Have you ever seen those Scientology commercials on television that engage the viewer on a personal, emotional level? Well, it makes just as much sense to have a version just for Atheists. The following commercial was edited and narrated by Orley R. Herron, Ph.D.  You can watch two more commercials on his youtube channel. I hope these commercials stay online. We all know how cranky the Church of Scientology can get.

I’ll include some of his explanation of the commercial below the fold.

First off, let me give some credit where credit is due. Most of the video from this piece comes from a trio of Scientology commercials. While I obviously don’t agree with pretty much everything that they stand for, they do make some very beautiful commercials. The song in the background is “Mercury” by John Murphy off the soundtrack for the movie Sunshine (great movie).

In my opinion, religion is a direct result of our sentience as a species. Because we are aware of our existence, we are rightfully afraid of our impending nonexistence. As a result, religion exists because of the inherent difficulty related to accepting the concept of death. We all love life. The idea of one day not existing is scary, and for some people, impossible to accept. So, what do these people do? They just don’t accept it. They invent or choose to believe in some kind of afterlife, and then they craft a story (religion) around that afterlife to make it believable.

I think we’ve reached the point in our development as a species when we can accept the concept of death. Its time to kick the religion habit. Because religions are no longer adapting to the progress society is achieving, the problems are only going to get worse.

Read more about the video’s purpose here. I think the footage he used is beautiful, but I think this concept is too important for borrowed sources. I’d love to see a real commercial on this topic. Think of the discussions (and uproar, of course) it would raise.

(hat tip to @Marcham89)