Debate: Trent Horn vs Raphael Lataster - Does God Exist?
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- Опубликовано: 16 окт 2024
- Trent Horn, apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, debated Raphael Lataster on the question "Does God Exist?" at the University of Sydney on the 25th of May 2016.
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I feel bad for Trent. He went all the way to Australia only to be met with a guy who did not want to debate.
The Catholic Church is very fortunate in gaining converts like Trent.
If god is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving, and the Catholic Church is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission, explain pedophile priests.
@@NoExitLoveNow pedophile priests are humans with free will. God is not going to take away your free will if you show admiration for him by taking away your free will. the catholic church is guided by the holy spirit with flawed individuals in her (the church is a she) just like the writings of the bible were guided by the holy spirit written by flawed men.
I will also add that the catholic church has the lowest rate of child molestation compared to any other religious group, or any other institution in general like children sports activities, clubs, schools, etcetera
@@crobeastness The Catholic Church moved pedophile priests around to re-molest. Definitely a lot of flawed (and corrupt) men involved in the catholic church from its inception.
@@NoExitLoveNow yeah, I agree. I think every catholic in the world would agree. I think Trent horn would agree. yet we don't leave the church because of reasons like that. and they don't move them to re-molest. that's not the motivating factor of relocation. personally, I agree with you that these are horrific acts and those priests should go to prison for life in the first place and not relocate, but don't act like this is a strictly catholic problem and not a human problem. relocation happens in all those other organizations I listed.
@@crobeastness Millions of people all over the world praying for god to do something and he cannot even keep his representatives from molesting children.
No matter what side you think had the stronger argument one thing is for sure. Lataster pushed aside many of Horn's arguments, while Trent addressed each. Trent is obviously the more skilled and experienced debater.
Absolutely disgusting of you to say.
Do you have any reason in your brain?
Because Trent has fuck all and he’s an asshole.
Not only that he addressed fuck all like the rest of the theist our there.
How embarrassing of you to say that
@@kennym3492 lol
@Kenny Monk
You Have only angry within you. When people like you nothing to offer but they start to course others That’s the time feel better for themselves
Saba Ghebreghzabhier anger of what?
Why would someone that rationally thinks want to go to a sky demon to be owned forever.
I’m good with just dying
And leaving the best memories I can.
Not like these pigs such as Trent. He’s deluded .
You and your religious theocracies are the poison that directly tore us humans apart in the first place.
Thank for that ;)
@Kenny Monk
Again, You are full of angry because you are insulting Trent or other people who disagree with your opinion. It showed me that you hypocrite and empty inside because I read your comments with an appropriate words. If someone says God doesn’t exist. Usually I notice that they are attention seekers because they want to look different than others. And also they think, they are smart and educated.
Sydney University Catholic Society did a great job to pull this together. I look forward to another one down the track!
Was a pleasure working with Parousia! Looks like we'll be having more than just one down the track!
I'm gonna assume when the one guy says, "blah blah blah not important, we are making good time..." he knows he lost the debate.
naw he is funny
Nope he was stating that his opponent was not arguing his points so there was no rebuttal necessary
@Qwerty she didn't even know what?
With all of the hand waving Raphael did, I'm assuming that he decided to take on the role of clown more than that of debater.
No wonder Bill Craig doesn't want to debate Raphael. He's an amateur debater. You can't just clumsily dismiss arguments. You have to counter them. And then he brought up pantheism and deism and irrelevant notions of probability, etc. Sadly, Trent wasted time even engaging those points because they had literally nothing to do with the argument he put forth himself. Raphael has a long way to go.
he is a very smart guy but he said he responded when all he did was say a semi-stable argument that just adds to the argument that Trent disproved
No wonder you think this way. The fact that you call the probabilistic approach and factorization of alternative theories such as pantheism "irrelevant" says something about your level of knowledge or ability to understand the debate. Nor do I think Trent "wasted his time". In fact, I would say that Trent learned a lot from this debate and would prepare himself to be able to debate from a probabilistic point of view as well, as it was noted that he suffers from that.
@enio17 It's irrelevant because the question is on whether God exists or not. Not what the probability of the Christian God existing is, which you wouldn't even calculate based on alternative theories. And even if he did succeed in showing that the probability of the Christian God existing is low, that *still* wouldn't lead anyone to conclude God doesn't exist. Both you and him don't quite understand the debate.
@cget To answer the question of whether God exists or not, you need compelling evidence. Trent did not present any compelling evidence, but almost only philosophical arguments in the form of deductive reasoning. Otherwise, the debate would have been unnecessary, just as no one seriously discusses whether the Earth is round or not, since we have incontrovertible evidence that it is round.
In the absence of compelling evidence, the question can be approached by probabilistic reasoning. To do this, one must weigh the existing evidence and hypotheses, which includes comparing them with alternative hypotheses, which in this case would be other forms of God and the supernatural. This is called factoring. In other words, Raphael is trying to answer the question, but both you don't quite understand what Bayesian reasoning is all about.
@enio17 You can't just say the "evidence isn't compelling". You have to address the arguments. What about the arguments Trent laid out did not lead to the conclusions? That's how debating works. So before you even get to the probability of alternative theories, you have to address the theory put forth.
Lataster used what is unfortunately a very common atheist tactic: simply state the theist is wrong and assume his declaration makes it so, then states "I don't have to prove my position."
eamonob84 he also would make a claim like “God cannot exist because X” then when Trent called him out on violating his self-proclaimed agnosticism he would fall back on “well I don’t have to prove my point.”
You need to prove that I have a magical invisible dragon in my garage.
no we dont, because we dont claim that @@pavld335 🤡
After hearing Lataster's credentials I thought this would be a great and difficult debate for Horn. I never would have guessed the utter ridiculousness of this debate. Pity too, I really was interested in hearing some counter-arguments to those traditional arguments. Instead Lataster wanted to shift the debate to whether deism or pantheism or polytheism were more probable than theism, even though the arguments provided by Horn ruled out those options ahead of time...something Lataster didn't seem to appreciate.
I very much agree, Lataster does not seem to understand that God must be the source of everything else by definition. He only wanted to argue about the probability of these other beliefs which was pointless.
Ryan Slattery thats just dumb.
The utter ridiculousness consists in the fact that debates about God's existence have been going on for millennia with no foreseeable end. If he exists, it's high time he gave a damn and put an end to the matter.
