creator required. UPDATE: I asked my wife about her side of this last event, and she says she came in to find me passed out, turning gray, and not breathing, for about 15 seconds. She THOUGHT I had died. She was slapping my face and pulling her phone to call 911 when I came to. And here's the thing: had I died my troubles were over, but she would have been left as a single mother trying to raise two young kids. My wife reminded me I also nearly died while kayaking. I lost my kayak and paddle and was sucked under and nearly got trapped underwater. Fortunately I came back up, and had on a life jacket, helmet and wetsuit, so I bobbed along on the flood until I could reach shore safely. Again, no thoughts of gods or an afterlife, just wondering how to extract myself from a silly situation I got myself in. So Mohammad may not accept it, but there are many of us who just live our lives and expect to die eventually, maybe suddenly, hopefully not too painfully, and hope not to leave too much of a mess for someone else to clean up when we do. Pro Tip, don't die on the toilet, nobody needs to see that.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thank you for all these examples but be more careful lol!

@cutienerdgirl

7 ай бұрын

I almost got in a car accident when I was learning how to drive and I was so focused on saving myself that I didn't call out to any creator. 😂

A Christian just asked me for a channel with the 'atheist' position and I gave him your channel because I think you break it down for believers more than most others that I also love to watch.

@MindShift-Brandon

7 ай бұрын

That is a ringing endorsement. Thank you so much for the kind words

I’m not sure how I would react in a plane crash or similar situation but I would like to think I wouldn’t waste my time with any appeal to a fictional character. I would hope my ability to be calm in chaotic situations and do what I can to be as prepared as possible, check for emergency exits, message loved ones of I can, get into the best possible position to survive, ect. I know I can’t know what I would do, I hope I wouldn’t waist my last moments.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Me too!

@juliabriggs1141

7 ай бұрын

And when they are told, “Believe as others believe,” they reply, “Will we believe as the fools believe?” Indeed, it is they who are fools, but they do not know. Quran 2:13

@ausnetscience

7 ай бұрын

@@juliabriggs1141 right, I’ll trust a book supposedly dictated by a child abuser.

I never really understood why this argument is presented by religious people. Infact this is an atheist argument because it just shows why we believe in gods (that belief is just psychological comfort nothing more)

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

100%! not some deeper truth to be found. Its nonsense.

The "lets get real" argument cracked me up. The value of this life and our existence, the sudden fear of death, and the desperation in that chaotic moment are all real. So he uses these things that are real to prove God. I'd say that most atheists would beg the pilot for help before praying to God (just as I was typing this you brought it up lol) I was going to say that all churches of every religion prayed to God to stop Covid, yet we had whole churches that got infected which lead to many devout believers dying. And then you make the same point at 15:23 lol I'm starting to feel a divine connection with you Brandon! God is real, it was you!

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Ha! Kindred minds. Thanks for being here!

One of my brothers had a near death experience. He's an atheist. It was winter and they were driving near a semi. There was a patch of ice and the car spun out of control and somehow wound up UNDER the semi for a second. His wife was the one driving so he had no say in his fate. He didn't pray to anyone. He just sat there quietly thinking, "Well, I'm going to die. That sucks." His wife never panicked and regained control of the car and they made it home safely. Funny enough, his wife is an ex-Christian who grew up in an EXTREMELY religious home. Like, one step from Handmaid's Tale style fanaticism. She was too busy concentrating on the situation to even consider praying to anyone and surviving the experience didn't suddenly make her religious again. She's still atheist. I think "God hardened pharaoh's heart" and realizing what that meant started her deconstruction.

@suicune2001

7 ай бұрын

@@user-vg7xz5wz8b I don't see how that's relevant to what I said. My brother and his wife are atheists and having a near death experience didn't change that, nor did they pray to any deity in their moment of crisis.

@suicune2001

7 ай бұрын

@@user-vg7xz5wz8b Don't worry, Republicans are working on turning us into Sharia Law.

