@4dojo Damn you ! You were dead right. Once I saw your comment I knew immediately I couldn't watch this. Worst proselytising method ever. I still hit the Like (for the Hosts). Bye.
But the metaphysical super structure is western civilization is parallel to universal human experiential reality which is actually observable grounding in values held superimposable through out axiomatic cultural norms. Je$u$.
This is how serious people exchange and discuss ideas. Forrest and Paul are SO DAMNED CONSIDERATE and give the benefit of the doubt where it's due. And kudos to the caller for doing the same; I may disagree with their philosophy, but they came across as sincere, didn't try to shout anyone down, and actively tried to avoid misrepresenting the hosts' positions.
I'm left with the impression from the caller that he is saying, "Since our senses aren't perfect, there must be this invisible garden we can't detect. Because we can't know 100% it is absolutely fundamentally there." As Christian, he even can describe detailed aspects of this invisible and otherwise undetectable garden. Maybe, just maybe, the reason we can't detect this garden isn't due to the lack of senses to perceive it. Maybe it isn't there. After all, it's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, it's even harder if there is no black cat.
I think he's saying, "Our senses MUST be reliable because I want them to be, but naturalism doesn't reassure me that they are, so I'm going to assume what I want to be true and invent some unjustifiable woo to justify it."
I am not as confident as you. I suspect some females have heightened visual acuity and pick up on nonverbal cues mistaken for intuition. 'Science' is reserved for theists to quote spurious nonsense from pop psych sources.
And I never believe them either, they always clearly have no idea what atheism is actually about, and they almost always have the flowery nice god, it's all about how it makes them feel,
It has increased in prevalence since more people have been openly deconstructing and leaving religion. Believing in a god, and subsequently discarding that belief, demonstrates a willingness to challenge beliefs and change one’s mind… many theists want to demonstrate this open-mindedness - some undoubtedly with honest intentions - but the vast majority are simply using it in an attempt to level the playing field despite the fact that they weren’t all that skeptical or committed to their non-belief in the first place.
@@ARoll925 Spot on. I agree with you. I can only suppose it has something to do with; "god loves a sinner repent". This does beggar-all for normal people, but Theists love to hear this Twonk..
@@briley2177 Good call. Excellent observation. I would be more impressed if a person raised in a predominantly Christian nation, who claims to have been a lifelong Atheist, declared to their community that they have been visited by Narayana and are now a devout Theist. We all can guess how that would play-out.
In the end, this again seems to be an "i want to believe in some god concept, so I will justify it via this way that I do not completely understand" argument.
His whole thing boils down to him saying he has solved Hard Solipsism if you pre-suppose his god. He never uses those words but that is exactly what it is.
Absolutely agree. This is the big difference between any show without Matt in and any show with Matt. His impatience and anger towards callers spoils many of the calls he's involved in.
My first thoughts on this caller's arguments: Gary Milne, (I refuse to use his online name, Darth Dawkins, as he makes it offensive to both Richard AND Vader), THIS is how an adult should conduct oneself, even when presenting a philosobabble argument for your god!
I cannot trust someone as being honest when they start with "I use to be an atheist" and then can't explain what convinced them of a god and what that god is. They just try to be so slippery and avoid any explanations.
"We can't trust our senses unless we believe in something we can't even sense." I'm curious how that plays out. If our senses are currently unreliable, then this thing outside our senses isn't ensuring our senses are accurate either (otherwise our senses would be reliable), so there's no reason believing it should give you any more confidence in your senses that without. If they're reliable, then there's no need to presuppose said thing, because they're reliable. If he really is looking for an answer to "how do you know your senses are reliable", it's the same: even presupposing his being, how do you know this being gave you reliable senses? We easily get fooled by optical illusions, entire ranges of light and sound are outside our perception, not to mention some people are blind and deaf, or insensate in some other way. It seems that this creature did not give us reliable senses at all, so it also doesn't provide grounding for the idea that our senses are accurate either.
I love how the Christian calls in and then tries to argue for a non-Christian god as if that's a way to get his foot in the door to then argue for his god. It's like he knows that his god is going too far to start with, but if he can convince you this other god idea is possible, then maybe he has a chance of convincing you that his god is possible and then he'll go for it.
Definitely have much respect for this caller. He actually called in for dialogue. Matt gets a lot of heat for snapping at callers but in every case it's when they talk over the hosts or ignore/avoid questions, i.e. they're not there for dialogue they're there to preach.
So thomas can't rely on his own senses unless he pretends that they are grounded by his invisible, magical friend. Sounds like he needs a good therapist
I think the callers main issue is in taking "we can't trust our senses" in the terms of biological limitations such as scale (not being able to immediately see the curve of the Earth) or lack of ability (not being able to see the full EM spectrum) and trying to generalize that to "we can't trust our senses AT ALL" in terms of say looking at the digital display of an instrument and everyone who sees it saying it shows "1" when it actually shows "37". The first is as I note easily explainable/understandable/logical in terms of our biological limitations. The second though is only possible through conspiracy-theory level of explanations such as "there exists a force dedicated specifically to deceive all of humanity which it does with 100% effectiveness". Ironically that second would be considered evidence of a divine being but simultaneously would be considered evidence that such a divine being should be considered an enemy of humanity (misotheism).
The “we can’t trust our senses” line always devolves into a belief that certainty exists. What grounding beyond physical reality is required to justify imperfect knowledge and fallible senses? The answer is none. But if a person mistakenly presumes that certainty exists, then they can proffer the existence of a perfect source for perfect knowledge. It’s still a god of the gaps argument, but in this case, the theist has invented the gap by suggesting that certainty is attainable when all the evidence suggests that it is not.
Agreed, he's extending "our senses can be fooled" into "we can never trust our senses... without gawd". Utter bollox, and he knows it. He doesn't cross the road if his senses tell him it's unsafe, period. He doesn't need to consult with gawd to tell him he thinks it's safe, but he wants a gawd to exist so this is path to having one.
