Man, we’re just glad to see you; you don’t need to go to all the grand production effort. We would be glad to see your videos even if they were in - _shudder_ - portrait orientation.
Just here to say that your video "...And What If I'm Wrong?" has been very important in my process of deconverting from islam. Now a happy ex-muslim of 6 years. Thank you!
Anything you have to say, I’m all ears. “Treatise on Morality” is one of the best videos ever put on RUclips in my opinion. I have watched it numerous times, your other videos too, but that one was a masterpiece.
Dude, I can't believe you uploaded. Your content greatly helped me expand my views 10 years ago, and I'm so happy to see you're still here and hopefully doing well. All the best!
I love your videos and occasional appearances on athiest call in shows. You are patient, respectful, and kind in your thoughtful and thought provoking replies.
As a Christian, I just want to say I really enjoy your videos and discussions. It can be hard to find people on any side of any issue who can take the people in the opposing camp seriously and approach the arguments with this level of humility. I really appreciate your attitude towards philosophy.
I'm in the 'don't punish behavior you want to see' crowd, so I'll spare you the fake heart attack. Always glad to see you posting in whatever capacity isn't a drag for you.
“Necessary beings” are little more than unevidenced propositions to avoid the potentiality of brute facts. Why posit that a being could exist necessarily when the necessary existence of reality is more parsimonious? The human desire to claim preferred status within reality by asserting that we (humans) were created in the image of said necessary being - instead of viewing human existence as an equally insignificant aspect of a necessary reality.
Contingency arguments and ontological ones both strike me as little more than wishing things into existence. Sometimes the presentation is more elaborate or obfuscating the argument more but this only makes the arguments worse for me. It smacks far more of dishonesty to write a 30 page paper on wishful thinking than to write a short, simple form. Both rely on BS but one's fuller of theoretical BS than the other.
@@archapmangcmg i say this over and over and over again, you can't TALK god into existence, if there is a god demonstrate his presence or do something else with your life.
I love the new low production format. Ok, that's partially a lie. I love pretty much everything you've put out, I'm more or less indifferent about the format. On one hand, it's cool to get into the gritty details of whatever argument you're talking about, on the other sometimes I just wanna chill.
I was recommended this video and clicked on it because I’m an atheist from the rural south and I’ve never seen this channel before so I thought it was new and I always check out newbies. Well two things, turns out it’s not a new channel, it’s actually really old. And secondly here, I began to notice that this fellow looked familiar, so I looked at his channel, and I saw in his featured channels “The Bold and the Beautiful” and that’s when it hit me, this guy is the man my 60 year old mom loves to see on TV everyday. So I wanna say, thank you Scott, for entertaining my mom all these years, and also for giving me a really good laugh when I realized my devoutly religious mother’s favorite actor is in the atheist/secularist community.
Your still alive! Man, good to see you! I used to watch you on an old channel of mine, only rescently did I add you to my subscribed list on this channel.
Your videos are always a joy for me. It makes me happy to get an occasional video reminder that I'm not the last person that actually enjoys contemplating and discussing whatever without "DEBET MEH BRUH" as the ultimate goal. I honestly believe that people in this day and age have forgotten that you can get a certain pleasure out of just thinking through matters, regardless what they are. No end or goal in mind, just focusing on a topic and applying the process of rational dissection, step by step. It's no different than making music or painting - there is a certain zen to be had in engaging a flow of ideas like you would a kata.
Hey Scott, just want to say (like many others here in comment section) that it's always great to hear from you, even if for a quick and improvised video! Hope to get more soon!
You're more charitable than I expected or would personally be. Especially having seen a previous video from that channel titled "10 [sincere, non-gotcha] Questions for Atheists" that... wasn't.
Agreed, there is no way Braxton is being genuine, he's just making clickbait for money. If it works and sparks good conversations, that's cool, but doesn't change the fact that Braxton has heard answers to all these questions before but doesn't care. It's not like an atheist giving good answers to these are going to change his mind, he desperately needs christianity to be true and has had "personal experiences" that can't be verified and shouldn't convince anyone else.
Just got here after watching you on Paulogia. Have to say I’m really impressed with you after watching just this one video. I’ve subscribed and will definitely watch more of your videos.
My take: 1) Non-religious household in Czech Republic. Never had much religious friends/people around simply because majority of people here is non-religious. Never made some negative assumptions about a friend/colleague/person who I found out was religious. On the contrary, I was happy to discuss their world views. 2) Consciousness. Golden ratio. Cosmological constants. Mathematical patterns. The fact that cells (human, plant, ...) "know" what to do and what to be exactly for the whole to function. 3) Dogs. 4) Never lived as a concrete person. I think the "concept" of Jesus is an amalgamation of possibly several people and various stories of that era. That concept was brought down and distilled as a single person to be more relatable for a single and common person of that time (which was much more relatable than the concept of God, who, by the way, inevitably had to take the anthropomorphic form for the same reasons). One of the indirect evidence I work with is the lack of sources - other than Bible - mentioning Jesus at the time of his life, while he was supposedly performing unseen miracles. And even Bible was written long after his supposed death. His miracles did not get a single notice by contemporary historians or anyone who left some kind of written statement, which seems really unlikely. 5) There are no Christians in my family, even extended family, as far as I know. My cousin converted to Judaism, but after 10 years of marriage with an orthodox convert, living an orthodox life, she herself is fed up with it. So there is definitely no convincing coming from her or me being able to accept her theoretical newly found crush on Christianity. 6) The Visit (by Madsen, not the Hollywood one). No Country For Old Men. Red Dwarf. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Many more... 7) I fail to see why the prime mover has to be a "being" in the first place. Let alone see any actual evidence of that. The prime mover (if that's even a thing in the actual reality, but let's say it is) can be a concept similar to natural law or quantum mechanics etc. In which case, that would be a massive stretch to claim this "force" answers prayers and sends its offsprings to preach in sandals in Middle East. 8) First of all, it takes a great deal of parental and cultural influence. After all, it is the reason why some parts of the world have produced Christians only, while other parts have produced Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists etc only. And cases where devout Christian parents gave birth to devout Muslims are on the rare side. And as for the everlasting life - I don't think anybody experiences everlasting life at all. Why would you think anybody, let alone Christian exclusively, does? 9) Are you asking whether I believe Bible teaches about the eternal torment in hell? Uhm...yes? Because if not, church has a huge PR problem of claiming this bit for centuries, as well as hordes of Christians using this as a legitimate scare tactics to influence and manipulate other people into believing in their story, while-ironically enough-tormenting them psychically in the process. 10) Believing anything they do is god wanting them to do it. Not using contraceptives. Abortions. Opposing STEM research.
Always a pleasure to see a new vid. I’m desperately wanting to expand on the “most problematic issue” question with you, but I know you don’t like YT as a format for it. The off-the-cuff format was interesting.
I was brought up Roman Catholic and it's all I knew. I never really question things until the last few years. Here is an example that makes me question things. Take any tragedy like a school shooting, the pulse night club and Sandy Hook Massacre of those 20+ kids. When people survive it's couched in God saved you, there is a reason you survived. So what are we saying God purposely didn't save the others? They never had a purpose? That's insulting to the children who died at Sandy Hook. More and more I just question things. Without going into the horrific details, I suffered most of my life with all sorts of abuse starting at a young age. I had a little child Bible and would wait for God to help me. Everyone keeps saying God's there with you. Really? I still have his cross on my wall and jokingly tell him how are you going to mess with me today. I never expected life to be easy but everything I do and have never came easy for me. Somehow, paid my way through college working 2 jobs and had an apartment in a bad area. When I was kicked out of my suburban house. Believe it or not I loved having my own place. Now I was in control didn't have much money for food. This was all back in the 80's. I live with my husband and son now. I'm grateful for them. When I first held Alex, I held him close and begged God. I said every painful disaster in my life will be worth it Just keep Alex healthy and safe. What happened? He had a benign tumor in his mouth at four months that was removed with no anathesia because he was too young to know if it would kill him. Hearing him scream from down the hall almost killed me, then childhood epilepsy, a language disorder so he was in special ed. I eventually quit my dream job as Director of Audit at a large school district and helped him with speech best I could on top of what he was getting in school. Then I got sick and was on disability until recently. I had a great job for a year but one auditor for the 29th largest district doing everything myself. No help not even an administrative assistant My predecessor is a super star in their eyes but have no idea she really didn't do her work right. Rarely had any findings I come along as a real auditor asking questions, improving things etc She found a way to get me out of that job. I drove four hours a day because Alex needs college money. Because I had a hard time keeping up being alone, she had a plan and I resigned. So I'm an unemployed Certified Fraud Examiner and experience as a Director and I can't find anything Nov, Alex is a senior in a top Texas high school, marching Band, Editor in chief of the school newspaper He's still a copy editor and reporter. Three colleges want him. He is a a whole new kid with friends. Bright future I also got him a therapist outside of our insurance. He has quite a few friends and hasn't been any trouble. In the end, I can't say God had anything to do with my life. That's sad
So nice to see you post again! Even with all the other secular thinkers I've found out about over the years, I always come back to your videos as a baseline to see how many understanding of philosophical concepts have grown or changed.