Anyone else feel the resolution during the debate was forgotten? The audience during the Q&A section actually made better arguments for the non-existence of God than did Raphael himself. All the same, still an interesting debate. ive always enjoyed Trent's debating tactics. He explains things in a way that even a layman like myself can understand. Using simplistic but often foolproof arguments. Easily one of my favorites out of Catholic Answers!
If one wants to debate about the (non) existance of god, the first question should be: "which one(s)".
@@Bluesruse Obviously they are referring to the God of classical theism, something that you probably missed when you watched the debate.
@@Bluesruse As a Christian, I deny the existence of "god" or "gods." There is only One True God, the Great I AM, in three Persons: Abba, Jesus Lord and Savior, and Holy Spirit.
@@justin10292000 Yet some Christians don't believe in this "God" either, so it's not even enough to define your God as a "Christian", since not all who call themselves Christian worship this god of the trinity.
0:00 Moderator's speech
... ... ...
3:58 Trent's opening statement
Trent's philosophical arguments of the existence of God
6:04 Reason #1: The Universe exists.
8:30 Reason #2: The Universe began to exist.
11:28 Reason #3: The Universe contains predictable order.
13:22 Reason #4: The Universe contains extrinsic dignity and extrinsic evils.
17:45 Trent's opening conclusion
... ... ...
18:26 Rafael's opening statement
I'm sorry, I think he's a good guy, I don't have anything against him, I'm not being biased but help me here. I didn't clearly get his point of argument. He was all over the place.
... ... ...
32:00 Trent's 1st affirmative rebuttal.
... ... ...
39:10 Rafael's 1st negative rebuttal
... ... ...
46:15 Trent's 2nd affirmative rebuttal
... ... ...
50:40 Rafael's 2nd negative rebuttal
... ... ...
53:48 Cross examination
... ... ...
1:10:40 Q&A from the audition
... ... ...
1:40:00 Trent's closing statement
... ... ...
1:44:05 Rafael's closing statement
... ... ...
1:48:30 Debate concludes. Speech by Francis Tamer, President, Sydney University Catholic Society.
Thanks!
Thank you very much.
garbage in garbage out
I'm a Catholic philosopher. Ironically, I suspect I could have made the negative argument better than Lataster did -- he did little except engage in rapid-fire obfuscation.
"rapid-fire obfuscation" -- yep, that's the word I was looking for! :-)
Every point he referenced has been answered ad infinitum. It seems he was trying to show the audience how unlikely theism is, given the many alternatives that are at least as likely to be true.
Jeff Hampton Perhaps, but there are two problems there. One is that a bunch of bad or weak arguments don't "add up to" a good argument. It is a common tactic to cobble together a bunch of bad arguments in that way, but that only fools untrained people.
The second problem is that it isn't a matter of "likely to be true." Arguments for God's existence (generally) aren't inductive or based on probabilities.
+Seth Murray The philosophical arguments for theism I've heard don't get you to the Bible as revealed truth. They mostly try to demonstrate an uncaused cause, fine tuning of the universe, the source of morality, etc. Even if you granted all of the premises, it can just as easily point to polytheism, an unjust god, a deist god, etc. Jumping from fine tuning to Jesus being the son of Yahweh is just a bit of sleight of hand. The counterexamples he used were to demonstrate that the logical leap is unjustified.
The null hypothesis also means he doesn't have to make a case for the nonexistence of god. All that's required is refuting the claims made by his opponent, which I think he did fairly well. Not great, but serviceable.
+Seth Murray I agree he could have been more explicit. His arguments assumed the audience was on board with the underlying logic. Kind of like having the right answers on a math test, but not showing your work.
I've heard better counter arguments from secularist freshman here at ASU. Good job Trent!!! shout out from AZ! keep up the good fight
Yes!! shout out from Az good job Trent!
Trent should be on trial for murder after that one. I felt bad for Raphael Latester.
Trent isn't even aware of HOW he needs to argue in order to be rational. He embarrassed himself. Much like you are doing now with your comment.
William Chami
Trent Horn is a Theologian...Dr Richard Carrier and many other Ancient Historians don't use the same methods of bias!
If Trent could check his sources,he would quickly realise his is wrong,self deluded and indoctrinated!
Apologetics gainsaying and ad hominem attacks don't constitute evidence or facts!!
We have 5000 documents in Greek,12000 Documents in other languages..but not 1C Documents so the Bible isnt remotely historical!!
@@rationalsceptic7634 More bias atheist shit
tony nash
More ad hominem attacks from a Cretin like you!
Why the Gospels are Historical Fiction:
(1) They are written in Chiastic form,only found in achronic Histories or Fiction
(2) No histographical Consciousness(the Characters don't debate or self analyse as in real Ancient History
(3) Unlikely events
(4) Contradictions
(5) Forgery,redactions and copies
(6) No external corroboration
(7) Based on emulation Myths and syncretistic development from Zoroastrianism and Judaism
(8) Luke was a poor Historian.
(9) 95% of Paul's Epistles are forgery
(10) Extra Biblical evidence is forged
So this ignorant Apologist needs to check his sources and study some Ancient History and Methods
@@rationalsceptic7634 you know nothing about theology none of what you said was fact just opinion more atheist jabbering blah blah blah what a dweeb why don't you go run a mile or something... get over it God exist whether you like it or not
Raphael be like
"We don't know that objective morality exists"
"We don't know whether Big Bang argument shows that universe came from nothing"
"We don't know whether these constants are really fine tuned"
I be like
"I don't know whether your logical reasoning exists"
Chris Oliver Dela Cruz you do realize “idk” is a good answer right? I know you religious people just love to assert shit without evidence, maybe just maybe, you should say idk
rambeck brad Idk by definition is not a good answer. It’s stating that you have no answer.
@@DanielMaloneJr exactly
@@KC-py5vq Son: Mother am I adopeted?
Mother: Idk
Son:good answer
lol
It’s more like:
-What’s your evidence that objective morality exists… and if it exists then what’s your evidence that a gods are required to explain its existence?
-What’s your evidence that there ever was a state of nothingness or that such a state is even possible?
-What’s your evidence that those constants can have other values? We call them constants because they don’t change.
Raphael is so disjointed in his speech. Very hard to follow. He might have good arguments but he's not a good public speaker at all.