Seems like the crux his point is he's unwilling to go through life without thinking thay he knows the "final" answer. He said yes it'd be a problem to admit there is no actual truth. That's not a problem though. You're not paralyzed by lack of knowledge. You can just be honest and say "I don't know" then live a good life with the understanding you aren't capable of having all the answers. This whole argument sounds like an existential crisis/thought experiment type thing you'd experience when smoking a lot of weed or drop acid. He's so caught up in things that have little to no impact on tangible life. So not only can we not confirm any "ultimate" truth but even if we could it would appear to have no utility besides making people feel a little bit more mentally comfortable.
I was originally drawn to mathematical logic because of the clarity of having at least some area of life where everything was absolutely known. It seemed like a good point of reference for investigating empirical reality: all that was fuzzy and contentious and always provisional. Then we got to Cantor and Gödel, uncountability, undecidability, incompleteness. To my surprise, rather than feeling threatened by these fundamental limitations to certainty, once I got over the shock I found myself to be liberated. It's not a reason to give up curiosity and investigation, but to accept incomplete answers as good enough for now, perhaps good enough indefinitely. As you say, there's no reason to be paralyzed by lack of knowledge. It's inevitable. We still get to go out and have a thorough look around. It's fun, after all.
Since he has no direct access to nor any way to assess its validity, Thomas is just assuming that his ultimate grounding for reality exists. You can stuff anything into that gap if it makes you feel better, but it does nothing to increase our knowledge. I think the religious personality is very uncomfortable with uncertainty, and that's an emotional condition that's very difficult to reason away.
What’s worse is that the gap wouldn’t even exist if theists weren’t creating it specifically to claim that “something beyond reality must exist” in order to avoid admitting that we are finite beings.
He never explains how positing a god gets around our inability to be certain of anything. Even if a god exists, we remain uncertain, even of anything about that god.
The real problem here is that the caller doesn’t realize that invoking a god doesn’t actually solve the problem of the question of the reliability of our senses. Our senses could very well be unreliable under both sets is circumstances (god vs no god). And there would be no way to differentiate the two sets. He’s just adding nonsense to make himself feel better.
He says the existence of a god “grounds” the reliability of his senses. Ummm, how? And why? If we can make an observation, confirm it using science/testing, then where foes god need to plug in? What does “grounding even MEAN in this context?
Caller speaks calmly and respectfully. Is seemingly receptive to reason. A nice change. But he's still playing in a Nonsense Circus. "My senses are imperfect. And your senses are imperfect. But the Magic Boojum in my head--that I can't prove beyond semantics--DOES have perfect senses and knowledge. And, luckily, there's this book that groundlessly asserts something about this Magic Boojum (who lives in No Time and outside of Everywhere, by the way). So by transferrance, I get to claim Higher Knowledge and Absolute Truth and other stuff superior to your store brand Reality." Uh... No.
Metaphysics, supernatural...yeah, those are just words. You don't get to define something into existence, and as far as I know there's no such thing as "supernatural".
We should all start a class action lawsuit again Jordan Peterson for the mental anguish put on us all by making uneducated men comfortable using the word metaphysical...
Has this caller ever heard of the Munchausen trilemma? Seems like he think’s he solved both solipsism and the M. trilemma. 😂 He seems to be advocating for foundationalism. In the trilemma, that falls under the horn of dogma/assertion.
I don't care how you build your god Thomas, I care if you can demonstrate it. Without a demonstration, there is no more reason to believe a god did it, then it is to believe my magic, universe creating socks did. Assertions get us nowhere.
3:00 Yeah this is going to be the Munchausen Maneuver again right? 10:42 Yup, this is in fact the Munchausen Maneuver, couldn't be anything else when he said "in order to trust our senses AT ALL". I wonder how he ever trusted in those very same senses which were required for him to even KNOW of a god when they let him know of a god. This caller isn't doing anything new. This caller is resorting to an age old intellectual cockblock that apologists have used since the days of Ken Ham's "were you there" which basically serves the means of a conversation stopper or to sow doubt in, well, everything, literally. They then make use of that to transition to "well then our god is the only answer". This sort of thing can take on many different forms but all of them make use of the fact that knowledge is limited and senses and perception COULD be wrong in order to cast doubt.
“Because we can’t trust our senses, we need a grounding”. I’d love to know what method there potentially can be that doesn’t involve your senses. It’s amazing how many people say things like this, then in the next breath explain how they chose to believe in an all-powerful God that knows everything, so that’s the grounding. How did they come to the conclusion that a being that knows everything exists 🤦♂️
If what we observe is unreliable, assuming or presupposing a god would in its self be unreliable. I don’t see how it becomes reliable by making such a presupposition, but I’m not a desperate theist, so it’s kinda moot
Caller: This is my argument guys. Guys is the ultimate source of truth. What we perceive what we observe and even reality itself is not real. Host: How do you know that? Caller: Because well, I read it on a book ... I heard from god ... etc Host: Did you use your senses to read on a book or hear? How didn't you know your senses werent working okay? That's how a discussion should go with these kind of presups/solipsists/i deny reality kind of people.
The highest degree of knowledge is attained when the claim can be tested, and one can make accurate, current predictions based on expectations and then those results pass skeptical and expert peer-review.
Well, not all fields of study and knowledge are based on making predictions, nor with testability as a criterion of rational evaluation. This caller made claims covered by the field of metaphysics, and all the stuff he is talking about would pass peer review in a philosophy journal.
@@Professor_Pinkphilosophy is merely us thinking about thinking, it doesn't really have much to do with the structure of reality itself. If you want to make claims about reality they have to pass peer review, at least if you want intellectually honest people to believe you LOL
@@emoryogglethorp8180 No, philosophy isn't just thinking about thinking. That would be logic and epistemology specifically, which are merely two branches of philosophy. Even if Philosophy was just "thinking about thinking," which it isn't, that wouldn't mean it has nothing to do with reality. How do you know your notions of reality are reliable unless you reflect upon the intellectual faculties you're using to investigate external reality? And, again, I was responding to the original claims of the poster. In many fields of study, which all have to do with reality, testability isn't an important standard if one at all and many fields don't strive for predictability. It isn't significant, or altogether absent, in business ethics, theatre studies, propositional calculus, Gothic literature, formal logic, jazz theory, geometry, or ancient Sumerian. And, as I said, the caller's claims WOULD pass peer review.