@suicune2001

7 ай бұрын

@@user-vg7xz5wz8b Except Yahweh is a fictional character made up by men. It isn't real and there is zero evidence to say otherwise. Also, Yahweh despises everyone who isn't a straight Israelite male. It despises all women, children, and everyone who isn't constantly catering to its narcissistic demands of constant worship and praise. If Yahweh exists then it hates me by default for having a vagina and not being born in Israel.

While I never have been in a life-or-death situation, but I have been in serious trouble before. In those situation, praying isn't even on my mind. It just doesn't occure to me.

From 8:03 🤯 you got exactly how this nonsense goes. I have PTSD today due to this manipulation. I lost relationships and money, and the thought of how I allowed it, based on "god's words," gives me palpitations😢

It's funny how much believers think hypotheticals actually win arguments... Especially the imminent death argument. Just as you have said, prayer is hope. So obviously, many people will hope for a better outcome. It is based on the idea that hope = evidence which isn't true. Hope is a natural human emotion that can provide a sense of comfort and peace during times of crisis. It doesn't mean deep down you actually believe in God.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Very well said!

It would be pretty psychotic for a god to use trauma and near-death experiences to make us believe in him.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Yes, thats another great point i wish i had added

I was there as an Atheist. Sailboat got caught in a really bad storm front. Couldn't see over the waves in the trough. It went through my mind that many would reach for faith. The boat had no margin for error and survival. I looked.at the tiller and realized that the only proof of intervention would be to let.go of it. That was a second of time and I went back to doing what I needed.to do as best as I knew.

The problem with his idea, for me, as a life-long non-believer, is that even if I were in a falling airplane, I still cannot "fall back" onto something that I never held in the first place. I have NEVER prayed to a god, and I never will. I've never believed in a god and I never will. I know this from my experience in August 1993, when I got carjacked. The guy put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger. It didn't go off right away, which is why I am still here. During that experience, I didn't pray to a god. I felt no presence of any gods or angels. I can see how MAYBE someone who once believed MIGHT fall back on it out of fear. What this other guy doesn't understand is that not every Atheist used to be a believer. Some of us have never believed, and for me I feel that it is literally impossible for me to believe.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

100% and great point. Theres no doubt so many of you are so free of this nonsense, it doesnt even present itself as an option in your head to begin with! My point was more: even if it did, it still doesn't mean anything!

@DrumWild

8 ай бұрын

@@MindShift-Brandon True! Been watching for a while now. Great videos!

I've nearly drowned twice, both times while still a believer, and I've had guns pointed at me twice, once before and once after deconstruction. At none of those times did the thought of a God even cross my mind, so take from that what you will.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

What I take is what I think we should all take. We all have varied experiences, but none of them prove god. Stop going in water! lol glad you are ok.

I have known several people who came from "respectable" familes, who had outwardly lived "respectable" lives, who were well respected in the community, and who were so-so about religion, who, all of a sudden, were arrested and convicted of major crimes such as conducting massive fraud or extortion schemes, or big-time drug dealing, or child molesting. The moment their sentence was handed down, they became dedicated, born-again christians, and proclaimed their faith. After their prison terms were up, after a few years, and they got back into society, their religious fervor gradually cooled and they became their same old selves.

Sometimes, I worry about how I would react in a near death experience, because I know that I might revert to my indoctrination (but I highly doubt I would truly mean it) and then others would be like "see they were faking it the whole time!" So I guess what I worry about is temporary reverting to my indoctrination and people using that to invalidate me.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

No need to worry. You know whats true to you and what is psychological reaction from years of indoctrination. But i get it

Deep down all I see is nature. Nature is literally everywhere and everything. When I see someone like him talking all I see is delusion, wishful thinking and an appeal to emotions. We exist in a natural universe, not a magical one. Keep up the great work sir. Your level headed, succinct, logical, calm and rational perspective is brilliant. 😊

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Appreciate that so much

@grantrobinson9129

8 ай бұрын

Echo! echo! echo!

@TheTruthKiwi

8 ай бұрын

@@grantrobinson9129 comprende?