Doesn't anyone besides me see that Raphael is completely off topic the entire debate? The topic is: Does God Exist? Isn't it painfully obvious that Raphael trying to define God in a different manner (whether he is the material world like in pantheism, did not reveal himself like in deism, or polytheistic), arguing that any one of those definitions could be better that Trent's is an admission that God DOES exist, but I disagree on HOW he exists? Isn't this a complete shift in responsibility? He can define God in any way that he wants, but if he, as he says many times, accepts super-naturalism for the sake of argument, he's accepting for the sake of argument that God does exist. How come none of the comments talk about this? It's so damn obvious, and I apologize for these strong statements, but he irritated me to no end while I watched the debate.
I have no criticism for Trent, you were as excellent as always, as I've watched many Catholic Answers videos with you answering many difficult questions such as this. I hope to see you more in such debates, I even hope it could be somewhere I could attend, but that seems like a long shot as I'm in Malaysia, haha. Nevertheless, please keep up the good work.
Hi Nigel, I'd be happy to come to a place like Malaysia. Send an email to my friends at Parousia Media and they could maybe find people to set something up. Their email is office@parousiamedia.com
Wow, hello Trent. Honestly didn't expect you to reply to me. Well, I don't have a good answer, really. I'm not one of those who is involved with organizing things like this. I'm more of an attendee myself. However, if I do find an opportunity to talk to someone that does, I'll definitely take the opportunity. In Malaysia, although secularism/atheism does have its foothold in urban areas, the main issues are Islamization/religious issues and corruption (I'm sure you've heard of the US and 1MDB). I'm really not sure how hard the establishment would come down on us for hosting a debate/talk related to these, haha. Not really sure who we could get to debate with you too. Anyway, in short, I'll definitely think about it with the people who can actually make this happen. Thanks for the reply, and again, keep up the good work, I'll be keeping up with them :)
+Trent Horn
If you can go to Malaysia, why not try with the Philippines at the same time? I simply do not know whether there are famous atheists in our country. You can also try to debate with some Protestants or some Non-Christians like Bro. Eli Soriano, though I am not sure if he is used to debating in English. Or maybe, you can simply have a talk and for sure, I'll be there haha...We have CBCP (Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines) if you are curious. hahaha hope you can reply
Trent Horn speak the truth, he more reasonable in arguments.....God bless us, amen.
it seems like a lot of agnostics/atheists use this approach nowadays where they just say they reject every single premise and then offer no counter examples or evidence. also, it seems silly to me to "grant supernaturalism" then at the end say "in reality i'm a naturalist" so it doesn't matter. why not argue from your actual position? I understand exactly why Craig won't debate him. Raphael says he has nothing to prove and that his opponent has to prove and disprove everything. i think Trent summed it up perfectly when he said, "that's not an argument, that's a question."
exactly. they are simply happy with their atheism/agnosticism, and all the rest who reject that are according to them simpletons and ignoramuses.
TheEsotericZebra The god of the gaps approach is used by evolution-deniers too.
"We found another missing link."
"Aha! now there are two more missing links! One on each side of that discovery!"
We don't need to provide "counter examples", although many of us can if we feel like it. If you argue that Unicorns exist, we only have to show how your arguments have holes in them and there is no sufficient reason for me to believe in them.
mike bustamante that’s because atheist are not required to give counter evidence for your god claim. That’s not our job. It’s your job to give the evidence and if you haven’t met your burden of proof, so literally every single religion on this planet, then we can say we reject your claim, we don’t need to provide counter evidence lmao
Raphael Lataster : "There's no evidence for the universe to have a beginning, and there's no evidence for the universe to be infinite." Hmmmm.....
There is no evidence that there ever was a state of nothingness or that such a state is even possible.
There is no evidence that the stuff that our universe is made of began to exist.
Atheists be like, "Before the Universe existed, there was nothing".. 😂
What came before nothing? How can something come out of nothing? 😂😂😂
@@BuvazoiSimboguan The argument would be that time only exists within the universe, there's no such a thing as before the universe. It's also impossible to prove that nothing can ever come out of nothing since we can't study nothing.
There is lots of evidence for that
Ok Im over half way into it and although I always enjoy Trent's debates, this one is a non-starter. Raphael isn't even debating. Trent described it as a shotgun approach, but I think the shotgun was loaded with confetti. His approach is a very inefficient and long-winded retreat to the basic atheist position that there is no scientific proof of God's existence. He never gets out of the gate beyond that.
The most interesting comment he made came near the beginning. He said it made little sense why God would create someone like him. I find it ironic that he would say this, because while his performance it this specific debate wasnt the clearest example, anyone who has studied Hegel could easily see why the atheist position functions in service of God. Theism in a vacuum would be pointless for this existence. Whereas the counterbalance the atheist provides (or in Hegelian terms, the antithesis) allows for growth, movement and greater understanding.
Good job, Trent
+AJ Zepp
‘His approach is a very inefficient and long-winded retreat to the basic atheist position that there is no scientific proof of God's existence.’
It is not true that there is no scientific proof of God's existence. But the fact is that when any proof is offered, it is usually ignored by the atheistic community.
sekharpal.wordpress.com/2016/01/11/is-fine-tuning-actually-required-for-proving-the-existence-of-god
AJ Zepp Trent couldn't argue his way out of a paper bag. What stupid reasons he gives. How about some actual EVIDENCE for the existence of his magical, invisible god?
Knowledge of God's existence would preclude the need for faith. There is value in the exercise of faith, and through that process we are provided evidence, which then in turn further fuels our faith. That's likely not a compelling argument for you and other atheists, but it's proven quite effective in terms of how Ive gone about my own life. I'm not a strong enough person to have blind faith in anything. But Im also very open minded and see benefit in examing all possibilities and likelihoods. That led me to the writings of CS Lewis about 20 years ago. Mr Lewis approaches Christianity and God from a very cerebral perspective. I dont usually respond to the "rah-rah" type of Christianity. It's just not me. I need to be able to use reason and logic, and if I can't see the value and/or sense in something, chances are I wont find it compelling either. Particuarly the book "Mere Christianity" really helped me to work through some struggles I had, most notably the concept of free will.
We'll have to agree to disagree on Trent. I'm not always his biggest fan, especially the way he's handled himself on the Catholic Answers radio show, but I find him generally pretty well prepared and thought-out.
Latester concedes both supernaturalism and monotheism himself so there's no need to.
Tejas Green,Yes the only "evidence" you get are words, words, words.
Raphael was taken to Catholic School by the "Council of Trent."
Well played Trent.
Raphael gets owned.