@@Professor_Pinkyeah, showing us that you don't understand something as basic as the problem of hard solipsism isn't exactly the gotcha that you think it is LOL
I would love to get the chance to ask one of these “we need grounding!” Type guys: what, precisely, does this ‘grounding’ DO? It appears that, at bottom, all their saying is, “I’m gonna approach the world exactly the same way you do… but I can’t do that until I say to myself ‘I HAVE A GROUNDING FOR THIS BECAUSE I DECIDED I DO!’ and then I can get on with it.” 🤷🤨
I agree with Thomas in all ways except one. A metaphysical Norwegian Anteater named Steve created Thomas’ god, he is my Lord and Savior, and my Norwegian anteater is the Ultimate Reality. This as true and as real to me as what Thomas is saying and science saying that there are no anteaters from Norway, that anteaters are not metaphysical, and that my Lord and Savior Steve only exists in my head is folly. Checkmate Atheists and all praise be unto Steve.
23:10 “The extent to which it (truth) conforms to reality tells us that truth is grounded sufficiently by reality” What an interesting proposition. I’m trying to decide whether I think that is profound, or whether I think it’s meaningless because of the problem being discussed… we don’t have direct access to reality. It’s filtered through our senses. I think it’s the latter… isn’t it the same as a theist saying that they have certainty in the knowledge that God exists because God is all powerful and wants them to know? That doesn’t work, because they are relying on their own feelings and senses to come to that conclusion.
Basically Argument from Look at the Trees. Point at Reality. Assert "my Boojum made that". And use the existence of the trees (or Reality) to require/smuggle in the thing in question. The "god made the trees" part still remains to be demonstrated.
Any unfalsifiable claim is just that - unfalsifiable. It cannot be demonstrated to be true of false; it's untestable, therefore any conclusion about it is unreasonable to hold. First step would be to discard the claim and find one with falsification criteria.
Perhaps, unless there is a rational argument that can be made for why it ought to be presupposed to be true, or, why it would be more beneficial to accede to the claim.
@@Professor_PinkIf it's unfalsifiable, then there can't really be any rational argument for why something should be presupposed to exists. In order to have a rational reason to believe something exists, it needs to be falsifiable.
@@MarxistMomentum No, not necessarily.. Arguments can in principle be made to warrant supposing an unfalsifiable idea to be true, or to be false. Pascal's wager, most moral arguments for God, and Kant's transcendental/teleological argument for the presupposition of God all try to do just that. None of them do so satisfactorily for me personally, but I don't exclude the logical possibility of someone devising such an argument. Some theists, for instance, claim that it is better to suppose that God exists because of the beneficial results for morality, social cohesion, or whatever else they can come up with.
@@MarxistMomentum Some things can be. I can't prove that the world isn't something I'm dreaming and dreams really are just this vivid and last this long, but I need to start somewhere. The same thing for what if human reasoning is actually unreliable. There is evidence that it is not but we are using human reasoning to decide that. But if we doubt everything then we can know nothing so some very basic things, even if not provable, need to be accepted.
@@Professor_PinkI never said that arguments can't be made to justify an unfalsifiable claim of something existing. I said that a *rational* argument can't be made to justify an unfalsifiable claim of something existing.
So, in his theory, we can only find god if using something outside of our "god given" senses. So this god forgot to create us with the thing that we need to discover him? Seems super unfair if that's the case.
I am not making any claims about the "ultimate grounding" of reality. I do not care about any ultimate grounding. I am going to continue to rely on my senses and the "scientific method" to explore and verify what I perceived as "reality". Now... If a god exists AND you think I have any duty to abide by what this god wants AND you want these dictates imposed on me in any way whatsoever, I require this god to be demonstrated in a manner that I can comprehend.
"I believe because I want to believe and here look at the trees. Here let me use borrowed vocabulary that doesn't exist as anything more than words and let me reference other apologists no matter how slippery their arguments are." In other words, he wants to claim the metaphysical but he can't bring a ghost to the debate stage. "I will resort to the god of the gaps, but this time I will try to veil it like it isn't god of the gaps while pretty much stating that the god of the gaps makes me seem intelligent and like I arrived at something."
I don’t get the idea of defining something whose attributes are not actually observed and then deciding that because there’s a definition, the thing itself is real rather than defining something by its observed characteristics. Example, a definition of « giraffe » generally includes a long neck, because one has observed a long neck on the animal which is defined.
How we need to have this god being to have our observations be "grounded" yet every other word is "metaphysical". How does the metaphysical have anything to do with our reality being grounded?? After babbling on and on about nothing whatsoever, he finally says"Well, we need this for objective truth"??? What the hell does that even mean??
My senses can’t infallibly detect how reality is, but my intuition is 100% correct about how reality must be. The metaphysical things that I imagine are more real than reality because my imagination is 100% true.
I think i would have spent that entire call telling Thomas that what he described isn't the Christian god. Believe in whatever god you want. But if you tell me that your god is the only god, doesn't control atmospheric phenomenon, and is totally celibate, don't tell me you worship Zeus
All religions have is beliefs and feelings with vague nonsensical claims with no actual evidence! If God is real or exists then get it to show up! Or shut up
Religion is all about goals that are not dependent upon the truth of the claims they use to achieve those goals. Mostly emotional placation for the masses and donations from those masses enabling the survival of the religion.
The familiar ex-atheist trope comes into play without once giving the *evidence* that led to a god in general and that one in particular. Countless big words adding up to one big, pointless waffle with a side of salad.
The caller doesn't think we can trust our senses but he thinks we can trust there is a god? What is he using to determine this if he isn't using any senses?
A one sided internal appeal to emotion. My lucky rabbit’s foot makes this feel right so I accept it. But how do you evidentially prove it to anyone else, especially when looking for the truth of that thing?
I don't think so, his voice isn't right, he, like Jackie is clearly a Peterson fan boy though who thinks Peterson sounds smart and so he regurgitates it without actually understanding what he is saying cause it is incomprehensible
The internet has given theists access to phrases like “metaphysical”. They come from apologists like Peterson and Chopra that sound comforting and at the same time, lack substance.
