Your ability to absolutely savage their argument in the most calm and gentle manner is probably the main reason I started following you. it's an impressive skill.
when I started watching atheist RUclipsrs about a decade ago, they were all if the "let's dunk on the dumb creationist" variety. That was fun for a while. your channel was a breath of fresh air, meeting Christians where they are (in a totally over used but appropriate phrase), and speaking respectfully even to the mot outrageous claims. that takes an impressive patience and point of view that can probably only come from a former Christian.
I love when Xtians use the whole “You’re offended because it’s the truth” song and dance. As I’m fond of saying: “Calling your irrational beliefs ‘The Truth’ doesn’t make them the truth anymore than calling a car a tree makes a car a tree.”
@Brandon Letzco when it comes to gender and it's roles, what would you say is the truth of them and the truth for those individuals? is it the way the people behave, present, and/or display themselves privately & publicly or is it entirely dependant upon their sex & genetics? or do you have a more nuanced view of gender that doesn't fit within this? if so please explain.
@UCgpW5c6hIdweGq_NdzMHe3Q, writes _"It's not really surprising since people today think calling a man a woman makes him an actual woman and vice versa."_ So you're saying that before I refer to someone using masculine or feminine pronouns that I need to test their DNA looking to see if they have XX or XY* chromosomes? Or is closely inspecting their genitalia going to be enough? * I'll leave what to do about people with XXY or other variations for a future discussion.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they to carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
@@keithburns6602 Atheism is simply a statement of disbelief... Disbelief carries NO 'burden of proof' whatsoever, because it makes no positive statement whatsoever... All it says is, "I don't believe your fairy-tales!" (And I'm being polite by saying 'fairy-tales' instead of 'lies'...)
@@keithburns6602 Because a) the fairy-tales which are presented are not credible... and b) atheists are not gullible. Why should anyone expect anyone else to believe something so outlandish and bizarre as fairy-tales when they offer absolutely no evidence to even support their (apparenly false) claim to 'truth'? If I told you there was a purple, seven-headed dragon that shits gold bricks living in my shed would you believe it? Without evidence?
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
@@keithburns6602 No, it doesn't, because it is its own proof since it is a question about someone's own personal beliefs. "I am not convinced of your God claim." "Oh yeah, prove it!" "Okay, here's me. Here's me not being convinced of your God claim. And here's me living my life exactly as someone who isn't convinced of your God claim would." If you want to talk about *why* your specific God claims don't convince someone, that's a different conversation, but it usually/always boils down to fact that the God claims in question are unsubstantiated assertions, logical fallacies, provably incorrect, trite, non-exclusive, or some mix of the above, all of which fail to meet a reasonable burden of proof and which the person making that claim would never accept as sufficient evidence for any other religion's God claim.
Prove that the truth must be believed. The extent to which you can do that is your true epistemological standard. I’ve seen people use faith. It can be quite valid. Most atheists use pragmatism. That’s valid too I suppose. But then you must also allow yourself to be convinced if someone makes an argument that Christianity is the most pragmatic life philosophy, which I think can be made.
Sean: "Anyone who asks you why torturing kids is wrong needs a therapist" Also Sean: "Sure God sends kids to get tortured in hell all the time it's totally fine" Also also Sean: "What's wrong with torturing kids? If I didn't believe in God why wouldn't I just torture kids?" Classic Jeansoning.
Dude. The “got it” clip is PERFECTION. So many times I listen to these people and they don’t even realize those little moments where they slip up and entirely destroy their own argument
@@rjskeptic5273 - I would like to have you explain how it is a false dichotomy other than simply making a claim. Let me be specific. If one believes a thing or series of things are true in the presence of readily disproven facts to the contrary of that belief, then they believe in that which is false. Acknowledging and rejecting falsehoods that were believed is now recognizing that belief was false. Hence, truth.
Wait, in an argument about the meaning and value of truth, their primary defense of a premise is "we just know"? I would say they just failed in their moral obligation to search for truth.
Your mistake there would be the assumption that religious people have any sort of moral obligation to anything whatsoever. Long experience shows the exact opposite. Especially when it comes to the 'truth'; I've never seen a group more divorced from and antithetical to the truth than the religious.
Well i'm afraid you need to dig a bit deeper here. There are indeed things we 'just know' like basic truths of logic or mathematics. The debate would be whether 'God is one of those' and that is actually a challenging question not to be dismissed with a cheap you tube gotcha.
@@bernardwills9674 If you are referring to the three fundamental assumptions of logic, those aren't things we "just know". If you are referring to the logic and mathematics that can be proven after that, again not things we "just know". Admittedly I would not personally be able to logically prove something like 2+2=4. But I am willing to grant that it can be logically proven. Claiming we just know something, is pretty absurd in the context of a formal syllogism. Especially when it's not established we know it. Much of the point in a logical process, is eliminating unneeded assumptions. Probably the claim of just knowing the existence of God, can be worth discussing. But not really in the category of convincing arguments, or compelling logic. One person "just knowing" something, should not convince another that doesn't "just know" that thing.
It is amazing how imprecise the thoughts of the two are. The argument is so unconvincing. I cannot believe that he actually wrote in a book about it and did not realize that it just does not make sense.
@Matthias Frerick been around the internet and social media lately? Qanon, pizzagate, flat earthers, antivaxx, homeopathy, goop, etc. etc. etc. NONSENSE SELLS.
I think most people think that truth needs to be harsh, abrasive,or shocking, especially in the atheist community. You’re ability to tell truth in such a succinct and calm manner is such a breath of fresh air
"How does the search for truth itself point to the existence of God?" 12 seconds into the video and I'm already facepalming, because I sense yet another circular theistic argument coming.
@@timfriesen7014 _"Why do you say that’s a pathetic argument?"_ I say that the "you can't have logic without God" argument is pathetic because it's bullshit. There's no demonstrable need for a deity in order for things like "A = A" or "A != not A" to make sense, and the theists making that argument completely and utterly fail to demonstrate that claim. _"What do suppose theists mean when they say “God”?"_ Why ask me? Ask them. They'll have it mean whatever they want it to mean, even when it's logically impossible. It's just a placeholder for "magic being that can do anything and also for some reason supports my shitty beliefs and morals".
Honestly, I saw my Grandfather on his deathbed, you know what didn't come up as he was dying? Religion. He was sure I was, at the very least Agnostic, and that I didn't support the Church, and that the problem of evil weighed on my mind, not a word. we talked about life, the good times we had. His least favourite Vodka, his favourite brandy we visited with his brother and my mother and uncles. we spent the whole day with him having a good time, as our family came and went saying goodbye. never once did we argue about the existence of god, but if he asked I would have said the truth, his faith could take it. He wasn't convinced when he wasn't dying, hearing me say a discomforting truth that I didn't believe anymore wouldn't rattle his faith in those final moments. Yet he didn't bring it up once, because he didn't want our last parting to be a soured affair. On my end I didn't bring it up either, for very much the same reason, ultimately the best thing to preserve peace and comfort was not seek truth nor lie, but to leave the issue alone. That was the the moral answer, to let bygones be bygones.
18:23 There it is again. "Torturing innocent kids _for fun_ is wrong." They always feel the need to add that "for fun" qualifier even though torturing innocents should be clearly wrong even without it.
Is it wrong to torture one person to save a billion lives? This is why the "for fun" part is added. Because I can absolutely make a hypothetical scenario for every bad act you can think of where it's actually the most moral option. Except if you're doing it for fun, that eliminates all of the potential hypotheticals. You aren't torturing one kid to prevent 10 kids from being tortured, you're doing it for fun.
@@JD-wu5pf Yes, it's still wrong, it's just the lesser of two evils. A better example would be something like unaesthetized surgery done in an emergency, which the child might perceive as torture because they don't understand what is going on, but it is being done specifically for their own overall personal benefit.
From my perspective (a diagnosed schizophrenic) i find the search of truth (not Truth) to be one the most moral pursuits. Now that might very well be because i cannot trust neither my senses, nor my own free thoughts
It's contradictory for a god to both value truth seeking and also hide. As far as I can tell, the god of the Bible values obedience over truth seeking by a wide margin.
This is brilliant! A truth-loving deity would at minimum be truthful about its own existence, rather than being tricksy about is so it can have an excuse to torture people for eternity for getting the wrong answer on the Celestial Quiz.
I know the truth! My god spoke to me as a teenager and showed me the light! I was given the gift of prophesy for my faith! I feel the Divine within me regularly! Not just when reading about the god I love, but when the sun shines on my face! When I am around the things he holds sacred! Did I mention I'm a (n agnostic) Hellenic Pagan and my god is Apollo? Christians say the same things and claim that is proof their religion is true but I told one of them this exact argument and they told me I was delusional...what is so different?
I know the truth, for I read it in a book (O Lord, master of the Universe). With my heart I feel, therefore I need not look (the evidence is chapter and verse). He's the ultimate leader, He never stops to play golf. When He brings an ethnic cleansing, move over Adolf! He likes what I like, and hates what I hate, so ask me what he wants... before it's too late.
All of these "logical" Christian arguments rely entirely on bias. They count on people to just assume that any argument for any sort of divinity is automatically an argument for _their particular_ deity, and they count on other people to let them get away with it due to Christianity's cultural dominance.
*steps out the woods naked wearing a goat skull and eating some grapes* Hail Pan ur right (also agnostic Hellene) In all seriousness Xtian cultural zeitgeist has fucking hard ass time acknowledging other theistic traditions and when they do they promptly see them a vile without really seeing the parallels. IMO I am two steps away from being a feral animal running wild in the Ohio valley region, but I also live in reality and know that my particular view point is purely subjective and personal. Its orthopraxic and has no dogma that I need to follow. Things I do are for me and I know there are no consequences when I don’t do shit. I tend have a lot more in common with Atheists and find their company (outside of maybe other pagans) much more tolerable. Search for truth is subjective and their is no moral obligation to do so, truth as good is also subjective and Xtiants love twist truths to validate their worldview over any other. *eats more grapes and steps back into the woods* Tell Apollo I said ‘what’s good’
I hate it when people say with out God you will be misserable. Some of my lowest points came when I was a deep believer. It wasn’t God or Atheism that made me feel happier it was being diagnosed and getting on Medical help
If we have a moral obligation to find the truth, presumably from their god, then why did their god punish Adam and Eve for eating from the tree of knowledge?
