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Alex, we must do something other than speaking... we must take action.... Get married and have a lot of children. The next battle is not ideological, it’s demographical. Atheists MUST GET A LOT of children to counter the Muslim birth rates!! They will rule the world in 100 years.... I’m an atheist from the Middle East 🤞🏼
@@abefanous9804 It's not demography. It's culture. We have to contribute to culture and when cultural efforts are made we can change a whole generation to accept some kind of religious tolerance (atheist detachment), like we could accept homosexuality or political rights for women or, some day, veganism as the baseline for how to treat animals.
@@abefanous9804 This can happen in your country. It can happen in Indonesia, it can happen in Nigeria. I'm reading a book by Ibn Warraq, called "Leaving the Allah Delusion Behind". It may be happening right now in some countries among the young, but it could also get worse. Not because of demography. Because of a change in the tides of Islam as a cultural movement in any particular country.
@@abefanous9804 I disagree that having lots of children is the answer. I think education is the key. It's been shown that the higher level of education a person attains, the less likely they are to be a theist. Remember, children aren't born believing 'gods' exist.
Wait I don’t remember making this Seriously though, I’m glad to see this video. Promoting skepticism often entails offering criticism our own audience’s ideas, and this is only the most recent instance of you doing that well.
It actually always surprises me how most of the people who watch RUclips channels aren’t subscribed. I have the opposite problem where I subscribe to any channel that made a single video that I like.
@@20july1944 Okay, if you're really asking this then it's gonna take some unpacking. Short answer: I can't. But that's not the "gotcha" you think it is. Imagine I flip a coin, but I don't look at the result. Someone asks me, "what was it? Heads or tails?" What would the right answer be? "Heads", or "I don't know"? Same principle. We don't know how the universe came to be. Now, we can either own up to that and, at best, speculate... or we can guess an answer and preach it as though it's the ultimate truth, believing it's inherently superior than other positions merely because it provides _an_ answer, regardless of whether said answer is right or wrong. In short, our inability to explain the origin of the universe has no bearing on whether your position is correct or not.
No. Repeating shit is not funny and wastes space. Also, if you think you can copy this then DJDDMXIRIJMOFOSPWPQLSKSKDIKCkkkdkeodocodkdkd934057271:dkdmdkdkff
@@illuminate4622 We've got some new vegan bakery products at work ( a large British supermarket). They taste pretty close to the non-vegan products. I'm working my way through them :D :D
@@aman-yd4dw do you people let flat earthers believe that earth is flat? do you people let anti-vaxxers believe that vaccine is poison? do you let people believe that birds aren't real?
@@aman-yd4dw if i would have said i believe in santa and bigfoot, people would have laughed at me, nobody would have said that let me believe what i wanna believe.
"Can't be evil by definition" Just because someone sneaks in "can't be evil" into the definition, that doesn't change what I consider evil. You might as well define it as "worthy of worship" so that if it exists, I would worship it by definition
You are talking about two different things. Saying that something is "worthy" only demonstrates that it meets sufficient requirements for an action to take place if the individual chooses to. I guess you could also say that it increases the likelihood of the action. I'll present an analogy. Say that you are trying to find someone to be your friend. You've got the criteria in your head for what this would be. You find three people that meet those requirements. They would be "worthy" of your friendship but they don't become your friends simply because they exist with those attributes. That requires the personal choice to embark on the creation of those ties. If God is "worthy of worship", you are welcome as He has met the requirements for worship but still you do not have to because He exists. That's your first half. Here's the next half. Within Christianity since Alex brings this up, God is defined as omni-benevolent. Regardless of one's subjective rational for good and evil, if the Christianity is true then He is good regardless of what one believes. You are entitled to what you consider evil but that does not make God evil subsequent the criteria you've established. He cannot be both good and evil. This is a contradiction.
@@joshuastevens1200 Most people don't have an eternal punishment set up for if you don't befriend them. "He is good regardless of what one believes" is a meaningless statement. This is exactly why the Euthyphro dilemma exists. Defining God as omni-benevolent gives you basically two choices: Defining good as "anything God says or does," which means that saying that God is good is the same as saying God is God, which is meaningless; or appealing to some mysterious standard of good that God is always upholding, so that even if he violates our standard it doesn't violate his- which is equivalent to saying that God is good according to his own standard (again, meaningless). In either case, if I say I wouldn't worship the Christian god because it is evil, someone saying "nuh-uh, God is good by definition" doesn't even attempt to address the problem.
@@Thatonedude917 Respectfully, the first part of your response is a straw man of both the Christian faith and my analogy. That's not what we're talking about currently. I've read your response about three times. I don't want to misrepresent your position. I don't find it to be meaningless. The Euthyphro dilemma as you have stated well presents two and only two options given God's classification of omni-benevolence. Either A) God does it because it's good or B) It's good because God does it. What's interesting is that this dilemma presupposes that good exists. This is the center of the question. What is "good"? Hence, what we're dealing with is ontological. What is "good" objectively speaking? Without that, everything else is a matter of personal preference such as the straw man you presented which I assume you think is morally wrong. Anyway, when we deal with the ontological feature of the question it opens up third alternative C) God is the ontological source of good. I don't think that stating "God is good" is meaningless only that it describes an attribute about God and a point of significance in the same way I call myself and individual or if I say "I am me." Well, duh. I am but that statement is not meaningless. It is actually quite powerful. I haven't found that particular dynamic something to be hung up over. However, I am addressing your original statement about being "worthy" because you have not dealt with it in your response. This is very different from your nominating the moral titles of malevolence or benevolence. The Christian God is either good or evil. It cannot be both. You've equated both of these statements. That's all I'm saying.
@@joshuastevens1200 It's not a strawman, but it is intentionally glib because I don't care about that part of the argument. You could insert anything into the definition of something and assert that it must be that way if it exists. Saying "I am me" can be powerful if you're using it as shorthand to mean something else, but the proposition "myself = myself" or "God = God" is tautological and valueless. Saying that God is the source of good doesn't solve the Euthyphro dilemma (especially when God is presumably the source of _everything)._ At best, it lets you deflect into a conversation about where whoever you're talking to gets their concept of good. Worse, it seems to imply the divine command theory. It breaks down like this: 1. I say that I consider some god evil for some reason, let's just say "because he commits evil act X" for argument's sake. 2. You argue that that god isn't evil, not because X isn't an evil act, or because he didn't commit X, but because that god cannot be evil by definition. 3. My opinion on whether X is an evil act remains unchanged, and therefore my opinion of that god remains unchanged. "The Christian God is either good or evil. It cannot be both." That statement is fine, but it's not the one in question. The problems is with saying "The Christian God is good. It cannot be evil."
@@Thatonedude917 I understand what it is that you're saying. The only problem I'm seeing is that the ontological identity of good is not being addressed in the Dilemma. You can say *insert god here* is evil. That's fine. If "God" is the ultimate being. There is nothing greater than said being if it exists. I think we can both agree on that part. We can also agree that good and evil also exist. The Christian God can be good. You think it's evil. Let's say for the sake of argument that God is evil. Using terms like that presupposes that objective good and evil exists. Given there is objective evil then therefore an objective good must also exist by logical necessity. So if God, the ultimate being, is evil. The ultimate evil so to speak, then there must be an ultimate good because it creates that contrast in of itself. It cannot be both as we've agreed. The issue with that is good can exist without evil. Evil cannot exist without good. Again because of the inevitable contrast. Therefore, God cannot be the ultimate evil but rather the ultimate good and what lies outside of that is evil. BUT if it is not God ontologically, then what is it? What "good" is the ultimate being referring to or as Aristotle put it, "the good".
7:48 this is finnicky explanation. It's true that claim "if christian god exists it's evil by christian god standards" is simply false but saying "if christian god exists it's evil by my moral standards" is perfectly valid. It doesn't matter that christians claim their god to be source of morals. By making the second claim one communicates existence of a concept that is separate from what "gods morality" is, which just happen to use the same world because both concepts try to tap into the same function space.
If you start with the assumption that God exists (just for argument's sake) then he's the source of morals and so you can't really say that it goes against your moral code, at least no more than a 5 year old child can say that when his father forces him to go to school is going against his moral code about slavery.
@@hullie7529 we're kinda in the same ballpark. Here's the thing: triangle is concept describing object that you can point out and show to others. But morality is a concept about rules. And if god is source of morals this in fact proves that morals are subjective (aka, this don't describe object or interaction between objects is but are prescriptive, try to change the interactions and are created by conscious being). And this is true for many definitions. Because even there is something we want to describe we still have to put boundaries, which is a subjective judgment. Otherwise we would need to only use some type of philosophical theory of everything as everything obervable is connected. We can replace morals with law and god with hypothetical government. Then obviously what government says is good, is good according to them and will be written as good in the law. But it still can say that I don't care about this because what they define as good goes against my goals and thus I create a competing proposition. Of course the outcome is different. Breaking my rules won't send anybody to jail. But now we are entering the field of applied politics so I'll end here. So to get back to the core of the topic. Yes, you can always say that you don't care about others intend and you can create your own words and definitions to convey the message.
I'm not confused. But the idea of god's morality is simply a paradox. Words are created to describe meaning and only after we create definitions to somehow standarize them. The meaning of morality is build on things like feeling personal harm and cooperation. Which means that the definition of god's morality is in fact a lie because it goes against the meaning (looking at how god and his actions are described in scripture). The definition describes something, but it's not a morality, hence calling it a morality is a lie. Or we would need to talk about some other universe we don't live in. You can still argue that morality is a set of rules create to kinda attach to the idea of morality. But then everybody can write such set of rules and claim they are objective because once they are written on paper they are objectively there. It's like analysing a paradox of poking another planet with infinitely long stick. It shows that you can break laws of physics assuming that those laws of physics were already broken. As for the experiencer-observer: this is how christianity describes its god. There are _some_ modern interpretations that claim those descriptions are "just humanizing" the "thing" what god's is supposed to be but such intepretation goes against, like, christian scripture and christrian tradition. Anywho, the distinction between what is objective and what is subjective simply doesn't work in "grand scheme of things that involve humans" and we have at least two major definition because people want to use or impose different meanings depending on situation. So I can agree that one can call god's morality an objective one but such claim simply won't have any moral value behind it because it would be just a meaingless label. Calling it objective god's mental chupacabra would be as useful.
That was a long (and messy) reply. Let's make a shorter one. Everything boils down to the fact, that if you want to use a tool for grand projects (like language for philosophy) you need to learn nuances of the tool or those nuances will trick you into wrong conclusions. So I suggest learning about the language itself first. Interviews about language with Noam Chomsky is a good start.
@Brielle Huggins So we are very close to agreement I see. The initial claim was "atheists cannot say that if god exists it would be immoral" and what I meant is this claim is false. And here you basicaly answers that. Because even if god exist that doesn't mean I - or anyone else - accept his words as the morality in the context of conversation. In fact the reality is that what I and many other people mean when talking about morality is already established. Which means that it is actually irrelevant whether or not gods morality is subjective or objective. But if you do research on the topic of morality you will see that such proposition "god is source of morality" is either false or it describes reality that we don't live in, which makes it irrelevant (or proponents deliberately change the meaning of word morality which is just another type of lie). Again, I'm not lost. In fact I am the one who doesn't use launguage like if it creates reality here :)
The second one seems like conceding a particularly pedantic semantic point. Especially with how this claim is usually made in the context of discussions about the atrocities of the old testament. "If a being that commanded genocide/sex slavery/infanticide etc. existed, I wouldn't worship it" is pretty obviously the meaning of this statement. If the christian wants to interpret that as me claiming that the Christian god doesn't exist, then fine
@Jessie James Well clearly they do. Because the whole point of bringing up the nasty parts of the bible is to illustrate that the God it describes is not good. I guess they could interpret it as "The Christian god is not the god of the bible" But fundamentally the Christian is making a stupid assumption if they interpret "I wouldn't worship God because he condones rape/genocide/infanticide" as "Even though I agree that the commanded rape/infanticide/genocide in the Bible is the work of an all-loving, all-good good, I wouldn't worship it" and not "I think these passages preclude god being all good"
@@MrSpleenface I think it will more to a point to say if the Christian God exists in the image that those Christian describe(not all Christians will agree with them) to say if this is the God and God is good by definition then I will not worship him and i chose to be evil...
As a Christian I find this really helpful. I find my faith continually evolving. It's good to examine and re-examine how and why I believe what I believe. I find your clear thinking and presentation excellent. Thank you.
Interestingly I've observed the opposite. The theists that I argue with try and use the kalam cosmological argument to prove that God exists. So that's why I have to try and make them understand that it only proves a first mover, if it were true. It's not that I'm assuming that they're trying to prove the existence of God, they assert that it proves it and hence I say that.
Somewhere I saw the whole chain of arguments (including Kalam) that aim to prove the link from the first supposition of Kalam to the monotheistic God and then point toward Christianity. Alas, I can't find that channel, I only remember that it was Catholic Christian believer channel and that it had a certain preview, showing a knight in armor in one of his videos. Idk if that channel still exists... But you're right, the Kalam argument doesn't prove that God who exists is even monotheistic, much less Christian version of God.
If the Kalam were true, how would it prove a “first mover”? Maybe im misunderstanding you, but it sounds like you’re saying it would prove that the first cause would have to be conscious in some way.
@@Richard_Nickerson Alex gave that very example; we appear to sit on a stationary Earth as the sun moves around us. In the absence of other information, Flat-Earth is a rational assumption.
@@DemonicRemption Don't get me wrong I am a gender abolitionist and highly anti-tribalism/stereotyping; but what's wrong with non-binary/gender fluid. In my mind they are just more evidence as to why gender should just go away.
2) “If god existed, I wouldn’t worship him.” a. Claiming your abuser is “Justified” is a psychological error, a mental defect that is usually present in abuse victims who believe the rhetoric of their abuser. Being a moral person means that there are some acts that cannot by any means be justified. There is no exception to that rule for a deity since we are not willing to allow a creator to brutalize, rape, murder or otherwise befoul their creation once a certain level of sentience is present. I acknowledge the opening this grants vegans for the claiming that our treatment of animals is unjustifiable, and I agree with many tenants of that perspective, yet the moral stands. You cannot justify your way out of being a shitty person or god. b. If you are a god that allows for the horrors that occur daily around the globe and probably throughout the universe, then the label you adhere to yourself as being justified and good is false on its own accounting since it is possible to have administrated the world to not have such evil in it. If that is not possible then you are not an all-knowing, all-powerful, and good being. Just because you lied about the description of good does not make you good, your actions (without justification) are what does that. c. A word on cafeteria christianity. If a christian can pick and chose the parts of the faith they want to believe and reject the rest, which is how people eventually leave religion in my experience, then what is stopping an atheistic anti-theist like me from selecting Muhammad’s statutory rape (even then sex with a nine-year-old was illegal) of his third wife as a reason to reject Islam, or the support of slavery in Christianity to reject that mythology? You are allowing the theist side to get away with the fallacy of counting the hits and ignoring the misses while holding atheists to a higher standard. In and of itself a logical fallacy and a foolish thing to do if you support atheists. d. When last I read the New Testament, there were 4, perhaps 5 distinctly different definitions of the man Jesus, much less the god. From his genealogy to the year he was born to the ideology surrounding his supposed resurrection there is no definition of who the man may have been without startlingly deep contradictions and mutually exclusive claims of fact. When you are talking to a Christian about their god and they want to prove who he was they must first decide which of the different and mutually exclusive accounts are the actual one and then justify why those selections are correct and the others wrong. Then and only then can you claim this is the one person all of these accounts were describing and then you get to say that part of that definition is that he was good. And then you have to defend why that passage, the one that says god is good, is worthy of inclusion, or should it be rejected the same way you rejected the bad version of his genealogy or the bad version of his birth year.
When I say that religion is irrational I mean religion as a concept of belief without sufficient evidence, not the people themselves. Maybe I should use the word 'faith' instead, but then it gets confused with 'trust'...
Yeah but simply saying "Religion is irrational" implies Religion inherently requires faith which I don't think it does. If revelation to God through the scientific method existed, then sure I would be religious, but I wouldn't need to have faith as the evidence would be factual in that scenario. I guess the only option is to say what you actually mean
It's more about "if the triangle exists, it is green" rather than "if the triangle exists, it is a square". Evil vs good is more of an attribute that can be assigned to an object rather than being the object itself.
You misundrrstand him the definition of a Christian god is that he is good it is an inherent quality of him. More like saying if the blue triangle exists its green. Clearly nonsensical
@@mikakretzmann-clough8543 Except that what atheists are doing is actually "Count the friggin sides, there aren't 3!!!!!!11!!!!!". They are are challenging the idea of "He's right because he's right, and if you believed what I believed you'd believe that" as being dumb to begin with. They (and I, as I too have done this) are doing it poorly, but that's what's happening.
@@mikakretzmann-clough8543 yet I think (at least I hope) that most Christian's sense of good and evil would tell them that some actions of God depicted in the Bible (e.g. killing the firstborn children of Egypt) are indeed evil. Accepting at the same time that "God is inherently good", "action X is evil" and "God committed action X" is simply a sign of cognitive dissonance. From a logical standpoint, those three things can't be true together, at least one has to be false, so either the Bible is at least partially incorrect, killing children is not evil, or God is not good.
@@mikakretzmann-clough8543 except that no, it's not. If there is an omnipotent necessary mind that created the universe, incarnated in jesus, inspired the bible, etc, then even if that being is not the source of morality, it IS the christian god. If you refuse to recognize that, because of excuses based on definitions, then you don't understand how language works.
About your second point... I'm really intrigued in how you can justify bringing this point as anything other than a strawman. This particular argument is used almost entirely as either 1) "I disagree with the actions, commands, and endorsements of your god as have been presented and therefore would not worship it even if true" or 2) some tenet of their religion precludes that god from certain actions or from proclaiming actions it takes/endorses as moral and therefore cannot be real as it is defined. I'm not sure if you simply worded your critique to avoid arguments people have already posted about, but this is a bad argument against claims that are not the strongest(nor even the most prolific).
@Jamal Ramadan He may be referring to someone like GeneticallyModifiedSkeptic. He was caught out for some questionable behaviour when Andalusian Project made a refutation to GMS’ video “4 Lies Muslims Tell About ex-Muslims”. Andalusian Project’s video is called “4 Lies Muslims Tell About Ex-Muslims?”. Check it out, it should be required viewing for both Muslims and ex-Muslims. He may also be referring to Sam Harris like when he called Somali women, “women in bags”. And Sam Harris published an essay defending racial profiling....yeah.....it wasn’t very good lol
I agree here. Down right friendly. Truly and sadly a unique delight to hear someone with an un hateful mind such as his. He lacks the hostility and venom in his words most christians feel from atheism. He is the most dangerous friend the church might have....
I appreciate your commitment to rigorous standards of truth, rather than to a "team sport" mentality of "Atheists vs Christians," in which one team is always right and the other team is always wrong.
Hey Alex, I really like how thought provoking and well executed your videos are! Great stuff. Also, a little over a month ago I transitioned from vegetarian to vegan thanks to one of your videos. What you do DOES have an impact! :)
@@Darksaga28 dangerous? I’ve never been healthier and my blood work proves it. Not pointless either. It reduces animal suffering as well as my carbon footprint.