There is no sense in which a theistic worldview grounds mathematical truths. Such truths are system-defined, in that they follow just from the rules and axioms of the system. There's no way to add God in there, it becomes entirely incoherent.
"I used to be an atheist" is the most disingenuous phrase I've ever heard. An ex atheist is like an ex smoker who thinks they've made a huge change and now has an "exaggerated" ego. "Ego is the Latin word for "I." So if a person seems to begin every sentence with "I", it's sometimes a sign of a big ego. It was the psychologist Sigmund Freud (well, actually his original translator) who put ego into the popular vocabulary, but what he meant by the word is complex, so only other psychologists really use it in the Freudian sense. The rest of us generally use ego simply to mean one's sense of self-worth, whether exaggerated or not. When used in the "exaggerated" sense, ego is almost the same thing as conceit. Meeting a superstar athlete without a trace of this kind of ego would be a most refreshing experience. But having a reasonable sense of your own worth is no sin. Life's little everyday victories are good-in fact, necessary-for a healthy ego."
Is he saying; the we can't trust our senses, and that we therefore must invent an absolute 'touchstone' to which we then anchor our observations? But is that 'touchstone' place correctly? If not, then the entire purpose is null and void. Religion is at its core, a way to temper the sense of responsibility for the actions we take. God is ultimately responsible for everything... we are not, so we can thus relax a little and continue living without fearing that the harm we cause, is too much.
Thomas sounds like a nice guy, but he also sounds like a guy who just discovered a Philosophy 101 textbook. If he's right about god, maybe someday he'll actually be able to demonstrate that in literally any way whatsoever, but I doubt it.
This guy goes on and on about not being able to rely on our senses without a god. He also believes in a god that actively manipulates reality. How can someone trust their senses if, at any time, your dog can start talking to you? Or you and your spouse suddenly speak different languages?
Thomas is desperate to not say in plain words what he is actually thinking. Here it is in plain terms: 1. I was taught their was a god that created the universe. 2. I can not think of how the universe can exist without this god that I was told exists. 3. Therefore, this god must exist. It is no more complicated than this.
In short: he believes there has to be something greater because he doesn't understand everything and someone(s) came up with an idea of gods therefor god? I'm scratching my head if not, and if yes, I'm still clueless why should anyone ever try to convince others with this? In other words it sounds very much like he wants there to be answers and therefor he accepts folklore claims to have "an answer" (which doesn't get us anywhere). Please, correct me, if I got this wrong.
Just like this caller, I want to believe certain things. He wants to believe in a god, and refuses the gods of all religions, so he makes up a scenario where his god will fit. I want to believe in Santa Claus. I have never seen him, his sleigh, his reindeer, his elves or even the gifts he brings. He has never brought many any gifts or come down my chimney. So I have created in my mind that he exists and only does these things while invisible. Even the gifts he brings are invisible. Just because he has the metaphysical ability to do all things unseen is no reason for me to not believe in him because my world would be crushed if he did not exist. I therefore create my own reality. Long live Santa Claus.
Thomas the idea that a God is possible, necessary, a ground for our fallible human brains and or real is something your fallible human brain came up with. So your idea is a catch 22 we have to trust our intellects in some basic fashion, warranted or not, or we can't ever know anything even God.
Every time I hear a theist use the word “metaphysical” I’m know I’m about to get a really long and incoherent word salad.
Or HYPERBOLE 😂
I have a game with myself on how long it'll take JorPee to say "metaphysical" in any clip I see of him. It's rarely more than 10 seconds.
I had an aunt-in-law who took a 6 month course and got a "PhD" in metaphysics and wanted us to call her "Doctor" 🤣😂
@4dojo
Damn you ! You were dead right. Once I saw your comment I knew immediately I couldn't watch this. Worst proselytising method ever.
I still hit the Like (for the Hosts).
Bye.
@pauljordan8033 Dang. If I can become a doctor in 6 months sign me up. Most legit degree ever. 😂😂
"I used to be an atheist, but then I listened to a bunch of Jordan Peterson and now I believe in nonsensical BS"
😂
You nailed it.
But the metaphysical super structure is western civilization is parallel to universal human experiential reality which is actually observable grounding in values held superimposable through out axiomatic cultural norms.
Je$u$.
Idk, the Peterson acolytes don't squander an opportunity to name-drop.
This is how serious people exchange and discuss ideas. Forrest and Paul are SO DAMNED CONSIDERATE and give the benefit of the doubt where it's due. And kudos to the caller for doing the same; I may disagree with their philosophy, but they came across as sincere, didn't try to shout anyone down, and actively tried to avoid misrepresenting the hosts' positions.
yes, I also appreciate the way Forrest and Paul approach these conversations.
Yeah, that caller was great.
Kudos to the caller for being a great interlocutor.
I'm left with the impression from the caller that he is saying, "Since our senses aren't perfect, there must be this invisible garden we can't detect. Because we can't know 100% it is absolutely fundamentally there." As Christian, he even can describe detailed aspects of this invisible and otherwise undetectable garden.
Maybe, just maybe, the reason we can't detect this garden isn't due to the lack of senses to perceive it. Maybe it isn't there. After all, it's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, it's even harder if there is no black cat.
I think he's saying, "Our senses MUST be reliable because I want them to be, but naturalism doesn't reassure me that they are, so I'm going to assume what I want to be true and invent some unjustifiable woo to justify it."
"I like the idea of magic - so I believe in invisible wizards" isn't a robust epistemological foundation.
Science has found that intuition is a completely unreliable guide to understanding the world
I am not as confident as you. I suspect some females have heightened visual acuity and pick up on nonverbal cues mistaken for intuition.
'Science' is reserved for theists to quote spurious nonsense from pop psych sources.
"I used to be an Atheist...". Has this statement ever worked on any level?
No. It is meaningless.
And I never believe them either, they always clearly have no idea what atheism is actually about, and they almost always have the flowery nice god, it's all about how it makes them feel,
It has increased in prevalence since more people have been openly deconstructing and leaving religion. Believing in a god, and subsequently discarding that belief, demonstrates a willingness to challenge beliefs and change one’s mind… many theists want to demonstrate this open-mindedness - some undoubtedly with honest intentions - but the vast majority are simply using it in an attempt to level the playing field despite the fact that they weren’t all that skeptical or committed to their non-belief in the first place.