Laws can be dictated, but whether they are immoral or moral requires that we make our subjective moral judgment on them. In some circumstances humans will suspend their judgment and defer to authority - this is actually a children's survival response. When adults do this it is in itself a lazy act - as we determined at the Nürnberg trials "I was just following orders" is unacceptable.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they too carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they too carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
@@keithburns6602 Not at all. If the atheist simply lacks a belief in god or gods, there is nothing to prove. If he asserts that gods do not exist, then the failure of theists to prove the existence of any gods is all the proof of non-existence needed, since the null position is that whatever's existence is questioned does not exist. For example, if I assert that dark matter exists, but provide no proof, you are entitled to say that it doesn't exist without further effort.
Watching this, I'm reminded of the statement some movies and shows use to advertise; "Based on a true story." I realized when I was a child this statement could mean either the story is true, or there really was a story regardless if it was true. Before watching the rest of the video, I expect this point will be confused. For example, "we can state the Bible is a true story," which would be factually correct but ambiguous and meaningless.
If it's ambiguous, it's not meaningless, by definition. Otherwise your statement would be meaningless. I think what you actually meant to say is that the ambiguity of the statement is blurring the lines, to the point it edges on underdetermination between the various meanings. It's equally as useless as a meaningless statement in practice, yet can be easily sort out by asking for clarification, contrary to actually meaningless statements, which must be rephrased entirely.
@@RiiDii Yes, and? I am talking about the various meanings of words, not the multiple attributes that any given concept can accommodate. If one attempts to use multiple meanings of a word at once, it renders the actual meaning of the statement ambiguous, hence why it is considered fallacious, and called the equivocation fallacy. It undermines an argument's ability to transfer truth-values from its premises to its conclusion.
@@lucofparis4819 Really dude? If I said a skunk is black and white, I'm not saying black and white are the same. I said the statement was ambiguous and meaningless, not that meaningless and ambiguous meant the same thing. You somehow arrived at that conclusion all on your own. Don't pin that on me.
I really want to ask him if he thinks that we would have a moral obligation to tell a 1940s German officer the truth about where the Jews were hiding. It seems to me in that scenario that giving up the location of an innocent person to someone who is trying to kill them would be a deeply immoral thing to do. He really has his whole idea of proof backwards. It doesn’t take one success to prove a rule, it takes dozens and dozens of successes to increase the likelihood that a rule holds true. But it only takes one failure to prove a rule false. Finding one example of truth seeking that is morally obligatory does not prove that all truth seeking is morally obligatory, but finding one example where truth seeking is immoral does prove that not all truth seeking is morally obligatory.
Excellent point, I was thinking along the same lines. I don't know how ubiquitous this terminology is, but where I come from we refer to 'white lies', literally lies that cause less of an issue than the truth. The mere existence of a term like this shows how ridiculous his 'truth = objectively morally good/correct' statement is.
Not to defend the original arguments, but he’s not advocating that you always have to tell the truth, but that you are morally obligated to seek the truth. There is a difference.
@@Sage-Thyme I recall the first time I heard the term "white lie": My dad was an on-call nurse, we traveled farther away than he was allowed, and he had a few beers. So they tried to call him in, and he had to call back and lie, telling us that it was a "white lie"... Even at 10 or 12yo I knew it was BS, lost a lot of respect for him that day.
@@Futt.Buckerson That is such an poignant anecdote. I don’t mean to question your judgment, and obviously there’s a ton about your Dad that I don’t know, but maybe wanting to hang out with his family and play hookey from work wasn’t so terrible. Being a parent is an extremely weighty obligation. Even the best parents crack under the density of it now and then. Many take better care to hide it, but your Dad was giving you the gift of showing you that it’s okay for parents to be imperfect. That example might come in handy someday if you yourself are a parent. Again, I don’t mean to moralize. I realize there might be plenty of other context to why you say you lost respect for your Dad.
I'm not sure why Sean McDowell is so excited about this argument. I doubt it will sway any agnostic or atheist. It might be good echo chamber material, but useless otherwise.
Well to be fair there is NO argument that will sway anyone who is an atheist for rational reasons. The only thing that would sway someone with that belief would be incredibly strong evidence that can be replicated and verified with little doubt.
“I’m not sure why Sean McDowell is so excited about this argument… it might be good echo chamber material”. I think you answered your own question there.
Sean isn't excited about the argument, he's excited that a *theoretical physicist* is presenting the argument. He likes the _optics._ The argument is plainly stupid, but then ... they are also both plainly stupid. 🙄
Exactly right about begging the question! Claiming that we must find out whether God exists *because* God says it's important? That's begging the question. This is my criticism of Pascal's Wager. Pascal started with the (unstated) premise that God rewards belief and punishes disbelief. He also relied on the unproven claim that such rewards and punishments are infinite. Both those ideas are conclusions about the nature of God. Give up those conclusions and the whole thing falls apart. Once you admit that it's *possible* that the bible is mistaken about who God is and what God wants, you can't use our understanding of heaven and hell (and what earns you a ticket to either of them) to justify believing in anything. Bionic Dance pointed out that it's just as plausible that God prefers the company of skeptics, hence those are then ones He wants to invite to heaven. If that were the case, then Pascal's Wager is flipped on its head. No matter how small the chance that such a god exists, it is in your best interest to remain skeptical. I could play this game all day. What if God hates sycophants? What if the desire to praise and worship a god is the one thing that God really hates so much that He would send you to hell for it? In that case, Pascal's Wager says you should avoid praising and worshiping at all costs, just in case this version of God happens to be real. In the words of Homer Simpson, "What if we picked the wrong religion? Every week, we're just making God madder and madder."
if my grandma asked me (if I even was at here death bed) if God isn't real, I wouldn't lie. It sounds cruel, sure, but I don't care. I won't tell her something that clearly goes against my conviction. EDIT: I want to give more clarity because I think that is crucial: The idea proposed by the apologist was that the grandma knows that you're an atheist and asks you, is it true that God doesn't exist. In that case, when she knows that I don't believe in God, why would she think that I'd say he exists? That does not make any sense.
@@Soapy-chan_old If said grandparents knew someone was an atheist and then asked them if god was real on their deathbed, the most probable motive would seem to me to be a form of emotional blackmail... using their own impending demise as a means of coercing an admission, however false, that god exists from an atheist. Frankly, I doubt that anyone who was actually dying would do anything quite so petty... though I suppose it could happen as there are certainly some very petty people around.
A few years ago I was asked by a lady in her 90's if I believed. I could not bring mysellf to answer other than "I think this is all we get". She acceoted my answer, I got the impression her belief leaned in that direction.
That was so bad that I can't even formulate a reasonable comment analyzing it. I had more philosophically rigorous arguments from my first grade students. Well done as always.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they too carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
@@keithburns6602 How do you define truth? I generally use a definition not far from the one that Paulogia uses that "truth is that which comports with reality." That is little 't' truth though. I don't believe that humans have access to anything that would be considered big 't' Truth, so I wouldn't ever claim it must be believed. Even for the little 't' variety, I would not claim it "must" be believed in the absence of a goal. "You must believe the truth," is an admonition that makes no sense to me. Why? Conversely, if someone were to say, "if you want to predict what may happen in your life, you should (or must) seek the truth." That is coherent. One still has no obligation to agree with it. In this case, no evidence is necessary because it is definitionally true - "truth is that which comports with reality", so if the goal is to be in line with reality, that is equivalent to speaking the truth. Someone could live in a very terrible reality, however. Their goal might then be to believe those things which made them feel better. In that case, their "obligation" would be to avoid truth.
Well I think the Bible defines “true” as “reliable” or “without deception.” Or perhaps “trustworthy.” Hence faith or trust. Epistemology: Put faith in the trustworthy. It is both a consistent and comprehensive approach. Your approach seems pragmatic. Mine is too actually. Like you said, it depends on goals but I think all humans want a lot of what the Bible can offer.
@@martinmckee5333 I was on mobile yesterday and I'm not sure if you missed my response bc of some error on my end. Truth as the bible defines it means "without deception" or "reliable." Another word might be "trustworthy." Hence trust or faith being a valid epistemology. Why should someone seek to predict what might happen in their life? I think maybe we should in some regards but not every regard. I'd say wisdom tells us that if we can possibly change our future and not risk too too much in doing so, we should do it. But if our chances of changing the future is low, or the risk we have to put in is far too costly, maybe we don't. Christianity allows for a good life now and the possibility that we have changed our entire eternity for the better. Low risk now. I'd argue a high possibility of an actual improvement of our afterlife.
Thanks, Paulogia. I'm so glad you are able to point out the incorrect definitions and logical missteps since I never took philosophy. Listening to the circular logic presented by these two makes my head hurt trying to find the point they went off the rails.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they to carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
Prove that the truth must be believed. The extent to which you can do that is your true epistemological standard. I’ve seen people use faith. It can be quite valid. Most atheists use pragmatism. That’s valid too I suppose. But then you must also allow yourself to be convinced if someone makes an argument that Christianity is the most pragmatic life philosophy, which I think can be made.
@@keithburns6602There is no burden of proof for a claim nobody makes. No atheist claims the truth MUST be believed. You're free to believe a lie if you want to. There is no moral imperative to believe true things, only a pragmatic reason. Believing true things is more useful than believing false things. That's it.
It never ceases to amaze me how anything more than a surface-level knowledge of evolution gives examples that destroy their arguments. Is this why they hate it so.
A small correction. At 36:05 you say "take another tact." The correct phrase is "take another tack" as in turning a boat, tacking against the wind, try another approach.
My ex is open about her belief that being happy is more important than being right, and is happy to believe whatever makes her happy and ignore evidence or proof that conflicts with her happy thoughts. Not all people think truth is ultimately important.
As usual, I had to listen to this a few times. Your responses are simple at first, feeling "intuitive" to me, as an atheist. However, nuance is something I overlook, and my intuition is pretty lousy at finding truth. The subjective vs. the objective is where I get tangled up. Thanks for your in-depth and thoughtful comments about this video. Another of yours which I'm going to download. 😃
I appreciate your proper understanding of "begging the question". A major pet peeve of mine is that far too many people have come to consider it means the same thing as "suggesting the question". Kudos.
Another beautiful, crispy logical and compelling rebuttal, Paul. (But their argument, which you clearly laid out at about 9 minutes, is so ridiculously weak it is almost like shooting fish in a barrel.) And I loved the cartoon of the "comforting lies vs unpleasant truths'. Thank you!
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they to carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
8:36 - Does he even know what "intrinsic" means? I don't think he does. If truth seeking is only intrinsically good because God exists... then it's not "intrinsically" good, is it? It's good because of God's nature.
Two grown up adults who not only still believe in their imaginary friend, but want to convince others that their imaginary friends is real, blather for an hour about the importance of truth. If this is not the pinnacle of irony I don’t know what is.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they to carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
Because they're not trying to seek truth, just affirmation for an already held belief. It's easy to justify anything to yourself especially if you want it to be true. Just because they convinced themselves doesn't mean the argument/analogy was correct, but they believe it was because it sounded great to them when they thought it up in the shower
Yeah, one would think they'd have a greater concern for accuracy, given that there's a word in the New Testament that refers to missing the mark (hamartia), and that word is translated into English as...SIN!