When I was eighteen and still believed, my brother, cousins and I went joyriding in my cousin's mom's car. My cousin who was driving hit some gravel at 30 mph, we went into a slide towards an adobe wall head on. I truly thought I was about to die, and the only thing I did say was, "damn you" to my cousin who was driving. No one got hurt, there was a ditch in front of the wall. I have faced death a few times after and not once was the thought of prayer in the forefront of my mind. I have either accepted it or tried to prevent it.

Man I remember when one of my "best friends" who is an evangelical said, "You know, I wonder if atheists actually disbelieve in god or if it's like something they're pretending just for arguments." Talking to his friend, an open atheist. It was kind of hard to take our friendship as seriously after that.

@donsample1002

8 ай бұрын

You know, I wonder if all those theists really know, deep in their hearts that there’s no god, and they are just clinging to their fantasy ‘cause it makes them feel good. Like the 8 year old kid who still pretends to believe in Santa Claus.

@CharlesPayet

8 ай бұрын

Yeah, that would be a bit frustrating, to say the least. Had you 2 discussed the topic much?

Fear of death, insecurity, feelings of lack of control over your fate ... what could be more conducive to reason and critical thinking?

I think I know what will happen after we die. "The people that love us will miss us."- Keanu Reeves

I was born on the mission field and grew up in a very conservative christian family. I drifted away from the church but never stopped believing. A few years ago I got hit by a car, the thing that surprised me was that I did not have any fear in the moments before the car hit even though I believed I was going to hell for not attending church all those years. I remember being sad and thinking there were so many things I didn't get to do. Obviously I survived, I have had a very different outlook on life since then and realize what a fantasy all that teaching of my youth was.

I really love how you hammered home the distinction between belief and knowledge at the start, this is something I always wish people did more often when people claim they know anything at all about the afterlife or the existence of a god

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thank you, sir!

I've been on a plane that went through insane turbulence. We ascended, dropped and ascended again rapidly. Felt my stomach go to my chest. The planes wings were shaking. The whole cabin was shaking violently. People were screaming, crying and a few cried out to god. I being a former Christian thought about praying to God because that's what I used to always do. However, this time I didn't because I thought, what good will praying do? I instantly went through all the reasons prayer is useless, god doesn't answer prayers if we have free will, etc. while I didn't have the comfort of praying, I was able to accept the fact that if we were going to die, there was nothing I could do about it. In a way, that made the experience easier to accept.

*Apologists:* "Have you heard of Pascal's Wager? Just act like you believe, just in case! What have you got to lose?" *Also Apologists:* "Oooooh, acting like you believe in a desperate situation, HMMMMM???? Curious! Seems like you knew God is real all along!"

The plane is plummeting toward the ground. God could stop it if he wanted to, but he says, "No, let's see whether enough people on board pray."

Wasn't exactly convenient to me to wake up from my indoctrination and realize that I was in fact mortal and not going to live forever.

I've seen people going through cancer treatment find peace while meditating, praying, not begging but accepting what's happening and having a moment with what they perceive as God or divine. As my granddaughter was dying, prayers being spoken over her did give a "peace " in an extremely difficult time. The chaplin holding 'space' with my daughter during the most traumatic time in her life. I've definitely deconstructed from mainstream religion....Yet it's all unknown. I understand it's my own made up belife system, that I would never force on anyone... but just maybe there's more to death than simply dying. And maybe that's a belief that helps me process the death of a child. Even if it's make-believe, I find solace, peace, and hope in seeing her again. I think this is true for many. My critical thinking skills, my logical mind knows its all bullshit...But thers still a hope in the unknown. Just maybe there's more. Not dogma or religion but actual place of peace.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Yes, we are just creatures grasping for peace.

@Georgia-oi6ie

8 ай бұрын

@@MindShift-Brandon ❤️

@uknowme1811

8 ай бұрын

​@@MindShift-Brandongrasping for hope, meaning, and purpose.