There is a BIG problem with the "Did Jesus Exist" question: The phrase, "Jesus existed" can mean VERY different things to different people. Is a Jesus that didn't resurrect still Jesus? Is a Jesus that didn't perform any miracles, still Jesus? If some random dude named Jesus lived in Jeruselum 2K years ago, does that mean "Jesus existed" is true? What if his name was really 'Yeshua' and the only thing in the Bible that actually happened was that he was a charismatic religeous leader who was executed by the Romans? Does that mean Jesus existed? How much of the mythology surrounding Jesus must be true for a person to be considered the 'Jesus'? What if there are several people that did the things that Jesus is credited for? Instead of giving a binary answer, you really need to talk about the different aspects of Jesus and which parts you think are rooted in history. Otherwise, your answer is going to be extremely ambiguous.
This is well put, expressing the problem I have with the question. Rather like asking was there someone named Peter Parker living in New York, it is a big city, there's likely several, that doesn't make Spiderman real.
the phrase "do you believe in..." has always bugged me, the only person or thing i can "believe is" is ME. what they mean is "do you believe jesus was a god" or "do you believe ufos are spaceships" people are really, really, and i mean really crappy at using their own language.
Absolutely. I am in the camp of I believe that the “legend” of Jesus ‘existed’. Meaning that one man existed whom may have been called “Jesus” or something else but renamed to Jesus because the build up of the ‘Legend of Jesus’ game of telephone was rising. The stories are spreading rapidly and they all circulated around ‘Jesus’. Either way: it’s an extremely circular argument to ask if one BELIEVES that Jesus existed as the legend we all have been taught to know him today or we ACCEPT that a man named Jesus existed and loosely ‘believe’ he was what the legends say he was. The gospels won’t allow you to perceive him as any other way or as just a simple man. That right there gives Christians an upper hand no matter how you answer the question.
@Hyperion 666 and we all know that magic is staged, and that very capable magicians can trick your brain by using optical illusions. There’s also magicians who’re great with words and convincing enough to make millions from multi level marketing, ponzi and pyramid schemes. You get a group of impressionable and gullible people to buy in to an idea hard enough, they’ll accept any ludicrous proposition.
As soon as I saw a notification that you finally uploaded something I clicked right away! Glad to see you're still active! I've been a subscriber for years now and have always enjoyed your views both philosophically and "religiously".
We agree and are in the same boat, but I wanted to respectfully challenge some of your answers with questions: 3:40 Why do you think this piece of evidence lends itself to a theists explanation of consciousness? How did you come to this conclusion? If more Athiests throughout history gave good reasons for consciousness coming from randomness, would that change your opinion? 7:06 Say we granted that 'Jesus" did exist, is this concept of 'Jesus' based on just one account or could it be multiple persons claiming to be jesus? Could it be multiple people at a time were claiming the same thing and just one happened to make it into historical books? Like in the same way that thousands of people were creating the first computer but only two (Bill Gates and Steven Jobs) were remembered? 14:18 How would your behaviour or beliefs differ from being annihilated vs eternal torment? Would that have any impact in how you live your life now? Which would you prefer if given the option? 15:45 Do you think we will be able to arrive in the future and have a definite answer to when consciousness should begin from fetal development? If not, how could this concern ever be challeneged?
Great video - thanks for posting! I honestly can't see what benefit lengthy editing could have that would be worth all that time and stress for you. I think what you have here is just spot on! :) I was thinking about the last question, about the most dangerous view that Christians hold. Maybe this is more of a movement (and it's not limited to Christianity), so perhaps not what Braxton is looking for, but it's the general idea that you can have a divine and perfect mandate to do anything at all. The notion that, no matter what suffering you might cause on Earth right now, there is ultimately a good and pure motivation or justification - to me, that's the ultimate source of more or less all misery that occurs as a result of religious beliefs.
I would like to hear more about why you think consciousness is better expected under the existence of a deity. Im not clear how that bridge is built. I like the point on deferring to the experts on God's exists. It is what "many" atheist expect of creationists on evolution. The same should be expected on a historical basis unless a person is willing to go in on the full study and understanding of the evidence to make the case. Love these almost "conversationally" structured videos. Hope you continue this kind of content.
Probably just the perspective of a layperson without much experience studying neuroanatomy and current neuroscience, which is just scratching the surface of consciousness and how it evolved. But a basic understanding of the brain and how it works took away any doubt that consciousness could simply be a byproduct of brain activity
Love this video…it was fun😀…I hope you do more! And yes I loved THE LEFTOVERS too. The last episode was where Justin Theroux sang a karaoke Homeward Bound, which left me a crying mess haha.❤️
What you talk about is way too smart for me, I just want to say that you have such a warm, engaging presence. Also as an actor you're quite underrated and I wish you a future full of roles that correspond to your abilities ❤️
So glad to see you back! No need for grand production and editing, just you do you. Also I really loved your answers, because they show that you are not a "lazy" I just don't believe lol -atheist, but have actually really given all these things a thought. Also it's interesting to hear the American ecperience of being raised non-religious, because I had the same kind of upbringing, but as I live in northern Europe, no one tried to seriously convert me (I was told a lot of stories from the Bible, and while some teachers in my first grades failed to mention that these are not history lessons, I still got the message that these are stories from a book, so it was just interesting to me because I have always loved stories). I was baptized though, because in my country it's just something you do (mostly so you can get a wedding in a church, lol), but I got my "divorce" from church when I was 22 because I didn't want to pay the church tax (could have done that at 18, but I just literally didn't think about it much). But, yeah. Very interesting.
Hey man! It's great to see ya again. Haven't seen you in my feed for about a decade! Back when we had that little atheist community where we all got on chat to discuss whatever philosophical nonsense you guys put up for debate. We only did it a few times, and I can't even remember what it was called. "(something) Tuesdays"? (Edit: Tuesday Afternoons!) But it's been nice to see you post even in the casual style everyone used to do back then. Felt like listening to an old friend just shoot their thoughts again.
Getting a video from Mr Clifton is like getting a warm ray of sunshine through the window on a cold winter day. It doesn't happen often but you enjoy every second of it when it does.
I think a lot of these discussions miss two key issues: 1. If you will accept evolution, you have to accept that humans evolved out of animals that had no religion. A rat (think dinosaur age) doesnt worship a god. At some point out brains evolved the capacity to reason abstractly, to consider actors in our environment where there were none (who does the wind, who does the rain?). It helps in your survival to learn information from your elderly. It helps in your survival to be able to mentally handle complex situations. Religion is just a side effect of this. And so is philosofy. 2. The whole christian book starts out with the premis that god created everything. God made the garden, felt offended and punished the first humans for their actions into several generations following after. Out of that flow tons of rules that guide your behavior towards a target only known to your god. If I look at my dog - he cant phatom the dept of decisions I make in my life about his life - and he better be a good boy or he will receive punishment. But I dont burn him forever should he fail to live up to my ideal - nor do I punish his offspring for his failings. The whole myth starting the religion has some basic flaws, that should throw it out from the very start. Its why they never tell you to read it from the beginning - but always offer some of the starter books from the NT.
yep, theists often accuse atheist of "borrowing from the theistic worldview" that is we steal morality from them, bu unless religion was around 100,000 to 150,000 years ago, we were an entirely secular planet up until 50,000 years ago.