Sometimes I go to spiritualist conventions with my wife. You know what's really odd, they have better arguments and methods for the supernatural than most theist apologist. It's just ironic to me given how formal theist try to make their arguments.
@@Julian0101 well basically its all evidentiary in method, it may not be great evidence but the focus seems to be "thing helps with X or thing gives X result."
Well, most spiritualists don't try to twist their belief into a science, so they could demand from authorities that spiritualism should be taught in schools alongside real science.
I suspect if we boil the argument down, we wouldn't end up with much more than warm brackish water. But your summation seemed to catch the gist of his claims.
@@sjhoneywell6235 There’s a key difference I see: they definitely never claimed God is real because they want Him to be. The heavy lifting in the argument seemed to be done by two things: 1- The assertion that truth-seeking is a moral obligation. (He couldn’t back this assertion with evidence so fell back on “you already believe this intuitively”). 2- A reliance on the listener assuming if there is a moral obligation, that this necessitates a truth-loving god existing. Then the further assumption that it’s the Christian God.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih I see where you're going with this. To be fair, the further assumption that it's the Christian god is always the case. That assumption comes with the deal.
It was very thought provoking when I first heard Tom Jump say that he’d rather people be happy then give up their religion in pursuit of truth. I think given his background of depression, that’s a reasonable belief. Now that person can’t claim their being reasonable, but that’s okay if they don’t want to be reasonable.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
My argument is this: whatever a person’s weakest link in their epistemological framework is their true epistemological standard. Most atheists say that the truth is best to believe bc either A it works or B they want to only believe true things when given the choice. So all I’m concluding so far isn’t that God exists. I’m concluding that we need to reframe the conversation to pragmatic terms and not deductive terms. Since the truth is ultimately a pragmatic tool for atheists. If I talk to a Muslim who has a faith- based defense of truth, we can talk about faith. Etc. Now, we decide what is the most pragmatic view: Christianity or atheism. Answer: Christianity. For reasons we can get into if u agree with me so far.
I do love his logic of "prove this thing" and him just going "well you already believe this thing, so I don't have to prove it!" I don't think that's how formal logic works, my dude.
I do like how you highlight their switcharoo with conflating "my happiness" with "human flourishing." There are plenty of times that a given person's or group's unhappiness has driven them to discover something, improve some factor of life or help someone when their own life suffers. Often, all their hard work doesn't make them happy but it can improve flourishing.
It seems to me that one could grant that preferring to believe what is true and not believe what is not true to the full extent possible is a moral obligation, and doing so would make skepticism and critical thinking moral obligations and place a moral obligation on the apologist to seriously prove the truth of their claims as opposed to just assuming it.
Yep. Their actual argument is that truth is a moral obligation. But not all truth. In fact truth can be bad and lies can be better. But on the one specific question of whether God exists, truth is a moral obligation. And it’s a moral obligation because God obliges us. No lie. These are the actual arguments made on this video. All with a straight face.
8:00 "Thou shall seek the truth... not any truth... only certain truths about God's existence." I get his preface here about not knowing how many rocks are in his garden but only seeking the truths you want to prove is dishonest and no different than begging the question.
I would really like to see a coherent explanation of how "intrinsic" goodness is not self contradictory as "goodness" is a value judgement---which is inherently subjective. Something is "good" if it meets some criteria that some agent deems valuable or desirable, and is only _ever_ instrumental and I defy anyone to logically demonstrate otherwise...
Prove that the truth must be believed. The extent to which you can do that is your true epistemological standard. I’ve seen people use faith. It can be quite valid. Most atheists use pragmatism. That’s valid too I suppose. But then you must also allow yourself to be convinced if someone makes an argument that Christianity is the most pragmatic life philosophy, which I think can be made.
@@keithburns6602 I don't think truth "must" be believed unless there is a goal or value attached to it. Whether truth should be accepted is entirely a value judgment, which is why I would like someone to demonstrate that there is such a thing as intrinsic value of _anything_ , when. something requires a value judgment it's inherently subjective by definition so no I don't think truth "must" be believed nor do I think the truth is intrinsically valuable, but like anything else that has value it has instrumental value. It's a question of if/then-- just one example being _if_ a person doesn't want to believe propositions incongruent with reality, _then_ they must accept truth. Not to mention that truth is sloppy language since truth isn't a noun there is no such thing as the truth propositions have a truth value which can range between true and false on a binary system but they're also non-binary truth value systems but that's outside the scope of this conversation my point is entirely that there is no such thing as intrinsic value that the entire concept is an oxymoron the value is inherently subjective because value requires a value judgment to be made and value can only ever be instrumental not intrinsic
@@keithburns6602 I do not believe it's possible to just choose what you believe I don't think Christianity is even remotely convincing but what does that have to do with the fact that there's no such thing as intrinsic value? I'm not a Christian because I do value the truth because I don't want to believe propositions that are incongruous with reality and as far as I can tell Christianity is an entirely man-made farce, and belief in its supernatural claims is utterly unwarranted. But again we don't choose what we believe we're either convinced of something or we're not what convinces US is different from person to person but for me I need evidence and sound invalid logical argument and Christianity doesn't have that as far as I'm concerned, nor does any other religion I've ever encountered. In fact I find the very concept of the supernatural to be incoherent but I still don't understand why you were asking questions that have nothing to do with what my comment was about. My post was an invitation for someone to logically demonstrate intrinsic value and you haven't even attempted to do that so good day have fun believing and nonsense for no good reason
About 5 years ago, I was in college and struggling to make ends meet. As a supplement to my regular job, I was doing yard work for a 99 year old lady for a month or two. She knew she didn't have long to live, and she wanted to save a nice young man before she died, and so she took me aside one day and had a deeply personal and sincere plea for me to become born again (in case you didn't know, I'm an atheist and was at that point in time-though I don't think she knew). I knew what she wanted and why, and I laud her motives. What she did was very kind. I felt awful, because I didn't want to lie to her, but I didn't have it in me to tell her the truth. It still makes me emotional to this day and I'm not sure I did the right thing, but I decided to nod along and pretend that she got through to me so I could comfort her. She died about a week after that, presumably thinking she'd saved me, or at least planted a seed. She did not and I intentionally lied to her. It makes me feel bad, but I'll never know if I made the right call, or if there even was a right call. I hope I'm never in that situation again but if I am, I may lie again. It will depend on the circumstances.
The concept of “telling the truth” is awfully overrated. Being kind and considerate to people is far more important than stating blunt facts. I hold that when “telling the truth” serves no purpose and only ends up hurting other people’s feelings is much better to shut up or tell a polite lie. Of course context is everything.
The number of rocks in his garden could be a vital element for the future of the world, a petty god could only bless people with an even number of rocks, why would he dismiss that as an element of truth, the remaining arguments make the same level of sense, and how can he assume the priorities of a god? rocks could be vital, rocks breakdown to dust to dust formed man !?!
To a particular community of insects, whether my back yard has 0,1 or 87 rocks may in fact be crucial to their survival. As such it is a question of significance for them. A "habitable zone" of sorts.
That’s your problem with what he presented? Did you watch the rest of the video. It’s got terrible logic from start to finish. The rocks example was the least of it!
I’m a little surprised. It seems that, in recent memory, McDowell has really jumped the shark. He always seemed to be smarter than what we’ve been seeing from him lately.
I feel you on this. I was introduced to McDowell through GM Skeptic, who showed both through statements and through the interview they did together that Sean is a good person at heart. And while I don't see anything to suggest that has changed, I still can't help but feel that his steel-manning of the athiest arguments is a little less sturdy than steel often is. If he's genuinely trying, then I'm grateful, but failure to do it correctly, intentionally or otherwise, can lead people watching to assume that they've already seen the absolute best of the athiest response, and so conclude even more strongly that they're in the right, despite the logic being inherently flawed. That flaw has simply been missed after a supposedly-thorough test. Though ultimately I still definitely prefer Sean's faulty steel-manning to the visceral bigotry of some of the worst of the group...
What if you had a truth-hating, evil god? Truth seeking would still be “morally good,” because whatever is despised by the evil god must have praiseworthy intrinsic value. In this case, a truth-loving god need not exist. I’m not bragging, but it literally took me 20 seconds to see that premise one is bunk. How could they spend time discussing this? Still gonna watch the rest of the video though… mostly for Paul’s wit and charm.
I mean, that answer is also kind of begging the question, by calling it 'evil good' presuposes that the opposite of what this god wants is moral, which is exactly the same fatal problem the 'moral argument' has. Edit: i found the premise you pointed out. Yep, your counter answer fits quite well with that premise.
@@Julian0101 Yeah, I made and end-run around the issue of good and evil for brevity, and the colloquial nature of the post, so I can see how it appears to presuppose something as I didn’t structure it to match their premises. But I think the logic holds - truth can be intrinsically good and morally obligatory without a truth-loving god, so long as the god which does exist despises truth and is demonstrably immoral. My framing ignores divine command theory, but they didn’t put that in their argument, so I ignored the implication of that assumption.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they too carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
@@keithburns6602 Atheists aren’t making a claim. Atheists CAN make a positive claim regarding the non-existence of a god, but an atheist doesn’t need to make a claim in order to reject the theistic claim “god exists.” If a Christian claims that the god of the Bible exists, then an atheist can either accept that claim (if it meets the burden of proof) or reject the claim (if it fails to meet the burden). But rejecting a theistic claim doesn’t require the atheist to make a claim of their own… that’s not how propositional logic works.
Let's grant his argument. A truth loving god does exist. The description of the god Yahweh shows that it lies to its creation, tells them to have faith like a child and not to lean on one's own understanding. The god Yahweh is not a truth loving god. The god Yahweh does not exist
I agree with your conclusion, but I think it does not follow from the argument you've presented. Let's see if I can show you: ▪︎ A truth loving god exists. ▪︎ The god Yahweh is not a truth loving god. ▪︎ Therefore, the god Yahweh does not exist. That a truth-loving god exists does not imply that a falsehood-loving god does not exist. Hence why I think you should rework your premises to eventually draw your conclusion from them.
In arguments like this, I always get confused because no one defines what they mean by 'grounded'. When you say that A is grounded in B, does that just mean that A depends on B? Without B you can't have A?