Whenever I hear that from a theist on one of these videos I immediately begin spamming X to doubt.
@@ARoll925 Spot on. I agree with you. I can only suppose it has something to do with; "god loves a sinner repent". This does beggar-all for normal people, but Theists love to hear this Twonk..
@@briley2177 Good call. Excellent observation. I would be more impressed if a person raised in a predominantly Christian nation, who claims to have been a lifelong Atheist, declared to their community that they have been visited by Narayana and are now a devout Theist. We all can guess how that would play-out.
Caller thinks that fantasizing about a magical god-friend equals truth.
In the end, this again seems to be an "i want to believe in some god concept, so I will justify it via this way that I do not completely understand" argument.
All appeals to a God as an explanation, are _appeals to a bigger mystery._
His whole thing boils down to him saying he has solved Hard Solipsism if you pre-suppose his god. He never uses those words but that is exactly what it is.
Yep, as soon as "grounding" came up I knew the caller was a presupper.
it's truly admirable how much patience the hosts have to listen such nonsense
And worse - nonsense hidden beneath layers of word salad
Absolutely agree. This is the big difference between any show without Matt in and any show with Matt. His impatience and anger towards callers spoils many of the calls he's involved in.
My first thoughts on this caller's arguments:
Gary Milne, (I refuse to use his online name, Darth Dawkins, as he makes it offensive to both Richard AND Vader), THIS is how an adult should conduct oneself, even when presenting a philosobabble argument for your god!
I cannot trust someone as being honest when they start with "I use to be an atheist" and then can't explain what convinced them of a god and what that god is. They just try to be so slippery and avoid any explanations.
Metaphysical the home to bro science, gut feelings, common sense, intuition, and everyone knows that.
"We can't trust our senses unless we believe in something we can't even sense."
I'm curious how that plays out. If our senses are currently unreliable, then this thing outside our senses isn't ensuring our senses are accurate either (otherwise our senses would be reliable), so there's no reason believing it should give you any more confidence in your senses that without. If they're reliable, then there's no need to presuppose said thing, because they're reliable.
If he really is looking for an answer to "how do you know your senses are reliable", it's the same: even presupposing his being, how do you know this being gave you reliable senses? We easily get fooled by optical illusions, entire ranges of light and sound are outside our perception, not to mention some people are blind and deaf, or insensate in some other way. It seems that this creature did not give us reliable senses at all, so it also doesn't provide grounding for the idea that our senses are accurate either.
"I'm going to swap the word truth with the word god, therefore god exists."...
I love how the Christian calls in and then tries to argue for a non-Christian god as if that's a way to get his foot in the door to then argue for his god. It's like he knows that his god is going too far to start with, but if he can convince you this other god idea is possible, then maybe he has a chance of convincing you that his god is possible and then he'll go for it.
I appreciate that the callers will sometimes ask “shall I just begin to speak?”
Got me on side straight away. That and "I believe in evolution"! How refreshing!
Definitely have much respect for this caller. He actually called in for dialogue. Matt gets a lot of heat for snapping at callers but in every case it's when they talk over the hosts or ignore/avoid questions, i.e. they're not there for dialogue they're there to preach.
Thomas backs up what Heinlein said about philosophy-" You don't really get anything out of it, but you can talk about it better."
So thomas can't rely on his own senses unless he pretends that they are grounded by his invisible, magical friend. Sounds like he needs a good therapist
My invisible friend can't be tested and is useful....😂
So, he is approaching the existence of God through academic concepts. Not fact.
In other words deluding oneself.
I think the callers main issue is in taking "we can't trust our senses" in the terms of biological limitations such as scale (not being able to immediately see the curve of the Earth) or lack of ability (not being able to see the full EM spectrum) and trying to generalize that to "we can't trust our senses AT ALL" in terms of say looking at the digital display of an instrument and everyone who sees it saying it shows "1" when it actually shows "37". The first is as I note easily explainable/understandable/logical in terms of our biological limitations. The second though is only possible through conspiracy-theory level of explanations such as "there exists a force dedicated specifically to deceive all of humanity which it does with 100% effectiveness". Ironically that second would be considered evidence of a divine being but simultaneously would be considered evidence that such a divine being should be considered an enemy of humanity (misotheism).
The “we can’t trust our senses” line always devolves into a belief that certainty exists. What grounding beyond physical reality is required to justify imperfect knowledge and fallible senses? The answer is none. But if a person mistakenly presumes that certainty exists, then they can proffer the existence of a perfect source for perfect knowledge. It’s still a god of the gaps argument, but in this case, the theist has invented the gap by suggesting that certainty is attainable when all the evidence suggests that it is not.
Agreed, he's extending "our senses can be fooled" into "we can never trust our senses... without gawd". Utter bollox, and he knows it. He doesn't cross the road if his senses tell him it's unsafe, period. He doesn't need to consult with gawd to tell him he thinks it's safe, but he wants a gawd to exist so this is path to having one.
@@briley2177 You phrased this much better than I have been trying to phrase it, thank you.
It actually seems like Thomas realized that this point of argumentation was pointless at the end. That's honestly impressive.
It always ends in some argument for deism, not theism.
"I used to be an atheist"... After someone says that sentence I know the following arguments are going to be shit.
Seems like the crux his point is he's unwilling to go through life without thinking thay he knows the "final" answer.
He said yes it'd be a problem to admit there is no actual truth. That's not a problem though.
You're not paralyzed by lack of knowledge. You can just be honest and say "I don't know" then live a good life with the understanding you aren't capable of having all the answers.
This whole argument sounds like an existential crisis/thought experiment type thing you'd experience when smoking a lot of weed or drop acid.
He's so caught up in things that have little to no impact on tangible life. So not only can we not confirm any "ultimate" truth but even if we could it would appear to have no utility besides making people feel a little bit more mentally comfortable.
For some people that's a big problem, they have to be right, or at least correct.
I was originally drawn to mathematical logic because of the clarity of having at least some area of life where everything was absolutely known. It seemed like a good point of reference for investigating empirical reality: all that was fuzzy and contentious and always provisional.