Gotta admit, having heard a squillion of these "# questions for atheists" videos, that first one genuinely caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting a query quite that sincere.
I’ve been watching your videos since I was sixteen. I’m 30 now and this was really fun. I could go for more stuff like this…and also, I’d love for you to deal with the person of Jesus. Specifically on whether or not the historical data leads one to believe in the resurrection. I’d be interested to see where the research leads you.
Always interesting to hear your thoughts. There are a few others I enjoy, but you count among the most earnest atheist I love to listen to. Thanks for posting this.
Considering the countless professional apologists and stuff for centuries and their claims to be oh so religious, the lack of 'good faith' is almost malignant at this point.
@@EdwardHowton I know; partly wordplay, partly my own exhaustion at it all. I guess my eye-rolling at the same like, 20 things every apologist ever says for 100s of years is the malignant thing maybe? lol I just don't understand how we've spent 1000s of years, millions of lives, trillions of currency on debating people's imaginations. Literally, I'm not trying to be glib, thats all god nonsense ever is. You're debating a man-child's magic friend and I'm just so done, ya know? Not to mention the countless people who have been murdered because of the collective madness of it all. I don't want to seem unread in these topics; I've been studying philosophy and religion for 15 years now, but at the end of the day, I can honestly say that there is nothing to any of it. There's nothing there!
@@satyasyasatyasya5746 Yeah. I'm right there with you, buddy. Being honest? Almost dying of cancer has been a blessing. I can legitimately just not give a fuck what happens to this species anymore. Gaslighting is the new truth. Crybullying is the new money-making scheme. Victim cards are the new ethics. Lowest common denominator is the new short-term unsustainable gains versus long-term suicide. And there's no stopping it anymore. We've had several perfect opportunities to right the course just in the past few decades, and instead we've got the people best place to start the turn going to space in dick rockets instead. I can answer your question as to why we've spent thousands of years dealing with this shit, though. It works. Shit works. It's effortless and it works. Sanity never stood a goddamn chance. Back to riding out the rest of my life and eating popcorn at the Apocalypse Show. Best of luck to the rest of you. I hope I go quick and soon.
I'm always interested in listening to your topics because you use intelligent explanations which make sense even if something I may not always agree on but that's because I might not have understood entirely that subject means I need to first understand it before to give a certain judgment, but that doesn't stop me from listening what you have to say about it... it may teach me or open up some thoughts I didn't know I could understand. in short words it's always been a pleasure listening to you because you manage to explain certain subjects whereby you're making sense which very often it doesn't always happen when I listen to some others who are trying to make some points but aren't bringing the right arguments to the table which for me needs to make sense first of all...what comes with my understanding and acceptance is a different story...
It’s great to see you ‘tubing’ again! ;-} WRT Jesus historicity, I’m agnostic. I *have* read a number of scholarly papers/books on the subject, though, because it interested me. I agree that someone who hasn’t been interested enough to dig into the different arguments should just go with the consensus. BTW Carrier does have a PhD in history with his dissertation being on education and science in the Roman Empire. He’s not the only scholar who questions Jesus’ historicity, but they are in the minority. Doherty, Price and Carrier, plus a few others, have just made it not a completely crazy stance with their research, analysis and publications. (From my self-study, I’d say if Hercules and King Arthur are non-historical, then Jesus may also have been non-historical. The evidence for each of them being historical seems to be of about the same quality.)
I use King Arthur and Hercules as examples when trying to explain to others. I also throw in an occasional Robin Hood and Nedd Ludd. Another scholar who’s in the agnostic camp but thinks the hypothesis has merit and has published a peer reviewed book about Jesus mythicism is Dr Raphael Lataster. His doctorate is in Religious Studies so this is definitely in his wheelhouse. I didn’t buy his peer reviewed book because of price but his other laymen level books on the subject are worth a read. I’m officially in the agnostic camp, too, and also find the subject fascinating. It *really* irks me that such a huge percentage of the New Testament scholars haven’t even bothered to read these authors but still sneer and pontificate about the hypothesis as though they have read it. I stumbled on to Doherty’s website a long time ago, bought both of his books and was really intrigued by his idea and his evidence. Before that I had always thought the various mythicism stuff going around was mostly incoherent, didn’t make sense and consisted of conspiracy theory and/or unbelievable/weak historical evidence.
Have you read “The Righteous Mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion ” by Jonathan Haidt? That book changed my life when it came to understanding moral intuitions and how/why they develop.
have you read "games people play" by eric berene, completely changed my way of dealing with people who just want to win arguments for the sake of winning.
Carrier has a PhD. I'm more of a mythicist than most. The lack of contemporary evidence is a major problem for me. Plus the writing we do have doesn't mention the most influential man from that time is troubling as well.
Yes. You can't hold up the Canonical Gospels as historical documents as even Biblical Scholars don't claim to know specifically who those stories came from. Historians can't assess anonymous sources. Only fundamentalists will try to tell you that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote their respective books.
If Jesus was just a normal human being with a small following, we wouldn't expect much in the way of evidence for him, so the lack of reference to him by contemporary sources is not really surprising. Remember, the religion of Christianity evolved over the following few hundred years after Jesus' death, based on the 'fantasisation' of his life that took place in an environment where the mythology was allowed to thrive in relative secrecy among the 'unlettered classes'. If Christianity had gone the way of other groups, the lack of evidence wouldn't raise an eyebrow, and it's only the church leaders of hte first half of the first milleniam AD that cemented Christianity as a world dominating religion - and we have plenty of evidence for them.
The first two seasons of The Leftovers were off the charts brilliant. Got a little too weird by the third season. Yeah, definitely “ Religious.” It was kind of a weird spin on The Rapture. Movies: Godfather, Taxi Driver, maybe Schindler’s List. Good video.