In most cases, the term “grounded” is used in reference to “objectivity” (morality, truth, etc.). Something is “subjective” if it’s existence, or truth value, requires the interpretation, and is subject to the bias, of a mind. Something is “objective” if it’s existence/truth is derived from (“grounded in”) something other than a sentient consciousness. This is why theist claim that objective truth, or objective morality, is “grounded in god’s nature.” They attempt to appeal to the very essence of god in order to avoid the objection that edicts from god are no less subjective than the opinions of any other thinking agent. But all they’ve done is dishonestly reframe their position, to create a distinction without a difference, in order to avoid an objection. If god is a thinking agent, then thoughts (the products of god’s mind) are definitionally subjective. But Christians want to claim objectivity because they perceive it as superior to human subjectivity, and they cannot accomplish this by claiming that “truth and morality are grounded in god’s thoughts/mind.” So, instead Christians claim these things to be derived from god’s nature. However, Christians acknowledge that the products of god’s mind (thoughts, wills, intentions) cannot violate god’s nature. Therefore, appealing to god’s nature is indistinguishable from appealing to any product of god’s mind. All the apologist is doing is taking the subjective standard and relabeling it as objective - they attempt to avoid reference to god’s thoughts on morality and truth, and instead appeal to the supposed “nature of god,” even as they acknowledge that god’s essence drives the mind of god… and god’s mind perfectly mirrors god’s essence. It’s nothing more than a philosophical bait and switch. I know that’s a bit more than an answer to the question “what do they mean by grounded,” but I hope it helps.
“Grounding” is when you have an idea that’s entirely theoretical, and you need to tie it to reality somehow. An example is the Higgs Boson. This is a particle that scientists theorised exists. They had this concept of all the particles they thought existed. It was a good “neat” model, it explained a lot. But there was no evidence that this actually was how things worked in reality. Then after years of tests in a particle accelerator they detected a Higgs Boson. This was the grounding of their idea. This is where the idea changed from “a good theoretical notion with strong explanatory power” to “a model of how things actually are in reality”.
Given the "intrinsic" weakness of the argument and assuming that McDowell & Shenvi aren't stupid, what does their promotion of it reveal about their attitude toward their believing, trusting audience? I can't think of a way that puts them in a good light but I might be wrong.
I'm sorry ... but given the empirical evidence of this video ... they are both plainly _stupid._ The dude that studied theoretical physics had to give up his career because of a brain tumour. He's clearly cognitively impaired. Possibly because of that tumour, and he has my sympathy. They're nice enough dudes, but really quite stupid. 🙄
There's something disingenuous about claiming that simply "seeking truth" makes their religion truth. Does anyone else also disagree with the use of "Truth of Atheism"? That seems to imply a claim made by atheism, which I'd argue doesn't exist.
i keep pointing out that atheists don't exist, that i am called atheist because of someone else's belief - it's really nothing to do with me at all. i call myself a ton of things way way before i'd describe myself as atheist. but i AM hard, hard atheist. lol.
Everyone in this video has an odd conception of "truth" as being "out there" in some X-Files kind of way. Truth isn't "out" there to be sought. It's "in" language, a property of language. A statement can either be true, false, or partly both but whatever is my object just is what it is. If I say, "I am an atheist," that statement is true or false. It's true if in fact I have no belief in God/s. It's false if I believe in God/s. Atheism is neither true or false. Only my description of my mental state can be true or false. If I say, "The tide comes in, the tide goes out," that statement is true. There's no "truth" in the tide.
@@Aliasjax Jordon Peterson would hate you. And Deepak Chopra. And all apologists for that matter. How can they possibly operate with pole like you simplifying the simple, and removing all the mystery and confusion of their wordplay with simple explanations!!
My argument is this: whatever a person’s weakest link in their epistemological framework is their true epistemological standard. Most atheists say that the truth is best to believe bc either A it works or B they want to only believe true things when given the choice. So all I’m concluding so far isn’t that God exists. I’m concluding that we need to reframe the conversation to pragmatic terms and not deductive terms. Since the truth is ultimately a pragmatic tool for atheists. If I talk to a Muslim who has a faith- based defense of truth, we can talk about faith. Etc. Now, we decide what is the most pragmatic view: Christianity or atheism. Answer: Christianity. For reasons we can get into if u agree with me so far.
@@iluvtacos1231 I think we, practically, do need to concern ourselves with ontology of some things. If it is true that some harm might befall us, or some true benefit may come to us, we should act to secure the good benefit and avoid the harm. So, we can argue that Christianity allows us for the best of all these possible scenarios in this time and in the future. Because the existence of sincere and compelling claims of miracles or consciousness apart from our bodies (NDEs etc) makes the possibility of an afterlife one to be concerned about. Christianity allows someone to prepare for the afterlife while also giving them a good life here. How does it give us the best life here? Tom Holland the historian has a book you may have read called DOMINION that says (and i paraphrase) something like "In the western world we all swim in the waters of christianity, like fish unaware of water, we are unaware of how our society assumes christianity in almost everything." One example is the notion of human dignity which comes from the christian notion that we are made in God's image. Christians, if christianity is ontologically true, are secure in the afterlife through their faith. Atheists are not. If some God who only requires good behavior is real, careful christians are ok, as are atheists who are morally good. If Islam is real, christians are in trouble and so are atheists. And in this life, Christians have a good track record of bringing good change to the society, as Holland would agree. Atheists of course can as well. But really it is a push at best. Pragmatism says to be christian over atheist since it has all the benefits and none of the downsides of atheism. This analysis can go back and forth, but I am confident christianity will always beat atheism in this pragmatic regard, no matter what number of possible outcomes are discussed, both in this life and in the possibilities available for the next.
@@iluvtacos1231 @iluvtacos1231 Can you tell why it isn't pragmatic? I've already made a case that it is highly pragmatic. Can you tell me a better method to decide beliefs than pragmatism? *You have a burden of proof to defend your beliefs.* You seem to claim to choose based on what is pragmatic. But you aren't being pragmatic here. Or, if you are, let me know how I am wrong about that.
@@Paulogia I hope to start supporting you on Patreon (along with a short-list of others) once I'm finished with my studies and can work full hours again. Meantime, I'll keep sending the occasional PayPal tip when I can. If you're ever interested in comparing notes on our journeys (I was raised and homeschooled in a Christian fundamentalist family in Australia 😅) hit me up.
“You ought to care about what is true” is my best example of an objective moral truth. No matter what your goal, you will be more likely to accomplish it if you know what is true.
I think you are confusing a statement of practical value ("you live a better life if you do X") with a moral statement ("you ought to do X"). Even if the practical value can be proven beyond any doubt, why would that imply a moral obligation? Note that if you could prove this implication, you would have refuted Hume's law ("you can not derive an OUGHT from an IS).
@@dalstein3708 I don’t think I’m confused, but how we define “morality” may be a little different. I agree with Paul (33:19 ) - morality requires an “if”. The reason you “ought to do X” depends on your goals (e.g. “you ought to do X, if you want Y”). Your goal (Y), could be “to live a better life” or it could be anything else - it’s subjective. Because goals are subjective, it follows that morality is necessarily subjective. But because “you ought to care about what is true” applies to all goals, I think it’s a foundation for an objective morality.
35:46 I don’t think that there is any goal that could be reliably achieved without knowing what is true. Even if you claim that not knowing what is true will make you happier, you need to first know that is true.
@@MarkLeBay Are you familiar with the terms hypothetical imperative (Paul's 33:19 'if' and Alstein's 'practical value'), and categorical imperative? Usually in the this area of discussion 'objective moral truths' refer to the idea of categorical imperatives, which have no 'if' and need no practical value, they are just things you ought or ought not do for no reason beyond the action is inherently moral or immoral. I think instead of getting us to categorical imperatives, you're aiming at something more like.... a universal hypothetical imperative, or less impressively just a very broadly applicable but normal everyday hypothetical imperative. :) :)
@@MarkLeBay It would be cool if I could help you come up to a counterexample, where someone is impeded from achieving their goal by knowing truths. Hmmmm, have you heard the story about how pythagoras died, by taking an unnecessary detour around a field of beans (beans-phobia) while an angry mob was chasing him? Perhaps knowing the truth about what was planted in the field impeded his goal of escape :)
I love the way paul can break down the word salad they use, because for many, these deeper topics about intrinsic vs instrumental and the subjectivity of “good” and “bad” can get really twisty, I had to pause for a bit to process the intrinsic value vs instrumental value. A good analogy that helped me was that of a Tree falling on a deer and breaking its hind legs, that’s really bad for the deer but good for the predators that are about to get a free meal. The tree falling was neither good nor bad however it becomes good or bad depending on our perspective. Similarly, knowing the truth doesn’t have intrinsic value, it is only of value to us because we want to maximize our chance of survival by knowing how things work. I’ve also met people who don’t really care if it’s particularly true, as long as it works for them. It can really give that effect and appeals to uncertainty after death. So on that, it’s definitely not a moral obligation, the core motivation seems to be survival and happiness. We want life after death because we want to survive, we never want to stop existing. Also they admitted that we only really care about certain truths, as with everything else, we have a hierarchy of the truths we care about. Like I probably can live life comfortably without ever seeing other planets with my own 2 eyes, there are people who really want to go and see though, seeing it really matters to them and so we have people at NASA.
I think it would be interesting to ask Neil if he knew 100% that a lie would convert someone to Christianity, but telling the truth would have them remain unconvinced, what would he do, is truth the moral obligation, or is the conversion. Im sure we can all think of some apologists who don't believe that truth is intrinsic value or is a moral obligation, when it doesn't meet further their goals
I work nights and was woken up early; so my thinking is stunted right now, but did this guy make an argument that, "God exists because we as people like truth, but it's still ok to lie if it's harmful to tell the truth"? I'm confused 😕 And why do I have to care if God or Gods exist? How does that impact if there is such? I am going back to sleep, that circular argument fried some of my much-needed brain cells.
You must have missed the “there’s only one question that we are obliged to seek truth on” part. Spoiler alert: the exception is god. Just like every other flawed apologetic!
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih true and of course. For me personally; I really don't care if there are any gods or god. Any seeking of truth on my part doesn't change any existence of "deities". Either they do or don't. It doesn't change how I'm going to live my life. That was quite the thing to listen to half asleep.
@@ajaxwillis3962 Yep. Any falsifiable gods have been falsified already. All we have left are unfalsifiable ones (which are usually morphed adaptations of falsifiable ones… remember when the Christian God used to be above the firmament, peering down through openings just above the clouds?). By definition, any truth-seeking you do on an unfalsifiable proposition will not falsify an unfalsifiable God. So it’s pointless. We all know if compelling evidence ever came along for the Christian God we wouldn’t have to go scouting for it, theists would be shouting it from the rooftops. They already tell their woefully inadequate non-evidence to anyone that will listen… imagine what they’d be like if they had some actual evidence!