Then we got to Cantor and Gödel, uncountability, undecidability, incompleteness. To my surprise, rather than feeling threatened by these fundamental limitations to certainty, once I got over the shock I found myself to be liberated. It's not a reason to give up curiosity and investigation, but to accept incomplete answers as good enough for now, perhaps good enough indefinitely.
As you say, there's no reason to be paralyzed by lack of knowledge. It's inevitable. We still get to go out and have a thorough look around. It's fun, after all.
Sometimes the smartest thing to say is "I don't know", because that just opens you up to knowing more.
Since he has no direct access to nor any way to assess its validity, Thomas is just assuming that his ultimate grounding for reality exists. You can stuff anything into that gap if it makes you feel better, but it does nothing to increase our knowledge. I think the religious personality is very uncomfortable with uncertainty, and that's an emotional condition that's very difficult to reason away.
What’s worse is that the gap wouldn’t even exist if theists weren’t creating it specifically to claim that “something beyond reality must exist” in order to avoid admitting that we are finite beings.
He never explains how positing a god gets around our inability to be certain of anything. Even if a god exists, we remain uncertain, even of anything about that god.
My two favorite hosts!! 😁
On a more sour note: My Glob, I am so sick of these Jordan Peterson clones. I mean….. who cares?
That caller will never agree with your definition of reality. He presuposes god.
I cannot get my head around why anything should be called a "god", let alone be worshipped or appealed to.
Ugh, drives me nuts when he says “observances” instead of “observations” 😜
15:33 He caught himself, noticed it, experienced cognitive dissonance, and quickly went on…
Forrest cracks me up, the stuff he says LOL
He sure is brilliant!!!!
I can't explain something, therefore god,and specifically Jesus. Sure.
The real problem here is that the caller doesn’t realize that invoking a god doesn’t actually solve the problem of the question of the reliability of our senses. Our senses could very well be unreliable under both sets is circumstances (god vs no god). And there would be no way to differentiate the two sets. He’s just adding nonsense to make himself feel better.
1st year philosophy student calls in to flex his shiny new vocabulary, fails to have single coherent thought. Film @ 11
He says the existence of a god “grounds” the reliability of his senses. Ummm, how? And why? If we can make an observation, confirm it using science/testing, then where foes god need to plug in? What does “grounding even MEAN in this context?
Caller speaks calmly and respectfully. Is seemingly receptive to reason. A nice change.
But he's still playing in a Nonsense Circus.
"My senses are imperfect. And your senses are imperfect. But the Magic Boojum in my head--that I can't prove beyond semantics--DOES have perfect senses and knowledge.
And, luckily, there's this book that groundlessly asserts something about this Magic Boojum (who lives in No Time and outside of Everywhere, by the way).
So by transferrance, I get to claim Higher Knowledge and Absolute Truth and other stuff superior to your store brand Reality."
Uh... No.
I think it was all a circular argument in the end...
Metaphysics, supernatural...yeah, those are just words.
You don't get to define something into existence, and as far as I know there's no such thing as "supernatural".
We should all start a class action lawsuit again Jordan Peterson for the mental anguish put on us all by making uneducated men comfortable using the word metaphysical...
After listening more, we should add hierarchical and a few other words as well.
Substrate 😂
Forrest you just gave a beautifully clear explanation of what science is. ... it's simply looking at reality - what else do you want to do ?
Has this caller ever heard of the Munchausen trilemma?
Seems like he think’s he solved both solipsism and the M. trilemma. 😂
He seems to be advocating for foundationalism. In the trilemma, that falls under the horn of dogma/assertion.
I don't care how you build your god Thomas, I care if you can demonstrate it. Without a demonstration, there is no more reason to believe a god did it, then it is to believe my magic, universe creating socks did. Assertions get us nowhere.
What color are your socks? Cause that matters ;)
@@1020kerry Well, blue, but I'm missing one out of the dryer. I guess we can only assume another universe just came into existence.
3:00 Yeah this is going to be the Munchausen Maneuver again right?
10:42 Yup, this is in fact the Munchausen Maneuver, couldn't be anything else when he said "in order to trust our senses AT ALL".
I wonder how he ever trusted in those very same senses which were required for him to even KNOW of a god when they let him know of a god.
This caller isn't doing anything new. This caller is resorting to an age old intellectual cockblock that apologists have used since the days of Ken Ham's "were you there" which basically serves the means of a conversation stopper or to sow doubt in, well, everything, literally.
They then make use of that to transition to "well then our god is the only answer". This sort of thing can take on many different forms but all of them make use of the fact that knowledge is limited and senses and perception COULD be wrong in order to cast doubt.
Thomas and Jackie should talk to each other.
😂😂😂 this is a good one
"Who should I believe? YOU or MY LYING EYES?"
“Because we can’t trust our senses, we need a grounding”. I’d love to know what method there potentially can be that doesn’t involve your senses.
It’s amazing how many people say things like this, then in the next breath explain how they chose to believe in an all-powerful God that knows everything, so that’s the grounding. How did they come to the conclusion that a being that knows everything exists 🤦♂️
My senses are unreliable so I imagined a new sense that reliably detects another thing I imagined.
If what we observe is unreliable, assuming or presupposing a god would in its self be unreliable. I don’t see how it becomes reliable by making such a presupposition, but I’m not a desperate theist, so it’s kinda moot
Wow. What the phuck was that nonsense?!! He was so obliviously and comically annoying. Y'all are so patient.
Caller: This is my argument guys. Guys is the ultimate source of truth. What we perceive what we observe and even reality itself is not real.
Host: How do you know that?
Caller: Because well, I read it on a book ... I heard from god ... etc
Host: Did you use your senses to read on a book or hear? How didn't you know your senses werent working okay?
That's how a discussion should go with these kind of presups/solipsists/i deny reality kind of people.
How do we trust that our repeatable, testable observations are true, if we don't believe that there's an unobserveable untestable god?
Seriously dude?
The highest degree of knowledge is attained when the claim can be tested, and one can make accurate, current predictions based on expectations and then those results pass skeptical and expert peer-review.