There is a new brand of discussion emerging on RUclips as the platform matures into its second decade and it's fantastic to see. It's a discussion where deep respect is shown to opposing views and, astonishingly, self-criticism is wisely embraced in order to get to the core of the matter. This man, Rationality Rules and others are a personification of this new trend and it's very encouraging to see.
The issue of the Kalam argument is that it is a red herring in the effort to verify the existence of a God. A friend of mine said that Dingo the red-haired dragon created the Universe. The fact that he could prove that the Universe had a first cause, would not get him any nearer to proving Dingo created the Universe. This argument is only used by Theists to try and justify what is essentially a childish belief.
its crazy how badly CS misrepresented that argument, as if [we] hang all our own arguments on a _single_ thing. he found a longwinded way to build that strawman.
Good video overall, but I don't really see theists behave the way you say they're behaving in the real world. They do indeed seem to try and use these arguments as sort of "knockdown" arguments, not something that's non-definitive and a piece of plausibility in a bigger puzzle. I think you're giving the average theist way too much credit here. What you say may apply to a small percentage of scholars. I can see why you'd be motivated to display open-mindedness with videos like this as it can make you seem less biased and more credible, but I think you should be careful not to go too far with it, at the expense of what's actually true.
I think the wellbeing of a society is more important than fighting for objective truth And furthermore If you want to convince anyone of anything you need to think more about the person you want to convince rather than yourself So respect is essential
@@Angela1111122222 Parts of religion may be compatible with well-being and even promote it in some cases, yes, but why not just have the promotion of well-being as the sole end? Abandon the delusional dogma, and just focus on promoting well-being in a secular and logical manner. Religious dogma still does a lot of harm in society, for example all the thousands of religiously-motivated "crisis pregnancy centers" in the US that only exist to brainwash women with false information about abortion. Religion is the force that impels way too many people to reject scientific facts we actually know about the world (such as evolutionary biology and even climate change) and live in a delusion. Islam is barring progress in a lot of countries because of the Quran's savage and oppressive ideas, especially toward women. And the list goes on.
Quite. Picking on the analogy that Alex gave, if you see a suspect at a crime scene, the difference is that you have an open mind that the killer could be anyone. Theists already claim to know who the killer is, even before they saw a suspect -in fact, it's fair to say they never even saw a suspect (god) to begin with. They are building their case backwards as they reached the conclusion that their god exists way before the argument is made. So yes, atheists often jump ahead the argument that is currently being made because both (theist and atheist) realise that the argument is irrelevant, not that the argument should independently prove god.
@@Angela1111122222 We already have. While I wouldn't promote tribalism, I think it's of the utmost importance not to sellout on accurately representing positions actual people tend to take, just in order to seem like the enlightened centrist mediator authority with degrees by giving theists too much leeway. And I think this is sadly exactly what this video does and the trend this channel has followed for the past year.
“I am often beset by atheistic doubts. Yet a torturing surmise sometimes haunts me: may not untapped soul possibilities exist? Is man not missing his real destiny if he fails to explore them?” -Autobiography of a Yogi
If you study evolution u soon realise man ain't anything special. Consciousness gradually evolved out of nature. There is no "soul". Fate of man is something along this lines : "Look at your body- A painted puppet, a poor toy Of jointed parts ready to collapse, A diseased and suffering thing With a head full of false imaginings"
@@dioc8699 Why is consciousness even possible in our universe? Why can’t organisms evolve senses like in a computer simulation but never gain consciousness?
@@dioc8699 If you start from the assumption that everything is dead and go from there I can see your point, but you're still starting with an assumption. Also, man reached the moon, do you think deer could do that? Why didn't humanity's self reflective nature arise until 5 major extinction events had come and gone? As far as I'm aware evolution doesn't even attempt to answer that question.
I found out GM Skeptic years ago when I was looking for your channel, after having watched a video RUclips suggested the previous day. Both have great content, so it was a win-win.
@@ScripulousFingore6133 Well this is exactly the problem Alex talks about, it depends on what we mean by accurate description. If it means: a) Bible (or Christianity) is accurate about the actions of God, the obvious conclusion is, that such god is evil b) Bible is accurate both in description of God's action and their evaluation. In that case the conclusion is that God is good and our understanding of morality is plain wrong. I dare to say that the second understanding is powerful weapon of mind control and is abused to force religious people to do horrible stuff in a good faith.
To the point of the video, Christians base morality out of the Bible and the history of Christian theology. Technically your statement is correct, except that a Christian will never agree with your definition of morality. To a Christian, morality has to do with what God says, not with human wellbeing. And again to the point of the video, while there may be some excellent arguments out there for morality being about human well-being (I agree with this line of thinking), it is likely that most Christians have not heard or do not properly understand these arguments, and so they can still rationally come to the conclusion that God in the Bible is moral because he was justified in doing what he did, given the context of what was happening.
@@empatheticcurioushuman1206 well said. I would add as a former fundamentalist, that lots of Christians would refuse humanistic view of morality, because they would find the orientation on human well being as the the very nature of worldliness and source of sin.
@@amurape5497 But in either case, it still proves that the bible, the inerrant word of God that was sent down as a moral guide, does some immoral thing to the standard of us modern human. In Alex's point, he separated the God from the bible, as he focuses on the theist's depiction/mental image of a God, the all-powerful all-loving being, and rather than focus on being right or wrong, it's more about the theist's perspective regarding us. If we did say that we wouldn't worship, that pretty much shuts down all discussion as they know you're beyond arguing if they won't accept the 'all-powerful and all-loving'. We can however, still argue that the God in the bible, is not all-powerful or all-loving, or just specifically say that 'if the God of the bible exist, I won't worship him', then proceeds to explain why
Telling people to “stop” doing something doesn’t often go over well. It generates a kind of a trigger response of “fuck you, don’t tell me what to do”.
I think the fact that he is also directly reprimanding his former self in this video helps his case. He's holding himself to the same standard as anyone else, so it's not like he's just bossing everyone around and saying he knows better.
@Phil Andrew The idiot who milks an audience with this channel full of bullshit does not count as an intelligent atheist. He is just riding a wave without even understanding its cause. Usually he doesn't understand what he's talking about at all. I doubt he understands what the term atheism means. Last time i checked he mistook it for agnosticism.
@Phil Andrew Nothing will ever make theism reasonable lol Outside of God or Allah being real and floating down from heaven.... even then i wouldnt be impressed
@Phil Andrew That is no big deal. While this video is about atheists, the number of fallacies committed by theists is marginally larger for obvious reasons. It would be hard to drop the levels of intelligence below that of the theists, even if you were to line us all up and bash the back of our heads with base ball bats.
@@hans-joachimbierwirth4727 Last time I checked, the meaning of words changes over time. The only purpose is to help the person you're speaking to understand what you mean. Agnosticism is a knowledge claim and atheism is a belief claim. While knowledge is a subset of belief, most people can differentiate between the two. I hope you can as well. Other than that, you sound bitter. Please seek help for your emotional issues.
@Purify Myers-Briggs type indicator. A bit of psychobabble, but its a system that really helps you think about building successful teams. The "N" means intuitive, the "T" means thinker. Have a look at keirsey.com
@Vengeance Read the thread of my comments before misrepresenting me. You will see that I said MBTI is psychobabble (psychology is a pseudoscience) but gave a useful insight into building successful teams. On the other hand, unless you are quoting what MBTI and Keirsey, you seem to making nonsense claims.
@@Obamnaz I'm not sure. Don't you see a straight contradiction between between being all good and choosing to murder literally the whole world except a handful of people?
@@kingbarriga If you look at it at face value, then it appears that way. But according to the Bible, the people who were killed were evil/not deserving of salvation. Perhaps if God didn't bring forth the flood, greater evil would have occurred later on. We simply don't know all the ramifications of why things happened or what would have happened. Also God the Father is all-loving; being loving means he must enact justice as well. Look at this quote from this comment I saw: "Exacting justice is not murder. Our judges and courts of law don't murder criminals by sentencing them to death. They're upholding the law. Our military weren't murderers for killing Nazi's who were attacking and killing other people. They were protecting our country as well as others." Check out the video where I saw the comment: ruclips.net/video/aBpE2Ey1W0M/видео.html
@@Obamnaz Yeah I get the point, but the "ramifications" argument doesn´t work for me given than he still is in complete and absolute control of those consequences, as well as the initial state he himself created knowing it would lead to those exact outcomes (almost complete annihilation by drowning). If you think about it he could've just skipped everything before the flood and created Noah and his fam, even maybe with the memories that they would have had in the previous scenario. Would have saved a lot of innocent babies at the very least.
@@kingbarriga He could have eliminated all suffering but then it wouldn't have been loving, as we never had a chance to reject him. He is everything that we know to be objectively good by definition and love cannot be manifested if we were programmed to only choose good/God. In this reality, people are truly in charge of their eternity. God knows what will happen, but he will not interfere with our free-will/freedom to choose him or not. Unless we call on him of course.
When you're subscribed to both Cosmic Skeptic and Genetically Modified Skeptic and you don't know who are you watching 'til they start speaking. And, even then, it takes me a second or two...
Great video and you make some good points. Although, I disagree with your second argument and specifically when you coalesce (a) granting the existence of the Christian God with (b) granting the existence of a perfectly good God as defined by Christianity. My contention, quite briefly, is that the existence of the Christian God (or any God) is a separate matter than his attributes, qualities, and desire for the world. In other words, when it is proclaimed that the Christian God is not worthy of worship (even if he exists) it is also to question the "real" motives of this God and to ascertain that the narrative in the Bible about the goodness of God must not be taken for granted even if that God exists. As you argued in the first segment, arguments need not to independently establish a conclusion.
Sorry, but I still say: even if she existed, I wouldn't worship her. Seriously tho, regarding the second claim and Christian god, I still don't see such a serious issue with saying; Even if he existed I wouldn't worship him. It's more of a witty way to draw attention to the flaw, or contradiction in defining this specific God as perfectly good, while at the same time describing his clearly evil actions, all within the same scriptures. Also it can draw attention to the Euthyphro dilemma in a way.
@@maxpayne3628 Kind of a dumb question. There's no need to study _all_ scripture when you can point to one's that prove the claim false. Have you read the old testament?
@@maxpayne3628 I think the turn of phrase confused you. *All* in this sentence only serves to emphasize any or many contradictions within the same scriptures.
Dude, I learn sooo much from you. Thank you so much for all the effort, clarity, and conciseness. Even though I disagree with you about the existence of God, I think you are the most polite and thoughtful atheist. It is so good to find someone who challenges the claims of Christianity in such an insightful way. Your arguments make me think and research a lot. Thanks. God bless you.
problem with kalam is that it is not even valid reasoning. 3:42 great. is there any argument that shows any "minor conclusion" ? I am not aware of any. 7:45 ok. but that would be special pleading,wouldn't it? not only "it is God,not human",but in your example "it is our God,not any other god". I understand that "by definition" reasoning, but then I am granting not only "christianity is true" ,but also "everything about my understanding of how morality works is nonsense". I legitimately do not see how morality can possibly be based on God. I do not understand that concept. Only conceivable way out of this I see, is "christianity is true,but bible is wrong, men somehow messed up stories in it." 9:18 but that is not what your statement was. theistic religions are based on prenewtonian understanding of how world works... understanding,that is not used anywhere but in apoologetics anymore.... because it just doesn't work in real live to that extent. it is not rational to use it,especially on topics they do. without skepticism and knowledge about human bias and without understanding we have now, sure.. it could be rational. it all depends on cognitive toolkit of individual. it used to be rational to believe that heavier things fall faster than lighter, have you tried it with a rock and a feather, you fool? arguments like this are simple arguments apologists use to rationalize their belief. so yes. it could be rational to believe it.
Surely you can say that "the depiction of the Christian God commonly promoted by Christians as the embodiment of pure love and forgiveness is inaccurate, as the Bible shows us that he is actually brutal, condemning, unforgiving, capricious and cruel, and as such is not worthy of worship."
You always got some good points Alex, but this time I am in a bit of disagreement with you. I agree on the point, that we should pay more attention to what the theists actually are claiming to be arguing for . but i must say that i kind of disagree on your last point about calling their believe irrational. With the knowledge and the easy access to information we got today, it's hard to argue that any religious believe is rational. You should maybe just be careful about saying it, since it's kind of saying that you questions their ability to look critical on the information they get, and maybe try to convince them that their believe is false in another way. But keep it up Alex, I got some good things out of your video as i always do, even if i sometimes only agrees with you in 90% of things. Greatings from Denmark (who still doesn't have a secular konstitution, though it claims to be very secular)
Yeah I didn't really get what he was trying to say there. If everyone around me says that I'm perfect and I'm a good person no matter how much terrible shit I do, does that make me a good person automaticly ? if someone who is not like the sheep surrounding me point out to the bad things I do and conclude that I'm not as good as people around me think, he is false for making that claim ?
@@MiidoKinGs You clearly did not get it. If (the christian) God allows evil, he must (by definition) have sufficient moral reasons to allow it, and still be consistent. Else, he would not allow it. Example: God is loving. But God also can punish. How come, if he is sooo loving? Its because he is also perfectly just and holly, therefore has a sufficient moral reason to judge one who broke the law. He must even punish him. Same with allowing crime and other evil
It means that by definition God is Good in the Christian worldview. If you say God is evil, then you are not talking about the Christian God, but another God.
@@josegadea1507 Sounds like a cheap out to me a kindergarten kid would use as an argument. I define moral and ethical good as the well being of sentient beings and increasing their happiness, while reducing suffering anywhere possible. Why am I obligated to accept the contradictory, imaginary definitions made by people in an ancient book without anyone ever having demonstrated that they either exist and even if they did that they'd necessarily be loving and good? I could write a book and claim that universe farting pixies created the universe. They are also required human baby sacrifices once a month per 10.000 people. They're also ultimate moral arbiters and necessarily loving and good. Wouldn't the burden of proof be on me or any follower of pixianity to demonstrate how human baby sacrifices are morally good? Why would you just let me get away with defining things however I please and offering no justification other than "because"?
4:00 "the theist will put them together in an attempt to show why christianity is a plausible explanation" They don't ever seem to do that. To use the conclusion of each argument as a premise in a new argument that concludes that there is a god. It's like if you believed in Splurks, that are pink, winged creatures that drive cars, and you have 3 great arguments, for... the existence of wings, of the color pink, and of cars. And when someone points out that you don't actually have an argument for Splurks, you just go "it's a cumulative case!"
I really enjoy how calm you are when you're making your points. I don't have that kind of calmth (which is now a word), but I admire it. Thanks for the work you do.
Your point about “the Christian god” falls flat. It depends on the individual Christian’s definition of god. There is no single set of Christian beliefs.
That's the thing. It doesn't matter what your concept of a god is, if your theology is used to validate the things in the Bible or any other book, that is the only thing that matters.
Is there really any Christian interpretation that does not postulate a perfectly benevolent god? Because it seems to me that any other difference does not matter for this specific point.
@@harulem i don’t know if there are any major sects that don’t, but individuals definitely don’t. Judaism also generally doesn’t characterize god that way. There are too many Christian sects to know what most of them believe, but I’d imagine some share the Jewish interpretation.
7:30 Of course you can say that the christian god isn't worth of worship even if he were to exist. Just because the defintion says he is all good, I for myself could still condeem his actions and say I don't like god therefore I wouldn't worship him, If christianity was true I would also by definition be able to not worship him lol.
It depends on how much you accept Christianity, or which ideas in it. For one, you can be a very theologically liberal Christian who believes 75% of the Bible is false and/or misinterpreted, if you reject the idea of Biblical inerrancy (some Christians do). That way you got around a lot of the objectionable content by saying that those parts were not inspired by God, and have been written as such due to misunderstandings in the culture. I know several Christians who don’t believe in hell and who think most of the Old Testament law was conceived and written exclusively by humans. That’s a sort of applying modern ethics to the Bible and only picking out the parts you like, and then calling that “God.” This obviously comes with it’s own set of problems, but I feel it’s a step above (and in the right direction) from strict Biblical inerrancy. This usually also coincides with refusal of Biblical literalism (at least as it applies to the Old Testament). These Christians basically only accept the Gospels as real fact within the Bible, and interpret most of the Old Testament as metaphor and/or cultural legend. Reading the Bible in that manner will obviously paint a better picture of God. Also note that even some Christians don’t accept the penal substitution theory of the crucifixion or the doctrine of original sin. So that’s the liberal way of making Christianity more acceptable to the average modern person; just remove the bad parts for the seemingly obvious reason that they make no sense within the theory without resulting to the alternative, theologically conservative position. And that position would be that because humans are inherently flawed and God is so perfect and incomprehensible, it’s easy to justify anything God does as being morally right. He works in mysterious ways, and who are we horrible, mortal people to judge him?
Eh, yes and no. If you don't believe he's worthy of worship you don't actually believe what they say about him, since one of the things they say is that he's worthy of worship. See, in their definition of the god that exists, is him being worthy of worship. So if you don't believe him worthy of worship then you don't believe in the god that they are talking about. Cause that god is worthy of worship by definition. That said, Cosmic has it backwards here. That's not a problem with the atheist response, it's a problem with the religious person's question. They are essentially asking "If you were convinced I was right would you think I was right?", which is just a useless question. Then they are trying to use the response to that question as if it was a response to a similar, but actually useful question. Pretty sure there's a logical fallacy where people try to smuggle assuming they are right into the proof that they are right, and that's basically what they are leading you into with that question. TECHNICALLY, pointing that out would be a better response, but that's having a better way of dealing with someone else's mistake. They still made the mistake, not the atheist. The fact that there is no actual answer to their question that can be both honest and useful is the proof of that. Edit: Just realized that technically Alex presented this argument not as a question from the christian "If you believed in the bible, would you worship god" but as a statement from the atheist without any such question. He technically referenced this in a vague way when he started talking, by saying that sometimes it's an appropriate response. I still feel he's glossing over that what people are actually talking about generally is the person's idea of god being worthy of worship based on the descriptions, but he makes good points about the nitty gritty of the phrasing.
@@MH-oh8rn The fact a person can say "you will kneel if you like it or not" and think of themself as the good guy is a great example of how Christianity twists people's sense of right and wrong.
Arguing about God's existence is pointless. As an atheist, you have to accept that believers will almost never change their minds. What does change minds is personal circumstance, but that's not something a RUclips video or debate can provide. Debate and RUclips videos are about competition and reinforcing the side of their own.
I just realized what seems lacking in this video, especially in the 2nd point. You don't go very far into what a person SHOULD do in those situations. For example, explaining that the Christian who thinks that their god is right by definition is making a mistake and telling everyone "if you agreed with me we would agree" and that it is a useless thing to say. It leaves me at least with the impression that the correct thing to do is to just keep my mouth shut cause I am the one who screwed up. You're extending maximum benefit of the doubt and interpretive leeway to the religious person and none to the atheist in your examples. While it's laudable to try to see the other side and look to yourself for mistakes, doing the wrong thing in the opposite direction is still wrong.