@Fair-to-Middling

8 ай бұрын

Yes, we have to remind ourselves that we don't know it all. We are not omniscient. 😉There may be more to all this than meets the eye. I consider myself agnostic at this point. I want to leave my mind open to possibilities. Heck, this may all be a simulation that we are in. If so, and some AI created this world in this universe, well, that AI would technically be a god. And I don't want to p*ss him off.

@Cuffsmaster

8 ай бұрын

Sorry to hear about your granddaughter. I understand knowing it is b/s but still holding on. I was there once and who can say that I will not be there again someday depending on events. We are only human.

I've never been in a life and death situation, but I've been in something analogous to the "loved one is dying" and I can say that I felt no impulse to ask a god for help. Moreover, being able to take reality at face value was healthier and spared me questions that were a heavy burden to religious family members. _Why is god making/letting this happen? What did I do to deserve this? Why does the other person deserve to suffer like this? What good could possibly come from it?_ I saw no comfort from the supposedly loving father figure, only disorientation and pain.

I had a health emergency in the sahara desert, pre cellphone. I was incredible pain, was losing consciousness and wasn't sure I would wake up. I didn't ask for God's help. My last thoughts were if I was to die, I wouldn't be in pain and I was glad I thoroughly cleaned my home before my trip so I wouldn't burden my loved ones. My thought is there are loads of atheists in foxholes. Sorry Muhammad.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing. What a wild ride that must have been.

Another thoughtful video. Great! Your commentary makes me think and it is one thing I can do that I truly enjoy.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Glad to hear it, Duane. thank you!

Excellent video! I was thinking too, "What if there was 128 people on a plane all praying to some kind of deity or even the same deity and they all died?" So either a deity exists and are content to let you die even when you beg and bargain with them or there isn't one. And I like your point about the pilot trying their hardest to land the plane safely. I didn't think about that. They could be the most religious person ever but they'll do their part to live. They won't just leave it in a deity's hands when they know full well theirs and everyone else's life is on the line. It also got me to think of the saying, "God helps those who help themselves." Which again, just tells me God doesn't do anything. lol. It's just another way to giving credit to God for MY efforts.

@Andrew_Sword

8 ай бұрын

what if it was 128 atheists on the plane and none of them prayed or called out to god but the plane still landed safely.

@suicune2001

8 ай бұрын

@@Andrew_Sword Oooo, that's a good one!

Great video, as always. Literally the first thing I thought when you played that video clip was that I have thrown up an "if there are any deity/ies out there, please please please..."-style Hail Mary when there was nothing else left I could personally do for an ill loved one. The key word there was *if.* I was just shooting my shot in a desperate situation because at worst, if the "if" didn't pan out, it wouldn't hurt anything at that point. Thank you for putting that kind of thing into words!

"Let's get real!" Says a guy who thinks an illiterate child molester rode a flying donkey with a human head and split the moon in half.

Brandon has a talent for turning superstitious claims back on the believer: If your child was ill, and you had time to think about it, how many believers would refuse to go to the doctor? Simply trusting the god will send a miracle?

@Volleyball_Chess_and_Geoguessr

8 ай бұрын

Some Amish have faith that big. It's sad.

Oh the arrogance... why would I waste my potentially last thoughts in such a hypothetical plane crash scenario with suddenly praying to a god that I still have no reason to believe in? This "no atheists in foxholes" stuff is so incredibly hollow... 😂

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Agreed, many people are so, thankfully removed from this belief, that it would not cross their mind. My point was more, even if it does, so what?

@dasbus9834

8 ай бұрын

​@@MindShift-Brandon And that's indeed also a very good point 😉👍 Fortunately I've never been deep enough in Christianity to have this background so engrained in my thoughts. And there's few things I find as bizarre as when believers tell me they know better what I think than I do myself.