I don't create youtube videos, and would rather add to the algorithm here than on TR's channel. 1) Religious deconversion story? I was raised in a Christian family. Private school. Mass at least once a week. I saw from an early age that the nuns and priests were willing to lie for their beliefs. As a teen I encountered too many inconsistencies throughout the Christian religions. At that point I called myself an agnostic Christian - with an emphasis on agnostic. I didn't see anyone I could trust for real answers, so spent the next decade just living my life. Not going to church, and basically leaving religion alone. But while I was doing the live and let live attitude, others in my personal life and in politics didn't see it that way. They were righteous. They were privileged to tell everyone else what they could and couldn't do. I got tired of being agnostic. So, with the availability of the internet now, I did further research on CONFIRMING the existence of god, and which god. I didn't find anything at all that I considered compelling. So I figured I'd look at the other side. What reasons are there to not think that a god exists. I had seen Hitchens on a Fox news interview years prior, so looked deeper into what we was saying. I found a lot of what he was saying compelling, and looked for other sources, so that I wasn't hanging my hat on the viewpoint of one person. Dawkins, Harris, Dillahunty, and others that I can not recall now. They all have very good points to different questions or arguments. So now I'm thinking I'm not so much an agnostic any more - and definitely not a Christian. Before completely making up my mind, I critically evaluate the data that I've been exposed to from both sides. The biggest flaw I see so far is, what if these atheists I've been listening to are cherry picking or being as dishonest as the nuns from my childhood. To resolve the cherry picking issue, I figured I should watch debates. In those, it is up to the other side to keep them honest, and point out cherry picking (and any other issues). So I watched Nye v Ham, several Hitchens ones, as well as several others. I found the conclusions rather damning (pun intended). There is not an even slightly significant reason to believe a god exists. As with ANY good scientist, I am open to newly presented evidence. Just present it. 2) Is there any [good] evidence for god? Is there evidence? Sure. Is it good or compelling? Not really. Is it good or compelling in the light of counter evidence? Absolutely not. So what is an example of a piece of evidence for the existence of god? A popularly sited one is the bible. Some will deny that it is evidence, but I consider that it is - at least at first blush. It is a book that says there is a god and was written eons ago, when, ostensibly, god appeared and/or talked to people. Is that proof? Not even close. It is enough evidence to say, hey, this might be important to look into. Yes, so you look into it. And you see that the book has consistency issues with itself as well as with reality. And, critically thinking, raises many many many more questions than it purports to answer. So, really, the bible is more evidence against the existence of god than for it. At lease for the god acclaimed in the bible, or any god that wants people to know the truth. I have not encountered any evidence that can be categorized as anything other than poor or BS. I've watched Ham, Hovind(s), Turek, Strobel, Wallace, Craig, Shapiro, D'Souza, Powell, McDowel, Habermas, Comfort, and many others. None of any of their arguments hold water. Their assertions of evidence are just that. Assertions. If anyone has a source that is better than those here, I'm all ears. 3) Dogs, cats, both, or neither? Dogs. Cats are ok too. /Wonders what relevance this has to being an atheist. Maybe he is trying to correlate data. Correlation != causation. 4) Did Jesus exist [as an actual person, regardless of divinity]? I have not been presented with enough evidence to determine one way or the other. I don't personally believe that he did. But he certainly could have. It is very possible that some preacher by that name lived around that time, whose persona lent itself to the legends. Whether or not there was an actual person by that name that may have said or done some or many of the things written about him has zero consequence on wether or not he was divine. And that is the real data point we care about. 5) What Christian is most likely to convince you? God. I assume that god would be a Christian (at least the god of the new testament). If he exists in some capacity that is at least partially coherent with the stories of the book, then he is the one most capable of convincing me. Is it likely though? No. Because he does not exist. So I'll give you another answer, since you were probably referring to extant entities. No one with a particular name or relation to me. The one that presents good evidence. Evidence has shown that no one has good evidence, so It would be a pure guess as to who has it, and has been hiding it all this time. 6) What's my favorite film or TV series? Of these, there are many. To name one, it shall be Firefly. Reasons. For what reason is this on a list of 10 questions for atheists? 7) Contingency arguments? In general, they are arguments that equate to word games to wish the god into existence. The most compelling out of a list of non compelling arguments? Why are we here? I mean not why are people here. Why is everything (i.e. the cosmos) here? Why does everything exist? Or, what caused it? Its a compelling question. It has no compelling answers. And if you dig into it just a little, it's at least a little incoherent. If something caused everything, then everything does not contain that something. So why does that something that caused everything else exist? Pure navel gazing. If somehow we can prove that something did create everything (we can't), that doesn't say anything about what that something is. If we can somehow prove that that something is a sentient being (we can't), it says nothing about any other attribute of that being, including what it thinks and wants. It is ALL word games that get you nowhere. 8) Understanding of Christianity and what it takes to get the eternal reward? I understand that Christians can't even agree on this themselves. Who am I to 'understand' this for them? If we pick a common one, that all you have to do is believe in Jesus/god, then you will be 'saved'. Great. Perfect. I'm ready to be convinced. Convince me. I want an eternity of happiness. It's not like I'm diss-believing because I want to kill and rape. I've already killed and raped everyone I want to. For those that are new at this, that number is zero. I gain nothing sinister from the diss-belief. I just can't make myself believe in something that all signs point to not existing. I prefer dogs to cats. Tell me to prefer cats to dogs and I'll get a billion dollars. Hook me up to an (accurate) lie detector, and I won't get the billion. Do you think that me falsely professing a belief in god will fool god? 9) What do you think the bible teaches about hell? I'm not a bible expert, so some of what I recall from school so many years ago may be in the bible, or could be interpretation by the nuns. From what I think I know, the bible describes it as everlasting fire that consumes your skin only to be re-grown infinitely to be burned away again. I don't think there is any doubt about it being conscious torture versus the punishment of separation from god. From what I also think I know, the old testament does not mention hell. It is only described in the new testament as infinite torture. Hell is the ever important stick of the modern church. If it is so important, why was this not front and center in the old testament? Was it that this timeless perfect unchanging god spent an eon or two between the two books thinking about how to best show his love for his creation? Is that it? 10) The most dangerous issue Christians hold? There are so many. You may think this is a cop-out, but I would say that it is the concept that they are righteous. This gives them the confidence to boldly go forth and discriminate, persecute, torture, and kill. All in god's name. This is wholly disgusting.
It's kind of amazing how I moved on from the atheist community on youtube. TBS, The Living Dinosaur, and Logicked are all I have left from that era, and that was mostly because I grew tired of the endless rehashing of the same points. Logicked branched out into debunking other forms of insanity, but recently started the atheist content again. TLD has gone dark because he is busy making lots of money and watching his children graduate from school.
@@foxp2483 yh I can understand why one would eventually get bored of atheist YT. Refuting the same bad arguments over and over doesn't seem like you could get a kick out of ad infinitum.
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Man, we’re just glad to see you; you don’t need to go to all the grand production effort.
We would be glad to see your videos even if they were in - _shudder_ - portrait orientation.
Of course, don’t ever do that.
I can't .... no. Not portrait. No.
Are you borg or why are you talking about yourself using plural pronouns? ;-)
Let's not go too far now.
Portrait? We're not monsters.
@@Sebastian-hg3xc he's talking not only about himself
Just here to say that your video "...And What If I'm Wrong?" has been very important in my process of deconverting from islam. Now a happy ex-muslim of 6 years. Thank you!
Same here
Anything you have to say, I’m all ears.
“Treatise on Morality” is one of the best videos ever put on RUclips in my opinion. I have watched it numerous times, your other videos too, but that one was a masterpiece.
I completely agree. Treatise on morality is one of my favorite RUclips videos.
I liked his last one, the modal ontological video. granted, i only saw the Treatise and a few others so I may be biased
Treatise on Morality really helped my transition into leaving religion
My favorite is probably the old 'what if I'm wrong' video on Pascal's wager.
Same!
Man, it’s been a while. Welcome back!
I would love to see more of these spontaneous uploads. It reminds me of the early days of RUclips when the video response feature was still a thing.
Dude, I can't believe you uploaded. Your content greatly helped me expand my views 10 years ago, and I'm so happy to see you're still here and hopefully doing well. All the best!
Same here. He was one of the first channels I've subscribed to.
I love your videos and occasional appearances on athiest call in shows. You are patient, respectful, and kind in your thoughtful and thought provoking replies.
What atheist call-in shows does he appear on?
@pythondrink he appeared on a show with Matt Dillihunty as a guest. Not sure who hosted. It was a call in format.
@@notmarr2000 is that show The Atheist Experience?
@@pythondrinkmy bad, it was Athiest Experience : ruclips.net/user/livegVRUbpu5yE8?si=Nb9HE2N6WEbqkWu5
As a Christian, I just want to say I really enjoy your videos and discussions. It can be hard to find people on any side of any issue who can take the people in the opposing camp seriously and approach the arguments with this level of humility. I really appreciate your attitude towards philosophy.
I'm in the 'don't punish behavior you want to see' crowd, so I'll spare you the fake heart attack. Always glad to see you posting in whatever capacity isn't a drag for you.
Good Lord, man, how am I supposed to concentrate on how great it is to see a new video from you when your GUNS keep doing their own testifying???
I was gonna say, Scott, you been hitting the gym?
I was thinking the same thing
@@AzaleaJane God is great
It's always interesting to hear from you man, nice to see you still thinking and talking about these issues.
“Necessary beings” are little more than unevidenced propositions to avoid the potentiality of brute facts. Why posit that a being could exist necessarily when the necessary existence of reality is more parsimonious? The human desire to claim preferred status within reality by asserting that we (humans) were created in the image of said necessary being - instead of viewing human existence as an equally insignificant aspect of a necessary reality.
Contingency arguments and ontological ones both strike me as little more than wishing things into existence. Sometimes the presentation is more elaborate or obfuscating the argument more but this only makes the arguments worse for me.