That’s exactly the problem neither is entitled to benefit. You are in a position where you think because you don’t believe in God then Christians have the burden of proof but that’s not always the case especially when you try to deconstruct the theology behind Christianity. Atheist are not entitled to any rope just as Christians but i always see atheist assume they have to have leeway but that just goes nowhere. Rather than say god is evil because I think so based on what I think is evil it is better to test the soundness of evil applicable to the soundness of the theological doctrine itself so debate internally not externally is what he is saying
@@noelperez6523 Internal validity and soundness is tertiary at best. It's no more important than when evaluating any other fairy tale. It can be useful in order to figure out the psychology behind a theist accepting claims on bad evidence/faith, but it's not useful otherwise. What matters is whether or not claims comport with the facts of reality externally and that is what should matter first and foremost to everyone, including every single theist. You will not find common ground otherwise. We could sit here all day and hypothesize how christianity makes sense internally in magic land, but at the end of the day if it's not applicable to the real world it holds no more water than Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.
@@noelperez6523 That is the exact opposite of what he is saying, though. He pointed out that if you get that far you've already agreed with them, and so there can be no "internal debate". Half of what you said has nothing to do with what you responded to. That in addition to the accusatory "you atheists" attitude is a pretty decent indication that you aren't actually interested in discussing my point (be it right or wrong), but just telling me how I'm the bad guy and should shut up.
@Vengeance It seemed to me he wasn't talking about debates, but regular conversations. In regular conversations we often have to dig down into what the actual claim is. However, I believe we are both mistaken here. I'm imagining this coming up in the situations that I have seen it in, and it seems so are you. However, looking again Cosmic seems to be talking about the internal reasoning of the claim without any context. I think that explains my disconnect with what he said.
"Good" in Christian terms is often defined as "That which God commands". So saying God is perfectly good just means "God does whatever He wants." It doesn't carry much water. Saying _good_ means the same thing as _moral_ is a different conversation.
Most Christians don't believe in Divine Command Theory of this type, and Alex's argument doesn't start from that point, either. If it helps, just use the phrasing, "God is perfectly, infinitely moral." According to most Christian philosophy, that's also true: God is moral, just, kind, good, etc. It's best not to think of these as characteristics, either, if you want to understand the Christian philosophical mindset; think of God as _being_ these things, the actual Platonic _form_ of these things.
No "Good" just means being An evil person is bad because they lack the virtue so they are not good since they lack something that a normal person has like a serial killer lacks a conscience, a psychopath lack emptathy God is actus purus, or susbsistent being so he is pure goodness in the platonic sense
Does the platonic ideal breakdown once the abstract notion of goodness becomes personified and takes actions, especially when those actions are only deemed as good because goodness did it? Like the Euthyphro dilemma but more so
@@anthonynorman7545 "especially when those actions are only deemed as good because goodness did it" -- this seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of the position. It's Divine Command Theory, not the kind of Platonic ideal we're discussing.
@@anthonynorman7545 no it does not in any way shape or form we just look at pure actuality from different intellectual vantage pionts God is pure actuality and thus pure perfection itself, pure truth, pure goodness, pure beauty etc... Aquinas spends many, many chapters on deriving the divine attributes, but I'll only cover a few very briefly here, to get the flavor. Matter and energy can both change location, change configuration, come together, break apart, and so on. So they have all kinds of potential to change. Something that is pure actuality, with no potentials, must therefore be immaterial. Having a spacial location means being movable, or having parts that are actually located over here but not actually located over there. Something that is pure actuality, with no potentials, cannot move or change or have parts that are non actual. Therefore, pure actuality is spaceless. If subject to the effects of time, it would have the potential to get older than it was. But since it has no potentials, it has no potential to get older. Therefore, pure actuality is timeless. If there is a distinction between two things, that means one has something that the other lacks. But pure actuality does not have potentials, and therefore lacks nothing. So pure actuality is singular. There is only one such thing. Pure actuality is the source of all potentials being actualized. Anything that happens is a potential thing becoming actual. Therefore, anything that ever happens or could happen is caused by pure actuality. So pure actuality is capable of doing anything and is therefore all-powerful. Now, unless you are a Platonist (and Aquinas is not), there are only two ways something can exist: as a material thing, or as an abstract concept in a mind. For example, the concept of "dog" can exist as an abstract idea in a mind, or as a material thing in the form of an actual dog. That is, the form of dog can exist either unconstrained by matter (the idea of dog) or constrained by matter (an actual dog). Since pure actuality exists unconstrained by matter, it must exist as knowledge. Also, "ignorance" is not a positive reality of its own, but rather is a lack of knowledge and hence an unrealized potential. So pure actuality is all-knowing.
I often say “if god exists with the qualities that you are telling me he has (hates the gays, only lets one sect of Christians only into heaven) then I wouldn’t want to follow him or worship him because I wouldn’t want to spend eternity with him. Since this is the main end goal of many Christian sects I’m just not into that, even if god is there. This seems close to the second one you point out so I’ll have to think on it.
In general, it would be nice if people started thinking more about the consequences of what they say. Even if they are right, they can _cause_ a lot of damage. What good is it if a vegan lectures other if that only causes the other people to get mad and eat even more meat as a "punishment"
That would be a bad reaction too though. I'm still eating meat. I'm not eating meat more just because I disagree with some (random) vegan. I might not eat less meat though. (I do though but because of my own arguments)
Well, people that get offended so easily by someone telling them the truth don't have the spine to change their behaviour anyway. Oh nooo! You made me feel bad for torturing innocent animals. Now i must eat extra animal flesh to calm myself down. Why are vegans always so millitant? My fragile ego can't handle that :(
@@QuintarFarenor It would be a bad damn reaction indeed - but people are that spiteful sometimes, and it isn't necessary to "give them fuel". The right information for the right time
@@vegannegan9652 All I say is that there are enough people out there that react that way. And when you _know that_ as a vegan and still choose to say such things anyway then you would be part of the reason that animal died
I am not disagreeing with you, I just felt this needed to be said. Could we get some recognition that there is nothing wrong with eating meat. There is plenty wrong with abuse of living animals though. Eating already dead animals is only problematic because of abuse while they were alive. Dead things, including dead humans, don't need your consideration, they are dead, they can't feel or care what happens to their corpse, they can't even remember any abuse they suffered in life. Stop focusing on eating meat, that wont help. Focus on the abuse of living animals.
Issues with #1 and #3 (#2 gets a pass because you explained it out and stated exceptions, which really cover most use-cases, where it is acceptable, which I agree with): 1: I agree that arguments need not independently establish a conclusion. However, in almost all cases when theists evoke eg cosmological arguments, their stated intention is for the argument to independently establish a conclusion, so if it does not, that is a problem. It is not equivalent to saying "an eyewitness claims they saw this suspect at the scene of the crime, so their case is looking a little worse" let alone "this suspect has an airtight alibi, so we can at least rule out their direct involvement" and moving on with an investigation, it is equivalent to saying "an eyewitness claims they saw this suspect at the scene of the crime, so they must have committed the crime, case closed" or "this suspect has an airtight alibi, so they were definitely not involved whatsoever, even indirectly." Responding to that with "that evidence in no way proves that conclusion" is not erroneous. It is exceedingly rare to encounter a theistic argument that legitimately builds a mounting case based on many distinct theological arguments as you described. 3: Likewise, it is well and good to say that religion does not necessarily have to be irrational, because we can make the argument to the absurd that somebody might for example live in a society where through prestidigitation priests convince them they are legitimately performing miracles and they are given manufactured "visions" of God and children are taken away immediately at birth and randomly swapped before being distributed back to parents (such that children do not resemble their parents) and so on, such that magic and God seem real and scientific concepts like genetics (and the logically necessary idea of evolution based on genetics) seem fake and silly, but that is not really what we encounter. Instead, we find people who have found their way into the same spaces as us, whether because they are in the same schools, workplaces, etc or because they have internet access, and therefore have access to all the same publicly-available information we do and live in the same society we do, strongly asserting a conclusion that runs contrary to all available evidence, most often because someone told them it was true and they were too young or too intellectually lazy to fact check it, and are now irrationally invested in that conclusion. Thus you'll have a hard time finding a theist who believes for rational reasons; At best, you'll encounter people who had "spiritual experiences" that caused them to convert, but these experiences happen with suspicious regularity when someone is at their lowest point and in a compromised mental state. In other words, both of these things would be problems if the scenarios that made them problematic were more common (and, I suppose, once in a blue moon when those scenarios actually come up they ARE problems), but by and large you're tilting at windmills- It's respectable to criticise and iron out poor arguments within your in-group, but these just aren't strongly or consistently poor arguments given the scenarios in which they are used.
12:30 "You can't claim that Christianity is always _a product of_ irrationality" seems like a bait-and switch from the claim that Christianity is irrational (derived from the section heading "Religion is irrational"). Christianity _is_ irrational - it is self-contradictory and inconsistent with observable reality. However, a person might believe in it - or rather, perhaps, believe themselves to be a 'Christian' - because, for example, they've been raised by parents who have told them that Christianity is true. Assuming their life experience tells them that their parents never lie to them, it would be perfectly rational to believe (albeit tentatively) in Christianity - but that doesn't make Christianity _itself_ rational. You seem to have smuggled in the _process_ of _arriving at_ a belief (e.g. 'how Bob became a Christian'), when the 'thing atheists say' refers to the belief structure itself (e.g. Christian doctrine).
Completely agree!! Alex argument was flawed “religion is irrational” I thought meant the actual core beliefs and foundations of a particular religion not religious people reasons to coming to that belief and if they were justified with the info they had. Pointless arguments really if someone proves that a particular religion fundamentals are illogical and therefore concludes it’s false it completely reasonable to say ie “Christianity is irrational” and a religious individual would need to address their particular points and prove it is rational and show it does makes sense but of course after they come to know of the arguments against it in the first place
Alex arguments would have had more weight if he said atheist shouldn’t say “religion is irrational” until they justified why each religion in flawed or at least good arguments why monotheist and polytheistic religions in their foundations don’t make sense and therefore can’t be true instead of ie losing faith in their particular religion and then using that umbrella term that “religion is illogical” implying all religions
5:20 - You've entirely mischaracterized anti-theism here, I think. Anti-theists, in general, aren't the sort that "wouldn't want him to exist," rather, I, and particularly Hitchens, consider the theist proposition to be a dangerous and unhealthy one; that belief in a god is *bad,* in principle. Further, I disagree with your argument. I feel you've strawmanned the argument: The position is not as you put it, and your analogy with geometric shapes is inappropriate at best. God is depicted as having a distinctly unjustifiable evil morality. Christians reframe this distinctly unjustifiable evil as justifiable, and, importantly, as just and good. The position that "I would not believe in such a being" is not a rejection of his existence, but the rejection of the *faith* in his justness and righteousness. Granted, it could be much better said than it is typically said, but you've presented it unfairly, and, in my opinion, as a strawman.
For the first time, Alex's argument is seeming absurd. Suppose there's a Lord Voldemort fan club whose members believe that there once lived a supremely good wizard named Voldemort who killed and tortured numerous people to make himself immortal. According to the logic Alex presented here, it's illogical to tell those people that even if Voldemort was real he was evil, since, notwithstanding whatever he may have done, the description of Voldemort they've given says he was supremely good. According to Alex's logic, you can either tell these people that Voldemort never existed or you can say that an evil wizard did exist but he wasn't Voldemort, but someone else. It doesn't make sense.
Do you understand that words like evil are religious and are dependent on the definition of God? I would argue that in your example Voldemort is not evil because he is by definition not that. Everything he did was for the greater good by definition, even killing and torturing people. This is exactly why words like good and evil are really bad indicators of morality.
@@RanEncounter, you’re incorrect. Whatever evil’s etymology, its meaning now includes an entirely nonreligious denotation. Look it up. Etymology is necessarily history but not necessarily meaning.
@@Steve-hu9gw Sigh. For a religious person God is part of their moral axioms. It is where they get their morals and God is defined as the ultimate moral good and the anchor of morality. If you want to play semantic games, be my guest.
@@RanEncounter, you’re incorrect. And you’re the one playing semantic games. You can’t just define your god as good. It has to actually be good. Otherwise, you are making good meaningless.
@@Steve-hu9gw What are you talking about? My god? Anyway you can and a lot of people do. Have you ever talked to a Christian or Muslim that actually has tought about their epistomological moral frameworks? Because they axiomatically insert God with its values and one of them is the moral absolute good. You are valuing good and evil by your standard. Two people have to actually agree on the standard before you can agree what is good and evil. That is why these concepts are extremely bad because the standard is different. What standard of good are you talking about here?
A "first mover" is a language trap which evokes some type of physical, even anthropomorphic, being. It might be better phrased as a "first movement" but even this phrase is fraught with lingual difficulties. Concept formation is always reflexive and reflective.
Technically a first mover is a primordial, sentient thing with an ability to act independently upon other objects with some kind of autonomy. Aristotelean cosmology is kind of dumb and outdated, but so are it's assumptions. Viewpoints are inevitably gonna come up like substance dualism, theory of forms, or some variations of soft naturalism dating back to the medieval ages that include alchemy and astrology. Also Aristotelean cause and effect is too linear to work with modern relativistic science. Claiming a real sentient entity "acted" prior the existence of space and time is just nonsensical. Einstein was just another nail in the already buried coffin, my friend.
God isn't a moral agent and he doesn't have moral virtue in the same way we do as nothing can be lost since he is purely actual And intrinsicism never even made sense to me it's morality without context it just seems inconsistent like is Kant right?
7:20 This is pedantic IMO and I don't buy that this is meaningful in most discussions. If I make the argument "The christian god is evil because he does evil acts", it sounds like you think I'm about to walk into a fallacious trap where the christian says "Ha! Well you fool, the christian god defined as being all good, thus you have contradicted yourself in your own argument". What actually happens is the other person recognizes that I don't buy the argument that it's justified to call god all-good and we can have a conversation around that, and even if they didn't recognize it I could fix the whole conversation by just stating this in 2 seconds. I don't think this is a point worth considering. It's only a problem if we analyze it purely analytically, but in context of a conversation with another human being I don't think this is a relevant consideration unless it's explicitly brought up.
Like God is not the same as us Christians don't believe in pain based morality and we don't believe in intrinsicism really God is purely actual, a thing is only good in so far as it is perfect and if God is purely actual then he is purely perfect as a thing is only perfect in so as it is actual i.e. a perfect triangle is a good triangle/is a triangle The same thing with God but in the platonic sense like God is not a moral agent in the first place BTW what even is the point of morality to you? To me it's simply a way of beings reaching their Good or their perfection and the greatest good to reach would be reaching God this is how the Bible puts it like morality = Practicality for reaching the Good or God
@@neologos4395 Ok none of this is related to my comment, but I don't care about most of this because Im more interested in analyzed God based on what exists, not whatever fantasy you can construct to make him consistent with your idea that he's good or at least somehow not responsible for the badness. > BTW what even is the point of morality to you? Morality is a social construct that aids in social cohesion. There's no "point", it just exists and it's arbitrary.
@@BigPapaMitchell Ok Pure actuality which is Pure existence exist I will logically deduce this if you ask why it's just existence without space, matter time or any fundamental quantum soup and this is not non- existence since non- existence cannot exist since it's non-existence like If you don't get this just ask an I'll make some pages of explanations lol Aquinas spends many, many chapters on deriving the divine attributes from pure existence, but I'll only cover a few very briefly here, to get the flavor. Matter and energy can both change location, change configuration, come together, break apart, and so on. So they have all kinds of potential to change. Something that is pure actuality, with no potentials, must therefore be immaterial. Having a spacial location means being movable, or having parts that are actually located over here but not actually located over there. Something that is pure actuality, with no potentials, cannot move or change or have parts that are non actual. Therefore, pure actuality is spaceless. If subject to the effects of time, it would have the potential to get older than it was. But since it has no potentials, it has no potential to get older. Therefore, pure actuality is timeless. If there is a distinction between two things, that means one has something that the other lacks. But pure actuality does not have potentials, and therefore lacks nothing. So pure actuality is singular. There is only one such thing. Pure actuality is the source of all potentials being actualized. Anything that happens is a potential thing becoming actual. Therefore, anything that ever happens or could happen is caused by pure actuality. So pure actuality is capable of doing anything and is therefore all-powerful. Now, unless you are a Platonist (and Aquinas is not), there are only two ways something can exist: as a material thing, or as an abstract concept in a mind. For example, the concept of "dog" can exist as an abstract idea in a mind, or as a material thing in the form of an actual dog. That is, the form of dog can exist either unconstrained by matter (the idea of dog) or constrained by matter (an actual dog). Since pure actuality exists unconstrained by matter, it must exist as knowledge. Also, "ignorance" is not a positive reality of its own, but rather is a lack of knowledge and hence an unrealized potential. So pure actuality is all-knowing. We can say that a thing is "good", not in the sense of being "something we personally like" (you may think a good pizza has anchovies, whereas others may not), but in the sense of being a better example of what it is supposed to be. When that thing better exemplifies its perfect archetype. For example, an elephant that takes care of its young, has all four legs, ears, and trunk is "good", or closer to "good", in the sense we mean here. If the elephant lacks something, such as a leg, or one of it's ears, it would not be as "good" as it would be if it had both ears. Since pure actuality has no potentials, it lacks nothing, and is therefore all-good. And this is where we get the idea of the Classical Theistic conception of God which is the one that people believe right up until the 18th century Um like listen you can yell word salad or deepity or use the personal incredulity fantasy but like you have to actually explain why and if you don't then I can't explain the premises that you say are invaled or do not make sense see it's dialectic
As a Christian, @CosmicSkeptic is my favorite atheist RUclipsr. He takes the positions Christian’s hold seriously enough to actually engage with them honestly and intellectually. There are a few others that do well with this- but he is by far the best. When I want to see what the best arguments from the other side are or actually hear good discussion about theism from an atheist I hop on his channel. While I sincerely hope that one day Alex becomes a Christian, I also am just thrilled when I see discussion from atheists that doesn’t become pejorative of Christianity without substance intellectually. I am actually happier than I was before watching this. It causes me joy to see this kind of engagement with issues. Alex, thank you for what you are doing to change the tone of discussion in online atheism!
I love comparing believing in God to believing in Santa Clause or believing in the Easter Bunny. Nothing wrong with that since they are literally the same thing.
@@sammur1977 lol. So what? In Greek mythology, the Great Emptiness/Abyss (Chaos) is the source of all existence. From which all gods and goddesses arise. That doesn't make it real.
@Jessie James I'm from Austria, so English isn't my mother's tongue. I'm pretty sure you got the gist of what I was saying despite my imperfect use of words. Since you are so eager on words though, it's called "difference to there being a creator", not "difference to their being a creator" lol. Thirdly I don't have to prove a negative lol. "You haven't proven that there are no unicorns, so unicorns are Source of existence." What a load of BS.
to the question "did the theist ever claim that their god could do this " : almost always. Though, I do agree that we should pay attention to what our interlocutors are saying.
@Michelle de Vries As a Christian, I feel theists should do the same. Because man did I trip over my own shoe laces arguing how the only evidence for God is through personal experience earlier this week. >.
@@DemonicRemption the argument from personal experience is one of the most fallacious arguments for the existence of gods there are. So I agree that you “tripped“
@@lil_weasel219 Oh it isn't a fallacious argument, if you're only trying to justify why you're a theist and not trying to convert. That's always my intent when I use the personal experience argument. But instead I wasn't focusing on that intent, instead trying to argue every point the guy made. Simply because I know I can't convince anyone of God's existence, and besides that's the job of a minister, while I'm a writer of fiction.