Apparently he missed Starship Troopers: kzread.info/dash/bejne/l5iB2JR6nbuzcbQ.htmlsi=Ph_TUePXV8keZUl3&t=108 As a sidebar, I did basic circa mid-1990, yes, just after the Gulf War and in four months (other than family weekend) I think I saw a female once. This was tanker school in Fort Knox. Flash forward about 15 years, my son does basic in Fort Jackson and guess what? It's mixed genders in the same unit, they even do their field training (i.e. tents in the wilderness) together. Badda bing, badda boom... As a wierd sidebar, Heinlein was old school (a society that doesn't protect the women and children first is doomed) and in the book, Johnny Rico mentions that there is a certain guard duty or something the men like, just so they can get a glance at a female as in the book, the infantry is all male, not the mixed gender "we fight together" as the movie portrayed. Personally my belief is that for any war, the first front line soldiers have to be the sons and daughters of every congressman and senator as well as the generals, the POTUS, and every wealthy donor of the party in charge. Otherwise, yeah, gotta call off the war. I just thought it was interesting how he brings up no women in the infantry and then a crashing airplane....not without irony about the only time we have an actual record of people in a plane about to crash and kill them all is where they're trying to stop Islamic terrorists.

As a fervent believer, I poured my heart into intense prayer for help on several occasions, and it was never answered. I certainly am not going to bother with it now that I don't believe there is anyone listening to prayers.

13:35 This is what happened to me when I nearly died, and I think about how prayer actually could have ended up making my life worse had I prayed in that moment out of fear, and I'm grateful I didn't. I was mostly agnostic at the time, with perhaps some lingering belief on occasion. I had been floating down the river on a tube (it's a thing that Southerners do because we have f■ck all else to do down here), and there was a small waterfall across the river. I had went over it before, but the dam lets out water sometimes, plus just differences in the water levels due to rain, made it a bit different each time. This time, as I went over, the tube slipped out in front of me and I went feet over head into a roll as I went over. It was a small waterfall, but there is something called a plunge pool that is formed below them where the water eats away at the rock right below them and the boulders get pushed forward, creating a pocket where on 3 sides you have rocks and stone, and straight up you have the weight of a river trying to force you back down (moving from side to side wouldn't work because the falls went the width of the river. Maybe I could have found a weaker spot that way, but I didn't think about that, and it's a risk of making things worse, not that I could really tell which way was any direction!) No matter how hard I pushed off the rocks I was slammed back to the bottom of the plunge pool. After probably only about a minute of this (it felt like an eternity) I came to the realization that I was going to die. I knew in that moment there was nothing else I could do (I was sort of right), and there was no point fighting. I felt a sense of calm and relaxed my body waiting for the inevitable...... and because I was no longer trying to fight a literal force of nature, relaxing my body meant that the water could just spin me around a few times and pop me out! (I doubt this would happen every time, but I think it's the most likely way a person could survive. ) I think about my response though. How much stronger my faith would have been had I been a believer, and instead of calmly accepting the inevitable, I had spent those moments praying, only then to be "miraculously" spat out to safety (because like what happened irl, I would have relaxed and had the same result.) It could have even been the atheist turning to God salvation story I told at church on Sundays from the pulpit for all I know. So in this instance I'm really grateful that I didn't throw up that hail Mary that @MindShiftSkeptic speaks about in this video.

I just subscribed to your channel i am addicted to your videos they are so well made and explanatory yet simple to understand

@MindShift-Brandon

6 ай бұрын

Love to hear that. Thanks for the kind feedback and welcome!

Another great video Brandon! Your takedown videos are great at dismantling people’s arguments. You’re killing it!

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thanks so much, Ian!

The Life and death situation did not push me to believe or pray to any God. My training came to me,..my instructor voice speaking loudly in my head,...my thoughts,...the best way to get out alive, but no prayer. The gentleman spoke what he believe. All what he said and believe, sounds empty to me.