It smacks far more of dishonesty to write a 30 page paper on wishful thinking than to write a short, simple form. Both rely on BS but one's fuller of theoretical BS than the other.
@@archapmangcmg i say this over and over and over again, you can't TALK god into existence, if there is a god demonstrate his presence or do something else with your life.
@@HarryNicNicholas Pretty much!
As Sam Harris has said a few times, the word atheist shouldn't exist, much like a-Bigfoot-ist doesn't exist.
I love the new low production format.
Ok, that's partially a lie. I love pretty much everything you've put out, I'm more or less indifferent about the format. On one hand, it's cool to get into the gritty details of whatever argument you're talking about, on the other sometimes I just wanna chill.
I was recommended this video and clicked on it because I’m an atheist from the rural south and I’ve never seen this channel before so I thought it was new and I always check out newbies.
Well two things, turns out it’s not a new channel, it’s actually really old. And secondly here, I began to notice that this fellow looked familiar, so I looked at his channel, and I saw in his featured channels “The Bold and the Beautiful” and that’s when it hit me, this guy is the man my 60 year old mom loves to see on TV everyday.
So I wanna say, thank you Scott, for entertaining my mom all these years, and also for giving me a really good laugh when I realized my devoutly religious mother’s favorite actor is in the atheist/secularist community.
Cliffton is an actor? What movie he's appeared in would you recommend?
@@カスカディア国人 tnx a lot. Will watch them.
This was a great trailer for TB's video on contingency arguments 🤞
Your still alive! Man, good to see you!
I used to watch you on an old channel of mine, only rescently did I add you to my subscribed list on this channel.
What a welcome surprise! Thanks for brightening my day, Scott! Hope you're doing well, you are so missed here!
Man i’d love an episode where you riff on Zen, Buddhism in general or philosophy in general!
Your videos are always a joy for me. It makes me happy to get an occasional video reminder that I'm not the last person that actually enjoys contemplating and discussing whatever without "DEBET MEH BRUH" as the ultimate goal. I honestly believe that people in this day and age have forgotten that you can get a certain pleasure out of just thinking through matters, regardless what they are. No end or goal in mind, just focusing on a topic and applying the process of rational dissection, step by step. It's no different than making music or painting - there is a certain zen to be had in engaging a flow of ideas like you would a kata.
Hey Scott, just want to say (like many others here in comment section) that it's always great to hear from you, even if for a quick and improvised video! Hope to get more soon!
It's so crazy whenever you make a video. It's like Christmas.
You're more charitable than I expected or would personally be. Especially having seen a previous video from that channel titled "10 [sincere, non-gotcha] Questions for Atheists" that... wasn't.
Agreed, there is no way Braxton is being genuine, he's just making clickbait for money. If it works and sparks good conversations, that's cool, but doesn't change the fact that Braxton has heard answers to all these questions before but doesn't care. It's not like an atheist giving good answers to these are going to change his mind, he desperately needs christianity to be true and has had "personal experiences" that can't be verified and shouldn't convince anyone else.
Just got here after watching you on Paulogia. Have to say I’m really impressed with you after watching just this one video. I’ve subscribed and will definitely watch more of your videos.
My take:
1) Non-religious household in Czech Republic. Never had much religious friends/people around simply because majority of people here is non-religious. Never made some negative assumptions about a friend/colleague/person who I found out was religious. On the contrary, I was happy to discuss their world views.
2) Consciousness. Golden ratio. Cosmological constants. Mathematical patterns. The fact that cells (human, plant, ...) "know" what to do and what to be exactly for the whole to function.
3) Dogs.
4) Never lived as a concrete person. I think the "concept" of Jesus is an amalgamation of possibly several people and various stories of that era. That concept was brought down and distilled as a single person to be more relatable for a single and common person of that time (which was much more relatable than the concept of God, who, by the way, inevitably had to take the anthropomorphic form for the same reasons). One of the indirect evidence I work with is the lack of sources - other than Bible - mentioning Jesus at the time of his life, while he was supposedly performing unseen miracles. And even Bible was written long after his supposed death. His miracles did not get a single notice by contemporary historians or anyone who left some kind of written statement, which seems really unlikely.
5) There are no Christians in my family, even extended family, as far as I know. My cousin converted to Judaism, but after 10 years of marriage with an orthodox convert, living an orthodox life, she herself is fed up with it. So there is definitely no convincing coming from her or me being able to accept her theoretical newly found crush on Christianity.
6) The Visit (by Madsen, not the Hollywood one). No Country For Old Men. Red Dwarf. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Many more...
7) I fail to see why the prime mover has to be a "being" in the first place. Let alone see any actual evidence of that. The prime mover (if that's even a thing in the actual reality, but let's say it is) can be a concept similar to natural law or quantum mechanics etc. In which case, that would be a massive stretch to claim this "force" answers prayers and sends its offsprings to preach in sandals in Middle East.
8) First of all, it takes a great deal of parental and cultural influence. After all, it is the reason why some parts of the world have produced Christians only, while other parts have produced Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists etc only. And cases where devout Christian parents gave birth to devout Muslims are on the rare side. And as for the everlasting life - I don't think anybody experiences everlasting life at all. Why would you think anybody, let alone Christian exclusively, does?
9) Are you asking whether I believe Bible teaches about the eternal torment in hell? Uhm...yes? Because if not, church has a huge PR problem of claiming this bit for centuries, as well as hordes of Christians using this as a legitimate scare tactics to influence and manipulate other people into believing in their story, while-ironically enough-tormenting them psychically in the process.
10) Believing anything they do is god wanting them to do it. Not using contraceptives. Abortions. Opposing STEM research.
Always a treat when you pop up. Great video.
glad to see your still around after all these years
Hi, I'm glad I stumbled across the fact you're uploading again. I've always liked your stuff. Keep it up!
Great to see you back Scott!
Always a pleasure to see a new vid. I’m desperately wanting to expand on the “most problematic issue” question with you, but I know you don’t like YT as a format for it. The off-the-cuff format was interesting.
I was brought up Roman Catholic and it's all I knew. I never really question things until the last few years.
Here is an example that makes me question things. Take any tragedy like a school shooting, the pulse night club and Sandy Hook Massacre of those 20+ kids.
When people survive it's couched in God saved you, there is a reason you survived.
So what are we saying God purposely didn't save the others? They never had a purpose? That's insulting to the children who died at Sandy Hook.
More and more I just question things. Without going into the horrific details, I suffered most of my life with all sorts of abuse starting at a young age.
I had a little child Bible and would wait for God to help me. Everyone keeps saying God's there with you. Really?
I still have his cross on my wall and jokingly tell him how are you going to mess with me today.
I never expected life to be easy but everything I do and have never came easy for me.
Somehow, paid my way through college working 2 jobs and had an apartment in a bad area. When I was kicked out of my suburban house.
Believe it or not I loved having my own place.
Now I was in control didn't have much money for food.
This was all back in the 80's. I live with my husband and son now. I'm grateful for them.
When I first held Alex, I held him close and begged God. I said every painful disaster in my life will be worth it
Just keep Alex healthy and safe. What happened? He had a benign tumor in his mouth at four months that was removed with no anathesia because he was too young to know if it would kill him.
Hearing him scream from down the hall almost killed me, then childhood epilepsy, a language disorder so he was in special ed.
I eventually quit my dream job as Director of Audit at a large school district and helped him with speech best I could on top of what he was getting in school.
Then I got sick and was on disability until recently. I had a great job for a year but one auditor for the 29th largest district doing everything myself. No help not even an administrative assistant
My predecessor is a super star in their eyes but have no idea she really didn't do her work right. Rarely had any findings
I come along as a real auditor asking questions, improving things etc
She found a way to get me out of that job. I drove four hours a day because Alex needs college money.
Because I had a hard time keeping up being alone, she had a plan and I resigned.