8:00 except that the idea that God is perfectly good is also defeated by logic. As antitheists we say that bcz we do not agree that he is good. Good is not just something you can declare it must be seen to be known
The final nail in the coffin that brought me from religion was realizing how insidious it is to value some "all mighty" entity above the people around me that matter to me!
Well, since I subscribe to moral fictionalism, and thus see the claim of religious people about the morality of their deity just as a narrative but not as some cosmic truth, I will continue to say that even if I would know the Christian deity to real, I still would not worship it, since I simply cannot align my moral intuitions with that of the ones of said entity.
#2: If the Christian God exists, and is perfectly good, then perfectly good is abhorrent (which is a logical contradiction obviously, but who cares since we believe in magic in this scenario?) and I would not want to be "perfectly good", nor would I worship the Christian God. There, is that more clear?
You're trying to justify your irrational position. You can have that position, just know that it is irrational. Also, believe in a God. I think most of what Alex said on this video is really good.
@@BurazSC2 Because the Christian God existing is therefore a logical contradiction the same as a square circle. But all that can be explained through "magic". Which is what the bible is all about. God "spoke" the world into existence. That's literally Harry Potter. All logic goes out the window in that case and we can't rely on it, even as a hypothetical.
@@stephengarrett4193 "Also, believe in a God". Oh my you convinced me /s. The irrational thing is to believe the magic fairy dust God exists in the first place. But if he does, HE will break the laws of logic, not me. With his magic. To believe in the Christian God, you literally have to believe God can simply "make a donkey talk", or speak the world into existence, or raise people from the dead. That's not how any of this works. But if it does, then up is down and good is bad. The only difference between a miracle and Harry Potter magic, is who performs the spell. And if "perfectly good" is defined by the Christian God, then perfectly good is a shit goal to strive for. Or can you explain to me why your "God" demands worship the same way ONLY evil dictators have ever done? Who does that? You know, you may think having people worship you would be flattering. But don't you think it'd get old really fast? Like, wouldn't you wanna sit down in front of the TV with them and have a beverage or play football with them, instead of having them kiss your feet all day and bow before you? Any person who has foolishly sought such power, ended up being some of the loneliest people to ever exist.
@@joshsuko8185 that's a perspective question. The god of the bible claims He doesn't have to answer for anything (see Job) because He says so. Some see self-referential claims as invalid.
@@anthonynorman7545 Who would he have to answer to? Humans? Beings he created and sustains? You could argue that lifts our view of humanity to being of equality with God?
@@grandmasterlucien how does God sustain humans? Also, what does creation and sustaining have to do with answering to? I don't think it requires the lifting or lowering of anything.
I guess because that's what he has a degree in. Being as friendly and forgiving as he was with WLC was the first indicator of what was to come. Now he's literally reciting apologist arguments.
If you want to be taken seriously as an atheist or at least a rational person, I suggest you don`t dismiss the holy books as merely fantasy works. It is a slap on your credibility and intellectual maturity.
@@sammur1977 Snow white and the seven dwarves is a fantasy book too. I am pretty sure you know the book exists. There is something else in the book that does not.
@@niksx4454 I actually know what the holy books are and most importantly how and why they were put together. I cannot tell you this in a comment section because it takes dozens of pages to explain. Pages that I am writing myself at the moment. All holy books are partially fantasy and that is a fact. I know there are parts in them that are true but they are definitely not the parts that believers think. Supernatural does not exist. This is a fact. If you doubt that then I am sorry but you are just wrong and I will explain in great detail why as soon as I finish the bloody book whenever that happens. I know religions are useful for many people but many reasons for their usefulness ranges from deceptive ignorance to plain evil behavior.
@@howtheworldworks3 You writing a book about holy books and the original comment in which you come off as dismissive of people still discussing them is kinda confusing to me. Or maybe your book will be the one to end all discussions once and for all. Can't wait to read it if that's the case. All love.
I like your point about the difference rationality and accuracy. I wish more people understood this. I think it would calm many arguments. It reminds me of a problem that arose more than once in the Intelligent Design push in American public education in the early 2000s. A certain phrase, "a theory, not a fact", was used by many to describe the theory of biological evolution. It seems that all of them were using the word "theory" in the layman's sense, "an idea", "a hunch", "an untested hypothesis". Some of those people, such as a group in Pennsylvania, were behaving really corruptly (e.g., lying under oath in court about the moving of money) and, I think, must have been happy with the "not fact" part of their claim about the theory of evolution. Others, such as the school officials in Georgia who concluded that textbooks should be modified with a sticker that pointed out that evolution was "a theory, not a fact", seemed to be honestly trying to do their best to satisfy everyone without injecting religion into public schools and without taking a side in the argument about evolution. The problem with the Georgia kind of people is their sloppy handling of the "not a fact" part: they were asserting not just that evolution was a theory in biology, but also that it was counterfactual, incorrect, wrong, inaccurate, known to be not what happens; this is problematic in at least four ways: 1. It amounts to the very side-taking that they tried to avoid. 2. It may give some people the false notion that "theory" and "fact" are antonyms to each other. 3. It invites the question "Well, if you already know it's not true, why are you bothering to teach it? We don't bother to 'teach' the 'theory' that George Washington was a Chinaman from Mars who lived in the 7th century B.C." 4. It poorly handles the fact that, in our best understanding, _some_ theories (whether in the layman's sense or in the scientific sense) _are factual_ and _some_ theories are _not_ factual. I can 'theorize' that tomorrow there will be an inch of rain at my house, and I can 'theorize' that tomorrow there will be no rain at my house: one or the other of these 'theories' can be factual; they both can be counterfactual; they can't both be true.
I have to disagree on the second point. If I say I'm glad the Christian good doesn't exist, because he's immoral, I'm not saying "everything in the Bible is true, including god's goodness". I'm saying, if a being exists that had committed the acts (good and bad) described in the Bible, I think that would be terrible, because a lot of the acts are terrifying and psychopathic by my moral standards.
I take issue with your second point. Even if Christianity is true, and the god of the Bible exists as described, I can still make an assessment of that god's actions with respect to my own moral positions. Maybe my interlocutor and I both agree that the triangle exists, but they think it's an equilateral triangle and I think it is a right-angle triangle. Yahweh exists, the Christian thinks it is a good god but I think it is evil. They would still need to demonstrate that their god is good, and all the evidence in the Bible points to it being evil.
@@chrishunt3674 Do I need to read the last two pages of the Bible? Do they somehow make all the bad things this god has supposedly done ok? Is that where Yahweh condemns slavery? Is that where Yahweh condemns the genocide he committed? Is that where Yahweh denounces the slaughters he commanded? Is that where Yahweh says women should be treated equal to men in society? Is that where Yahweh says don't stone people who have sex with people of the same gender? The Bible is full of and endorses old, terrible ideas. No one should be reading it as a moral guide. No one should be treating it like real history. The god of the Bible, if it exists, is evil. Thankfully, I have no reason to believe it is real.
@George Morehead I would not be interested in debate. I've never really liked debate format, and I haven't done it since high school. I much prefer conversation over debate. Debate has so much structure and is so performative. That being said, I think there are plenty of examples of the god of the Bible being evil. I'll entertain the notion that biblical stories are real events for the sake of the hypothetical, but the first I would bring up is Noah's flood. The goal of Yahweh in that instance was to kill almost all life on earth. That is evil.
About "I wouldn't worship him" argument, I would modify it to "If God exists, I hope he is more just and kind than what I have heard and read of him from the Bible". This way it is not that confrontational.
7:55 What definition of the christian god are you talking about exactly? When we find evil things in such a definition the part defining it perfectly good has been overruled internally, since one is based on something happening and the other is just a claim. I don't see the slightest reason to accept the christian version of "good" over one based on universal well-being.
@@justadude7752 Exactly. And since the god Christians are typically talking about is an acting moral agent (allegedly), the definition of god should include what god actually (and for the sake of the argument even allegedly) does.
If a christian is rational (on the topic)then he's ignorant (on the topic). Change my mind. I am an ex christian and I would describe my old self like this.
I don't know man, we could also be ignorant on another topic that makes Christianity more rational than atheism. It's better to just prove claims wrong when they're claimed and nothing more, it's actually irrational to speak like you know absolutely everything from both sides and therefore assume that a Christian is rather ignorant or irrational.
Hi, I'm a Christian. I think I was ignorant when I was growing up as a Christian. Then I tried to be rational and doubted everything. Then I had to let go of a lot of beliefs and question why believe this and not that. In order to come to a conclusion I had to do a lot of reading and I also travelled and talked to very different people. At some moments I think I also was irrational while trying to be rational because it's impossible to believe nothing. In the end, I was left with two very big candidates for what seemed to be the truth (neither of them was atheism, by the way) and this was the least hard part because a last bit of logic made the answer obvious. I don't think atheism is irrational either, but I do consider there is some ignorance and sometimes stubbornness in most atheists. However, when it comes to beliefs, I do think there is a little step that will always be irrational, whatever it is you end up believing. People who have given it some thought and have been thinking it logically and willing to really follow reason where it leads could always say that the other is the ignorant one, because each one knows what they have studied and thought about and can't know everything about the other person's journey and the connections they've made. In fact, every person that is alive could always change their mind up until the very last moment before they die, by reason or by something else. Only a proud person would call everyone who holds the other position ignorant. That said, there are many ignorant people on this topic. Christians atheists and others. Not that this is always bad, some people are better at other things or just don't have these questions. I can't say anything about you, but I think Alex is very rational and I rarely disagree with him, but we got to different conclusions when it comes to religion. I'm sure he knows there's a big part of his decision to be an atheist that has more to do with emotion than with rationality. That's fine, in the end, rationality isn't everything when it comes to believing.
@@arcadia14 well i carefully looked at christian arguments from a lot of theologians like Mcgrath, Turek, Zacharias and most importantly William Lane Craig. I also looked at discussions between atheists like the four horsemen or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Matt Dillahunty, Michael Schermer, GM skeptic, cosmic skeptic, Ramachandran and others that don't come to mind. I also know about the opinion of agnostics such as Tyson, Sagan, ecc. I watched debates between christians and atheists. I thoroughly analized every single argument from both sides. Now i am not claiming that i know everything, but what i know about christianity should be enough to make a reasonable judgement on it , since who can explain me the christian faith better than William Lane Craig and the others? Nobody. Also, if there was such an amazing argument which would make christianity rational, it would have already been made by the most prominent theologians i named.
@@alycertain i thoroughly disagree with your view on beliefs. For this example I am going to consider the christian god but this could be adjusted to fit other religions. The bible says that faith is first of all a personal relationship with God. He is seen as a father and the bond that exists between the believer and God is therefore the parental one. Now, when a believer identifies as one he is so, first of all because he has a relationship with God. Most people do not become christians by a rational conclusion, not even Craig who says that he became a Christian because he felt great peace after praying when he was 16 and from then on he strengthened his faith with reason. My feelings as a believer ( I was an ex catholic), further confirmed by the position of other believers (i used to exchange opinions with them) and even further confirmed by the position of a sophisticated theologian, makes me understand that evidence is based on faith, not the other way around, unlike atheism where this emotional factor is reduced to a minimum, in favor of rationality. Atheism is the least emotional position to hold in my opinion because you get there because of rationality. So no, i disagree with you when you say "rationality isn't everything when it comes to believing". Well, sure it isn't because we are humans and we can't be fully rational, but it should be. To do this you have to minimize emotions and religion is the opposite to this so from here it's already difficult to say the product of this mentality can be rational. Of course this is only one argument to show that religion is irrational
I don't know if this is true for Christianity but it's definitely true for Islam. So many things wrong with it that a defense automatically leads to indigestible dissonance and dishonesty most of the time.
3:23 mins in. Me: " wow, crap! I just finished watching the Pascal's 'debunk' you did and tried to point this out to you. Now your schooling me on this? You have proven intellectual and academic integrity, accountability, honesty, and maturity. And you were completely succinct while remaining erudite. I hardly seem to possess the cognitive capacity to comprehend complex concepts concerning the conversation. Thank you for admitting and adjusting the thought process on this. I have a thought experiment challenge for you concerning the possible seperation of values and morals. If you are interested. For now, bravo! Thank you and...where did you get your thesaurus? (I am not an atheist. But you have my ear. I am listening. You are making sense. Thank you.)
If the Christian god existed, he wouldn't be objectively evil, but he'd be evil according to MY OWN moral standards. That would, of course, make me objectively evil, because my moral standards would oppose the objective good, but should I care? If that's what it means to be objectively good, then I don't want it.
I move that Alex should do a video on the philosophy of aesthetic, possibly in reference to calls for modesty, and he should style it "cosmetic skeptic"
When Christians say “God is good”, they mean, whatever God does, is, by definition, good. They are not defining God, but redefining ‘Good’. The analogy would then be, The Triangle exists, and it has 4 sides and is shaped like a square.
@@ja.k3051 Because when they say that, they are not defining the properties of God, but the properties of Good. The "shape" is the placeholder for God in the analogy. We are just calling it a triangle despite it's actual form. As such, Good, aka Triangle, is no longer defined as 3 sides, but whatever they want to call a Triangle, in this case, what we would normally call a square.
No God is Good because God is purely actual therefore he is purely perfect as a thing is only perfect in so far as it is actual and since God is purely actual he is purely perfect and purely Good since Goodness and Being differ only in idea really it's a virtual distinction God is not even a moral agent as he isn't even really a Being
@@neologos4395 I would agree with you, but then we both would be wrong. You are redefining Good, Perfect, God and Being. You are kinda making my point.
*Alex,* there is a significant problem with your second point IMHO: *the (oft repeated) definition of God that you have used, as being omnibenevolent, is at odds with the God described in the Bible,* the principal (only?) source for information about that god that is common to adherents. To leverage off the triangle analogy: this is like the the devout followers of _Shapeism_ defining their deity as the Mighty Triangle, while attempting to ignore the genocidal _"Fourth Corner"_ that is clearly described in their _Book of Holy Polygons._
“If God existed, I wouldn’t worship him.” I think the argument here, for me, is that, if a god exists doing the things Christians ascribe to him, I’d view that as an evil god and wouldn't worship him. I don't see that as a fallacious statement.
For early access and to support the channel: www.patreon.com/cosmicskeptic | Don't forget to check out my new, second RUclips channel: ruclips.net/channel/UC-WIym34xBTuFVRyd-5zVQg
Keep up the great vids Alex 👍
Alex, we must do something other than speaking... we must take action....
Get married and have a lot of children. The next battle is not ideological, it’s demographical.
Atheists MUST GET A LOT of children to counter the Muslim birth rates!!
They will rule the world in 100 years....
I’m an atheist from the Middle East 🤞🏼
@@abefanous9804 It's not demography. It's culture. We have to contribute to culture and when cultural efforts are made we can change a whole generation to accept some kind of religious tolerance (atheist detachment), like we could accept homosexuality or political rights for women or, some day, veganism as the baseline for how to treat animals.
@@abefanous9804 This can happen in your country. It can happen in Indonesia, it can happen in Nigeria. I'm reading a book by Ibn Warraq, called "Leaving the Allah Delusion Behind". It may be happening right now in some countries among the young, but it could also get worse. Not because of demography. Because of a change in the tides of Islam as a cultural movement in any particular country.
@@abefanous9804 I disagree that having lots of children is the answer. I think education is the key. It's been shown that the higher level of education a person attains, the less likely they are to be a theist. Remember, children aren't born believing 'gods' exist.
Wait I don’t remember making this
Seriously though, I’m glad to see this video. Promoting skepticism often entails offering criticism our own audience’s ideas, and this is only the most recent instance of you doing that well.
hi dude ive been watching you for years
You both have such great videos. I just wanted to say that
Have a good day
In fact he's been doing that quite a lot recently, Drew! I wonder if he is about to take a U turn.
Collaboration when?
You here? What is this, a crossover episode?
Gotta love a video from Cosmically Genetic Skeptic. Wonderful way to spend a lunch break!
I thought his name was Genetically Cosmified Skeptic?
@Skeptical Organism Username checks out but you're not Genetically Cosmified enough, mate.
You eat lunch in the late afternoon? Curious 🧐
@@k.5144 Bro he finished his last video recording at 3am, new years eve was not so long ago, leave the dude alone lmao
I know you. I'm subbed. Been for a few years now.
It actually always surprises me how most of the people who watch RUclips channels aren’t subscribed. I have the opposite problem where I subscribe to any channel that made a single video that I like.
Yea I see an old channel feel bad then sub lol
I stopped subscribing to channels a long time ago. I am not here to support anyone.
Bro, I do the *exact* same thing. I don't know if it's a problem or not.
Yo same! I just realized I had almost 700 subscriptions.
@@TheBarser exactly. Why would I?
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”
― Mark Twain
How do you explain our universe, QE?
@@20july1944 Is this sarcasm? I can't tell
@@guicaldo7164 No, 100% serious question.
How do you explain our universe?
@@20july1944
No idea...
Do you know??
@@20july1944 Okay, if you're really asking this then it's gonna take some unpacking.
Short answer: I can't. But that's not the "gotcha" you think it is.
Imagine I flip a coin, but I don't look at the result. Someone asks me, "what was it? Heads or tails?" What would the right answer be? "Heads", or "I don't know"?
Same principle. We don't know how the universe came to be. Now, we can either own up to that and, at best, speculate... or we can guess an answer and preach it as though it's the ultimate truth, believing it's inherently superior than other positions merely because it provides _an_ answer, regardless of whether said answer is right or wrong.
In short, our inability to explain the origin of the universe has no bearing on whether your position is correct or not.
Therapist: It's OK. Young Alex can't hurt you.
Young Alex: 0:23
Thought that was Potholer for a moment
Thought that was Potholer for a moment
@@jamesbuchanan2762 Never seen that channel before but it looks interesting, I'm gonna go change my picture now.
No. Repeating shit is not funny and wastes space. Also, if you think you can copy this then DJDDMXIRIJMOFOSPWPQLSKSKDIKCkkkdkeodocodkdkd934057271:dkdmdkdkff
@@oldfridge5059 I knew there would be replies like this.
The fact that you give your "opponents" credit and have the ethics to criticize yourself is the reason why you're my favourite youtuber
Btw guys, he also has a Patreon.
Btw he's also vegan.
Really? Why didn't he mention it?
@Baby Kush I do care
No. He has a Patreo.
@@illuminate4622 We've got some new vegan bakery products at work ( a large British supermarket). They taste pretty close to the non-vegan products. I'm working my way through them :D :D
As a Christian, I find that your traits of humility and humbleness compliment your intelligence quite well-- your videos are enjoyable, Alex.
how you people manage to believe something that directly contradicts science?
Can you PLEASE just let him believe what he wants to?
@@aman-yd4dw do you people let flat earthers believe that earth is flat? do you people let anti-vaxxers believe that vaccine is poison? do you let people believe that birds aren't real?
@@aman-yd4dw if i would have said i believe in santa and bigfoot, people would have laughed at me, nobody would have said that let me believe what i wanna believe.
@@MorbiusBlueBalls wdym by contradicts science?
"Can't be evil by definition"
Just because someone sneaks in "can't be evil" into the definition, that doesn't change what I consider evil. You might as well define it as "worthy of worship" so that if it exists, I would worship it by definition
You are talking about two different things. Saying that something is "worthy" only demonstrates that it meets sufficient requirements for an action to take place if the individual chooses to. I guess you could also say that it increases the likelihood of the action. I'll present an analogy. Say that you are trying to find someone to be your friend. You've got the criteria in your head for what this would be. You find three people that meet those requirements. They would be "worthy" of your friendship but they don't become your friends simply because they exist with those attributes. That requires the personal choice to embark on the creation of those ties. If God is "worthy of worship", you are welcome as He has met the requirements for worship but still you do not have to because He exists. That's your first half.