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih Right!? What makes me shake my head about this argument is that it could be used with other beliefs too. And it's a frustrating circular reason.
@@ajaxwillis3962 That applies to most arguments for god. They, if true, get you to a vague deistic god with no properties other than “first mover”, or “necessary”, or in this case “truth-loving”. Christians either forget that they have all their work ahead of them to show it is the Christian God that exists. Or they know but hope we atheists don’t notice. The only exception I can think of are arguments that the resurrection really happened. If find those incredibly contrived. They require broken thinking that I know the apologist would see right through if used in an argument for some other god. And the whole category feels reverse-engineered to me… chosen only because it’s the one relevant point of difference between Christianity and other religions.
I do like the modifier "for fun" when talking about torturing children. It give some people the moral high ground when it comes to children being gunned down in a school and being able to argue it's part of gods plan.
Forty six-year old, gray-haired Sean McDowell goes to the barber every month and says "Do that swept-up gelled thing that was popular when I was a freshman in high school in 1999. That'll make me look hip and cool and today's kids will relate to me."
It's amazing how much of these apologetics just come down to It is intuitive that X If X then god Therefore god Almost everything else is fluff to make you forget that the premise is just intuition, rather than X itself.
I'm listening to this while I work, so I might have missed something; but I would swear if he would have interchanged the word 'obligatory' with 'compelling', his argument may have worked. I think all but the most indifferent humans are curious, and thus are, if even mildly, compelled innately to seek understanding. We may flail, like Helen Keller, at first, but even the dimmest light of understanding typically brings hope and joy. (Obviously, unfortunately, even when we are bolstering our own *misunderstandings*, eg confirmation bias.) Anyhow, I think in his conceited enthusiasm he overshot the mark.
Closest I can think of is Phillipians 4:8 which says, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Don't know if that rises to the level of moral obligation though.
@@atticmuse3749 Thanks for trying! So thinking about this argument, they're basing it off an assertion that everyone has a moral obligation to seek truth. Yet that moral obligation doesn't seem to be biblically stated, so it's sourced elsewhere. Which leaves us with an assertion of something that wouldn't even seem to be originating from God, even if we were to grant the assertion. It seems this argument is pointing in a different direction than that apologist would like. I can say I would like it if more apologists were more focused on searching for truth, rather than the business of stretching truths to defend their faith. It strikes me that apologists would not be the first group I would point to, as an example of people morally obligated to search for truth.
It’s not biblical. I don’t think they are claiming it is. I think it’s more of “All of us seem to have a desire to know truth. The only reason I can think to explain that is God”. Similar to the “morality is written on our hearts” line of argument.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih I guess I can follow that thought process to some degree. Though morality being "written in our hearts" seems at least somewhat supported biblically. Having a moral obligation to God requires a sense of knowing the wishes of God. If he doesn't have that anchor to his argument, I don't think logic can safely jump that chasm. The jump from a general desire for truth, to a moral obligation for it, is a rather big jump. One that I didn't see him support in the video. Perhaps his book has more to say on it though. But if it does, it would be nicer to have more than his "We just know" in the video.
@@stevewebber707 Even without reading his book, I can say with confidence that there is no answer to your question. There is no evidence backing up the assertion. He’s just another dishonest apologist. (I feel comfortable saying it’s dishonest because no one can write a book on a topic, and form a false syllogism and not realise the obvious problems with it (like the irrelevant premise which serves only as a false dichotomy for those not paying attention, the hidden premises needed to get from the premise to the conclusion, the complete lack of definitions for critical terms, or the poor construction by using two different assertions in a single premise).
I'm only four minutes in but this sounds suspiciously like a repackaged presup argument. And now at minute 38 they come out and just say it's a presup argument.
Intuition is evidence that needs to be explained. Very often, the explanation is something about why our ordinary experience is not adequate to distinguish between the intuitive anwser and the truth. But you've still got to explain it. Not having an explanation isn't fatal to a theory, but it is a weakness in it.
I would say it's epistemically worse to assert a baseless explanation than to not explain something we don't have the right evidence to assess. A cup falls over, what's the explanation? One could assert it was an invisible cat. We have evidence of cats knocking over cups, and this is a cup that was knocked over. Must have been invisible. Or, I don't know, because I don't have enough information. Was it outside? Is it magnetic? Was it balanced precariously? Without access to these answers I don't know is all we can say. Taking the stance "must have an explanation" isn't always reasonable.
It's not an argument, it's a conjuration! "I have arranged words in a clever way, therefore: _fiat Deus!_" If an apologist could actually create a god in this fashion, we would probably be better off to worship the apologist. 😂
That was a very good analysis, Paul. I'm glad to hear you address the epistemological aspect of this. I always argue that belief in Christianity is a display of poor epistemology. It does not warrant belief based upon what we are aware of in terms of the origins and antecedents of Judaism and Christianity.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they to carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
@@keithburns6602 First, what exactly is "TAG"? Secondly, those who are simply unconvinced of the existence of a god or gods do not bear a burden of proof for said position. Thirdly, I did not state anywhere that "truth must be believed". Ergo, I do not need to "prove" an assertion that I did not make. Please do not use a strawman argument.
"Torturing children *for fun*..." tells me right away that they do not understand the concept of absolute morality. "For Fun" puts a condition on it, making it subjective. Even if they try to correct themselves, it's too late. I dismiss their argument, as it is based upon a flawed understanding of the premise.
And that’s overlooking the really, really obvious flaw that when someone asks why torturing children for fun is wrong they are asking an epistemological question. They are seeking a justification for the claim, instead of just relying on our intuitive subjective feelings. So when McDowell dismissed the whole question by saying anyone asking it needs to get psychological help he was being disingenuous. Asking for grounding/justification for a claim is not the same as murdering a bunch of kids for fun then saying “What?” as if you did nothing wrong.
And I have a rule when listening to apologists… if they have to be completely disingenuous and deliberately miss the obvious in order to make their point, they lose the benefit of the doubt in my mind. I consider them dishonest.
Reverse the grandma scenario. If the grandson believed that she died a quick and painless death. Would it be beneficial to tell him the truth in that, she suffered a horrible and agonizing death.
I cannot believe how satisfying it is to have that Christian at the end just explain that the presupposition argument is _not_ taken seriously. Thank goodness, finally _a_ believer who realizes that it's _not_ remotely convincing to an atheist and gets that it's laughed at, that it's a joke! Yes, it is! It's unbelievably unconvincing when you hear someone present you with an argument that begins with 'Okay so before anything you need to agree that I'm right'. The existence _of_ this deity is the _entire_ thing being discussed, _starting_ by assuming they exist _is, not, convincing._
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they too carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
@@keithburns6602 ...How on Earth does TAG put a burden of proof on atheists? The argument starts with an assumption that a god exists, that's exactly the problem with it.
@@Cellidor Sorry for the delay. Well, if an atheist cannot say WHY to believe what is true, then they cannot use concepts such as "burden of proof" to back up their view. "Christianity does not meet the burden of proof. It may not be true." I would ask... why believe only what is true. Well, now it is your turn to say why you believe only what is true. I have heard atheists give several good answers. "Believing in true things works." Ok. So, really, the standard this person has for making decisions is if it works or not. So, if a lie would work equally as good, it can also be believed. In this case. Now, what is your reason for believing that which is true?
@@keithburns2768 So just to clarify and make sure we're not talking past each other, this is the format of TAG I'm referring to, is this the same as the one you're using? (or just being devil's advocate for, I'm not sure which): 1. God is a necessary precondition for logic and morality (because these are immaterial, yet real universals). 2. People depend upon logic and morality, showing that they depend upon the universal, immaterial, and abstract realities which could not exist in a materialist universe but presupposes (presumes) the existence of an immaterial and absolute God. 3. Therefore, God exists. If He didn't, we could not rely upon logic, reason, morality, and other absolute universals (which are required and assumed to live in this universe, let alone to debate), and could not exist in a materialist universe where there are no absolute standards or an absolute Lawgiver.
@@Cellidor No I am making a somewhat different argument than the video. I am saying that deductive has no place in this conversation until someone establishes that only true things can be believed. If we allow that false things can be believed, then you need a reason to reject christianity other than "there is no proof."
Nice job Paulogia. Neil Shenvi is an example of how emotion, whatever its source, can overwhelm reason and lead to the sort of wishful thinking that we refer to as religious faith.
i love how they are arguing that lies are good sometimes saying there's utility of dishonesty. While also arguing for truth as super important. So whcih is it? lies are the best or truth is the best?
Your ability to absolutely savage their argument in the most calm and gentle manner is probably the main reason I started following you. it's an impressive skill.
Thank you
You know Paul is winning when the pop McApologists talk about him without naming him or like WLC, they just drop petulant insults.
when I started watching atheist RUclipsrs about a decade ago, they were all if the "let's dunk on the dumb creationist" variety. That was fun for a while. your channel was a breath of fresh air, meeting Christians where they are (in a totally over used but appropriate phrase), and speaking respectfully even to the mot outrageous claims. that takes an impressive patience and point of view that can probably only come from a former Christian.
This
@@chrisgrill6302 thanks, I guess. 🤣
I love when Xtians use the whole “You’re offended because it’s the truth” song and dance. As I’m fond of saying: “Calling your irrational beliefs ‘The Truth’ doesn’t make them the truth anymore than calling a car a tree makes a car a tree.”
Are you still driving that Toyota Sequoia?
@Brandon Letzco when it comes to gender and it's roles, what would you say is the truth of them and the truth for those individuals? is it the way the people behave, present, and/or display themselves privately & publicly or is it entirely dependant upon their sex & genetics? or do you have a more nuanced view of gender that doesn't fit within this? if so please explain.
Then they point to the Flintstones documentary to show a tree can be a car.
And dinosaurs and man lived side by side. ;)
@Brandon Letzco
Your intentional misunderstanding of science in order to preserve belief in magic is both funny and obvious.
@UCgpW5c6hIdweGq_NdzMHe3Q, writes _"It's not really surprising since people today think calling a man a woman makes him an actual woman and vice versa."_
So you're saying that before I refer to someone using masculine or feminine pronouns that I need to test their DNA looking to see if they have XX or XY* chromosomes? Or is closely inspecting their genitalia going to be enough?
* I'll leave what to do about people with XXY or other variations for a future discussion.
"my claim is true because if it's not, i wouldn't have a reason to care whether it's true."
sounds like a great argument...
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they to carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
@@keithburns6602 Atheism is simply a statement of disbelief... Disbelief carries NO 'burden of proof' whatsoever, because it makes no positive statement whatsoever... All it says is, "I don't believe your fairy-tales!"
(And I'm being polite by saying 'fairy-tales' instead of 'lies'...)