Tercero 316
Actually Trent was schooled and destroyed by a real Ancient Historian...Dr Richard Carrier BA,MA,MPhil,PhD...Trent is just another self deluded Apologist who pretends to know something he can't .... Apologetics arnt facts..check your sources!
@@rationalsceptic7634 HAHAHAHHA bro thanks for the laugh 😂😂😂
@@mauriciorocha5360
Paul only talks about Revelation..a Jewish Sky God..he never met Christ..so where is the evidence for God or the supernatural?
Most Ancient Historians...agree with Carrier,read:
There is no historical corroboration for Trents claims outside the Bible,ok
ruclips.net/video/7xVBldyy_Oo/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/VOty4bUPTPQ/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/Q34SvWcurWk/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/0aUYUK9WXiA/видео.html
ruclips.net/p/PL3IOkNR8_9gpQa5teO1xQANB-3MiY17uk
ruclips.net/video/_Mma8HDVA9I/видео.html
@@rationalsceptic7634 bro please, we can do better than carrier. Carrier is pain.
@@mauriciorocha5360
Carrier went to better Universities than Trent who has no training in Ancient History or Science...the Universe needs no divine cause or Gods to explain anything..God has no explicatory Power ok..it is all just metaphysical Apologetics and semantic claptrap..we invent Gods and Religions..ok
Carrier never said Christ never existed..only that he used modern historical methods to give a value of 1/3 not Zero ok
We actually have more evidence Socrates existed than Christ!
Carrier is so honest,he has refuted Atheist Cranks..so why mock him?
Carrier also is peer reviewed Author who has published in august Journals..he also shared all his findings in front of top Scientists,Philosophers and Theologians..many now are Agnostics,so why are you mocking and misrepresenting him?
Read his fucking Books...he has schooled Licona,Horn and caught William Lane Craig lying and inventing evidence that doesnt exist,ok
If we had great evidence for God,why hasnt Trent won Awards?
Carrier would believe,if the evidence was better...Ontological dualism is a myth!
Im a searching Agnostic..I have studied Maths,Physics and Philosophy at 3 UK Universities!!
Raphael cracks me up-skips every challenge and cannot even address the simplest of contentions. The Dawkins dogma has been replaced by shrugs and "skipping".
I agree. Raphael sounds very incoherent and unprepared. Seems like he just came up with the arguments off the top of his head without any preparation prior.
Yeah that's what it sounds like to you because he is way over your head. I understand exactly what he is saying. His opponent is making a deduction without evidence he doesn't need to argue against faries if he doesn't believe in magic.
@@cjfilmproductions cause your a bias dweeb
@@fredricthomas6654 more name calling from an idiot.
@@winstonsmiththx1138 atheist are so dam hypocritical; they do the most name-calling of any group. So your damn right I'm going to call atheist names. For, if they cannot take it, they shouldn't dish it out...dweeb!
“There are other possibilities so I don’t have to argue.”
That's actually correct. If there are twelve options, then there are twelve options. It doesn't mean we just pick one and run with it.
@@dharmadefender3932 no because without investigation or argumentation you don’t know if any of those presented options are true or false.
@@goodcatholicboyowo4121 No, without EVIDENCE you don't, and that's correct.
@@dharmadefender3932 a bit presumptuous of you to say there’s “no evidence”.
@@goodcatholicboyowo4121 Well, then you should show it.
I'm not really sure what Lataster came to debate, but it was definitely NOT "Does God Exist?". Much of what he "argues" assumes a deity, and then he argues which is more probable. It's pretty much like he came out of the gate saying, "I concede the debate, and now I want to argue this other topic to find out which "god" is more likely".
Raphael is arrogant and out of his league. Trent blew him out of the water
Where exactly do you think Raphael dropped the ball?
When Raphael says: we don't need to talk about the argument for and against god anymore because he is willing to accept them and grant supernaturalism. isn't that admitting there is God?
juice01 No, that's admitting supernaturalism. That leaves us with every single possibility except naturalism. That's what the problem is. Trent only argues for supernaturalism, not for his god.
Johannes De Grote The title of the vid is called: Does God Exist. That's all.
juice01 I agree. It isn't "does the supernatural exist?"
Saying 'I don't know if objective morality exist' is an objective statement..
When you believe in nothing, amazingly the words that come out sound like nothing to.
Atheists don't believe in nothing. They just don't believe in your god. If god doesn't exist, then it is you who believes in nothing.
Can I say Trent is a proof that God exist. He is simply amazing!
What if Trent is just amazing because he's made himself an amazing guy?
Trent Horn is not amazing; he is a delusional, religious idiot. Dan Barker is amazing! He literally destroyed Trent Horn on at least two occasions!
@@SuperVideoman71 Hey man, where do I get what you smoked?
Hello, iBuzzinga. I do not smoke anything-legal or illegal-so I am not going to be able to help you out there.😁 In any event, c’mon, everyone knows that Trent Horn is nothing more than a lightweight apologist. I will admit he seems like a nice guy and stuff, but all he has to offer is words, philosophy, and delusional concepts. He never has anything real or substantial to put on the table. I have even seen some of his debates where he repeatedly says, “If god exists, then . . . “ So, often, he sounds like he does not even believe god exists himself! Anyhow, I hope that you and everyone you care about stay safe during this coronavirus event.
@@SuperVideoman71 then I would highly suggest you check out his channel 'Counsel of Trent' where he debunks protestant anti-catholicism. You'll see how much he 'brings to the table'.
Go Trent! Love from a Protestant who loves his Roman Catholic brethren :)
So basically Mr. Lataster isn't sure what he believes...accepts himself as an infallible expert when it comes to what makes "a good argument"... And made no arguments. Only Trent Horn actually showed up for this debate. What a waste of time. "I don't accept that" is not a valid argument.
Trent finally got him on the Occam's razor, because all he could say was...yeah I don't accept that.
Everyone take a shot of scotch every time Rafael says "Probability" lol
Or after every time he says "ad hoc" just kill me fam
i'm gonna need more scotch
or a-shume
While you are doing all that, you are missing his case. Maybe that is the subconscious intention all along.
@@juliamae9 😂😂😂😂😂
Lataster came right out of the gate arrogant and hurling insults. Maybe William L. Craig won't debate him because nobody has ever heard of him 😂
I m gonna make a probabilistic argument: It is extremely probable , that mr. Latester was completely destroyed in this debate.