Here's the next half. Within Christianity since Alex brings this up, God is defined as omni-benevolent. Regardless of one's subjective rational for good and evil, if the Christianity is true then He is good regardless of what one believes. You are entitled to what you consider evil but that does not make God evil subsequent the criteria you've established. He cannot be both good and evil. This is a contradiction.
@@joshuastevens1200 Most people don't have an eternal punishment set up for if you don't befriend them.
"He is good regardless of what one believes" is a meaningless statement. This is exactly why the Euthyphro dilemma exists. Defining God as omni-benevolent gives you basically two choices: Defining good as "anything God says or does," which means that saying that God is good is the same as saying God is God, which is meaningless; or appealing to some mysterious standard of good that God is always upholding, so that even if he violates our standard it doesn't violate his- which is equivalent to saying that God is good according to his own standard (again, meaningless).
In either case, if I say I wouldn't worship the Christian god because it is evil, someone saying "nuh-uh, God is good by definition" doesn't even attempt to address the problem.
@@Thatonedude917 Respectfully, the first part of your response is a straw man of both the Christian faith and my analogy. That's not what we're talking about currently.
I've read your response about three times. I don't want to misrepresent your position. I don't find it to be meaningless. The Euthyphro dilemma as you have stated well presents two and only two options given God's classification of omni-benevolence. Either A) God does it because it's good or B) It's good because God does it. What's interesting is that this dilemma presupposes that good exists. This is the center of the question. What is "good"? Hence, what we're dealing with is ontological. What is "good" objectively speaking? Without that, everything else is a matter of personal preference such as the straw man you presented which I assume you think is morally wrong. Anyway, when we deal with the ontological feature of the question it opens up third alternative C) God is the ontological source of good. I don't think that stating "God is good" is meaningless only that it describes an attribute about God and a point of significance in the same way I call myself and individual or if I say "I am me." Well, duh. I am but that statement is not meaningless. It is actually quite powerful. I haven't found that particular dynamic something to be hung up over.
However, I am addressing your original statement about being "worthy" because you have not dealt with it in your response. This is very different from your nominating the moral titles of malevolence or benevolence. The Christian God is either good or evil. It cannot be both. You've equated both of these statements. That's all I'm saying.
@@joshuastevens1200 It's not a strawman, but it is intentionally glib because I don't care about that part of the argument. You could insert anything into the definition of something and assert that it must be that way if it exists.
Saying "I am me" can be powerful if you're using it as shorthand to mean something else, but the proposition "myself = myself" or "God = God" is tautological and valueless.
Saying that God is the source of good doesn't solve the Euthyphro dilemma (especially when God is presumably the source of _everything)._ At best, it lets you deflect into a conversation about where whoever you're talking to gets their concept of good. Worse, it seems to imply the divine command theory.
It breaks down like this:
1. I say that I consider some god evil for some reason, let's just say "because he commits evil act X" for argument's sake.
2. You argue that that god isn't evil, not because X isn't an evil act, or because he didn't commit X, but because that god cannot be evil by definition.
3. My opinion on whether X is an evil act remains unchanged, and therefore my opinion of that god remains unchanged.
"The Christian God is either good or evil. It cannot be both." That statement is fine, but it's not the one in question. The problems is with saying "The Christian God is good. It cannot be evil."
@@Thatonedude917 I understand what it is that you're saying. The only problem I'm seeing is that the ontological identity of good is not being addressed in the Dilemma. You can say *insert god here* is evil. That's fine. If "God" is the ultimate being. There is nothing greater than said being if it exists. I think we can both agree on that part. We can also agree that good and evil also exist. The Christian God can be good. You think it's evil. Let's say for the sake of argument that God is evil. Using terms like that presupposes that objective good and evil exists. Given there is objective evil then therefore an objective good must also exist by logical necessity. So if God, the ultimate being, is evil. The ultimate evil so to speak, then there must be an ultimate good because it creates that contrast in of itself. It cannot be both as we've agreed. The issue with that is good can exist without evil. Evil cannot exist without good. Again because of the inevitable contrast. Therefore, God cannot be the ultimate evil but rather the ultimate good and what lies outside of that is evil. BUT if it is not God ontologically, then what is it? What "good" is the ultimate being referring to or as Aristotle put it, "the good".
7:48 this is finnicky explanation. It's true that claim "if christian god exists it's evil by christian god standards" is simply false but saying "if christian god exists it's evil by my moral standards" is perfectly valid. It doesn't matter that christians claim their god to be source of morals. By making the second claim one communicates existence of a concept that is separate from what "gods morality" is, which just happen to use the same world because both concepts try to tap into the same function space.
If you start with the assumption that God exists (just for argument's sake) then he's the source of morals and so you can't really say that it goes against your moral code, at least no more than a 5 year old child can say that when his father forces him to go to school is going against his moral code about slavery.
@@hullie7529 we're kinda in the same ballpark. Here's the thing: triangle is concept describing object that you can point out and show to others. But morality is a concept about rules. And if god is source of morals this in fact proves that morals are subjective (aka, this don't describe object or interaction between objects is but are prescriptive, try to change the interactions and are created by conscious being).
And this is true for many definitions. Because even there is something we want to describe we still have to put boundaries, which is a subjective judgment. Otherwise we would need to only use some type of philosophical theory of everything as everything obervable is connected.
We can replace morals with law and god with hypothetical government. Then obviously what government says is good, is good according to them and will be written as good in the law. But it still can say that I don't care about this because what they define as good goes against my goals and thus I create a competing proposition.
Of course the outcome is different. Breaking my rules won't send anybody to jail. But now we are entering the field of applied politics so I'll end here.
So to get back to the core of the topic. Yes, you can always say that you don't care about others intend and you can create your own words and definitions to convey the message.
I'm not confused. But the idea of god's morality is simply a paradox. Words are created to describe meaning and only after we create definitions to somehow standarize them. The meaning of morality is build on things like feeling personal harm and cooperation. Which means that the definition of god's morality is in fact a lie because it goes against the meaning (looking at how god and his actions are described in scripture). The definition describes something, but it's not a morality, hence calling it a morality is a lie. Or we would need to talk about some other universe we don't live in. You can still argue that morality is a set of rules create to kinda attach to the idea of morality. But then everybody can write such set of rules and claim they are objective because once they are written on paper they are objectively there.
It's like analysing a paradox of poking another planet with infinitely long stick. It shows that you can break laws of physics assuming that those laws of physics were already broken.
As for the experiencer-observer: this is how christianity describes its god. There are _some_ modern interpretations that claim those descriptions are "just humanizing" the "thing" what god's is supposed to be but such intepretation goes against, like, christian scripture and christrian tradition.
Anywho, the distinction between what is objective and what is subjective simply doesn't work in "grand scheme of things that involve humans" and we have at least two major definition because people want to use or impose different meanings depending on situation. So I can agree that one can call god's morality an objective one but such claim simply won't have any moral value behind it because it would be just a meaingless label. Calling it objective god's mental chupacabra would be as useful.
That was a long (and messy) reply. Let's make a shorter one. Everything boils down to the fact, that if you want to use a tool for grand projects (like language for philosophy) you need to learn nuances of the tool or those nuances will trick you into wrong conclusions.
So I suggest learning about the language itself first. Interviews about language with Noam Chomsky is a good start.
@Brielle Huggins So we are very close to agreement I see. The initial claim was "atheists cannot say that if god exists it would be immoral" and what I meant is this claim is false. And here you basicaly answers that. Because even if god exist that doesn't mean I - or anyone else - accept his words as the morality in the context of conversation. In fact the reality is that what I and many other people mean when talking about morality is already established. Which means that it is actually irrelevant whether or not gods morality is subjective or objective.
But if you do research on the topic of morality you will see that such proposition "god is source of morality" is either false or it describes reality that we don't live in, which makes it irrelevant (or proponents deliberately change the meaning of word morality which is just another type of lie).
Again, I'm not lost. In fact I am the one who doesn't use launguage like if it creates reality here :)
The second one seems like conceding a particularly pedantic semantic point. Especially with how this claim is usually made in the context of discussions about the atrocities of the old testament.
"If a being that commanded genocide/sex slavery/infanticide etc. existed, I wouldn't worship it" is pretty obviously the meaning of this statement. If the christian wants to interpret that as me claiming that the Christian god doesn't exist, then fine
@Jessie James Well clearly they do. Because the whole point of bringing up the nasty parts of the bible is to illustrate that the God it describes is not good.
I guess they could interpret it as "The Christian god is not the god of the bible"
But fundamentally the Christian is making a stupid assumption if they interpret "I wouldn't worship God because he condones rape/genocide/infanticide" as "Even though I agree that the commanded rape/infanticide/genocide in the Bible is the work of an all-loving, all-good good, I wouldn't worship it" and not "I think these passages preclude god being all good"
@@MrSpleenface I think it will more to a point to say if the Christian God exists in the image that those Christian describe(not all Christians will agree with them) to say if this is the God and God is good by definition then I will not worship him and i chose to be evil...
As a Christian I find this really helpful. I find my faith continually evolving. It's good to examine and re-examine how and why I believe what I believe. I find your clear thinking and presentation excellent. Thank you.
You’re just a moron.
Interestingly I've observed the opposite. The theists that I argue with try and use the kalam cosmological argument to prove that God exists. So that's why I have to try and make them understand that it only proves a first mover, if it were true. It's not that I'm assuming that they're trying to prove the existence of God, they assert that it proves it and hence I say that.
Yeah nowdays alex seems to be busy only about showing off how openminded he is (or just thinks to be)
Yea I think CS is strawmanning (some of) us here a bit. I'm also not particularily happy with his second assertion.
Somewhere I saw the whole chain of arguments (including Kalam) that aim to prove the link from the first supposition of Kalam to the monotheistic God and then point toward Christianity. Alas, I can't find that channel, I only remember that it was Catholic Christian believer channel and that it had a certain preview, showing a knight in armor in one of his videos. Idk if that channel still exists... But you're right, the Kalam argument doesn't prove that God who exists is even monotheistic, much less Christian version of God.
@@Raiseflag_Surrender Kalam doesn't prove the existence of a god at all, just a first cause for those who consider it solid
If the Kalam were true, how would it prove a “first mover”?
Maybe im misunderstanding you, but it sounds like you’re saying it would prove that the first cause would have to be conscious in some way.
The last segment is the most underrated. As Alex said, you can have rational false beliefs under particular dispositions.
@Ahead Of Curve
Flat Earthers, Prosperity Gospel followers, and non-binary/gender fluid people come to mind...
@@DemonicRemption
How are Flat Earthers rational?
@@DemonicRemption i dont understand ur comment. what are u trying to say?
@@Richard_Nickerson Alex gave that very example; we appear to sit on a stationary Earth as the sun moves around us. In the absence of other information, Flat-Earth is a rational assumption.
@@DemonicRemption Don't get me wrong I am a gender abolitionist and highly anti-tribalism/stereotyping; but what's wrong with non-binary/gender fluid. In my mind they are just more evidence as to why gender should just go away.
2) “If god existed, I wouldn’t worship him.”
a. Claiming your abuser is “Justified” is a psychological error, a mental defect that is usually present in abuse victims who believe the rhetoric of their abuser. Being a moral person means that there are some acts that cannot by any means be justified. There is no exception to that rule for a deity since we are not willing to allow a creator to brutalize, rape, murder or otherwise befoul their creation once a certain level of sentience is present. I acknowledge the opening this grants vegans for the claiming that our treatment of animals is unjustifiable, and I agree with many tenants of that perspective, yet the moral stands. You cannot justify your way out of being a shitty person or god.
b. If you are a god that allows for the horrors that occur daily around the globe and probably throughout the universe, then the label you adhere to yourself as being justified and good is false on its own accounting since it is possible to have administrated the world to not have such evil in it. If that is not possible then you are not an all-knowing, all-powerful, and good being. Just because you lied about the description of good does not make you good, your actions (without justification) are what does that.
c. A word on cafeteria christianity. If a christian can pick and chose the parts of the faith they want to believe and reject the rest, which is how people eventually leave religion in my experience, then what is stopping an atheistic anti-theist like me from selecting Muhammad’s statutory rape (even then sex with a nine-year-old was illegal) of his third wife as a reason to reject Islam, or the support of slavery in Christianity to reject that mythology? You are allowing the theist side to get away with the fallacy of counting the hits and ignoring the misses while holding atheists to a higher standard. In and of itself a logical fallacy and a foolish thing to do if you support atheists.
d. When last I read the New Testament, there were 4, perhaps 5 distinctly different definitions of the man Jesus, much less the god. From his genealogy to the year he was born to the ideology surrounding his supposed resurrection there is no definition of who the man may have been without startlingly deep contradictions and mutually exclusive claims of fact. When you are talking to a Christian about their god and they want to prove who he was they must first decide which of the different and mutually exclusive accounts are the actual one and then justify why those selections are correct and the others wrong. Then and only then can you claim this is the one person all of these accounts were describing and then you get to say that part of that definition is that he was good. And then you have to defend why that passage, the one that says god is good, is worthy of inclusion, or should it be rejected the same way you rejected the bad version of his genealogy or the bad version of his birth year.
+
That's good reasoning. Reminds me of this video from Nonstampcollector: ruclips.net/video/zeRDR1Ytzn0/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/Fo8HWzyEWZ8h/видео.htmlttps://ruclips.net/video/Fo8HWzyEWZ8/видео.html
I feel like you watch a lot '' theramintrees'' if not check it out
Wow, i couldnt have said it better. Thank you for pointing out the problems of this video.
🤟🤟🤟🤟🤟🤟🤟
0:23 this is the best thing ever
It sure is.
I’ve never seen little Alex LMAOO
yesssssss 👀
Ngl, I saw the notification and clicked on it expecting a Genetically Modified Sceptic video.
When I say that religion is irrational I mean religion as a concept of belief without sufficient evidence, not the people themselves. Maybe I should use the word 'faith' instead, but then it gets confused with 'trust'...
Yeah but simply saying "Religion is irrational" implies Religion inherently requires faith which I don't think it does. If revelation to God through the scientific method existed, then sure I would be religious, but I wouldn't need to have faith as the evidence would be factual in that scenario. I guess the only option is to say what you actually mean
It's more about "if the triangle exists, it is green" rather than "if the triangle exists, it is a square". Evil vs good is more of an attribute that can be assigned to an object rather than being the object itself.
You misundrrstand him the definition of a Christian god is that he is good it is an inherent quality of him. More like saying if the blue triangle exists its green. Clearly nonsensical
@@mikakretzmann-clough8543 Oh ok makes more sense now.
@@mikakretzmann-clough8543 Except that what atheists are doing is actually "Count the friggin sides, there aren't 3!!!!!!11!!!!!". They are are challenging the idea of "He's right because he's right, and if you believed what I believed you'd believe that" as being dumb to begin with. They (and I, as I too have done this) are doing it poorly, but that's what's happening.
@@mikakretzmann-clough8543 yet I think (at least I hope) that most Christian's sense of good and evil would tell them that some actions of God depicted in the Bible (e.g. killing the firstborn children of Egypt) are indeed evil. Accepting at the same time that "God is inherently good", "action X is evil" and "God committed action X" is simply a sign of cognitive dissonance. From a logical standpoint, those three things can't be true together, at least one has to be false, so either the Bible is at least partially incorrect, killing children is not evil, or God is not good.
@@mikakretzmann-clough8543 except that no, it's not. If there is an omnipotent necessary mind that created the universe, incarnated in jesus, inspired the bible, etc, then even if that being is not the source of morality, it IS the christian god. If you refuse to recognize that, because of excuses based on definitions, then you don't understand how language works.
About your second point... I'm really intrigued in how you can justify bringing this point as anything other than a strawman. This particular argument is used almost entirely as either 1) "I disagree with the actions, commands, and endorsements of your god as have been presented and therefore would not worship it even if true" or 2) some tenet of their religion precludes that god from certain actions or from proclaiming actions it takes/endorses as moral and therefore cannot be real as it is defined. I'm not sure if you simply worded your critique to avoid arguments people have already posted about, but this is a bad argument against claims that are not the strongest(nor even the most prolific).
I wholeheartedly agree!
Agree
ruclips.net/video/Fo8HWzyEWZ8/видео.html
@@solomonherskowitz Zeus is necessary for morality. You are watching the wrong video
I agree
If only all atheists were like this respectful person. I'm a Christian but I love this channel.
Cheers from Spain.
@Jamal Ramadan He may be referring to someone like GeneticallyModifiedSkeptic. He was caught out for some questionable behaviour when Andalusian Project made a refutation to GMS’ video “4 Lies Muslims Tell About ex-Muslims”. Andalusian Project’s video is called “4 Lies Muslims Tell About Ex-Muslims?”. Check it out, it should be required viewing for both Muslims and ex-Muslims.
He may also be referring to Sam Harris like when he called Somali women, “women in bags”. And Sam Harris published an essay defending racial profiling....yeah.....it wasn’t very good lol
I agree here. Down right friendly. Truly and sadly a unique delight to hear someone with an un hateful mind such as his.
He lacks the hostility and venom in his words most christians feel from atheism.
He is the most dangerous friend the church might have....
@Jamal Ramadan Look up the channel I took a shit in Jesuses mouth. thats what he is talking about the guy is an ass.
@Jamal Ramadan 👀👀👀
@@ibnmianal-buna3176 what's GMS questionable behaviour about the "4 lies Muslims tell about Ex- Muslims"?
I appreciate your commitment to rigorous standards of truth, rather than to a "team sport" mentality of "Atheists vs Christians," in which one team is always right and the other team is always wrong.
Hey Alex, I really like how thought provoking and well executed your videos are! Great stuff.
Also, a little over a month ago I transitioned from vegetarian to vegan thanks to one of your videos. What you do DOES have an impact! :)
@Agnostic Boy does it matter?
Lol another brainwashed vegan, the most dangerous and pointless diet/life style in history. Good luck damaging yourself
@@Darksaga28 dangerous? I’ve never been healthier and my blood work proves it. Not pointless either. It reduces animal suffering as well as my carbon footprint.
@@Darksaga28 You're brainwashed if you believe that vegan lifestyle is dangerous
@@flux5836 nah there's plenty evidence for that...
There is a new brand of discussion emerging on RUclips as the platform matures into its second decade and it's fantastic to see. It's a discussion where deep respect is shown to opposing views and, astonishingly, self-criticism is wisely embraced in order to get to the core of the matter. This man, Rationality Rules and others are a personification of this new trend and it's very encouraging to see.
The issue of the Kalam argument is that it is a red herring in the effort to verify the existence of a God. A friend of mine said that Dingo the red-haired dragon created the Universe. The fact that he could prove that the Universe had a first cause, would not get him any nearer to proving Dingo created the Universe. This argument is only used by Theists to try and justify what is essentially a childish belief.
its crazy how badly CS misrepresented that argument, as if [we] hang all our own arguments on a _single_ thing.
he found a longwinded way to build that strawman.