Why not believe?
@@keithburns6602 Because a) the fairy-tales which are presented are not credible... and b) atheists are not gullible.
Why should anyone expect anyone else to believe something so outlandish and bizarre as fairy-tales when they offer absolutely no evidence to even support their (apparenly false) claim to 'truth'?
If I told you there was a purple, seven-headed dragon that shits gold bricks living in my shed would you believe it? Without evidence?
Tldr- saying “disbelief carries no burden of proof” is like writing a memo in crayon that says “hey y’all memos need 2 b professional mkay?” !!
"Spreading Christianity with clearly faulty logic personally profits me, so why should I stop?"
True dat …
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
Tldr- saying “disbelief carries no burden of proof” is like writing a memo in crayon that says “hey y’all memos need 2 b professional mkay?” !!
@@keithburns6602 No, it doesn't, because it is its own proof since it is a question about someone's own personal beliefs.
"I am not convinced of your God claim."
"Oh yeah, prove it!"
"Okay, here's me. Here's me not being convinced of your God claim. And here's me living my life exactly as someone who isn't convinced of your God claim would."
If you want to talk about *why* your specific God claims don't convince someone, that's a different conversation, but it usually/always boils down to fact that the God claims in question are unsubstantiated assertions, logical fallacies, provably incorrect, trite, non-exclusive, or some mix of the above, all of which fail to meet a reasonable burden of proof and which the person making that claim would never accept as sufficient evidence for any other religion's God claim.
Prove that the truth must be believed. The extent to which you can do that is your true epistemological standard.
I’ve seen people use faith. It can be quite valid.
Most atheists use pragmatism. That’s valid too I suppose. But then you must also allow yourself to be convinced if someone makes an argument that Christianity is the most pragmatic life philosophy, which I think can be made.
Sean: "Anyone who asks you why torturing kids is wrong needs a therapist"
Also Sean: "Sure God sends kids to get tortured in hell all the time it's totally fine"
Also also Sean: "What's wrong with torturing kids? If I didn't believe in God why wouldn't I just torture kids?"
Classic Jeansoning.
Dude. The “got it” clip is PERFECTION. So many times I listen to these people and they don’t even realize those little moments where they slip up and entirely destroy their own argument
Glad someone appreciated
@@Paulogia - If one is truly honest about seeking the truth, then they must acknowledge that truth also comes from rejection of that which is false.
@@douglasrasmussen480 No. False dichotomy.
@@rjskeptic5273 - I would like to have you explain how it is a false dichotomy other than simply making a claim. Let me be specific. If one believes a thing or series of things are true in the presence of readily disproven facts to the contrary of that belief, then they believe in that which is false. Acknowledging and rejecting falsehoods that were believed is now recognizing that belief was false. Hence, truth.
@@douglasrasmussen480 Wrong.
I was literally asking myself, "How would an organism that didn't recognize truth even survive, let alone reproduce?" as you said it Paul. 🤣
Wait, in an argument about the meaning and value of truth, their primary defense of a premise is "we just know"?
I would say they just failed in their moral obligation to search for truth.
Uno reverse card
Your mistake there would be the assumption that religious people have any sort of moral obligation to anything whatsoever. Long experience shows the exact opposite. Especially when it comes to the 'truth'; I've never seen a group more divorced from and antithetical to the truth than the religious.
@@EdwardHowton Their assumption and claim, not mine.
A Christian apologist claiming to be obligated to find truth, has a ring of irony.
Well i'm afraid you need to dig a bit deeper here. There are indeed things we 'just know' like basic truths of logic or mathematics. The debate would be whether 'God is one of those' and that is actually a challenging question not to be dismissed with a cheap you tube gotcha.
@@bernardwills9674 If you are referring to the three fundamental assumptions of logic, those aren't things we "just know". If you are referring to the logic and mathematics that can be proven after that, again not things we "just know". Admittedly I would not personally be able to logically prove something like 2+2=4. But I am willing to grant that it can be logically proven.
Claiming we just know something, is pretty absurd in the context of a formal syllogism. Especially when it's not established we know it. Much of the point in a logical process, is eliminating unneeded assumptions.
Probably the claim of just knowing the existence of God, can be worth discussing. But not really in the category of convincing arguments, or compelling logic. One person "just knowing" something, should not convince another that doesn't "just know" that thing.
It is amazing how imprecise the thoughts of the two are.
The argument is so unconvincing. I cannot believe that he actually wrote in a book about it and did not realize that it just does not make sense.
Their Followers/Base will buy it up and parrot it off.
well paint me cynical but usually money will trump truth.
@Matthias Frerick been around the internet and social media lately? Qanon, pizzagate, flat earthers, antivaxx, homeopathy, goop, etc. etc. etc. NONSENSE SELLS.
He really needs a good friend who is willing to be honest with him. It’s a pity that he wasted so much of his precious life on a dumb book
@@Phreemunny he had a brain tumor yeah? Oh well maybe it makes sense to him now, I don’t know.
I think most people think that truth needs to be harsh, abrasive,or shocking, especially in the atheist community. You’re ability to tell truth in such a succinct and calm manner is such a breath of fresh air
"How does the search for truth itself point to the existence of God?"
12 seconds into the video and I'm already facepalming, because I sense yet another circular theistic argument coming.
Circle in a circle a wheel within a wheel.
It feels like a rehash of the pathetic "you can't have logic without God" argument, but with "truth" substituted for "logic". It's not that original.
Why do you say that’s a pathetic argument? What do suppose theists mean when they say “God”?
@@timfriesen7014 _"Why do you say that’s a pathetic argument?"_
I say that the "you can't have logic without God" argument is pathetic because it's bullshit. There's no demonstrable need for a deity in order for things like "A = A" or "A != not A" to make sense, and the theists making that argument completely and utterly fail to demonstrate that claim.
_"What do suppose theists mean when they say “God”?"_
Why ask me? Ask them. They'll have it mean whatever they want it to mean, even when it's logically impossible. It's just a placeholder for "magic being that can do anything and also for some reason supports my shitty beliefs and morals".
"Apologetics are a flat circle." I think that how the quote goes...
Honestly, I saw my Grandfather on his deathbed, you know what didn't come up as he was dying? Religion. He was sure I was, at the very least Agnostic, and that I didn't support the Church, and that the problem of evil weighed on my mind, not a word. we talked about life, the good times we had. His least favourite Vodka, his favourite brandy we visited with his brother and my mother and uncles. we spent the whole day with him having a good time, as our family came and went saying goodbye. never once did we argue about the existence of god, but if he asked I would have said the truth, his faith could take it.
He wasn't convinced when he wasn't dying, hearing me say a discomforting truth that I didn't believe anymore wouldn't rattle his faith in those final moments.
Yet he didn't bring it up once, because he didn't want our last parting to be a soured affair. On my end I didn't bring it up either, for very much the same reason, ultimately the best thing to preserve peace and comfort was not seek truth nor lie, but to leave the issue alone. That was the the moral answer, to let bygones be bygones.
18:23 There it is again.
"Torturing innocent kids _for fun_ is wrong."
They always feel the need to add that "for fun" qualifier even though torturing innocents should be clearly wrong even without it.
Well unless you're torturing them here on earth to 'save' their immortal soul 🙄
Yes, it does seem like they add "for fun" to exclude God from this moral flaw.
Is it wrong to torture one person to save a billion lives?
This is why the "for fun" part is added. Because I can absolutely make a hypothetical scenario for every bad act you can think of where it's actually the most moral option.
Except if you're doing it for fun, that eliminates all of the potential hypotheticals. You aren't torturing one kid to prevent 10 kids from being tortured, you're doing it for fun.
@@JD-wu5pf what if you have a 'moral' reason but you are someone who enjoys torturing people? 😁
@@JD-wu5pf Yes, it's still wrong, it's just the lesser of two evils.
A better example would be something like unaesthetized surgery done in an emergency, which the child might perceive as torture because they don't understand what is going on, but it is being done specifically for their own overall personal benefit.
There is NO circumstance in which smooth jazz is good.
From my perspective (a diagnosed schizophrenic) i find the search of truth (not Truth) to be one the most moral pursuits. Now that might very well be because i cannot trust neither my senses, nor my own free thoughts
Fascinating!
It's contradictory for a god to both value truth seeking and also hide.
As far as I can tell, the god of the Bible values obedience over truth seeking by a wide margin.
Which makes it very compatible with Trumpism.
This is brilliant! A truth-loving deity would at minimum be truthful about its own existence, rather than being tricksy about is so it can have an excuse to torture people for eternity for getting the wrong answer on the Celestial Quiz.
I know the truth! My god spoke to me as a teenager and showed me the light! I was given the gift of prophesy for my faith! I feel the Divine within me regularly! Not just when reading about the god I love, but when the sun shines on my face! When I am around the things he holds sacred!
Did I mention I'm a (n agnostic) Hellenic Pagan and my god is Apollo? Christians say the same things and claim that is proof their religion is true but I told one of them this exact argument and they told me I was delusional...what is so different?
No, you don't understand! It's _sane_ when they do it, it's only delusional when anyone they disagree with does it, because... um... reasons! 😉
I know the truth, for I read it in a book (O Lord, master of the Universe). With my heart I feel, therefore I need not look (the evidence is chapter and verse). He's the ultimate leader, He never stops to play golf. When He brings an ethnic cleansing, move over Adolf! He likes what I like, and hates what I hate, so ask me what he wants... before it's too late.
All of these "logical" Christian arguments rely entirely on bias. They count on people to just assume that any argument for any sort of divinity is automatically an argument for _their particular_ deity, and they count on other people to let them get away with it due to Christianity's cultural dominance.
@@HeyHeyHarmonicaLuke 🤣🤣🤣 Awesome!
*steps out the woods naked wearing a goat skull and eating some grapes* Hail Pan ur right (also agnostic Hellene)
In all seriousness Xtian cultural zeitgeist has fucking hard ass time acknowledging other theistic traditions and when they do they promptly see them a vile without really seeing the parallels. IMO I am two steps away from being a feral animal running wild in the Ohio valley region, but I also live in reality and know that my particular view point is purely subjective and personal. Its orthopraxic and has no dogma that I need to follow. Things I do are for me and I know there are no consequences when I don’t do shit. I tend have a lot more in common with Atheists and find their company (outside of maybe other pagans) much more tolerable.
Search for truth is subjective and their is no moral obligation to do so, truth as good is also subjective and Xtiants love twist truths to validate their worldview over any other.
*eats more grapes and steps back into the woods* Tell Apollo I said ‘what’s good’
I hate it when people say with out God you will be misserable. Some of my lowest points came when I was a deep believer.