So I'm an unemployed Certified Fraud Examiner and experience as a Director and I can't find anything
Nov, Alex is a senior in a top Texas high school, marching Band, Editor in chief of the school newspaper
He's still a copy editor and reporter. Three colleges want him. He is a a whole new kid with friends. Bright future
I also got him a therapist outside of our insurance. He has quite a few friends and hasn't been any trouble.
In the end, I can't say God had anything to do with my life. That's sad
Take home message, Scott was partially raised by wolves.
So nice to see you post again! Even with all the other secular thinkers I've found out about over the years, I always come back to your videos as a baseline to see how many understanding of philosophical concepts have grown or changed.
There is a BIG problem with the "Did Jesus Exist" question: The phrase, "Jesus existed" can mean VERY different things to different people. Is a Jesus that didn't resurrect still Jesus? Is a Jesus that didn't perform any miracles, still Jesus? If some random dude named Jesus lived in Jeruselum 2K years ago, does that mean "Jesus existed" is true? What if his name was really 'Yeshua' and the only thing in the Bible that actually happened was that he was a charismatic religeous leader who was executed by the Romans? Does that mean Jesus existed? How much of the mythology surrounding Jesus must be true for a person to be considered the 'Jesus'? What if there are several people that did the things that Jesus is credited for?
Instead of giving a binary answer, you really need to talk about the different aspects of Jesus and which parts you think are rooted in history. Otherwise, your answer is going to be extremely ambiguous.
This is well put, expressing the problem I have with the question. Rather like asking was there someone named Peter Parker living in New York, it is a big city, there's likely several, that doesn't make Spiderman real.
the phrase "do you believe in..." has always bugged me, the only person or thing i can "believe is" is ME.
what they mean is "do you believe jesus was a god" or "do you believe ufos are spaceships" people are really, really, and i mean really crappy at using their own language.
precisely me the entire time of that section lol
Absolutely. I am in the camp of I believe that the “legend” of Jesus ‘existed’. Meaning that one man existed whom may have been called “Jesus” or something else but renamed to Jesus because the build up of the ‘Legend of Jesus’ game of telephone was rising. The stories are spreading rapidly and they all circulated around ‘Jesus’.
Either way: it’s an extremely circular argument to ask if one BELIEVES that Jesus existed as the legend we all have been taught to know him today or we ACCEPT that a man named Jesus existed and loosely ‘believe’ he was what the legends say he was. The gospels won’t allow you to perceive him as any other way or as just a simple man. That right there gives Christians an upper hand no matter how you answer the question.
@Hyperion 666 and we all know that magic is staged, and that very capable magicians can trick your brain by using optical illusions. There’s also magicians who’re great with words and convincing enough to make millions from multi level marketing, ponzi and pyramid schemes. You get a group of impressionable and gullible people to buy in to an idea hard enough, they’ll accept any ludicrous proposition.
As soon as I saw a notification that you finally uploaded something I clicked right away! Glad to see you're still active! I've been a subscriber for years now and have always enjoyed your views both philosophically and "religiously".
We agree and are in the same boat, but I wanted to respectfully challenge some of your answers with questions:
3:40 Why do you think this piece of evidence lends itself to a theists explanation of consciousness? How did you come to this conclusion? If more Athiests throughout history gave good reasons for consciousness coming from randomness, would that change your opinion?
7:06 Say we granted that 'Jesus" did exist, is this concept of 'Jesus' based on just one account or could it be multiple persons claiming to be jesus? Could it be multiple people at a time were claiming the same thing and just one happened to make it into historical books? Like in the same way that thousands of people were creating the first computer but only two (Bill Gates and Steven Jobs) were remembered?
14:18 How would your behaviour or beliefs differ from being annihilated vs eternal torment? Would that have any impact in how you live your life now? Which would you prefer if given the option?
15:45 Do you think we will be able to arrive in the future and have a definite answer to when consciousness should begin from fetal development? If not, how could this concern ever be challeneged?
Great video - thanks for posting! I honestly can't see what benefit lengthy editing could have that would be worth all that time and stress for you. I think what you have here is just spot on! :)
I was thinking about the last question, about the most dangerous view that Christians hold. Maybe this is more of a movement (and it's not limited to Christianity), so perhaps not what Braxton is looking for, but it's the general idea that you can have a divine and perfect mandate to do anything at all. The notion that, no matter what suffering you might cause on Earth right now, there is ultimately a good and pure motivation or justification - to me, that's the ultimate source of more or less all misery that occurs as a result of religious beliefs.
Really happy to see you posting still. Keep it up!
I recently re-watched the Treatise on Morality. Still stands up well.
Watched it right when I saw it. No matter how long it takes between your videos, it's always worth it!
"Consciousness--"
_instantly imagines Shannon Q foaming at the mouth_ 😅😅😅
I did too, tbh!
@@zenithquasar9623 She is adorable, but also, that woman does NOT play! 😂 I love it. I hope she never change✨
@@TreeHairedGingerAle Beast mode SQ is the best!
Why did you imagine that? I'm curious.
You're so well-spoken and intelligent that not even your biceps can distract me from your arguments. Well, not for too long anyway....
You have a beautiful mind, man. Thank you for this.
I would like to hear more about why you think consciousness is better expected under the existence of a deity. Im not clear how that bridge is built.
I like the point on deferring to the experts on God's exists. It is what "many" atheist expect of creationists on evolution. The same should be expected on a historical basis unless a person is willing to go in on the full study and understanding of the evidence to make the case.
Love these almost "conversationally" structured videos. Hope you continue this kind of content.
Probably just the perspective of a layperson without much experience studying neuroanatomy and current neuroscience, which is just scratching the surface of consciousness and how it evolved. But a basic understanding of the brain and how it works took away any doubt that consciousness could simply be a byproduct of brain activity
Love this video…it was fun😀…I hope you do more! And yes I loved THE LEFTOVERS too. The last episode was where Justin Theroux sang a karaoke Homeward Bound, which left me a crying mess haha.❤️
More videos !
Good to see your smiling face again :)
What you talk about is way too smart for me, I just want to say that you have such a warm, engaging presence. Also as an actor you're quite underrated and I wish you a future full of roles that correspond to your abilities ❤️
Thank you for the video. I miss your RUclips videos.
Good to see you around man. I always enjoy the hell out of your videos.
So glad to see you back! No need for grand production and editing, just you do you. Also I really loved your answers, because they show that you are not a "lazy" I just don't believe lol -atheist, but have actually really given all these things a thought. Also it's interesting to hear the American ecperience of being raised non-religious, because I had the same kind of upbringing, but as I live in northern Europe, no one tried to seriously convert me (I was told a lot of stories from the Bible, and while some teachers in my first grades failed to mention that these are not history lessons, I still got the message that these are stories from a book, so it was just interesting to me because I have always loved stories). I was baptized though, because in my country it's just something you do (mostly so you can get a wedding in a church, lol), but I got my "divorce" from church when I was 22 because I didn't want to pay the church tax (could have done that at 18, but I just literally didn't think about it much). But, yeah. Very interesting.
Hey man! It's great to see ya again. Haven't seen you in my feed for about a decade! Back when we had that little atheist community where we all got on chat to discuss whatever philosophical nonsense you guys put up for debate. We only did it a few times, and I can't even remember what it was called. "(something) Tuesdays"? (Edit: Tuesday Afternoons!)
But it's been nice to see you post even in the casual style everyone used to do back then. Felt like listening to an old friend just shoot their thoughts again.
Always a good day seeing you in my subscription box. Much respect
Getting a video from Mr Clifton is like getting a warm ray of sunshine through the window on a cold winter day. It doesn't happen often but you enjoy every second of it when it does.
Good to see and hear from you again 🤘🏻
I think a lot of these discussions miss two key issues:
1. If you will accept evolution, you have to accept that humans evolved out of animals that had no religion. A rat (think dinosaur age) doesnt worship a god. At some point out brains evolved the capacity to reason abstractly, to consider actors in our environment where there were none (who does the wind, who does the rain?). It helps in your survival to learn information from your elderly. It helps in your survival to be able to mentally handle complex situations.
Religion is just a side effect of this. And so is philosofy.