Good video overall, but I don't really see theists behave the way you say they're behaving in the real world. They do indeed seem to try and use these arguments as sort of "knockdown" arguments, not something that's non-definitive and a piece of plausibility in a bigger puzzle. I think you're giving the average theist way too much credit here. What you say may apply to a small percentage of scholars.
I can see why you'd be motivated to display open-mindedness with videos like this as it can make you seem less biased and more credible, but I think you should be careful not to go too far with it, at the expense of what's actually true.
I think the wellbeing of a society is more important than fighting for objective truth
And furthermore If you want to convince anyone of anything you need to think more about the person you want to convince rather than yourself
So respect is essential
@@Angela1111122222 Parts of religion may be compatible with well-being and even promote it in some cases, yes, but why not just have the promotion of well-being as the sole end? Abandon the delusional dogma, and just focus on promoting well-being in a secular and logical manner.
Religious dogma still does a lot of harm in society, for example all the thousands of religiously-motivated "crisis pregnancy centers" in the US that only exist to brainwash women with false information about abortion. Religion is the force that impels way too many people to reject scientific facts we actually know about the world (such as evolutionary biology and even climate change) and live in a delusion. Islam is barring progress in a lot of countries because of the Quran's savage and oppressive ideas, especially toward women. And the list goes on.
@@Elintasokas I agree with you, but we won't achieve any progress with us vs them mentality
Quite. Picking on the analogy that Alex gave, if you see a suspect at a crime scene, the difference is that you have an open mind that the killer could be anyone. Theists already claim to know who the killer is, even before they saw a suspect -in fact, it's fair to say they never even saw a suspect (god) to begin with. They are building their case backwards as they reached the conclusion that their god exists way before the argument is made.
So yes, atheists often jump ahead the argument that is currently being made because both (theist and atheist) realise that the argument is irrelevant, not that the argument should independently prove god.
@@Angela1111122222 We already have. While I wouldn't promote tribalism, I think it's of the utmost importance not to sellout on accurately representing positions actual people tend to take, just in order to seem like the enlightened centrist mediator authority with degrees by giving theists too much leeway. And I think this is sadly exactly what this video does and the trend this channel has followed for the past year.
“I am often beset by atheistic doubts. Yet a torturing surmise sometimes haunts me: may not untapped soul possibilities exist? Is man not missing his real destiny if he fails to explore them?” -Autobiography of a Yogi
If you study evolution u soon realise man ain't anything special. Consciousness gradually evolved out of nature. There is no "soul".
Fate of man is something along this lines :
"Look at your body-
A painted puppet, a poor toy
Of jointed parts ready to collapse,
A diseased and suffering thing
With a head full of false imaginings"
@@dioc8699 Why is consciousness even possible in our universe? Why can’t organisms evolve senses like in a computer simulation but never gain consciousness?
I love that book !!!
@@dioc8699 If you start from the assumption that everything is dead and go from there I can see your point, but you're still starting with an assumption. Also, man reached the moon, do you think deer could do that? Why didn't humanity's self reflective nature arise until 5 major extinction events had come and gone? As far as I'm aware evolution doesn't even attempt to answer that question.
I found out GM Skeptic years ago when I was looking for your channel, after having watched a video RUclips suggested the previous day.
Both have great content, so it was a win-win.
I can 100% say the christian god is immoral, once we agree on the definition of morality, or the overall goal of human wellbeing.
Yep. If we are assuming the bible accurately describes this god, you can't simply define him as good.
@@ScripulousFingore6133 Well this is exactly the problem Alex talks about, it depends on what we mean by accurate description. If it means:
a) Bible (or Christianity) is accurate about the actions of God, the obvious conclusion is, that such god is evil
b) Bible is accurate both in description of God's action and their evaluation. In that case the conclusion is that God is good and our understanding of morality is plain wrong.
I dare to say that the second understanding is powerful weapon of mind control and is abused to force religious people to do horrible stuff in a good faith.
To the point of the video, Christians base morality out of the Bible and the history of Christian theology. Technically your statement is correct, except that a Christian will never agree with your definition of morality. To a Christian, morality has to do with what God says, not with human wellbeing.
And again to the point of the video, while there may be some excellent arguments out there for morality being about human well-being (I agree with this line of thinking), it is likely that most Christians have not heard or do not properly understand these arguments, and so they can still rationally come to the conclusion that God in the Bible is moral because he was justified in doing what he did, given the context of what was happening.
@@empatheticcurioushuman1206 well said. I would add as a former fundamentalist, that lots of Christians would refuse humanistic view of morality, because they would find the orientation on human well being as the the very nature of worldliness and source of sin.
@@amurape5497 But in either case, it still proves that the bible, the inerrant word of God that was sent down as a moral guide, does some immoral thing to the standard of us modern human. In Alex's point, he separated the God from the bible, as he focuses on the theist's depiction/mental image of a God, the all-powerful all-loving being, and rather than focus on being right or wrong, it's more about the theist's perspective regarding us. If we did say that we wouldn't worship, that pretty much shuts down all discussion as they know you're beyond arguing if they won't accept the 'all-powerful and all-loving'.
We can however, still argue that the God in the bible, is not all-powerful or all-loving, or just specifically say that 'if the God of the bible exist, I won't worship him', then proceeds to explain why
Telling people to “stop” doing something doesn’t often go over well. It generates a kind of a trigger response of “fuck you,
don’t tell me what to do”.
I think the fact that he is also directly reprimanding his former self in this video helps his case.
He's holding himself to the same standard as anyone else, so it's not like he's just bossing everyone around and saying he knows better.
@Phil Andrew The idiot who milks an audience with this channel full of bullshit does not count as an intelligent atheist. He is just riding a wave without even understanding its cause. Usually he doesn't understand what he's talking about at all. I doubt he understands what the term atheism means. Last time i checked he mistook it for agnosticism.
@Phil Andrew
Nothing will ever make theism reasonable lol
Outside of God or Allah being real and floating down from heaven.... even then i wouldnt be impressed
@Phil Andrew That is no big deal. While this video is about atheists, the number of fallacies committed by theists is marginally larger for obvious reasons.
It would be hard to drop the levels of intelligence below that of the theists, even if you were to line us all up and bash the back of our heads with base ball bats.
@@hans-joachimbierwirth4727 Last time I checked, the meaning of words changes over time. The only purpose is to help the person you're speaking to understand what you mean. Agnosticism is a knowledge claim and atheism is a belief claim. While knowledge is a subset of belief, most people can differentiate between the two. I hope you can as well. Other than that, you sound bitter. Please seek help for your emotional issues.
If 1/10 of the world are people like you we would live in a much better place
dear god, i am fine with even 1/1000 . please make it happen. we all think it's morally justified. - human
Roughly 10% of the population *are* NT rationals, but have to live with the 90% who are not rational.
@Purify Myers-Briggs type indicator. A bit of psychobabble, but its a system that really helps you think about building successful teams. The "N" means intuitive, the "T" means thinker. Have a look at keirsey.com
Silence, Simp!
@Vengeance Read the thread of my comments before misrepresenting me. You will see that I said MBTI is psychobabble (psychology is a pseudoscience) but gave a useful insight into building successful teams.
On the other hand, unless you are quoting what MBTI and Keirsey, you seem to making nonsense claims.
8:24 I always thought of Christianity basically arguing for a square triangle when they say that the bible is 100% accurate.
You can say it's 100% accurate based on the theology and ideas but not details in testimony accounts for example.
@@Obamnaz I'm not sure. Don't you see a straight contradiction between between being all good and choosing to murder literally the whole world except a handful of people?
@@kingbarriga If you look at it at face value, then it appears that way. But according to the Bible, the people who were killed were evil/not deserving of salvation. Perhaps if God didn't bring forth the flood, greater evil would have occurred later on. We simply don't know all the ramifications of why things happened or what would have happened.
Also God the Father is all-loving; being loving means he must enact justice as well. Look at this quote from this comment I saw:
"Exacting justice is not murder. Our judges and courts of law don't murder criminals by sentencing them to death. They're upholding the law. Our military weren't murderers for killing Nazi's who were attacking and killing other people. They were protecting our country as well as others."
Check out the video where I saw the comment:
ruclips.net/video/aBpE2Ey1W0M/видео.html
@@Obamnaz Yeah I get the point, but the "ramifications" argument doesn´t work for me given than he still is in complete and absolute control of those consequences, as well as the initial state he himself created knowing it would lead to those exact outcomes (almost complete annihilation by drowning). If you think about it he could've just skipped everything before the flood and created Noah and his fam, even maybe with the memories that they would have had in the previous scenario. Would have saved a lot of innocent babies at the very least.
@@kingbarriga He could have eliminated all suffering but then it wouldn't have been loving, as we never had a chance to reject him. He is everything that we know to be objectively good by definition and love cannot be manifested if we were programmed to only choose good/God. In this reality, people are truly in charge of their eternity. God knows what will happen, but he will not interfere with our free-will/freedom to choose him or not. Unless we call on him of course.
As a Christian, I really like this video. Thanks for helping everyone to think critically about these topics.
ye
same
I think it's funny how many people in the comments are upset about the ground he's giving in this video.
Definitely a good video.
Same, I recently became a Christian covert but I'm interested in how unbelievers reason morals without a God.
When you're subscribed to both Cosmic Skeptic and Genetically Modified Skeptic and you don't know who are you watching 'til they start speaking.
And, even then, it takes me a second or two...
CS has a British accent, while GMS has an American accent. It's easy to tell which is which even if you're not looking.
This video is so thought provoking that I feel compelled to keep all of those thoughts to myself.
Great video and you make some good points. Although, I disagree with your second argument and specifically when you coalesce (a) granting the existence of the Christian God with (b) granting the existence of a perfectly good God as defined by Christianity. My contention, quite briefly, is that the existence of the Christian God (or any God) is a separate matter than his attributes, qualities, and desire for the world. In other words, when it is proclaimed that the Christian God is not worthy of worship (even if he exists) it is also to question the "real" motives of this God and to ascertain that the narrative in the Bible about the goodness of God must not be taken for granted even if that God exists. As you argued in the first segment, arguments need not to independently establish a conclusion.
Sorry, but I still say: even if she existed, I wouldn't worship her.
Seriously tho, regarding the second claim and Christian god, I still don't see such a serious issue with saying; Even if he existed I wouldn't worship him.
It's more of a witty way to draw attention to the flaw, or contradiction in defining this specific God as perfectly good, while at the same time describing his clearly evil actions, all within the same scriptures.
Also it can draw attention to the Euthyphro dilemma in a way.
All within same scriptures?
Have you studied all scriptures?
@@maxpayne3628 Kind of a dumb question. There's no need to study _all_ scripture when you can point to one's that prove the claim false.
Have you read the old testament?
@@maxpayne3628 I think the turn of phrase confused you. *All* in this sentence only serves to emphasize any or many contradictions within the same scriptures.
Yeah I dont worship evil Lol
@@alexlarsen6413 So you're talking only about Christianity?
I liked your examples a lot, they perfectly made your arguments clear. The graphics supported this greatly too!
Dude, I learn sooo much from you. Thank you so much for all the effort, clarity, and conciseness. Even though I disagree with you about the existence of God, I think you are the most polite and thoughtful atheist. It is so good to find someone who challenges the claims of Christianity in such an insightful way. Your arguments make me think and research a lot. Thanks. God bless you.
problem with kalam is that it is not even valid reasoning.
3:42 great. is there any argument that shows any "minor conclusion" ? I am not aware of any.
7:45 ok. but that would be special pleading,wouldn't it?
not only "it is God,not human",but in your example "it is our God,not any other god".
I understand that "by definition" reasoning, but then I am granting not only "christianity is true" ,but also "everything about my understanding of how morality works is nonsense".
I legitimately do not see how morality can possibly be based on God. I do not understand that concept.
Only conceivable way out of this I see, is "christianity is true,but bible is wrong, men somehow messed up stories in it."
9:18 but that is not what your statement was.
theistic religions are based on prenewtonian understanding of how world works... understanding,that is not used anywhere but in apoologetics anymore.... because it just doesn't work in real live to that extent.
it is not rational to use it,especially on topics they do.
without skepticism and knowledge about human bias and without understanding we have now, sure.. it could be rational.
it all depends on cognitive toolkit of individual.
it used to be rational to believe that heavier things fall faster than lighter, have you tried it with a rock and a feather, you fool?
arguments like this are simple arguments apologists use to rationalize their belief.
so yes. it could be rational to believe it.
k
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Surely you can say that "the depiction of the Christian God commonly promoted by Christians as the embodiment of pure love and forgiveness is inaccurate, as the Bible shows us that he is actually brutal, condemning, unforgiving, capricious and cruel, and as such is not worthy of worship."
You always got some good points Alex, but this time I am in a bit of disagreement with you.
I agree on the point, that we should pay more attention to what the theists actually are claiming to be arguing for .
but i must say that i kind of disagree on your last point about calling their believe irrational. With the knowledge and the easy access to information we got today, it's hard to argue that any religious believe is rational. You should maybe just be careful about saying it, since it's kind of saying that you questions their ability to look critical on the information they get, and maybe try to convince them that their believe is false in another way.
But keep it up Alex, I got some good things out of your video as i always do, even if i sometimes only agrees with you in 90% of things.
Greatings from Denmark (who still doesn't have a secular konstitution, though it claims to be very secular)
"we can't say ''if the christian god exists, then it is evil'' '' ... wouldn't that just be accepting their premise/claims about their god?
Yeah I didn't really get what he was trying to say there. If everyone around me says that I'm perfect and I'm a good person no matter how much terrible shit I do, does that make me a good person automaticly ? if someone who is not like the sheep surrounding me point out to the bad things I do and conclude that I'm not as good as people around me think, he is false for making that claim ?
The word "if" means you are entertaining the premise that God is as Christians define God to be - which is entirely good.
@@MiidoKinGs You clearly did not get it. If (the christian) God allows evil, he must (by definition) have sufficient moral reasons to allow it, and still be consistent. Else, he would not allow it. Example: God is loving. But God also can punish. How come, if he is sooo loving? Its because he is also perfectly just and holly, therefore has a sufficient moral reason to judge one who broke the law. He must even punish him. Same with allowing crime and other evil
It means that by definition God is Good in the Christian worldview. If you say God is evil, then you are not talking about the Christian God, but another God.
@@josegadea1507 Sounds like a cheap out to me a kindergarten kid would use as an argument. I define moral and ethical good as the well being of sentient beings and increasing their happiness, while reducing suffering anywhere possible. Why am I obligated to accept the contradictory, imaginary definitions made by people in an ancient book without anyone ever having demonstrated that they either exist and even if they did that they'd necessarily be loving and good?
I could write a book and claim that universe farting pixies created the universe. They are also required human baby sacrifices once a month per 10.000 people. They're also ultimate moral arbiters and necessarily loving and good.
Wouldn't the burden of proof be on me or any follower of pixianity to demonstrate how human baby sacrifices are morally good? Why would you just let me get away with defining things however I please and offering no justification other than "because"?
4:00 "the theist will put them together in an attempt to show why christianity is a plausible explanation"
They don't ever seem to do that. To use the conclusion of each argument as a premise in a new argument that concludes that there is a god.
It's like if you believed in Splurks, that are pink, winged creatures that drive cars, and you have 3 great arguments, for... the existence of wings, of the color pink, and of cars. And when someone points out that you don't actually have an argument for Splurks, you just go "it's a cumulative case!"
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@Jessie James except no lol
@Jessie James extraordinairy claims require extraordinairy evidence. so, you got any?
@Jessie James any evidence that science uses methods described in the original comment.
@Jessie James then present the evidence
I really enjoy how calm you are when you're making your points. I don't have that kind of calmth (which is now a word), but I admire it. Thanks for the work you do.
Calmness?
Your point about “the Christian god” falls flat. It depends on the individual Christian’s definition of god. There is no single set of Christian beliefs.
I agree!
That's the thing. It doesn't matter what your concept of a god is, if your theology is used to validate the things in the Bible or any other book, that is the only thing that matters.
Is there really any Christian interpretation that does not postulate a perfectly benevolent god? Because it seems to me that any other difference does not matter for this specific point.
@@harulem i don’t know if there are any major sects that don’t, but individuals definitely don’t.
Judaism also generally doesn’t characterize god that way. There are too many Christian sects to know what most of them believe, but I’d imagine some share the Jewish interpretation.
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7:30 Of course you can say that the christian god isn't worth of worship even if he were to exist. Just because the defintion says he is all good, I for myself could still condeem his actions and say I don't like god therefore I wouldn't worship him, If christianity was true I would also by definition be able to not worship him lol.
It depends on how much you accept Christianity, or which ideas in it. For one, you can be a very theologically liberal Christian who believes 75% of the Bible is false and/or misinterpreted, if you reject the idea of Biblical inerrancy (some Christians do). That way you got around a lot of the objectionable content by saying that those parts were not inspired by God, and have been written as such due to misunderstandings in the culture. I know several Christians who don’t believe in hell and who think most of the Old Testament law was conceived and written exclusively by humans. That’s a sort of applying modern ethics to the Bible and only picking out the parts you like, and then calling that “God.” This obviously comes with it’s own set of problems, but I feel it’s a step above (and in the right direction) from strict Biblical inerrancy. This usually also coincides with refusal of Biblical literalism (at least as it applies to the Old Testament).
These Christians basically only accept the Gospels as real fact within the Bible, and interpret most of the Old Testament as metaphor and/or cultural legend. Reading the Bible in that manner will obviously paint a better picture of God. Also note that even some Christians don’t accept the penal substitution theory of the crucifixion or the doctrine of original sin. So that’s the liberal way of making Christianity more acceptable to the average modern person; just remove the bad parts for the seemingly obvious reason that they make no sense within the theory without resulting to the alternative, theologically conservative position.
And that position would be that because humans are inherently flawed and God is so perfect and incomprehensible, it’s easy to justify anything God does as being morally right. He works in mysterious ways, and who are we horrible, mortal people to judge him?
Eh, yes and no. If you don't believe he's worthy of worship you don't actually believe what they say about him, since one of the things they say is that he's worthy of worship. See, in their definition of the god that exists, is him being worthy of worship. So if you don't believe him worthy of worship then you don't believe in the god that they are talking about. Cause that god is worthy of worship by definition.
That said, Cosmic has it backwards here. That's not a problem with the atheist response, it's a problem with the religious person's question. They are essentially asking "If you were convinced I was right would you think I was right?", which is just a useless question. Then they are trying to use the response to that question as if it was a response to a similar, but actually useful question. Pretty sure there's a logical fallacy where people try to smuggle assuming they are right into the proof that they are right, and that's basically what they are leading you into with that question. TECHNICALLY, pointing that out would be a better response, but that's having a better way of dealing with someone else's mistake. They still made the mistake, not the atheist. The fact that there is no actual answer to their question that can be both honest and useful is the proof of that.
Edit: Just realized that technically Alex presented this argument not as a question from the christian "If you believed in the bible, would you worship god" but as a statement from the atheist without any such question. He technically referenced this in a vague way when he started talking, by saying that sometimes it's an appropriate response. I still feel he's glossing over that what people are actually talking about generally is the person's idea of god being worthy of worship based on the descriptions, but he makes good points about the nitty gritty of the phrasing.
One day you will kneel and confess to God if you like it or not . God alone is worthy of worship .
@@MH-oh8rn The fact a person can say "you will kneel if you like it or not" and think of themself as the good guy is a great example of how Christianity twists people's sense of right and wrong.