It wasn’t God or Atheism that made me feel happier it was being diagnosed and getting on Medical help
If we have a moral obligation to find the truth, presumably from their god, then why did their god punish Adam and Eve for eating from the tree of knowledge?
The word "ought" to me does *not* imply anything intrinsic, it just implies a strong feeling on *my* part. To me, "ought" is *subjective*.
"Ought" is not "is".
Laws can be dictated, but whether they are immoral or moral requires that we make our subjective moral judgment on them.
In some circumstances humans will suspend their judgment and defer to authority - this is actually a children's survival response. When adults do this it is in itself a lazy act - as we determined at the Nürnberg trials "I was just following orders" is unacceptable.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they too carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
Tldr- saying “disbelief carries no burden of proof” is like writing a memo in crayon that says “hey y’all memos need 2 b professional mkay?” !!
Like you said, plenty of Christians don’t believe that we have a moral obligation to seek the truth. The existence of Pascals wager shows this
The continued existence of Christianity itself shows that.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they too carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
Tldr- saying “disbelief carries no burden of proof” is like writing a memo in crayon that says “hey y’all memos need 2 b professional mkay?” !!
@@keithburns6602 Not at all. If the atheist simply lacks a belief in god or gods, there is nothing to prove. If he asserts that gods do not exist, then the failure of theists to prove the existence of any gods is all the proof of non-existence needed, since the null position is that whatever's existence is questioned does not exist. For example, if I assert that dark matter exists, but provide no proof, you are entitled to say that it doesn't exist without further effort.
Watching this, I'm reminded of the statement some movies and shows use to advertise; "Based on a true story."
I realized when I was a child this statement could mean either the story is true, or there really was a story regardless if it was true.
Before watching the rest of the video, I expect this point will be confused. For example, "we can state the Bible is a true story," which would be factually correct but ambiguous and meaningless.
If it's ambiguous, it's not meaningless, by definition. Otherwise your statement would be meaningless.
I think what you actually meant to say is that the ambiguity of the statement is blurring the lines, to the point it edges on underdetermination between the various meanings.
It's equally as useless as a meaningless statement in practice, yet can be easily sort out by asking for clarification, contrary to actually meaningless statements, which must be rephrased entirely.
@@lucofparis4819Something can have more than one attribute. White is not black - yet, something can be black and white.
@@RiiDii Yes, and? I am talking about the various meanings of words, not the multiple attributes that any given concept can accommodate.
If one attempts to use multiple meanings of a word at once, it renders the actual meaning of the statement ambiguous, hence why it is considered fallacious, and called the equivocation fallacy. It undermines an argument's ability to transfer truth-values from its premises to its conclusion.
I had a manager who was fond of saying "Based on a true movie". Always made me smile.
@@lucofparis4819 Really dude? If I said a skunk is black and white, I'm not saying black and white are the same. I said the statement was ambiguous and meaningless, not that meaningless and ambiguous meant the same thing. You somehow arrived at that conclusion all on your own. Don't pin that on me.
Truth is "That which comports with Reality". Theists, when your god claims comport with reality, give me a shout.
Come on man, its like, truer than true!
1. A truth loving god would not create something that could lie. 2. People lie 3.Therefore...
I really want to ask him if he thinks that we would have a moral obligation to tell a 1940s German officer the truth about where the Jews were hiding. It seems to me in that scenario that giving up the location of an innocent person to someone who is trying to kill them would be a deeply immoral thing to do.
He really has his whole idea of proof backwards. It doesn’t take one success to prove a rule, it takes dozens and dozens of successes to increase the likelihood that a rule holds true. But it only takes one failure to prove a rule false. Finding one example of truth seeking that is morally obligatory does not prove that all truth seeking is morally obligatory, but finding one example where truth seeking is immoral does prove that not all truth seeking is morally obligatory.
I think Ken Hamm did talk about how lying to hide Jews from the Nazis would be morally wrong... 🤯
Excellent point, I was thinking along the same lines. I don't know how ubiquitous this terminology is, but where I come from we refer to 'white lies', literally lies that cause less of an issue than the truth. The mere existence of a term like this shows how ridiculous his 'truth = objectively morally good/correct' statement is.
Not to defend the original arguments, but he’s not advocating that you always have to tell the truth, but that you are morally obligated to seek the truth. There is a difference.
@@Sage-Thyme I recall the first time I heard the term "white lie": My dad was an on-call nurse, we traveled farther away than he was allowed, and he had a few beers. So they tried to call him in, and he had to call back and lie, telling us that it was a "white lie"... Even at 10 or 12yo I knew it was BS, lost a lot of respect for him that day.
@@Futt.Buckerson That is such an poignant anecdote. I don’t mean to question your judgment, and obviously there’s a ton about your Dad that I don’t know, but maybe wanting to hang out with his family and play hookey from work wasn’t so terrible.
Being a parent is an extremely weighty obligation. Even the best parents crack under the density of it now and then. Many take better care to hide it, but your Dad was giving you the gift of showing you that it’s okay for parents to be imperfect. That example might come in handy someday if you yourself are a parent.
Again, I don’t mean to moralize. I realize there might be plenty of other context to why you say you lost respect for your Dad.
I'm not sure why Sean McDowell is so excited about this argument. I doubt it will sway any agnostic or atheist. It might be good echo chamber material, but useless otherwise.
Well to be fair there is NO argument that will sway anyone who is an atheist for rational reasons. The only thing that would sway someone with that belief would be incredibly strong evidence that can be replicated and verified with little doubt.
“I’m not sure why Sean McDowell is so excited about this argument… it might be good echo chamber material”.
I think you answered your own question there.
Sean isn't excited about the argument, he's excited that a *theoretical physicist* is presenting the argument. He likes the _optics._
The argument is plainly stupid, but then ... they are also both plainly stupid. 🙄
Exactly right about begging the question! Claiming that we must find out whether God exists *because* God says it's important? That's begging the question. This is my criticism of Pascal's Wager. Pascal started with the (unstated) premise that God rewards belief and punishes disbelief. He also relied on the unproven claim that such rewards and punishments are infinite. Both those ideas are conclusions about the nature of God. Give up those conclusions and the whole thing falls apart.
Once you admit that it's *possible* that the bible is mistaken about who God is and what God wants, you can't use our understanding of heaven and hell (and what earns you a ticket to either of them) to justify believing in anything.
Bionic Dance pointed out that it's just as plausible that God prefers the company of skeptics, hence those are then ones He wants to invite to heaven. If that were the case, then Pascal's Wager is flipped on its head. No matter how small the chance that such a god exists, it is in your best interest to remain skeptical.
I could play this game all day. What if God hates sycophants? What if the desire to praise and worship a god is the one thing that God really hates so much that He would send you to hell for it? In that case, Pascal's Wager says you should avoid praising and worshiping at all costs, just in case this version of God happens to be real.
In the words of Homer Simpson, "What if we picked the wrong religion? Every week, we're just making God madder and madder."
if my grandma asked me (if I even was at here death bed) if God isn't real, I wouldn't lie. It sounds cruel, sure, but I don't care. I won't tell her something that clearly goes against my conviction.
EDIT:
I want to give more clarity because I think that is crucial:
The idea proposed by the apologist was that the grandma knows that you're an atheist and asks you, is it true that God doesn't exist.
In that case, when she knows that I don't believe in God, why would she think that I'd say he exists? That does not make any sense.
@@js8270 Yeah, so your grandparents wouldn't have a reason to ask you for the comfort, right? Did they ask you? (I'm curious)
@@Soapy-chan_old If said grandparents knew someone was an atheist and then asked them if god was real on their deathbed, the most probable motive would seem to me to be a form of emotional blackmail... using their own impending demise as a means of coercing an admission, however false, that god exists from an atheist. Frankly, I doubt that anyone who was actually dying would do anything quite so petty... though I suppose it could happen as there are certainly some very petty people around.
@@theseustoo interesting perspective, I guess yeah that would be petty and I hope that no one is.
A few years ago I was asked by a lady in her 90's if I believed. I could not bring mysellf to answer other than "I think this is all we get". She acceoted my answer, I got the impression her belief leaned in that direction.
That was so bad that I can't even formulate a reasonable comment analyzing it. I had more philosophically rigorous arguments from my first grade students.
Well done as always.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they too carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
@@keithburns6602 How do you define truth?
I generally use a definition not far from the one that Paulogia uses that "truth is that which comports with reality." That is little 't' truth though. I don't believe that humans have access to anything that would be considered big 't' Truth, so I wouldn't ever claim it must be believed.
Even for the little 't' variety, I would not claim it "must" be believed in the absence of a goal. "You must believe the truth," is an admonition that makes no sense to me. Why?
Conversely, if someone were to say, "if you want to predict what may happen in your life, you should (or must) seek the truth." That is coherent. One still has no obligation to agree with it. In this case, no evidence is necessary because it is definitionally true - "truth is that which comports with reality", so if the goal is to be in line with reality, that is equivalent to speaking the truth.
Someone could live in a very terrible reality, however. Their goal might then be to believe those things which made them feel better. In that case, their "obligation" would be to avoid truth.
Well I think the Bible defines “true” as “reliable” or “without deception.” Or perhaps “trustworthy.” Hence faith or trust. Epistemology: Put faith in the trustworthy. It is both a consistent and comprehensive approach.
Your approach seems pragmatic. Mine is too actually. Like you said, it depends on goals but I think all humans want a lot of what the Bible can offer.
@@martinmckee5333 I was on mobile yesterday and I'm not sure if you missed my response bc of some error on my end. Truth as the bible defines it means "without deception" or "reliable." Another word might be "trustworthy." Hence trust or faith being a valid epistemology.
Why should someone seek to predict what might happen in their life? I think maybe we should in some regards but not every regard. I'd say wisdom tells us that if we can possibly change our future and not risk too too much in doing so, we should do it. But if our chances of changing the future is low, or the risk we have to put in is far too costly, maybe we don't.
Christianity allows for a good life now and the possibility that we have changed our entire eternity for the better. Low risk now. I'd argue a high possibility of an actual improvement of our afterlife.
Thanks, Paulogia. I'm so glad you are able to point out the incorrect definitions and logical missteps since I never took philosophy. Listening to the circular logic presented by these two makes my head hurt trying to find the point they went off the rails.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they to carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
Tldr- saying “disbelief carries no burden of proof” is like writing a memo in crayon that says “hey y’all memos need 2 b professional mkay?” !!
Prove that the truth must be believed. The extent to which you can do that is your true epistemological standard.
I’ve seen people use faith. It can be quite valid.
Most atheists use pragmatism. That’s valid too I suppose. But then you must also allow yourself to be convinced if someone makes an argument that Christianity is the most pragmatic life philosophy, which I think can be made.