Jaroslav Babik Agreed
+Jesse Mancinone so now it is even more probable
Clearly we aren't watching the same debate then.
+fanghur yeah, that s also very probable
When, or if, you and Horn work out Latester's line of reasoning, and attempt to address it honestly, you'll realise how wrong you are and how worried you should be.
It seemed like Lataster either didn't want to debate the argument at hand or didn't know what the argument even was. I hope Trent Horn can debate Sam Harris sometime soon.
Wow Trent is a great debater, I had no idea😮! I will be praying for the atheist, you all should too💙
What atheist? There was no atheist in this debate. It is quite obvious you ignored everything Lataster said. He mentioned many times that he was agnostic and not atheist.
He said he is atheist in the beginning of his opening statement after Trent horn concluded his opening statement
Did they not agree beforehand exactly what they would be debating?
Steve Frantsen yes, great observation. It seems no, it was either not clear or one of them didn’t stick to the topic
Happens all the time. Humans do what they want
As usual, Mr. Horn was logical, cool, calm, and collected during this event. The premises he offered were cogent, and aside from the simply sophomoric reluctance on the part of Mr. Lataster to accept any evidence for the affirmative, any reasonable critic would be hard pressed to title Mr. Horn anything but the champion of this debate. In the end, the fact that so much painstaking effort is spent by atheists and agnostics in debating, and moreover, dismissing any evidence presented by Christians for a loving and all-powerful God only proves that each of us is searching and desiring something more than a secular/temporal life. Otherwise, why would we care so much? There's hope!!
I am an agnostic and think Trent utterly embarrassed this dude.
I think Raphael wants to believe. But then the cool kids would kick him out of the club.
theBradlands 😂
theBradlands : you mean have blind faith..??? Hahahahaha...
@@gregrhodes6802 there is no 'blind faith', per se, in theism. Every mainstream monotheistic religion has their own rational premise as to why they believe what they believe.
Mr. Horn presented actual “arguments” - whether I agree or disagree with those arguments is beside the point. Rafael made “assertions” and statements - not arguments. That was the major difference in the first 30 minutes of the debate. I think most of the atheists in the audience would have done a better job.
Judging by the comments from atheists for this video, I think you give them too much credit
Arguments aren’t evidence.
Mr. Lataster was lambasted in his sorry face in this debate. It's a pity he was not saved by his speculative probabilities.
No no, it's a good thing. He is converting now, isn't he?
Trent Horn speaks the truth, and he has many evidence for God's existence!!
Raphael lost the debate!!!
Christ God glory be to you and thank you for the privilege to be created by You Lord!!!!!
Oh god....
AgapeLove,if there was any good evidence for gods existence there would not be these endless debates,about the IDEA of god,which is what you have.
No, if people would have faith in Christ God then there is no needs for the debate.
Oh please even people who claim to follow christ don't agree on how exactly that is done.
@@frankwhelan1715 There is. The miracles of Lourdes and in Guadalupe and other Marian Apparitions. As well as Eucharistic Miracles. The miracles of San Padre Pio. Atheists dont bother accepting it because it doesnt fit their ideology.
Trent is amazing!
Does God exist?
In the affirmative: Trent horn.
In the affirmative in order to catch his opponent off guard on a totally different topic: Raphael Lataster.
Thank you Mr. Lataster for the debate. Because of your arguments you have made me stronger in my faith. God speed Trent. Keep up the great work.. We will be praying for you. If Lataster truly wants to believe than he would not be so dissmisive and would actually look at all the evidences out there which he or Carrier could not cover in their lives.
Wow, Mr. Lataster got absolutely crushed by Mr. Horn, I feel bad for him.
I dont thing saying "Blah Blah Blah" during a debate helps ur case at all!
Amazing job Mr. Trent
This atheist guy is not arguing, He is just dismissing staff, I hope he provides some arguments latter.
“Probability” that’s all I heard from this guy.
I learned so much. Thank you SUCS for this great free video.
wait wasn't Dawkins the one who refused to debate William Lane Craig.
Hasdruban Pllumaj I believe so
Exactly!
Just listening to the first few minutes of Lataster's opening, and the primary thing that jumps out at me is that he seems to deny human experience itself as evidence for anything. Also, he speaks so fast he gives no evidence at all, just allegations of probability (or 'greater probability', whatever that means). A lot of sophistry. He's also spending a lot of time addressing things other than the topic of the debate! Entirely non-responsive. This guy is an academic?
Yeah I’m sure Craig was shaking in his boots with your invite, he probably just values his time.
Atheists are like a family of mice that lives in a grand piano. For a while they believed that someone outside of the piano created the wonderful sounds.
This belief goes on until one "smart" mouse discovered that the strings create the sounds. This mouse studied the strings further, that the shorter the strings the higher the pitch of the sound.
However, despite how deep this mouse's study was about the theory of the strings, he never realized that the strings made the sounds because of the hammers, and someone have to move the hammer in order to move the strings.
Trent took charge just as expected. Thank you Raphael for increasing my faith. I'm praying for you brother.
Great debate. Both debaters scored points, but in the end I think Trent Horn was more effective and convincing. I will say that it was great to see a familiar face in the audience of one of my former colleagues at UNDA.
Bravo Trent Horn, una bella mente al servizio di Dio!
This guy came to a "does God exist?" debate to take the negative position, but he thinks he has no responsibility to make any arguments, and he eventually became angry because he was being forced to debate about the topic of the debate. This was not a debate about pantheism or whatever this guy kept trying to shift the debate to. Really poor performance.
A longer cross examination would have made this debate better because it felt like the two debaters were arguing two different things at times.
Raphael-I-dont-think-I-have-to-prove-that.-And-the-fact-that-the-Theists-havent-dealt-with-it-is-a-big-problem-they-arent-taking-seriously.-Lataster
Great job, Mr. Horn.
Ralph is a tad condecending here, but his opening statement was on point and ended this "debate" right then and there.
But I guess given the channel's name, people chose their "winner" and just went with it.
For example: 1:03:41 No Trent, you don't argue what we observe "logically to the conclusion". We haven't observed something coming from nothing. But, you're absolutely right, a deductive argument is fine as long as you can show the premises are true. You haven't shown the premises are true, ergo you have no (deductive) argument.
Likewise 1:12:09 Trent, you make an argument, that "the past is made succesfully day by day" and since you can't count an infinite number of days in the past, ergo the universe had a beginning. But again, you have not shown your premise to be true, namely, that the past can only be made by counting the number of days which must be finite in the past. Again, you are not reasoning "logically to the conclusion" but reasoning backwards; starting with a conclusion (universe must have a beginning) and coming up with a false premise (the past is made by adding finite days).