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Arguing about God's existence is pointless. As an atheist, you have to accept that believers will almost never change their minds. What does change minds is personal circumstance, but that's not something a RUclips video or debate can provide. Debate and RUclips videos are about competition and reinforcing the side of their own.
I just realized what seems lacking in this video, especially in the 2nd point. You don't go very far into what a person SHOULD do in those situations. For example, explaining that the Christian who thinks that their god is right by definition is making a mistake and telling everyone "if you agreed with me we would agree" and that it is a useless thing to say. It leaves me at least with the impression that the correct thing to do is to just keep my mouth shut cause I am the one who screwed up. You're extending maximum benefit of the doubt and interpretive leeway to the religious person and none to the atheist in your examples. While it's laudable to try to see the other side and look to yourself for mistakes, doing the wrong thing in the opposite direction is still wrong.
That’s exactly the problem neither is entitled to benefit. You are in a position where you think because you don’t believe in God then Christians have the burden of proof but that’s not always the case especially when you try to deconstruct the theology behind Christianity. Atheist are not entitled to any rope just as Christians but i always see atheist assume they have to have leeway but that just goes nowhere. Rather than say god is evil because I think so based on what I think is evil it is better to test the soundness of evil applicable to the soundness of the theological doctrine itself so debate internally not externally is what he is saying
@@noelperez6523 Internal validity and soundness is tertiary at best. It's no more important than when evaluating any other fairy tale. It can be useful in order to figure out the psychology behind a theist accepting claims on bad evidence/faith, but it's not useful otherwise. What matters is whether or not claims comport with the facts of reality externally and that is what should matter first and foremost to everyone, including every single theist.
You will not find common ground otherwise. We could sit here all day and hypothesize how christianity makes sense internally in magic land, but at the end of the day if it's not applicable to the real world it holds no more water than Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.
@@noelperez6523 That is the exact opposite of what he is saying, though. He pointed out that if you get that far you've already agreed with them, and so there can be no "internal debate". Half of what you said has nothing to do with what you responded to. That in addition to the accusatory "you atheists" attitude is a pretty decent indication that you aren't actually interested in discussing my point (be it right or wrong), but just telling me how I'm the bad guy and should shut up.
@Vengeance It seemed to me he wasn't talking about debates, but regular conversations. In regular conversations we often have to dig down into what the actual claim is. However, I believe we are both mistaken here. I'm imagining this coming up in the situations that I have seen it in, and it seems so are you. However, looking again Cosmic seems to be talking about the internal reasoning of the claim without any context. I think that explains my disconnect with what he said.
You've pretty much nailed it.
"Good" in Christian terms is often defined as "That which God commands". So saying God is perfectly good just means "God does whatever He wants." It doesn't carry much water.
Saying _good_ means the same thing as _moral_ is a different conversation.
Most Christians don't believe in Divine Command Theory of this type, and Alex's argument doesn't start from that point, either. If it helps, just use the phrasing, "God is perfectly, infinitely moral." According to most Christian philosophy, that's also true: God is moral, just, kind, good, etc. It's best not to think of these as characteristics, either, if you want to understand the Christian philosophical mindset; think of God as _being_ these things, the actual Platonic _form_ of these things.
No "Good" just means being
An evil person is bad because they lack the virtue so they are not good since they lack something that a normal person has like a serial killer lacks a conscience, a psychopath lack emptathy
God is actus purus, or susbsistent being so he is pure goodness in the platonic sense
Does the platonic ideal breakdown once the abstract notion of goodness becomes personified and takes actions, especially when those actions are only deemed as good because goodness did it? Like the Euthyphro dilemma but more so
@@anthonynorman7545 "especially when those actions are only deemed as good because goodness did it" -- this seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of the position. It's Divine Command Theory, not the kind of Platonic ideal we're discussing.
@@anthonynorman7545 no it does not in any way shape or form we just look at pure actuality from different intellectual vantage pionts
God is pure actuality and thus pure perfection itself, pure truth, pure goodness, pure beauty etc...
Aquinas spends many, many chapters on deriving the divine attributes, but I'll only cover a few very briefly here, to get the flavor.
Matter and energy can both change location, change configuration, come together, break apart, and so on. So they have all kinds of potential to change. Something that is pure actuality, with no potentials, must therefore be immaterial.
Having a spacial location means being movable, or having parts that are actually located over here but not actually located over there. Something that is pure actuality, with no potentials, cannot move or change or have parts that are non actual. Therefore, pure actuality is spaceless.
If subject to the effects of time, it would have the potential to get older than it was. But since it has no potentials, it has no potential to get older. Therefore, pure actuality is timeless.
If there is a distinction between two things, that means one has something that the other lacks. But pure actuality does not have potentials, and therefore lacks nothing. So pure actuality is singular. There is only one such thing.
Pure actuality is the source of all potentials being actualized. Anything that happens is a potential thing becoming actual. Therefore, anything that ever happens or could happen is caused by pure actuality. So pure actuality is capable of doing anything and is therefore all-powerful.
Now, unless you are a Platonist (and Aquinas is not), there are only two ways something can exist: as a material thing, or as an abstract concept in a mind. For example, the concept of "dog" can exist as an abstract idea in a mind, or as a material thing in the form of an actual dog. That is, the form of dog can exist either unconstrained by matter (the idea of dog) or constrained by matter (an actual dog). Since pure actuality exists unconstrained by matter, it must exist as knowledge. Also, "ignorance" is not a positive reality of its own, but rather is a lack of knowledge and hence an unrealized potential. So pure actuality is all-knowing.
Very well put together.
I would sum it up as: Always make sure, what you are talking about and try your best not to equivocate.
I often say “if god exists with the qualities that you are telling me he has (hates the gays, only lets one sect of Christians only into heaven) then I wouldn’t want to follow him or worship him because I wouldn’t want to spend eternity with him. Since this is the main end goal of many Christian sects I’m just not into that, even if god is there. This seems close to the second one you point out so I’ll have to think on it.
In general, it would be nice if people started thinking more about the consequences of what they say. Even if they are right, they can _cause_ a lot of damage. What good is it if a vegan lectures other if that only causes the other people to get mad and eat even more meat as a "punishment"
That would be a bad reaction too though. I'm still eating meat. I'm not eating meat more just because I disagree with some (random) vegan. I might not eat less meat though. (I do though but because of my own arguments)
Well, people that get offended so easily by someone telling them the truth don't have the spine to change their behaviour anyway. Oh nooo! You made me feel bad for torturing innocent animals. Now i must eat extra animal flesh to calm myself down. Why are vegans always so millitant? My fragile ego can't handle that :(
@@QuintarFarenor It would be a bad damn reaction indeed - but people are that spiteful sometimes, and it isn't necessary to "give them fuel". The right information for the right time
@@vegannegan9652 All I say is that there are enough people out there that react that way. And when you _know that_ as a vegan and still choose to say such things anyway then you would be part of the reason that animal died
I am not disagreeing with you, I just felt this needed to be said. Could we get some recognition that there is nothing wrong with eating meat. There is plenty wrong with abuse of living animals though. Eating already dead animals is only problematic because of abuse while they were alive. Dead things, including dead humans, don't need your consideration, they are dead, they can't feel or care what happens to their corpse, they can't even remember any abuse they suffered in life. Stop focusing on eating meat, that wont help. Focus on the abuse of living animals.
Issues with #1 and #3 (#2 gets a pass because you explained it out and stated exceptions, which really cover most use-cases, where it is acceptable, which I agree with):
1: I agree that arguments need not independently establish a conclusion. However, in almost all cases when theists evoke eg cosmological arguments, their stated intention is for the argument to independently establish a conclusion, so if it does not, that is a problem. It is not equivalent to saying "an eyewitness claims they saw this suspect at the scene of the crime, so their case is looking a little worse" let alone "this suspect has an airtight alibi, so we can at least rule out their direct involvement" and moving on with an investigation, it is equivalent to saying "an eyewitness claims they saw this suspect at the scene of the crime, so they must have committed the crime, case closed" or "this suspect has an airtight alibi, so they were definitely not involved whatsoever, even indirectly." Responding to that with "that evidence in no way proves that conclusion" is not erroneous. It is exceedingly rare to encounter a theistic argument that legitimately builds a mounting case based on many distinct theological arguments as you described.
3: Likewise, it is well and good to say that religion does not necessarily have to be irrational, because we can make the argument to the absurd that somebody might for example live in a society where through prestidigitation priests convince them they are legitimately performing miracles and they are given manufactured "visions" of God and children are taken away immediately at birth and randomly swapped before being distributed back to parents (such that children do not resemble their parents) and so on, such that magic and God seem real and scientific concepts like genetics (and the logically necessary idea of evolution based on genetics) seem fake and silly, but that is not really what we encounter. Instead, we find people who have found their way into the same spaces as us, whether because they are in the same schools, workplaces, etc or because they have internet access, and therefore have access to all the same publicly-available information we do and live in the same society we do, strongly asserting a conclusion that runs contrary to all available evidence, most often because someone told them it was true and they were too young or too intellectually lazy to fact check it, and are now irrationally invested in that conclusion. Thus you'll have a hard time finding a theist who believes for rational reasons; At best, you'll encounter people who had "spiritual experiences" that caused them to convert, but these experiences happen with suspicious regularity when someone is at their lowest point and in a compromised mental state.
In other words, both of these things would be problems if the scenarios that made them problematic were more common (and, I suppose, once in a blue moon when those scenarios actually come up they ARE problems), but by and large you're tilting at windmills- It's respectable to criticise and iron out poor arguments within your in-group, but these just aren't strongly or consistently poor arguments given the scenarios in which they are used.
12:30 "You can't claim that Christianity is always _a product of_ irrationality" seems like a bait-and switch from the claim that Christianity is irrational (derived from the section heading "Religion is irrational"). Christianity _is_ irrational - it is self-contradictory and inconsistent with observable reality. However, a person might believe in it - or rather, perhaps, believe themselves to be a 'Christian' - because, for example, they've been raised by parents who have told them that Christianity is true. Assuming their life experience tells them that their parents never lie to them, it would be perfectly rational to believe (albeit tentatively) in Christianity - but that doesn't make Christianity _itself_ rational.
You seem to have smuggled in the _process_ of _arriving at_ a belief (e.g. 'how Bob became a Christian'), when the 'thing atheists say' refers to the belief structure itself (e.g. Christian doctrine).
Well put. I think this is easily the most flawed video Alex has ever made. I can already see him debunking himself again in about 3 years.
Christianity isn't irrational.
Completely agree!! Alex argument was flawed “religion is irrational” I thought meant the actual core beliefs and foundations of a particular religion not religious people reasons to coming to that belief and if they were justified with the info they had. Pointless arguments really if someone proves that a particular religion fundamentals are illogical and therefore concludes it’s false it completely reasonable to say ie “Christianity is irrational” and a religious individual would need to address their particular points and prove it is rational and show it does makes sense but of course after they come to know of the arguments against it in the first place
Alex arguments would have had more weight if he said atheist shouldn’t say “religion is irrational” until they justified why each religion in flawed or at least good arguments why monotheist and polytheistic religions in their foundations don’t make sense and therefore can’t be true instead of ie losing faith in their particular religion and then using that umbrella term that “religion is illogical” implying all religions
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2013 Alex.... wow 😂
Looked like a foetus
@@JB_inks lol
BABY COSMIC
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5:20 - You've entirely mischaracterized anti-theism here, I think. Anti-theists, in general, aren't the sort that "wouldn't want him to exist," rather, I, and particularly Hitchens, consider the theist proposition to be a dangerous and unhealthy one; that belief in a god is *bad,* in principle.
Further, I disagree with your argument. I feel you've strawmanned the argument: The position is not as you put it, and your analogy with geometric shapes is inappropriate at best. God is depicted as having a distinctly unjustifiable evil morality. Christians reframe this distinctly unjustifiable evil as justifiable, and, importantly, as just and good. The position that "I would not believe in such a being" is not a rejection of his existence, but the rejection of the *faith* in his justness and righteousness.
Granted, it could be much better said than it is typically said, but you've presented it unfairly, and, in my opinion, as a strawman.
Well said. I was having the same issue but couldn't put into words as well as you have.
well put! I tried to say something similar, but this is a better way of explaining it.
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For the first time, Alex's argument is seeming absurd. Suppose there's a Lord Voldemort fan club whose members believe that there once lived a supremely good wizard named Voldemort who killed and tortured numerous people to make himself immortal. According to the logic Alex presented here, it's illogical to tell those people that even if Voldemort was real he was evil, since, notwithstanding whatever he may have done, the description of Voldemort they've given says he was supremely good. According to Alex's logic, you can either tell these people that Voldemort never existed or you can say that an evil wizard did exist but he wasn't Voldemort, but someone else. It doesn't make sense.
Do you understand that words like evil are religious and are dependent on the definition of God? I would argue that in your example Voldemort is not evil because he is by definition not that. Everything he did was for the greater good by definition, even killing and torturing people. This is exactly why words like good and evil are really bad indicators of morality.
@@RanEncounter, you’re incorrect. Whatever evil’s etymology, its meaning now includes an entirely nonreligious denotation. Look it up. Etymology is necessarily history but not necessarily meaning.
@@Steve-hu9gw Sigh. For a religious person God is part of their moral axioms. It is where they get their morals and God is defined as the ultimate moral good and the anchor of morality. If you want to play semantic games, be my guest.
@@RanEncounter, you’re incorrect. And you’re the one playing semantic games. You can’t just define your god as good. It has to actually be good. Otherwise, you are making good meaningless.
@@Steve-hu9gw What are you talking about? My god? Anyway you can and a lot of people do. Have you ever talked to a Christian or Muslim that actually has tought about their epistomological moral frameworks? Because they axiomatically insert God with its values and one of them is the moral absolute good.
You are valuing good and evil by your standard. Two people have to actually agree on the standard before you can agree what is good and evil. That is why these concepts are extremely bad because the standard is different.
What standard of good are you talking about here?
I love a good in-group criticism
Honestly is the most useful kind.
A "first mover" is a language trap which evokes some type of physical, even anthropomorphic, being. It might be better phrased as a "first movement" but even this phrase is fraught with lingual difficulties. Concept formation is always reflexive and reflective.
Technically a first mover is a primordial, sentient thing with an ability to act independently upon other objects with some kind of autonomy. Aristotelean cosmology is kind of dumb and outdated, but so are it's assumptions. Viewpoints are inevitably gonna come up like substance dualism, theory of forms, or some variations of soft naturalism dating back to the medieval ages that include alchemy and astrology. Also Aristotelean cause and effect is too linear to work with modern relativistic science. Claiming a real sentient entity "acted" prior the existence of space and time is just nonsensical.
Einstein was just another nail in the already buried coffin, my friend.
Yo Alex, Muslim Atheist here! I love your videos bro and keep up the good work
How can you be a "muslim" atheist?
"Muslim Atheist" 🤔
xD
@@MohseenLala it’s like being a Jewish atheist. Muslim is also an ethnic group
@@prehistoricworld_ Nope. Muslim is not an ethnic group--unless you were being sarcastic.
What is up, Alex? Happy New year dude.
'God is supremely good, therefore anything he does is justified.'
'I'm saying, when the President does it, it's NOT illegal.'
Legal means "approved by the state"
Good means "approved by the self"
God isn't a moral agent and he doesn't have moral virtue in the same way we do as nothing can be lost since he is purely actual
And intrinsicism never even made sense to me it's morality without context it just seems inconsistent like is Kant right?
@@hexzyle Legal means according to law, even if the state disapproves of it. For example, Nixon doing illegal acts while being head of state.
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@Anthony James God is not a moral agent in the classical theistic worldview
Genetically Cosmified Skeptic.
Job done. Now, tea (RationaliTea Brews)
7:20 This is pedantic IMO and I don't buy that this is meaningful in most discussions. If I make the argument "The christian god is evil because he does evil acts", it sounds like you think I'm about to walk into a fallacious trap where the christian says "Ha! Well you fool, the christian god defined as being all good, thus you have contradicted yourself in your own argument". What actually happens is the other person recognizes that I don't buy the argument that it's justified to call god all-good and we can have a conversation around that, and even if they didn't recognize it I could fix the whole conversation by just stating this in 2 seconds.
I don't think this is a point worth considering. It's only a problem if we analyze it purely analytically, but in context of a conversation with another human being I don't think this is a relevant consideration unless it's explicitly brought up.
Like God is not the same as us Christians don't believe in pain based morality and we don't believe in intrinsicism really
God is purely actual, a thing is only good in so far as it is perfect and if God is purely actual then he is purely perfect as a thing is only perfect in so as it is actual i.e. a perfect triangle is a good triangle/is a triangle
The same thing with God but in the platonic sense like God is not a moral agent in the first place
BTW what even is the point of morality to you?
To me it's simply a way of beings reaching their Good or their perfection and the greatest good to reach would be reaching God this is how the Bible puts it like morality = Practicality for reaching the Good or God
@@neologos4395 Ok none of this is related to my comment, but I don't care about most of this because Im more interested in analyzed God based on what exists, not whatever fantasy you can construct to make him consistent with your idea that he's good or at least somehow not responsible for the badness.
> BTW what even is the point of morality to you?
Morality is a social construct that aids in social cohesion. There's no "point", it just exists and it's arbitrary.
@@BigPapaMitchell
Ok Pure actuality which is Pure existence exist I will logically deduce this if you ask why it's just existence without space, matter time or any fundamental quantum soup and this is not non- existence since non- existence cannot exist since it's non-existence like If you don't get this just ask an I'll make some pages of explanations lol
Aquinas spends many, many chapters on deriving the divine attributes from pure existence, but I'll only cover a few very briefly here, to get the flavor.
Matter and energy can both change location, change configuration, come together, break apart, and so on. So they have all kinds of potential to change. Something that is pure actuality, with no potentials, must therefore be immaterial.
Having a spacial location means being movable, or having parts that are actually located over here but not actually located over there. Something that is pure actuality, with no potentials, cannot move or change or have parts that are non actual. Therefore, pure actuality is spaceless.
If subject to the effects of time, it would have the potential to get older than it was. But since it has no potentials, it has no potential to get older. Therefore, pure actuality is timeless.
If there is a distinction between two things, that means one has something that the other lacks. But pure actuality does not have potentials, and therefore lacks nothing. So pure actuality is singular. There is only one such thing.
Pure actuality is the source of all potentials being actualized. Anything that happens is a potential thing becoming actual. Therefore, anything that ever happens or could happen is caused by pure actuality. So pure actuality is capable of doing anything and is therefore all-powerful.
Now, unless you are a Platonist (and Aquinas is not), there are only two ways something can exist: as a material thing, or as an abstract concept in a mind. For example, the concept of "dog" can exist as an abstract idea in a mind, or as a material thing in the form of an actual dog. That is, the form of dog can exist either unconstrained by matter (the idea of dog) or constrained by matter (an actual dog). Since pure actuality exists unconstrained by matter, it must exist as knowledge. Also, "ignorance" is not a positive reality of its own, but rather is a lack of knowledge and hence an unrealized potential. So pure actuality is all-knowing.
