06-21-2016, 04:36 AM
Not a big fan myself.
"If there is no God, each of us is as significant as a rock on an unknown planet."
He repeats these sorts of opinions ad nauseum so as to reinforce the point that existence without God would be meaningless and void of value. Conjecture, repetition, and making any and all other viewpoints seem utterly depressing, whilst making the reality that fits his worldview seem like ice cream and rainbows.
At its core it is meant to appeal to emotion and reinforce this emotional appeal through repetition. He doesn't provide any evidence aside from a few graphs from a couple of studies, each of which is suspect. People who live longer and go to church more often may simply do so due to the correlation between people being more religious the earlier they were born, "happiness" is highly subjective and cannot truly be measured, and the correlation between charity and religion can be explained by the fact that churches are more convenient vessels for donation, something that the secular populace may not always have - if you disregard donations made to churches themselves, atheists give more. I dislike the "everything to gain, nothing to lose" bit at the end. Fear should not be a motivator if love is the desired end result.
"If there is no God, each of us is as significant as a rock on an unknown planet."
He repeats these sorts of opinions ad nauseum so as to reinforce the point that existence without God would be meaningless and void of value. Conjecture, repetition, and making any and all other viewpoints seem utterly depressing, whilst making the reality that fits his worldview seem like ice cream and rainbows.
At its core it is meant to appeal to emotion and reinforce this emotional appeal through repetition. He doesn't provide any evidence aside from a few graphs from a couple of studies, each of which is suspect. People who live longer and go to church more often may simply do so due to the correlation between people being more religious the earlier they were born, "happiness" is highly subjective and cannot truly be measured, and the correlation between charity and religion can be explained by the fact that churches are more convenient vessels for donation, something that the secular populace may not always have - if you disregard donations made to churches themselves, atheists give more. I dislike the "everything to gain, nothing to lose" bit at the end. Fear should not be a motivator if love is the desired end result.