Also, 57:21 is just pure gold.
57:21 is Trent Horn letting his veil slip for a second and thinking for himself. A rare occurrence indeed. Gave me a good chuckle.
I think that the problem with most of the questions on "if there is a God then why this and why that" stem from the fact lack of understanding of the GOD of Christianity. As Horn said, God is omnipotent, sovereign, timeless, perfect in every facet, when one accepts this fact then it is easy to see how lacking we are in terms of intellect, understanding and ability compared to God. If we, humans, can FULLY grasp and understand what God is doing, then He is not GOD. The God we worship and believe in as Christians is too magnanimous and powerful, and supreme to be contained in a lowly creature's mind.
GOD LOVES US ALWAYS. WE SAVED OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF OUR BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. LET US PRAY THE HOLY ROSARY EVERY DAY, MY FRIENDS. THANK YOU SO MUCH SIR TRENT HORN FOR EVERYTHING. GOD BLESS YOU ALWAYS. AMEN.
I'm an atheist and love Latester (Trent's pretty cool too), but I I'm disappointed in Raphael's performance. I do agree with what he says, but think he could have directly argued against many of trent's positions.
Lataster should know that a first-cause argument suggests that there are different senses of the word "god." People call Zeus a god. But not even ancient Greeks believed that if Zeus exists, he's the first cause. If Zeus existed, he had a natural father. But in the theological sense, of "the first cause," "first" means "most fundamental." The first cause isn't a cause that precedes the second, third causes. Classical theists believe that God gives other causes their causal power. They depend on God for that power. God's causal is built into him. He doesn't get it from another source.
Thanks for the video debate. I think that you should have allowed more cross examination time between the two debaters and less audience question time.
There's really no point as Raphael keeps dodging the questions anyway. Trent needs a better more engaged opponent. Not sure if there are any in the atheist side of the debate.
Trent did a great job. I agree with him Raphael did not have any arguments.
53:48 The "cross examination", or back-and-forth, is what I came for, so here it is.
So my question is this: If Raphael saw a limb grow from nothing, he says he would believe in God. But the question then arises, "What do you do with all you believe at this moment in time?" What I am asking is if he is currently arguing all these certain points, would he be able to argue to the contrary once he saw a miracle occur? He would still have all these hypothesis that he so confidently espouses to deal with in his mind. Would a miracle suddenly negate this all in his mind? Would what he argues now become moot to him?
I think the first word he said when he was little was "probability"
Overall, a decent discussion. I felt that Trent was strong in his arguments but he could have dive into the psychological aspects of theism but that may be outside his forte. For example, how can you calculate the probabilistic of love or forgiveness...
Raphael did a decent job as well. I think the greatest flaw of his argument was that he stated "I am non-resistant non-believer." at 43:50. This statement has many fallacies or innate human flaws, particularly psychologically speaking. At the end where there was an open question and a lady asked him something of "could God have revealed himself to you but you didn't notice it?" The problem with saying that he is a non-resistant non-believer is that humans are prone to being resistant to change, especially when it deals with personalities or behaviors. I have to deal with physicians and patients dispute and it is incredible how resistant patient can be to changes, especially one that has been proven time and time again to be better for patient's outcome and better quality of life. E.g. smoking. It is incredibly difficult to quit smoking and it takes most patients at least 5 times before they obtain complete abstinence from it. This is an addiction of a substance but who can argue that there is not an "addiction" to a hard-wired thought process that is difficult to change.
Regardless, his statement of non-resistant reflects a few things:
1) his arrogance like the Pharisees who demanded "signs.
2) his own ignorance of his hard-wired resistance to change or revelation of God
3) both of the above
4) he suffers from a delusional disorder, albeit unlikely
However, I believe there is hope for Raphael.
Saint Raphael, pray for us!
Raphael didn't present any arguments at all lol
@@RealAugustusAutumn He did, but they aren't very good.
I was confused from the beginning with Lataster. He never argues what the topic is about "Does God Exist?" All he talks about is alternatives to a Christian God. So any other kinds of Gods can exist just not the Christian God. He would rather believe in polytheistic Gods that have much more less evidence of existence than the Christian God. So, if he wants to argue that the Christian God does not exist because there is no proof he would also have to make the same argument of polytheistic Gods needing to prove their existence. Great job Horn!!!
I think you don't entirely understand Lataster's case. He does not say that any other kind of God can exist but the Christian one, he claims that the only thing Horn's arguments would show if they were sound, is that the supernatural exists. Horn's job is then to somehow demonstrate how his arguments favour the Christian God over any of the other options that he hasn't ruled out yet, which is wasn't able to do.
Also, it isn't Lataster's job to disprove the existence of any Gods, since he takes the agnostic position here. Horn is the one with the claim, all Lataster has to do is show that Horn hasn't made his case.
Johannes De Grote That can work both ways. I don't think Lataster has made his case to disproof the existence of God. And if you listen to the very beginning he says he's an atheist and 2 minutes later says he is agnostic which are 2 very different things. His whole arguments were a contradiction to his own paradigm of beliefs. And during the cross examination Horn stumped him many times. In the end he sounded very confused while Horn was consistent with his arguments. He never deviated from his stance while Lataster was all over the place.
Lataster was under no obligation to disprove any God. The one who makes the positive claim has to carry the burden of proof. By the way, atheism and agnosticism aren't mutually exclusive positions; they often go together. In my case as well: I'm an agnostic atheist. This means I neither claim to know nor believe. The same is true for Lataster as far as I can gather.
Lataster purposefully made multiple concessions very quickly in order to make it easier on Horn; he granted supernaturalism and he granted mono-theism, both in contradiction with his view. He did most of the work for his opponent actually. He correctly pointed out that the arguments Horn provided do NOT provide us with any sort of proof or evidence of the God of classical theism.
Horn's deductive case was completely unsound; Horn tried to saddle his opponent with the burden of proof by claiming that if he couldn't show the premises were false, his argument would stand. This is obviously fallacious reasoning. Lataster did indeed address most of his premises, revealing a rather poor understanding of science on Horn's part. Horn didn't provide evidence the universe is contingent, had a beginning, came from nothing, or that substance dualism should be accepted, or that the A theory of time should be accepted. All are simply assumed.