We can say that a thing is "good", not in the sense of being "something we personally like" (you may think a good pizza has anchovies, whereas others may not), but in the sense of being a better example of what it is supposed to be. When that thing better exemplifies its perfect archetype. For example, an elephant that takes care of its young, has all four legs, ears, and trunk is "good", or closer to "good", in the sense we mean here. If the elephant lacks something, such as a leg, or one of it's ears, it would not be as "good" as it would be if it had both ears. Since pure actuality has no potentials, it lacks nothing, and is therefore all-good.
And this is where we get the idea of the Classical Theistic conception of God which is the one that people believe right up until the 18th century
Um like listen you can yell word salad or deepity or use the personal incredulity fantasy but like you have to actually explain why and if you don't then I can't explain the premises that you say are invaled or do not make sense see it's dialectic
@@neologos4395 holy shit this is so irrelevant, I'm not reading this essay.
@George Morehead I've never really understood what he did that was so bad like I mean it's all retributive justice so IDK
As a Christian, @CosmicSkeptic is my favorite atheist RUclipsr. He takes the positions Christian’s hold seriously enough to actually engage with them honestly and intellectually. There are a few others that do well with this- but he is by far the best. When I want to see what the best arguments from the other side are or actually hear good discussion about theism from an atheist I hop on his channel. While I sincerely hope that one day Alex becomes a Christian, I also am just thrilled when I see discussion from atheists that doesn’t become pejorative of Christianity without substance intellectually. I am actually happier than I was before watching this. It causes me joy to see this kind of engagement with issues. Alex, thank you for what you are doing to change the tone of discussion in online atheism!
I love comparing believing in God to believing in Santa Clause or believing in the Easter Bunny. Nothing wrong with that since they are literally the same thing.
how dare you? Santa is actually nice and just
@@sammur1977 lol. So what? In Greek mythology, the Great Emptiness/Abyss (Chaos) is the source of all existence. From which all gods and goddesses arise. That doesn't make it real.
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@Jessie James I'm from Austria, so English isn't my mother's tongue. I'm pretty sure you got the gist of what I was saying despite my imperfect use of words. Since you are so eager on words though, it's called "difference to there being a creator", not "difference to their being a creator" lol.
Thirdly I don't have to prove a negative lol. "You haven't proven that there are no unicorns, so unicorns are Source of existence." What a load of BS.
@Jessie James so you say that there is a creator. prove it.
to the question "did the theist ever claim that their god could do this " : almost always. Though, I do agree that we should pay attention to what our interlocutors are saying.
@Michelle de Vries
As a Christian, I feel theists should do the same. Because man did I trip over my own shoe laces arguing how the only evidence for God is through personal experience earlier this week. >.
@@DemonicRemption the argument from personal experience is one of the most fallacious arguments for the existence of gods there are.
So I agree that you “tripped“
@@lil_weasel219
Oh it isn't a fallacious argument, if you're only trying to justify why you're a theist and not trying to convert. That's always my intent when I use the personal experience argument. But instead I wasn't focusing on that intent, instead trying to argue every point the guy made.
Simply because I know I can't convince anyone of God's existence, and besides that's the job of a minister, while I'm a writer of fiction.
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As a theist I enjoy watching Alex’s videos , it keeps me on my toes and videos like this make me smile seeing his growth
smol alex
8:00 except that the idea that God is perfectly good is also defeated by logic.
As antitheists we say that bcz we do not agree that he is good. Good is not just something you can declare it must be seen to be known
The final nail in the coffin that brought me from religion was realizing how insidious it is to value some "all mighty" entity above the people around me that matter to me!
Well, since I subscribe to moral fictionalism, and thus see the claim of religious people about the morality of their deity just as a narrative but not as some cosmic truth, I will continue to say that even if I would know the Christian deity to real, I still would not worship it, since I simply cannot align my moral intuitions with that of the ones of said entity.
#2: If the Christian God exists, and is perfectly good, then perfectly good is abhorrent (which is a logical contradiction obviously, but who cares since we believe in magic in this scenario?) and I would not want to be "perfectly good", nor would I worship the Christian God.
There, is that more clear?
No, because you are asserting you know more than God about good and evil, or what is moral.
You're trying to justify your irrational position. You can have that position, just know that it is irrational. Also, believe in a God. I think most of what Alex said on this video is really good.
@@BurazSC2 Because the Christian God existing is therefore a logical contradiction the same as a square circle. But all that can be explained through "magic". Which is what the bible is all about. God "spoke" the world into existence. That's literally Harry Potter. All logic goes out the window in that case and we can't rely on it, even as a hypothetical.
@@stephengarrett4193 "Also, believe in a God". Oh my you convinced me /s. The irrational thing is to believe the magic fairy dust God exists in the first place. But if he does, HE will break the laws of logic, not me. With his magic. To believe in the Christian God, you literally have to believe God can simply "make a donkey talk", or speak the world into existence, or raise people from the dead. That's not how any of this works. But if it does, then up is down and good is bad.
The only difference between a miracle and Harry Potter magic, is who performs the spell. And if "perfectly good" is defined by the Christian God, then perfectly good is a shit goal to strive for.
Or can you explain to me why your "God" demands worship the same way ONLY evil dictators have ever done? Who does that? You know, you may think having people worship you would be flattering. But don't you think it'd get old really fast? Like, wouldn't you wanna sit down in front of the TV with them and have a beverage or play football with them, instead of having them kiss your feet all day and bow before you?
Any person who has foolishly sought such power, ended up being some of the loneliest people to ever exist.
@@freshairkaboom8171 Dude, I'm really sorry. I meant to say I believe in a God 😅😅😅 I didn't mean to sound pretentious.
Its videos like this that make me continue to respect this side of the Athiest sphere despite disagreeing.
So glad I'm watching my favorite skeptic channel, GMS! Who is this CosmicSkeptic guy he keeps talking about though?
Is your pfp an unus annus refrence?
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I irrationally smashed the like button on this video.
...doesn't this mean you technically dislike the video? If you actually liked it, clicking the like button would've been rational.
Christian apologist here Alex, and I really appreciate your channeled's work together to seek the truth effectively and humbly, as best as we can. :)
I think the second point can be said like: If the God as described in the bible exists, he has a lot to answer for.
+
But the God described in the Bible doesn’t have to answer for anything.
@@joshsuko8185 that's a perspective question. The god of the bible claims He doesn't have to answer for anything (see Job) because He says so. Some see self-referential claims as invalid.
@@anthonynorman7545 Who would he have to answer to? Humans? Beings he created and sustains? You could argue that lifts our view of humanity to being of equality with God?
@@grandmasterlucien how does God sustain humans? Also, what does creation and sustaining have to do with answering to? I don't think it requires the lifting or lowering of anything.
Why are we splitting hairs over a fantasy book?
I guess because that's what he has a degree in. Being as friendly and forgiving as he was with WLC was the first indicator of what was to come. Now he's literally reciting apologist arguments.
If you want to be taken seriously as an atheist or at least a rational person, I suggest you don`t dismiss the holy books as merely fantasy works. It is a slap on your credibility and intellectual maturity.
@@sammur1977 Snow white and the seven dwarves is a fantasy book too. I am pretty sure you know the book exists. There is something else in the book that does not.
@@niksx4454 I actually know what the holy books are and most importantly how and why they were put together. I cannot tell you this in a comment section because it takes dozens of pages to explain. Pages that I am writing myself at the moment. All holy books are partially fantasy and that is a fact. I know there are parts in them that are true but they are definitely not the parts that believers think. Supernatural does not exist. This is a fact. If you doubt that then I am sorry but you are just wrong and I will explain in great detail why as soon as I finish the bloody book whenever that happens. I know religions are useful for many people but many reasons for their usefulness ranges from deceptive ignorance to plain evil behavior.
@@howtheworldworks3 You writing a book about holy books and the original comment in which you come off as dismissive of people still discussing them is kinda confusing to me. Or maybe your book will be the one to end all discussions once and for all. Can't wait to read it if that's the case. All love.
I like your point about the difference rationality and accuracy. I wish more people understood this. I think it would calm many arguments.
It reminds me of a problem that arose more than once in the Intelligent Design push in American public education in the early 2000s. A certain phrase, "a theory, not a fact", was used by many to describe the theory of biological evolution. It seems that all of them were using the word "theory" in the layman's sense, "an idea", "a hunch", "an untested hypothesis". Some of those people, such as a group in Pennsylvania, were behaving really corruptly (e.g., lying under oath in court about the moving of money) and, I think, must have been happy with the "not fact" part of their claim about the theory of evolution. Others, such as the school officials in Georgia who concluded that textbooks should be modified with a sticker that pointed out that evolution was "a theory, not a fact", seemed to be honestly trying to do their best to satisfy everyone without injecting religion into public schools and without taking a side in the argument about evolution. The problem with the Georgia kind of people is their sloppy handling of the "not a fact" part: they were asserting not just that evolution was a theory in biology, but also that it was counterfactual, incorrect, wrong, inaccurate, known to be not what happens; this is problematic in at least four ways:
1. It amounts to the very side-taking that they tried to avoid.
2. It may give some people the false notion that "theory" and "fact" are antonyms to each other.
3. It invites the question "Well, if you already know it's not true, why are you bothering to teach it? We don't bother to 'teach' the 'theory' that George Washington was a Chinaman from Mars who lived in the 7th century B.C."
4. It poorly handles the fact that, in our best understanding, _some_ theories (whether in the layman's sense or in the scientific sense) _are factual_ and _some_ theories are _not_ factual. I can 'theorize' that tomorrow there will be an inch of rain at my house, and I can 'theorize' that tomorrow there will be no rain at my house: one or the other of these 'theories' can be factual; they both can be counterfactual; they can't both be true.
I have to disagree on the second point. If I say I'm glad the Christian good doesn't exist, because he's immoral, I'm not saying "everything in the Bible is true, including god's goodness". I'm saying, if a being exists that had committed the acts (good and bad) described in the Bible, I think that would be terrible, because a lot of the acts are terrifying and psychopathic by my moral standards.
I take issue with your second point. Even if Christianity is true, and the god of the Bible exists as described, I can still make an assessment of that god's actions with respect to my own moral positions. Maybe my interlocutor and I both agree that the triangle exists, but they think it's an equilateral triangle and I think it is a right-angle triangle. Yahweh exists, the Christian thinks it is a good god but I think it is evil. They would still need to demonstrate that their god is good, and all the evidence in the Bible points to it being evil.
Have you read the last two pages of the Bible? How can you come to that conclusion
@@chrishunt3674 I don't know them off-hand. What version and what passages are you referring to?
@@chrishunt3674 Do I need to read the last two pages of the Bible? Do they somehow make all the bad things this god has supposedly done ok? Is that where Yahweh condemns slavery? Is that where Yahweh condemns the genocide he committed? Is that where Yahweh denounces the slaughters he commanded? Is that where Yahweh says women should be treated equal to men in society? Is that where Yahweh says don't stone people who have sex with people of the same gender?
The Bible is full of and endorses old, terrible ideas. No one should be reading it as a moral guide. No one should be treating it like real history. The god of the Bible, if it exists, is evil. Thankfully, I have no reason to believe it is real.
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@George Morehead I would not be interested in debate. I've never really liked debate format, and I haven't done it since high school. I much prefer conversation over debate. Debate has so much structure and is so performative.
That being said, I think there are plenty of examples of the god of the Bible being evil. I'll entertain the notion that biblical stories are real events for the sake of the hypothetical, but the first I would bring up is Noah's flood. The goal of Yahweh in that instance was to kill almost all life on earth. That is evil.
About "I wouldn't worship him" argument, I would modify it to "If God exists, I hope he is more just and kind than what I have heard and read of him from the Bible". This way it is not that confrontational.
7:55 What definition of the christian god are you talking about exactly?
When we find evil things in such a definition the part defining it perfectly good has been overruled internally, since one is based on something happening and the other is just a claim.
I don't see the slightest reason to accept the christian version of "good" over one based on universal well-being.
Yeah, I find that very suspect as well. So basically they just get to assert that their god is good by definition cuz... well, just cuz I said so
@@justadude7752 Exactly. And since the god Christians are typically talking about is an acting moral agent (allegedly), the definition of god should include what god actually (and for the sake of the argument even allegedly) does.
@Purify If you want to die for your belief go right ahead. Please fill out an organ donor card first.
@Purify bruh. Well, glad to read at least the last part then 😅🥴
@@blackpolishedchrome4774 it really came off as being open minded just for the sake of being open minded. Not that useful to be honest.
If a christian is rational (on the topic)then he's ignorant (on the topic). Change my mind. I am an ex christian and I would describe my old self like this.
I don't know man, we could also be ignorant on another topic that makes Christianity more rational than atheism. It's better to just prove claims wrong when they're claimed and nothing more, it's actually irrational to speak like you know absolutely everything from both sides and therefore assume that a Christian is rather ignorant or irrational.
Hi, I'm a Christian. I think I was ignorant when I was growing up as a Christian. Then I tried to be rational and doubted everything. Then I had to let go of a lot of beliefs and question why believe this and not that. In order to come to a conclusion I had to do a lot of reading and I also travelled and talked to very different people. At some moments I think I also was irrational while trying to be rational because it's impossible to believe nothing. In the end, I was left with two very big candidates for what seemed to be the truth (neither of them was atheism, by the way) and this was the least hard part because a last bit of logic made the answer obvious. I don't think atheism is irrational either, but I do consider there is some ignorance and sometimes stubbornness in most atheists. However, when it comes to beliefs, I do think there is a little step that will always be irrational, whatever it is you end up believing.
People who have given it some thought and have been thinking it logically and willing to really follow reason where it leads could always say that the other is the ignorant one, because each one knows what they have studied and thought about and can't know everything about the other person's journey and the connections they've made. In fact, every person that is alive could always change their mind up until the very last moment before they die, by reason or by something else. Only a proud person would call everyone who holds the other position ignorant.
That said, there are many ignorant people on this topic. Christians atheists and others. Not that this is always bad, some people are better at other things or just don't have these questions.
I can't say anything about you, but I think Alex is very rational and I rarely disagree with him, but we got to different conclusions when it comes to religion. I'm sure he knows there's a big part of his decision to be an atheist that has more to do with emotion than with rationality. That's fine, in the end, rationality isn't everything when it comes to believing.
@@arcadia14 well i carefully looked at christian arguments from a lot of theologians like Mcgrath, Turek, Zacharias and most importantly William Lane Craig. I also looked at discussions between atheists like the four horsemen or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Matt Dillahunty, Michael Schermer, GM skeptic, cosmic skeptic, Ramachandran and others that don't come to mind. I also know about the opinion of agnostics such as Tyson, Sagan, ecc. I watched debates between christians and atheists. I thoroughly analized every single argument from both sides. Now i am not claiming that i know everything, but what i know about christianity should be enough to make a reasonable judgement on it , since who can explain me the christian faith better than William Lane Craig and the others? Nobody. Also, if there was such an amazing argument which would make christianity rational, it would have already been made by the most prominent theologians i named.
@@alycertain i thoroughly disagree with your view on beliefs. For this example I am going to consider the christian god but this could be adjusted to fit other religions. The bible says that faith is first of all a personal relationship with God. He is seen as a father and the bond that exists between the believer and God is therefore the parental one. Now, when a believer identifies as one he is so, first of all because he has a relationship with God. Most people do not become christians by a rational conclusion, not even Craig who says that he became a Christian because he felt great peace after praying when he was 16 and from then on he strengthened his faith with reason. My feelings as a believer ( I was an ex catholic), further confirmed by the position of other believers (i used to exchange opinions with them) and even further confirmed by the position of a sophisticated theologian, makes me understand that evidence is based on faith, not the other way around, unlike atheism where this emotional factor is reduced to a minimum, in favor of rationality. Atheism is the least emotional position to hold in my opinion because you get there because of rationality. So no, i disagree with you when you say "rationality isn't everything when it comes to believing". Well, sure it isn't because we are humans and we can't be fully rational, but it should be. To do this you have to minimize emotions and religion is the opposite to this so from here it's already difficult to say the product of this mentality can be rational. Of course this is only one argument to show that religion is irrational
I don't know if this is true for Christianity but it's definitely true for Islam. So many things wrong with it that a defense automatically leads to indigestible dissonance and dishonesty most of the time.
3:23 mins in.
Me: " wow, crap! I just finished watching the Pascal's 'debunk' you did and tried to point this out to you. Now your schooling me on this? You have proven intellectual and academic integrity, accountability, honesty, and maturity. And you were completely succinct while remaining erudite. I hardly seem to possess the cognitive capacity to comprehend complex concepts concerning the conversation. Thank you for admitting and adjusting the thought process on this.
I have a thought experiment challenge for you concerning the possible seperation of values and morals. If you are interested.
For now, bravo! Thank you and...where did you get your thesaurus?
(I am not an atheist. But you have my ear. I am listening. You are making sense. Thank you.)
If the Christian god existed, he wouldn't be objectively evil, but he'd be evil according to MY OWN moral standards. That would, of course, make me objectively evil, because my moral standards would oppose the objective good, but should I care? If that's what it means to be objectively good, then I don't want it.
I move that Alex should do a video on the philosophy of aesthetic, possibly in reference to calls for modesty, and he should style it "cosmetic skeptic"
This one's my favourite. Browsing all the apologist and atheist videos, I felt frustrated that these points are often overlooked
When Christians say “God is good”, they mean, whatever God does, is, by definition, good. They are not defining God, but redefining ‘Good’.
The analogy would then be, The Triangle exists, and it has 4 sides and is shaped like a square.
How is the Analogy even similar to when Christians say "God is Good"?
Very well explained. Chapeau.
@@ja.k3051 Because when they say that, they are not defining the properties of God, but the properties of Good. The "shape" is the placeholder for God in the analogy. We are just calling it a triangle despite it's actual form. As such, Good, aka Triangle, is no longer defined as 3 sides, but whatever they want to call a Triangle, in this case, what we would normally call a square.
No God is Good because God is purely actual therefore he is purely perfect as a thing is only perfect in so far as it is actual and since God is purely actual he is purely perfect and purely Good since Goodness and Being differ only in idea really it's a virtual distinction
God is not even a moral agent as he isn't even really a Being
@@neologos4395 I would agree with you, but then we both would be wrong. You are redefining Good, Perfect, God and Being. You are kinda making my point.
Cosmic missed the mark on this video, had to happen eventually right.
@Vengeance point 1 and 3 is solid, 2 on the other hand can be beaten in many ways.
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*Alex,* there is a significant problem with your second point IMHO: *the (oft repeated) definition of God that you have used, as being omnibenevolent, is at odds with the God described in the Bible,* the principal (only?) source for information about that god that is common to adherents.
To leverage off the triangle analogy: this is like the the devout followers of _Shapeism_ defining their deity as the Mighty Triangle, while attempting to ignore the genocidal _"Fourth Corner"_ that is clearly described in their _Book of Holy Polygons._
Now I'm waiting for the we are not the same person remix with the two skeptics
“If God existed, I wouldn’t worship him.”
I think the argument here, for me, is that, if a god exists doing the things Christians ascribe to him, I’d view that as an evil god and wouldn't worship him. I don't see that as a fallacious statement.
@CosmikSkeptic This is one of the BEST videos made by you! Thank you for opening our eyes a little wider!
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Just because I define myself as having blue eyes, doesn't change the fact that I have brown eyes, Alex.
As a theist I really started to like cosmicskeptic coz he is such an honest person.
I love it when my side of the argument gets stated truthfully by an opposing party. It warms my heart. Thanks mate.