Well, not all fields of study and knowledge are based on making predictions, nor with testability as a criterion of rational evaluation.
This caller made claims covered by the field of metaphysics, and all the stuff he is talking about would pass peer review in a philosophy journal.
@@Professor_Pinkphilosophy is merely us thinking about thinking, it doesn't really have much to do with the structure of reality itself. If you want to make claims about reality they have to pass peer review, at least if you want intellectually honest people to believe you LOL
@@emoryogglethorp8180
No, philosophy isn't just thinking about thinking. That would be logic and epistemology specifically, which are merely two branches of philosophy.
Even if Philosophy was just "thinking about thinking," which it isn't, that wouldn't mean it has nothing to do with reality. How do you know your notions of reality are reliable unless you reflect upon the intellectual faculties you're using to investigate external reality?
And, again, I was responding to the original claims of the poster. In many fields of study, which all have to do with reality, testability isn't an important standard if one at all and many fields don't strive for predictability. It isn't significant, or altogether absent, in business ethics, theatre studies, propositional calculus, Gothic literature, formal logic, jazz theory, geometry, or ancient Sumerian.
And, as I said, the caller's claims WOULD pass peer review.
@@Professor_Pinkyeah, showing us that you don't understand something as basic as the problem of hard solipsism isn't exactly the gotcha that you think it is LOL
I would love to get the chance to ask one of these “we need grounding!” Type guys: what, precisely, does this ‘grounding’ DO? It appears that, at bottom, all their saying is, “I’m gonna approach the world exactly the same way you do… but I can’t do that until I say to myself ‘I HAVE A GROUNDING FOR THIS BECAUSE I DECIDED I DO!’ and then I can get on with it.” 🤷🤨
The caller sounds like he jumped in without his water wings. 😁
I agree with Thomas in all ways except one. A metaphysical Norwegian Anteater named Steve created Thomas’ god, he is my Lord and Savior, and my Norwegian anteater is the Ultimate Reality. This as true and as real to me as what Thomas is saying and science saying that there are no anteaters from Norway, that anteaters are not metaphysical, and that my Lord and Savior Steve only exists in my head is folly.
Checkmate Atheists and all praise be unto Steve.
23:10 “The extent to which it (truth) conforms to reality tells us that truth is grounded sufficiently by reality”
What an interesting proposition. I’m trying to decide whether I think that is profound, or whether I think it’s meaningless because of the problem being discussed… we don’t have direct access to reality. It’s filtered through our senses. I think it’s the latter… isn’t it the same as a theist saying that they have certainty in the knowledge that God exists because God is all powerful and wants them to know? That doesn’t work, because they are relying on their own feelings and senses to come to that conclusion.
Basically Argument from Look at the Trees. Point at Reality. Assert "my Boojum made that". And use the existence of the trees (or Reality) to require/smuggle in the thing in question.
The "god made the trees" part still remains to be demonstrated.
God is a hypotheses for which we still await evidence. Nothing but words words words.
Any unfalsifiable claim is just that - unfalsifiable. It cannot be demonstrated to be true of false; it's untestable, therefore any conclusion about it is unreasonable to hold. First step would be to discard the claim and find one with falsification criteria.
Perhaps, unless there is a rational argument that can be made for why it ought to be presupposed to be true, or, why it would be more beneficial to accede to the claim.
@@Professor_PinkIf it's unfalsifiable, then there can't really be any rational argument for why something should be presupposed to exists. In order to have a rational reason to believe something exists, it needs to be falsifiable.
@@MarxistMomentum No, not necessarily.. Arguments can in principle be made to warrant supposing an unfalsifiable idea to be true, or to be false. Pascal's wager, most moral arguments for God, and Kant's transcendental/teleological argument for the presupposition of God all try to do just that. None of them do so satisfactorily for me personally, but I don't exclude the logical possibility of someone devising such an argument. Some theists, for instance, claim that it is better to suppose that God exists because of the beneficial results for morality, social cohesion, or whatever else they can come up with.
@@MarxistMomentum Some things can be. I can't prove that the world isn't something I'm dreaming and dreams really are just this vivid and last this long, but I need to start somewhere. The same thing for what if human reasoning is actually unreliable. There is evidence that it is not but we are using human reasoning to decide that. But if we doubt everything then we can know nothing so some very basic things, even if not provable, need to be accepted.
@@Professor_PinkI never said that arguments can't be made to justify an unfalsifiable claim of something existing. I said that a *rational* argument can't be made to justify an unfalsifiable claim of something existing.
So, in his theory, we can only find god if using something outside of our "god given" senses. So this god forgot to create us with the thing that we need to discover him? Seems super unfair if that's the case.
Almost as if we were unfinely tuned for the one thing we were supposedly designed to do.
Seems like a wicked oversight on gawd’s part
god's incompetence has no bounds.
6:46 how do you know that you can trust your logic that everything must be grounded?
I am not making any claims about the "ultimate grounding" of reality. I do not care about any ultimate grounding. I am going to continue to rely on my senses and the "scientific method" to explore and verify what I perceived as "reality".
Now...
If a god exists AND you think I have any duty to abide by what this god wants AND you want these dictates imposed on me in any way whatsoever, I require this god to be demonstrated in a manner that I can comprehend.
every time they start off with the word metaphysical i just sigh
"I believe because I want to believe and here look at the trees. Here let me use borrowed vocabulary that doesn't exist as anything more than words and let me reference other apologists no matter how slippery their arguments are." In other words, he wants to claim the metaphysical but he can't bring a ghost to the debate stage. "I will resort to the god of the gaps, but this time I will try to veil it like it isn't god of the gaps while pretty much stating that the god of the gaps makes me seem intelligent and like I arrived at something."
I don’t get the idea of defining something whose attributes are not actually observed and then deciding that because there’s a definition, the thing itself is real rather than defining something by its observed characteristics. Example, a definition of « giraffe » generally includes a long neck, because one has observed a long neck on the animal which is defined.
I have 5 billion dollars in assets... But it exists outside of time and space...
How we need to have this god being to have our observations be "grounded" yet every other word is "metaphysical".
How does the metaphysical have anything to do with our reality being grounded??