Aside from that, the deductive arguments used by Horn can be used to support a multitude of God-concepts, not just the God of classical theism. The main point Lataster made is that Horn HAS to somehow rule-out every other conceivable God-concept before he can possibly arrive at the conclusion it must be the God of classical theism. Or at least provide a way to tip the scales in favour of his God in the form a probabilistic case. That is very difficult, especially because, as he pointed out, other God-concepts have less baggage and are therefore more probable than Horn's. If a set of observations, such as the those made by Horn, can be equally well explained by multiple concepts, the one with the fewest assumptions should be preferred, and there are a lot of options that come before Yahweh.
Raphael: I think that's been at least my best debate. The best opponent (Trent Horn) that I have been up against
To everyone that thought Trent Horn won the debate then think on this. Could he have been replaced by a Muslim or Jew making exactly the same arguments for their god or how would these arguments differ? I accept that these are all Abrahamic religions that supposedly share the same god but Trent was unintentionally making an argument for a deism not Christian theism. Hitchens dealt with this by saying to get from deism to theism “you’ve got all your work ahead of you”. Raphael’s argument was that there is no evidence for the supernatural but if you accept it is possible then you have to accept other possibilities deism, pantheism, monotheism etc. I think Trent Horn’s debating style was better but Raphael Lataster won the argument.
In response to all those who complained that Raphael supposedly "did not respond" to the arguments or "dismissed" them.
For starters, he did respond to them in his initial statement. He talked about the contingency argument, first cause argument, substance dualism argument, fine tuning argument, moral argument, etc.
As to why Raphael would supposedly "dismiss" these arguments is because they are already worn out. They have been extensively analyzed and there is a lot of literature on the subject, so Trent brought nothing new to the table. They follow a deductive approach with highly debatable premises. Believers and apologists therefore suffer from confirmation bias by forcing premises towards the conclusion they desire, while ignoring that better or equally plausible alternatives exist.
Raphael on the other hand presented a probabilistic approach where he regards Trent's theism as a subset of supernaturalism. He argues that even if supernaturalism is granted, within it there are isms that have better prior probability or general probability than the specific theism of Trent's (who defends the Catholic version of Christianity, but conveniently hides it). Trent for his part did not make a probabilistic analysis at all, although he dared to use the word "probably" loosely as a figure of speech in 10:10. Nor did he dare to respond to the challenges posed by Raphael from a probabilistic point of view.
The fact that the critics of Raphael's exposition have overlooked this speaks volumes about their current knowledge of Christian apologetics. Raphael even mentioned a few apologists who are using probabilistic approaches in their debates, something that Trent clearly suffers from. Raphael not only debated with Trent, but also with other apologists at the same time.
Putting aside the issue of the merits of the arguments made by each side, the negative position in this debate seems to overlook the need to be persuasive in his presentation: slow down, cut out the hubris, and spend some time developing his main premise - which appears to stand on inductive reasoning.
I am an agnostic non-theist, but I think that if someone "won" the debate, it was Trent. Further, I think that classical theism deals with the alternative "isms" fairly well (read Ed Feser's Five Proofs of the Existence of God). If any sort of supernaturalism is true, I think it is classical theism.
Really it was a great debate. Good job Trent
It's funny how Raph keeps promoting himself and acting as if he has authority to critique.
Raphael Lataster, showed here is not Atheist or what have you, he is just confused.
“You NEED to...”
“You SHOULD...”
“You OUGHT TO...”
By the way, no objective morality.
Ok buddy. Nice try. I’ve yet to hear an atheist that isn’t grounded on arbitrary morality
"I want to believe in God, but he hasn't convinced me."
Proceeds to get smoked in a debate about God's existence.
God's trying to convince him. Raphael just won't listen.
Two things:
(1) Probability ≠ reality. Just think about drawing a card from a deck. No matter which card you get, you were 51x more likely to have gotten *any* other card...yet there you are, with the one you got, and not one of the others. It simply doesn't follow that because something is mathematically more probable that that means it is true.
(2) Mr. Latester says that watching an arm be regrown would prove to him that God existed, but then admits that others might find alternative explanations more plausible. He essentially admits that it would be impossible to imagine any evidence that would irrefutably and without question establish for all atheists that God exists. Does this not mean, then, that it is and always will be a matter of personal interpretation as to whether a particular event or experience is evidence of God? If so, should the atheist not then consider as evidence that billions of people--respected philosophers and scientists among them--have already determined that their own experiences and observations testify to them that God is real? Again, if all potential evidence of God ultimately comes down to a personal interpretation to be made by the individual observer, such that there actually can not be proof in the traditional scientific sense and personal interpretation of an event or experience as Divine in origin is the best anyone could ever do in the way of establishing the existence of God, then shouldn't the determination that God does exist, already made by billions of people across the globe and over the centuries, count as evidence *for God*?
Well, the vast majority of people who ever existed believed in other gods and thought that YOUR god dies not exist.
If anything all those accounts would be evidence that there can’t be just one god.
Seems to me between Mr. Lataster and the other atheist you debated that modern atheism has shifted its position to Skepticism without declaring it. Both of these debates are less-so argued from the atheist position than in the skeptical position, which is rather questionable since they aren’t actually declaring their intentions. All Horn and other debaters have to do against modern atheists is to demonstrate the contradictions of Skepticism and their entire foundation has issues.
PERSONAL NOTES (from @thivan2000)
0:00 Moderator's speech
3:58 Trent's opening statement
Trent's philosophical arguments of the existence of God
6:04 Reason #1: The Universe exists.
8:30 Reason #2: The Universe began to exist.
11:28 Reason #3: The Universe contains predictable order.
13:22 Reason #4: The Universe contains extrinsic dignity and extrinsic evils.
17:45 Trent's opening conclusion
18:26 Rafael's opening statement
"I'm sorry, I think he's a good guy, I don't have anything against him, I'm not being biased but help me here. I didn't clearly get his point of argument. He was all over the place." -@thivan2000
32:00 Trent's 1st affirmative rebuttal.
39:10 Rafael's 1st negative rebuttal
46:15 Trent's 2nd affirmative rebuttal
50:40 Rafael's 2nd negative rebuttal
53:48 Cross examination
* 55:48 Trent asks: "What would constitute evidence for God's existence?"
1:10:40 Q&A from the audition
1:40:00 Trent's closing statement
1:44:05 Rafael's closing statement
1:48:30 Debate concludes. Speech by Francis Tamer, President, Sydney University Catholic Society.