2. The whole christian book starts out with the premis that god created everything. God made the garden, felt offended and punished the first humans for their actions into several generations following after. Out of that flow tons of rules that guide your behavior towards a target only known to your god.
If I look at my dog - he cant phatom the dept of decisions I make in my life about his life - and he better be a good boy or he will receive punishment.
But I dont burn him forever should he fail to live up to my ideal - nor do I punish his offspring for his failings.
The whole myth starting the religion has some basic flaws, that should throw it out from the very start.
Its why they never tell you to read it from the beginning - but always offer some of the starter books from the NT.
yep, theists often accuse atheist of "borrowing from the theistic worldview" that is we steal morality from them, bu unless religion was around 100,000 to 150,000 years ago, we were an entirely secular planet up until 50,000 years ago.
Both styles work. Always so wonderful to see your videos.
Hell yeah! Glad to see you back. God bless.
I was JUST thinking about you and how you were doing... and here you are.
Gotta admit, having heard a squillion of these "# questions for atheists" videos, that first one genuinely caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting a query quite that sincere.
I want more of this candid videos. I subscribed to you for your honest thoughts. You're a smart dude. Keep it up.
putting on my best gandalf voice: " you haven't aged a day". comment made, will now listen to content!
Loved your videos back in the day, good to see you again
Hi TB, been a Christian subscriber for a while and always appreciate your videos.
Holy shit, you're still around!?
Yaaaaaay new video :D
You’re gonna be one of the strongest Christians. I can already see it. God is using you for great things
Thank you Scott, I found this very interesting. Thank you for sharing your views. I'm new to this whole thing.
Yay! More TBS!
That said, man I wish I had your patience.
Oh my God. Another TBS video!
Scott so good to see you!
Good to see you pop up again.
I love that for every video there is a preamble concerning the absence of regular videos lol
Great to see you again, hope you're doing well! I remember watching you in the early days of atheist youtube. Time sure flies.
always a pleasure to hear from you dude :)
I’ve been watching your videos since I was sixteen. I’m 30 now and this was really fun. I could go for more stuff like this…and also, I’d love for you to deal with the person of Jesus. Specifically on whether or not the historical data leads one to believe in the resurrection. I’d be interested to see where the research leads you.
Always interesting to hear your thoughts. There are a few others I enjoy, but you count among the most earnest atheist I love to listen to. Thanks for posting this.
Considering the countless professional apologists and stuff for centuries and their claims to be oh so religious, the lack of 'good faith' is almost malignant at this point.
Malignant? Bad faith is a _job requirement_ for apologists. That's what the word means. Never mind that 'bad faith' is redundant.
@@EdwardHowton I know; partly wordplay, partly my own exhaustion at it all. I guess my eye-rolling at the same like, 20 things every apologist ever says for 100s of years is the malignant thing maybe? lol
I just don't understand how we've spent 1000s of years, millions of lives, trillions of currency on debating people's imaginations. Literally, I'm not trying to be glib, thats all god nonsense ever is. You're debating a man-child's magic friend and I'm just so done, ya know? Not to mention the countless people who have been murdered because of the collective madness of it all.
I don't want to seem unread in these topics; I've been studying philosophy and religion for 15 years now, but at the end of the day, I can honestly say that there is nothing to any of it. There's nothing there!
@@satyasyasatyasya5746 Yeah. I'm right there with you, buddy. Being honest? Almost dying of cancer has been a blessing. I can legitimately just not give a fuck what happens to this species anymore. Gaslighting is the new truth. Crybullying is the new money-making scheme. Victim cards are the new ethics. Lowest common denominator is the new short-term unsustainable gains versus long-term suicide. And there's no stopping it anymore. We've had several perfect opportunities to right the course just in the past few decades, and instead we've got the people best place to start the turn going to space in dick rockets instead.
I can answer your question as to why we've spent thousands of years dealing with this shit, though. It works. Shit works. It's effortless and it works. Sanity never stood a goddamn chance.
Back to riding out the rest of my life and eating popcorn at the Apocalypse Show. Best of luck to the rest of you. I hope I go quick and soon.
Ciao Liam, ti stimo tanto... un abbraccio dalla Sicilia ❤🧡💛💚💙💜
I'm always interested in listening to your topics because you use intelligent explanations which make sense even if something I may not always agree on but that's because I might not have understood entirely that subject means I need to first understand it before to give a certain judgment, but that doesn't stop me from listening what you have to say about it... it may teach me or open up some thoughts I didn't know I could understand. in short words it's always been a pleasure listening to you because you manage to explain certain subjects whereby you're making sense which very often it doesn't always happen when I listen to some others who are trying to make some points but aren't bringing the right arguments to the table which for me needs to make sense first of all...what comes with my understanding and acceptance is a different story...
Loved the leftovers. I must say your explanatory methods and linguistic skills are amazing. I strongly enjoy all of your content…and I’m a Deist.
Look at this handsome smart boy uploading to his RUclips
My mother to you:
you're sitting too close to the TV, you'll ruin your eyes.
It’s great to see you ‘tubing’ again! ;-} WRT Jesus historicity, I’m agnostic. I *have* read a number of scholarly papers/books on the subject, though, because it interested me. I agree that someone who hasn’t been interested enough to dig into the different arguments should just go with the consensus. BTW Carrier does have a PhD in history with his dissertation being on education and science in the Roman Empire. He’s not the only scholar who questions Jesus’ historicity, but they are in the minority. Doherty, Price and Carrier, plus a few others, have just made it not a completely crazy stance with their research, analysis and publications. (From my self-study, I’d say if Hercules and King Arthur are non-historical, then Jesus may also have been non-historical. The evidence for each of them being historical seems to be of about the same quality.)
I use King Arthur and Hercules as examples when trying to explain to others. I also throw in an occasional Robin Hood and Nedd Ludd.
Another scholar who’s in the agnostic camp but thinks the hypothesis has merit and has published a peer reviewed book about Jesus mythicism is Dr Raphael Lataster. His doctorate is in Religious Studies so this is definitely in his wheelhouse. I didn’t buy his peer reviewed book because of price but his other laymen level books on the subject are worth a read.
I’m officially in the agnostic camp, too, and also find the subject fascinating. It *really* irks me that such a huge percentage of the New Testament scholars haven’t even bothered to read these authors but still sneer and pontificate about the hypothesis as though they have read it.
I stumbled on to Doherty’s website a long time ago, bought both of his books and was really intrigued by his idea and his evidence. Before that I had always thought the various mythicism stuff going around was mostly incoherent, didn’t make sense and consisted of conspiracy theory and/or unbelievable/weak historical evidence.
I'm glad to see you back.
God it is so great to see you again
Hey! Long time so see.
You look healthy and seem to be sleeping enough. Keep it up. Catch you next year with the next upload.
Have you read “The Righteous Mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion ” by Jonathan Haidt?
That book changed my life when it came to understanding moral intuitions and how/why they develop.
Hey same, also recommend.
have you read "games people play" by eric berene, completely changed my way of dealing with people who just want to win arguments for the sake of winning.
Carrier has a PhD. I'm more of a mythicist than most. The lack of contemporary evidence is a major problem for me. Plus the writing we do have doesn't mention the most influential man from that time is troubling as well.
Yes. You can't hold up the Canonical Gospels as historical documents as even Biblical Scholars don't claim to know specifically who those stories came from. Historians can't assess anonymous sources. Only fundamentalists will try to tell you that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote their respective books.
If Jesus was just a normal human being with a small following, we wouldn't expect much in the way of evidence for him, so the lack of reference to him by contemporary sources is not really surprising. Remember, the religion of Christianity evolved over the following few hundred years after Jesus' death, based on the 'fantasisation' of his life that took place in an environment where the mythology was allowed to thrive in relative secrecy among the 'unlettered classes'. If Christianity had gone the way of other groups, the lack of evidence wouldn't raise an eyebrow, and it's only the church leaders of hte first half of the first milleniam AD that cemented Christianity as a world dominating religion - and we have plenty of evidence for them.
Thank you for the video. I really appreciate your reasoning.