After babbling on and on about nothing whatsoever, he finally says"Well, we need this for objective truth"??? What the hell does that even mean??
My senses can’t infallibly detect how reality is, but my intuition is 100% correct about how reality must be. The metaphysical things that I imagine are more real than reality because my imagination is 100% true.
Jesus....yeh ok mate 🙄
I think my brain shut off for the first 3 minutes of talking
I think i would have spent that entire call telling Thomas that what he described isn't the Christian god.
Believe in whatever god you want. But if you tell me that your god is the only god, doesn't control atmospheric phenomenon, and is totally celibate, don't tell me you worship Zeus
Everyone's their own personal theologian!
I like Thomas because he's essentially a presup without a script, which is more interesting.
All religions have is beliefs and feelings with vague nonsensical claims with no actual evidence! If God is real or exists then get it to show up! Or shut up
Religion is all about goals that are not dependent upon the truth of the claims they use to achieve those goals.
Mostly emotional placation for the masses and donations from those masses enabling the survival of the religion.
There's no sense in reasoning with those who don't understand what it is.
The familiar ex-atheist trope comes into play without once giving the *evidence* that led to a god in general and that one in particular. Countless big words adding up to one big, pointless waffle with a side of salad.
The caller doesn't think we can trust our senses but he thinks we can trust there is a god? What is he using to determine this if he isn't using any senses?
A one sided internal appeal to emotion. My lucky rabbit’s foot makes this feel right so I accept it. But how do you evidentially prove it to anyone else, especially when looking for the truth of that thing?
This is Jackie again trying to pose as a less despicable version of himself
I thought he sounded familiar.
I don't think so, his voice isn't right, he, like Jackie is clearly a Peterson fan boy though who thinks Peterson sounds smart and so he regurgitates it without actually understanding what he is saying cause it is incomprehensible
No quote mining and 0 references of Peterson. Nah, that's not Jakie 😁
This caller and Jackie should talk to each other 😂, just please leave us out of it.
If you ask me, it sounds like you and Forrest were... doubting Thomas. (It's a joke, it's a pun, I agree with Paul and Forrest, sheesh.)
No one should believe things without reason.
@@TheLevantin Yeah. I agree. What does this have to do with my silly pun?
@@Pensive_Scarlet I read your comment as a accusation.
The Bible contradicts itself so it makes sense.😂😂
Vauge deism is the last resort of a failed theism.
The internet has given theists access to phrases like “metaphysical”. They come from apologists like Peterson and Chopra that sound comforting and at the same time, lack substance.
There is no sense in which a theistic worldview grounds mathematical truths. Such truths are system-defined, in that they follow just from the rules and axioms of the system. There's no way to add God in there, it becomes entirely incoherent.
But you trust your senses when it comes to god, although you’ve never experienced him using your senses.
"I used to be an atheist" is the most disingenuous phrase I've ever heard.
An ex atheist is like an ex smoker who thinks they've made a huge change and now has an "exaggerated" ego.
"Ego is the Latin word for "I." So if a person seems to begin every sentence with "I", it's sometimes a sign of a big ego. It was the psychologist Sigmund Freud (well, actually his original translator) who put ego into the popular vocabulary, but what he meant by the word is complex, so only other psychologists really use it in the Freudian sense. The rest of us generally use ego simply to mean one's sense of self-worth, whether exaggerated or not. When used in the "exaggerated" sense, ego is almost the same thing as conceit. Meeting a superstar athlete without a trace of this kind of ego would be a most refreshing experience. But having a reasonable sense of your own worth is no sin. Life's little everyday victories are good-in fact, necessary-for a healthy ego."
We have many more enhancements to our senses -- scientific technology -- than St Thomas did. It's as good as it gets, to a degree of certainty.
Is he saying; the we can't trust our senses, and that we therefore must invent an absolute 'touchstone' to which we then anchor our observations?
But is that 'touchstone' place correctly? If not, then the entire purpose is null and void.
Religion is at its core, a way to temper the sense of responsibility for the actions we take. God is ultimately responsible for everything... we are not, so
we can thus relax a little and continue living without fearing that the harm we cause, is too much.
Thomas sounds like a nice guy, but he also sounds like a guy who just discovered a Philosophy 101 textbook. If he's right about god, maybe someday he'll actually be able to demonstrate that in literally any way whatsoever, but I doubt it.
This guy goes on and on about not being able to rely on our senses without a god. He also believes in a god that actively manipulates reality.
How can someone trust their senses if, at any time, your dog can start talking to you? Or you and your spouse suddenly speak different languages?
Thomas is desperate to not say in plain words what he is actually thinking. Here it is in plain terms:
1. I was taught their was a god that created the universe.
2. I can not think of how the universe can exist without this god that I was told exists.
3. Therefore, this god must exist.
It is no more complicated than this.
I want to believe - but. I can't help but think Tommy was getting coaching or reading simultaneously.
In short: he believes there has to be something greater because he doesn't understand everything and someone(s) came up with an idea of gods therefor god? I'm scratching my head if not, and if yes, I'm still clueless why should anyone ever try to convince others with this? In other words it sounds very much like he wants there to be answers and therefor he accepts folklore claims to have "an answer" (which doesn't get us anywhere).
Please, correct me, if I got this wrong.
Just like this caller, I want to believe certain things. He wants to believe in a god, and refuses the gods of all religions, so he makes up a scenario where his god will fit. I want to believe in Santa Claus. I have never seen him, his sleigh, his reindeer, his elves or even the gifts he brings. He has never brought many any gifts or come down my chimney. So I have created in my mind that he exists and only does these things while invisible. Even the gifts he brings are invisible. Just because he has the metaphysical ability to do all things unseen is no reason for me to not believe in him because my world would be crushed if he did not exist. I therefore create my own reality. Long live Santa Claus.
Thomas the idea that a God is possible, necessary, a ground for our fallible human brains and or real is something your fallible human brain came up with. So your idea is a catch 22 we have to trust our intellects in some basic fashion, warranted or not, or we can't ever know anything even God.
Thomas isn't listening.
Most likely this guy was pressured into believing in God by family or a partner and needs to come up with some justification