Is it just me or did Raphael not actually put the negative case for "Does God exist?", which was he was invited to the debate to do. Throwing big words out and saying he doesn't believe Trents case is not how a debate should work - shame really. It's normally the audience who weigh up the two cases put forwards
@TheCosmicWarrior the person in the affirmative never presented a proper premise to argue against. He kept making assertions that Raphael explained would equally explain other concepts.
Interesting debate. I watched an old Craig vs Hitchens debate in the last few days, and preferred this one because it was more philosophical - and Trent is so on point.
I will say however that I don’t know why theists accept any part of the premise of the “inefficiency of creation” question. God is outside of time, so there is no inefficiency. A billion years is the same as an instant to God. It is only our limited minds that views time expanses as long, or the size of the universe as so large. Our understanding of these is shaped by our own lifespan and our own size relative to the rest of the universe.
Lataster knew his entire gameplan was going to fail early on. He equivocated on the subject of theism vs other forms of "supernaturalism" as his main selling point. I'm not sure he expected Horn to clearly address those philosophical distinctions in his opening remarks. Lataster never deviated from his plan or evolved in the debate. He double downed and tried to casually dismiss Horn's arguments, using feigned confidence and condescension to support his view. Yet he never actually debated Horn. It was kind of weird, but not totally unexpected after his remarkably tone deaf stunt with the empty seat for William Lane Craig. There's a reason Craig is not going to waste his time with this guy. He simply wants to build his brand. The latter mentioned theater, the false modesty of his eagerness to convert upon proper evidence, the equivovation and obfuscation, and the hand waving dismissals while yielding his time all made for a very sophomoric and poor showing.
Horn is still a bit green and rough around the edges in some respects. But he absolutely wiped the floor with Lataster.
We know that the universe is finite from Science, the big bang theory.
His starting argument is the same "Something can't come from nothing" argument that is almost always used, and has been answered. No, something did not come from nothing, that is not what most scientists are saying.
Than whatever that "something" is, is not limited by time, space, and matter, since those came into being. Sounds a lot like.....God.
James Wallace Time is a dimension, and if there is no such thing as time outside of OUR universe (a lot of theories, multiverse etc) it is not impossible for things to be unrestricted by it. The multidimensional theory could explain this by there being a fourth dimension, being the third dimension + time.
Wellstar Time is a dimension. So is space. According to the Borde-Goethe-Vilenkin Theorem, matter -- like time -- does not go on forever. It has a beginning. There is a singularity where no matter comes before. This implies that math for multiverse theory is faulty, and invalid. The math does not work.
Time, space, and matter have a beginning in other words. What we know -- in our dimensions -- is that the most likely inference to what created these singularities is not bound by time, space, and matter, for if they were, they'd be another contingent concept, which never properly answers the contingency problem.
God Bless
James Wallace But why would "your" god be true? Isn't that extremely unlikely considering the thousands of different gods produced by man for thousands of years?
If there is a god, or something like a god, a being that is not bound by the laws of physics, it is almost impossibly the christian god. Or the islam god, or the hindu god(s)
Can you argument for the existence of YOUR god? Not A god, YOUR god? For why pray in church if the christian god, which is an almost impossibly unlikely being to exist, does not exist?
Sure. Good question. In fact, it's THE question, so very good pointing it out. My specific reason is limited to history. Only one person -- in the whole history of the human race -- claimed to be God incarnate and actually got away with it. That of course is the man, Jesus Christ. Muhammand never said this, nor did Buddha, or any other human being with any legitimacy, but Jesus Christ did.
That man changed the world forever, and did so without violence, hatred, or conquest. In fact, his message of compassion changed the entire Western World for 2,000 years.
I guess the ultimate question comes down to, "Is what is said of Jesus true or not true."
I can't answer that for you. I can only speak for myself.
God Bless
Rapahel Lataster simply ignored all the arguments and refused to debate any of them. Why would anyone feel he won? Also, he brought up irrelevant topics like mythology or religion which is a completely different subject. I don't see how those subjects relate at all too philosophical, or theological debates for the existence of a transcendent personal reality.
These arguments aren't designed to prove magic exists in the universe but rather believe in a transcendent personal being or reality that is not contingent and does not need anything other than itself to exist. It's pure existences! I don't see what that has to do with thor or 1000 of other gods or religion...nor do I see any relation to fairies dragons or ants. In fact Lantaster spent the entire debate refusing to see which position was stronger and more compelling to believe.
“Embrace the absurdity!” Lol atheism at its finest
Trent defeated the atheist easily...atheism is nonsense.
1:28:42 the problem with this analogy is: we have only observed one universe , while we have observed many Marksmen. We can't make assertions about the probability of an event if we don't know all the possibilities.
I think the marksmen would be the "fine-tuned laws" of the universe, not various possible universes.
If one cannot be held accountable for not believing God exists, due to invincible ignorance, then wouldn't it be better to never tell your child about god's existence, so they won't burn in hell for not believing?
Raphael pointed out the main issue. If there is a God who is all knowing, etc, etc, etc, why would he KNOWINGLY create someone who questions the existence of God.
I think it would be awesome if God revealed Himself to me. I wonder why he apparently reveals himself to some people but not others? If he revealed Himself to me I would believe.
It's even worse than that. Apparently, many atheists are made in such a way that they are unable to accept the god-concept based on any evidence so far provided. This means that if the creator is defined as one who wants humans to accept his existence and establish a personal relationship, this god either does not exist or does not want a reasonable portion of the human race to be able to accept his existence. Either way the atheist or agnostic is perfectly justified in his disbelief. In fact, in their case unbelief is the only reasonable option.
Thanks for your reply. I was raised Catholic. So there is this sense of fear that if I don't believe and practice my faith, I am damned to hell for all eternity. I think some call this Catholic guilt.
Anita Rushlow That's exactly what I went through when I first tried to let go of the idea of the Christian God. I helped me to realise that my conviction wasn't in my own hands. I can't very well lie to myself and my family the rest of my life and act as though I believe. If God wants me, he can have me, but he's going to have to convince me of his existence first. Until that time, the only option open to me is to not believe.
I understand. We cannot force ourselves to believe in something. Just like we cannot force ourselves to like vanilla ice cream when we don't (and prefer chocolate) Some may argue this is much too simplistic. But I think it helps make the point clear.
Wow... Trent Horn win again!!!