The first two seasons of The Leftovers were off the charts brilliant. Got a little too weird by the third season. Yeah, definitely “ Religious.” It was kind of a weird spin on The Rapture.
Movies: Godfather, Taxi Driver, maybe Schindler’s List.
Good video.
Missed you. Your posts are welcomed.
What a handsome devil. Been a while. I love your videos.
Any day I log on to RUclips to see a new TB video is a good day.
Glad to see you back!
I don't create youtube videos, and would rather add to the algorithm here than on TR's channel.
1) Religious deconversion story?
I was raised in a Christian family. Private school. Mass at least once a week.
I saw from an early age that the nuns and priests were willing to lie for their beliefs. As a teen I encountered too many inconsistencies throughout the Christian religions. At that point I called myself an agnostic Christian - with an emphasis on agnostic. I didn't see anyone I could trust for real answers, so spent the next decade just living my life. Not going to church, and basically leaving religion alone.
But while I was doing the live and let live attitude, others in my personal life and in politics didn't see it that way. They were righteous. They were privileged to tell everyone else what they could and couldn't do. I got tired of being agnostic. So, with the availability of the internet now, I did further research on CONFIRMING the existence of god, and which god. I didn't find anything at all that I considered compelling. So I figured I'd look at the other side. What reasons are there to not think that a god exists. I had seen Hitchens on a Fox news interview years prior, so looked deeper into what we was saying. I found a lot of what he was saying compelling, and looked for other sources, so that I wasn't hanging my hat on the viewpoint of one person. Dawkins, Harris, Dillahunty, and others that I can not recall now. They all have very good points to different questions or arguments. So now I'm thinking I'm not so much an agnostic any more - and definitely not a Christian. Before completely making up my mind, I critically evaluate the data that I've been exposed to from both sides. The biggest flaw I see so far is, what if these atheists I've been listening to are cherry picking or being as dishonest as the nuns from my childhood. To resolve the cherry picking issue, I figured I should watch debates. In those, it is up to the other side to keep them honest, and point out cherry picking (and any other issues). So I watched Nye v Ham, several Hitchens ones, as well as several others. I found the conclusions rather damning (pun intended). There is not an even slightly significant reason to believe a god exists.
As with ANY good scientist, I am open to newly presented evidence. Just present it.
2) Is there any [good] evidence for god?
Is there evidence? Sure. Is it good or compelling? Not really. Is it good or compelling in the light of counter evidence? Absolutely not.
So what is an example of a piece of evidence for the existence of god? A popularly sited one is the bible. Some will deny that it is evidence, but I consider that it is - at least at first blush. It is a book that says there is a god and was written eons ago, when, ostensibly, god appeared and/or talked to people. Is that proof? Not even close. It is enough evidence to say, hey, this might be important to look into. Yes, so you look into it. And you see that the book has consistency issues with itself as well as with reality. And, critically thinking, raises many many many more questions than it purports to answer. So, really, the bible is more evidence against the existence of god than for it. At lease for the god acclaimed in the bible, or any god that wants people to know the truth.
I have not encountered any evidence that can be categorized as anything other than poor or BS.
I've watched Ham, Hovind(s), Turek, Strobel, Wallace, Craig, Shapiro, D'Souza, Powell, McDowel, Habermas, Comfort, and many others. None of any of their arguments hold water. Their assertions of evidence are just that. Assertions. If anyone has a source that is better than those here, I'm all ears.
3) Dogs, cats, both, or neither?
Dogs. Cats are ok too.
/Wonders what relevance this has to being an atheist. Maybe he is trying to correlate data. Correlation != causation.
4) Did Jesus exist [as an actual person, regardless of divinity]?
I have not been presented with enough evidence to determine one way or the other. I don't personally believe that he did. But he certainly could have. It is very possible that some preacher by that name lived around that time, whose persona lent itself to the legends. Whether or not there was an actual person by that name that may have said or done some or many of the things written about him has zero consequence on wether or not he was divine. And that is the real data point we care about.
5) What Christian is most likely to convince you?
God. I assume that god would be a Christian (at least the god of the new testament). If he exists in some capacity that is at least partially coherent with the stories of the book, then he is the one most capable of convincing me. Is it likely though? No. Because he does not exist. So I'll give you another answer, since you were probably referring to extant entities.
No one with a particular name or relation to me. The one that presents good evidence. Evidence has shown that no one has good evidence, so It would be a pure guess as to who has it, and has been hiding it all this time.
6) What's my favorite film or TV series?
Of these, there are many. To name one, it shall be Firefly. Reasons. For what reason is this on a list of 10 questions for atheists?
7) Contingency arguments?
In general, they are arguments that equate to word games to wish the god into existence.
The most compelling out of a list of non compelling arguments? Why are we here? I mean not why are people here. Why is everything (i.e. the cosmos) here? Why does everything exist? Or, what caused it? Its a compelling question. It has no compelling answers. And if you dig into it just a little, it's at least a little incoherent. If something caused everything, then everything does not contain that something. So why does that something that caused everything else exist? Pure navel gazing.
If somehow we can prove that something did create everything (we can't), that doesn't say anything about what that something is. If we can somehow prove that that something is a sentient being (we can't), it says nothing about any other attribute of that being, including what it thinks and wants.
It is ALL word games that get you nowhere.
8) Understanding of Christianity and what it takes to get the eternal reward?
I understand that Christians can't even agree on this themselves. Who am I to 'understand' this for them?
If we pick a common one, that all you have to do is believe in Jesus/god, then you will be 'saved'. Great. Perfect. I'm ready to be convinced. Convince me. I want an eternity of happiness. It's not like I'm diss-believing because I want to kill and rape. I've already killed and raped everyone I want to. For those that are new at this, that number is zero. I gain nothing sinister from the diss-belief. I just can't make myself believe in something that all signs point to not existing. I prefer dogs to cats. Tell me to prefer cats to dogs and I'll get a billion dollars. Hook me up to an (accurate) lie detector, and I won't get the billion. Do you think that me falsely professing a belief in god will fool god?
9) What do you think the bible teaches about hell?
I'm not a bible expert, so some of what I recall from school so many years ago may be in the bible, or could be interpretation by the nuns.
From what I think I know, the bible describes it as everlasting fire that consumes your skin only to be re-grown infinitely to be burned away again.
I don't think there is any doubt about it being conscious torture versus the punishment of separation from god.
From what I also think I know, the old testament does not mention hell. It is only described in the new testament as infinite torture. Hell is the ever important stick of the modern church. If it is so important, why was this not front and center in the old testament? Was it that this timeless perfect unchanging god spent an eon or two between the two books thinking about how to best show his love for his creation? Is that it?
10) The most dangerous issue Christians hold?
There are so many. You may think this is a cop-out, but I would say that it is the concept that they are righteous. This gives them the confidence to boldly go forth and discriminate, persecute, torture, and kill. All in god's name.
This is wholly disgusting.
Congrats on being the only atheist youtuber I still am happy to watch lol
This video was enjoyable as always!
See you again in a year or so :)
It's kind of amazing how I moved on from the atheist community on youtube. TBS, The Living Dinosaur, and Logicked are all I have left from that era, and that was mostly because I grew tired of the endless rehashing of the same points. Logicked branched out into debunking other forms of insanity, but recently started the atheist content again. TLD has gone dark because he is busy making lots of money and watching his children graduate from school.
Why don't you watch other atheist YTers?
@@foxp2483 yh I can understand why one would eventually get bored of atheist YT. Refuting the same bad arguments over and over doesn't seem like you could get a kick out of ad infinitum.
Great to see you on RUclips again!
Love the responses!
Re: TV - Have you seen The Good Place? If not, drop everything and do.
Good to see you man!
I was literally yesterday I was just thinking about you. I can't believe it. Gotta play the lottery.
"Thee lawd reveals hissalf in mysterious waaaays."
Convert immediately.
@@Puleczech 😆To what though?
The way you described Leftovers, sounds like you'd enjoy Babylon 5.
Holy shit son
That's a name I always drop everything to watch.
Probably the only one actually