The problem with the desperation argument is that it does not work. Your prayers are not going to save that plane from crashing. They are not going to do a thing. God is not going to show up and take the wheel, despite what a popular country song claims. All prayer is at this point is reflex. Because if they DID work, we'd be hearing about it. We'd be hearing about the plane that was miraculously saved even though the wings or the tail came off in mid-air. That's something NO pilot, no matter how well-trained, can do. We only hear about the incidents where it was humanly possible to save the plane. Gordon Lightfoot said it best in his Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, "can anyone tell where the love of God goes when the waves turned the minutes to hours." I'm sure there must have been some praying on the Fitz that night on Superior. Only 15 miles to safety, but they never got the chance.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

100%! great points.

"If I wanted to sin I'd be a christian because I'd be forgiven" -- brilliant =) I imagined a funny situation: suppose a plane is filled with people from totally different countries, cultures and religions. All of a sudden, the plane starts falling. All the passengers start praying their gods. The pilots manage to regain control over the plane. Everyone's saved. Now, who's god has won?? lol

I had a near-death experience when I was 25 where my appendix ruptured. I was already an atheist at the time, after my surgery my mom said that God saved me... it pissed me off. I never felt God's presence, it was the surgeon who saved me. I remain an atheist because God didn't do shit in that near-death experience.

@xenodiva8363

8 ай бұрын

damn right, if i was that surgeon id be maaad lmao

I don't know if the remark was reflex or calculation, but the casual, gratuitous swipe of misogyny at the beginning put me on edge. We all could guess that the case made would be an appeal to intuition, but we didn't know that it would be quite that nasty and alienating.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Yes, I originally had a whole 5 min or so on that comment, but I cut it to stay on track. He just couldnt help himself.

Hi Brandon, wonder what Christians would say about my deconversion from Christianity at the same time we learned my husband's cancer turned to Stage 4. Besides the "then you really weren't a true Christian" fallacy that angers me so much. My husband's diagnosis didn't prevent my deconstruction, it fueled it because he is the Best man I've even known and he does NOT deserve to be fighting this fight with a very aggressive cancer. I was too far along down that path of deconversion and I couldn't go back to my former belief system in evangelical Christianity at that point. Still haven't gone back. At times, I find myself (out of habit I think) calling out that prayer in my soul, and I allow it sometimes. I see it as praying to my Higher Self and to the Universe now, not to the Christian God. I also accept when family and friends tell us they are surrounding us in prayer. Those prayers, even to their Christian God, is still positivity and intent or "good vibes" flowing in our direction so I am absolutely not offended in any way and even grateful people are praying for us - even though I reject the Christian God as a deity that has any control over my life. It's the intent that counts. Anyway - GREAT video - I really love your thought process and your intelligence. Thank you for everything! I hope you do more of these "take down" videos. :)

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Every tuesday! Thanks for sharing, Barbara. I am so sorry to hear about that. We are just people living human lives, apparently nothing more.

Amazing analysis and response! Well said! I really enjoyed this video.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thank you very much!

Another great video, Brandon! You’re the best there is bud!

@MindShift-Brandon

7 ай бұрын

Very generous. Thanks so much!

I’m already getting real, which is why I’m an atheist 💪 If my plane was falling, I’d be trying to call my loved ones and comfort those around me.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Love this!

“Help me Jesus! Help me Buddha! Help me Tom Cruise’s god!” Like Ricky Bobby, maybe we really should cover ALL our bases :P

Calling out to god while in a falling plane is similar to calling out to God during climax. It doesn’t determine whether there’s a god listening or not. Now hell awaits me 😅

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Ha. True!

There was an old comic strip. A man is hanging to a branch on the side of a cliff. "Can someone help me? Is there anyone up there?" "I'll help you." "Thank you. Who are you?" "I am God." "Oooh k. Please help me." "Do you trust me?" "Yes sure." "Let go of the branch." . . . "Is there anyone else up there?"

This is the ultimate “cry for mommy”. People who are crying for mom don’t necessarily believe she is there or can do anything. Also, any true believer would have no fear of death.

@MindShift-Brandon

7 ай бұрын

Exactly!

I don't know what appeal my brain would make in a sudden, terrifying, life-threatening emergency. Hopefully I never find out. It's just *weird* - and downright irrational - to suggest that *if* I make a desperate appeal to the particular God-concept I was indoctrinated with since childhood, the conclusion is that that particular God-concept is factually *true*. What then, are we to conclude that all God-concepts from the dawn of history, thousands upon thousands of different, unsubstantiated beliefs, are all factually true? Since humans in peril at various times in history have cried out to them for help? Or that making desperate hail-Mary appeals to supernatural powers is just a thing humans sometimes do, and it doesn't in any way make those supernatural entities *actually exist*.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Exactly! Well put

Brilliant and absolutely spot on in my opinion! 👍

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thanks so much!

I like your responses. With that aside, I think that gay is only talking to Islam believers, he didn't even tried to address it to atheists, it is for the believer that argument sounds so profound, because they believe by fear as a daily basis.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

you are right of course. Most apologetics is just preaching to the choir. The fact he still does it despite the prompt is quite funny.

I think a question could be asked would be with regard to the nature of faith and belief. There are those who are very outward in their belief, reading their Scriptures, attending their houses of worship, attempting to live by the tenets of their faith There are others who would not describe themselves as atheist, or even agnostic - but they go through their daily lives - they’re not thinking about a Deity and His/Her/Its requirements and demands while they’re driving on the freeway, in line at the supermarket, watching a movie on TV at home. Deity doesn’t enter into their decisions; they don’t read a holy book or attend a service. If they’re invited to a wedding, infant baptism or funeral, religion may temporarily intrude upon their space. They describe themselves as being a particular religion because of their birthplace - in the United States, it’s likely to be Christian, as that has been the dominant practice in the country. If they were born elsewhere, it could be Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu etc. Describing oneself as ‘Christian’ in the United States has given a kind of shield from societal opprobrium - one is ‘respectable’ even if one seldom or never attends a church service Atheism is emerging, not unlike being divorced, as an acceptable position - in many ways, it’s being honest, more honest than someone whose faith is nominal and more socially derived.

Excellent rebuttal. I totally agree.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Thanks for watching!

"Only when you are at the most irrational state of mind might you believe in our god" is definitely not the flex Hijab thinks it is.

Thank you Brandon. I really appreciate you dismantling these smooth talking dishonest semantic games and word salads that are basically a gish gallop of lies.

It seems so silly that they think that a last minute conversion will make all the difference between one goes to heaven or hell, as if the rest of our life counted for nothing.

@suicune2001

8 ай бұрын

Right! What if the opposite happened? What if a lifelong super devoted person had doubts at the very end because they were going to die despite all their efforts in life? Wouldn't that mean they would go to hell because they doubted at the last second in a crazed panic?

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Excellent point!

I love that had had to throw in a jab at feminists before his god speech.

From the beginning, your videos have been so refreshing because of your different perspective and thoroughness. This video, given the material it's responding to, had no business being as good as it was.

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Ha! Thats really kind of you thank you!

Well handled. Thank you!

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Appreciate that. Thank you!

Do we roll dice to choose the "right" religion when going down in the plane crash?

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Exactly, so many issues.

@marktravis5162

8 ай бұрын

It’s better to study and have knowledge before hand what the right one is before even being in that situation lol

Research is very clear that theism is more common amongst people and in societies with more hardship and less control over their lives and surroundings. Almost like it is a psychological response to help cope with those conditions, and through that frame it makes perfect sense that religion has been on the decline in most modernized societies where people have the freedom to leave religion without societal penalties.

OMG* Brandon, this one was so excellent! My christian brother sent me a John Piper sermon to listen to, so now I can send him this video! (It must be providence Haha!) Seriously, though, you hit on so many points that are spot on! Keep it up! (*And I use the term in the most secular way imaginable, heh heh.)

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Ha. Love it. Thank you!

On a couple of occasions my demise was all but imminent. Never appealed to a god. Logic and calm guided me through these tricky situations.

Mohammad Hijab sounds like what JK Rowling would name a Muslim character

@MindShift-Brandon

8 ай бұрын

Lol this is funnier than it should be