@@keithburns6602There is no burden of proof for a claim nobody makes. No atheist claims the truth MUST be believed. You're free to believe a lie if you want to. There is no moral imperative to believe true things, only a pragmatic reason. Believing true things is more useful than believing false things. That's it.
2:02
I’m barely 2 mins in and I’m already creasing. If you know what the PineCreek theorem is, you’re laughing too, I bet.
Coitus conversion.
Yeah I got that one 😎😂
500 Pinecreek points for you
It never ceases to amaze me how anything more than a surface-level knowledge of evolution gives examples that destroy their arguments. Is this why they hate it so.
A small correction. At 36:05 you say "take another tact." The correct phrase is "take another tack" as in turning a boat, tacking against the wind, try another approach.
My ex is open about her belief that being happy is more important than being right, and is happy to believe whatever makes her happy and ignore evidence or proof that conflicts with her happy thoughts. Not all people think truth is ultimately important.
As usual, I had to listen to this a few times. Your responses are simple at first, feeling "intuitive" to me, as an atheist. However, nuance is something I overlook, and my intuition is pretty lousy at finding truth. The subjective vs. the objective is where I get tangled up. Thanks for your in-depth and thoughtful comments about this video. Another of yours which I'm going to download. 😃
"You can't have 'oughts' without 'ifs'" I love this way of putting it. It seems very simple and easy to explain.
I appreciate your proper understanding of "begging the question". A major pet peeve of mine is that far too many people have come to consider it means the same thing as "suggesting the question". Kudos.
Another beautiful, crispy logical and compelling rebuttal, Paul.
(But their argument, which you clearly laid out at about 9 minutes, is so ridiculously weak it is almost like shooting fish in a barrel.)
And I loved the cartoon of the "comforting lies vs unpleasant truths'. Thank you!
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they to carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
Tldr- saying “disbelief carries no burden of proof” is like writing a memo in crayon that says “hey y’all memos need 2 b professional mkay?” !!
@@keithburns6602 "Prove the truth must be believed."
So we are admitting that Christianity isn't truth, then?
8:36 - Does he even know what "intrinsic" means? I don't think he does. If truth seeking is only intrinsically good because God exists... then it's not "intrinsically" good, is it? It's good because of God's nature.
Two grown up adults who not only still believe in their imaginary friend, but want to convince others that their imaginary friends is real, blather for an hour about the importance of truth. If this is not the pinnacle of irony I don’t know what is.
They certainly put the rut in truth.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they to carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
@@keithburns6602 Is this lie ALL you have to say? You keep on repeating it as if it actually a) were true, and b) was important. It's neither! :P
It is important for everyone to know
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
Great Eru, this is painful.
Why do literally 100% of all apologist analogies miss the mark by such a wide margin?
Because they're not trying to seek truth, just affirmation for an already held belief.
It's easy to justify anything to yourself especially if you want it to be true. Just because they convinced themselves doesn't mean the argument/analogy was correct, but they believe it was because it sounded great to them when they thought it up in the shower
@@grantwillis8542 …but how can that be?? Why, this whole video is about there being a moral obligation TO seek the truth!!
They do it with such confidence.
Yeah, one would think they'd have a greater concern for accuracy, given that there's a word in the New Testament that refers to missing the mark (hamartia), and that word is translated into English as...SIN!
Sometimes I go to spiritualist conventions with my wife. You know what's really odd, they have better arguments and methods for the supernatural than most theist apologist. It's just ironic to me given how formal theist try to make their arguments.
Wait, really?
I though theist apologists were the _creme de la creme_
Could you share some that you heard?
@@Julian0101 well basically its all evidentiary in method, it may not be great evidence but the focus seems to be "thing helps with X or thing gives X result."
Well, most spiritualists don't try to twist their belief into a science, so they could demand from authorities that spiritualism should be taught in schools alongside real science.
My understanding of those groups is minimal, but it sounds like they don't have nearly as much to prove as a Christian advertiser.
Am I wrong in thinking that this argument essentially boils down to, "I want truth and I want a god to be real, so because I want both, god is real"?
I suspect if we boil the argument down, we wouldn't end up with much more than warm brackish water.
But your summation seemed to catch the gist of his claims.
I don’t think that’s it. It’s more like “We all want truth, and the only reason I can think that explains that is the Christian worldview”.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih Yeah...but that's kind of po-tay-to/po-tah-to. Still, I see your point.
@@sjhoneywell6235 There’s a key difference I see: they definitely never claimed God is real because they want Him to be. The heavy lifting in the argument seemed to be done by two things:
1- The assertion that truth-seeking is a moral obligation. (He couldn’t back this assertion with evidence so fell back on “you already believe this intuitively”).
2- A reliance on the listener assuming if there is a moral obligation, that this necessitates a truth-loving god existing. Then the further assumption that it’s the Christian God.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih I see where you're going with this.
To be fair, the further assumption that it's the Christian god is always the case. That assumption comes with the deal.
I feel that truth is important and I don't need a God to tell me I should feel that.
It was very thought provoking when I first heard Tom Jump say that he’d rather people be happy then give up their religion in pursuit of truth. I think given his background of depression, that’s a reasonable belief. Now that person can’t claim their being reasonable, but that’s okay if they don’t want to be reasonable.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
My argument is this: whatever a person’s weakest link in their epistemological framework is their true epistemological standard. Most atheists say that the truth is best to believe bc either A it works or B they want to only believe true things when given the choice. So all I’m concluding so far isn’t that God exists. I’m concluding that we need to reframe the conversation to pragmatic terms and not deductive terms. Since the truth is ultimately a pragmatic tool for atheists.
If I talk to a Muslim who has a faith- based defense of truth, we can talk about faith.
Etc.
Now, we decide what is the most pragmatic view: Christianity or atheism. Answer: Christianity. For reasons we can get into if u agree with me so far.
@@keithburns6602 hmm I suppose this seems reasonable. I’d have to think more about it.
How do you define pragmatic?
I do love his logic of "prove this thing" and him just going "well you already believe this thing, so I don't have to prove it!"
I don't think that's how formal logic works, my dude.
I do like how you highlight their switcharoo with conflating "my happiness" with "human flourishing." There are plenty of times that a given person's or group's unhappiness has driven them to discover something, improve some factor of life or help someone when their own life suffers. Often, all their hard work doesn't make them happy but it can improve flourishing.
If there was a moral obligation no one would lie
It seems to me that one could grant that preferring to believe what is true and not believe what is not true to the full extent possible is a moral obligation, and doing so would make skepticism and critical thinking moral obligations and place a moral obligation on the apologist to seriously prove the truth of their claims as opposed to just assuming it.
@23:00 Did they just argue that truth is a moral obligation then illustrate a circumstance where the actual moral obligation is to lie?
Yep. Their actual argument is that truth is a moral obligation. But not all truth. In fact truth can be bad and lies can be better. But on the one specific question of whether God exists, truth is a moral obligation. And it’s a moral obligation because God obliges us.
No lie. These are the actual arguments made on this video. All with a straight face.
Sounds like they are both saying this out loud for the first time
Truth is neither a moral or a obligation but a necessity for a better life.
8:00 "Thou shall seek the truth... not any truth... only certain truths about God's existence."
I get his preface here about not knowing how many rocks are in his garden but only seeking the truths you want to prove is dishonest and no different than begging the question.
I do not feel a moral obligation, but I feel compelled to seek the truth. I cannot be happy until I find it.
I would really like to see a coherent explanation of how "intrinsic" goodness is not self contradictory as "goodness" is a value judgement---which is inherently subjective. Something is "good" if it meets some criteria that some agent deems valuable or desirable, and is only _ever_ instrumental and I defy anyone to logically demonstrate otherwise...
I think you’re correct.
Prove that the truth must be believed. The extent to which you can do that is your true epistemological standard.
I’ve seen people use faith. It can be quite valid.
Most atheists use pragmatism. That’s valid too I suppose. But then you must also allow yourself to be convinced if someone makes an argument that Christianity is the most pragmatic life philosophy, which I think can be made.
@@keithburns6602 I don't think truth "must" be believed unless there is a goal or value attached to it. Whether truth should be accepted is entirely a value judgment, which is why I would like someone to demonstrate that there is such a thing as intrinsic value of _anything_ , when. something requires a value judgment it's inherently subjective by definition
so no I don't think truth "must" be believed nor do I think the truth is intrinsically valuable, but like anything else that has value it has instrumental value. It's a question of if/then-- just one example being _if_ a person doesn't want to believe propositions incongruent with reality, _then_ they must accept truth.
Not to mention that truth is sloppy language since truth isn't a noun there is no such thing as the truth propositions have a truth value which can range between true and false on a binary system but they're also non-binary truth value systems but that's outside the scope of this conversation my point is entirely that there is no such thing as intrinsic value that the entire concept is an oxymoron the value is inherently subjective because value requires a value judgment to be made and value can only ever be instrumental not intrinsic
So then why not be Christian? What is there to lose?
@@keithburns6602 I do not believe it's possible to just choose what you believe I don't think Christianity is even remotely convincing but what does that have to do with the fact that there's no such thing as intrinsic value? I'm not a Christian because I do value the truth because I don't want to believe propositions that are incongruous with reality and as far as I can tell Christianity is an entirely man-made farce, and belief in its supernatural claims is utterly unwarranted. But again we don't choose what we believe we're either convinced of something or we're not what convinces US is different from person to person but for me I need evidence and sound invalid logical argument and Christianity doesn't have that as far as I'm concerned, nor does any other religion I've ever encountered. In fact I find the very concept of the supernatural to be incoherent but I still don't understand why you were asking questions that have nothing to do with what my comment was about. My post was an invitation for someone to logically demonstrate intrinsic value and you haven't even attempted to do that so good day have fun believing and nonsense for no good reason
About 5 years ago, I was in college and struggling to make ends meet. As a supplement to my regular job, I was doing yard work for a 99 year old lady for a month or two. She knew she didn't have long to live, and she wanted to save a nice young man before she died, and so she took me aside one day and had a deeply personal and sincere plea for me to become born again (in case you didn't know, I'm an atheist and was at that point in time-though I don't think she knew). I knew what she wanted and why, and I laud her motives. What she did was very kind. I felt awful, because I didn't want to lie to her, but I didn't have it in me to tell her the truth. It still makes me emotional to this day and I'm not sure I did the right thing, but I decided to nod along and pretend that she got through to me so I could comfort her. She died about a week after that, presumably thinking she'd saved me, or at least planted a seed. She did not and I intentionally lied to her. It makes me feel bad, but I'll never know if I made the right call, or if there even was a right call. I hope I'm never in that situation again but if I am, I may lie again. It will depend on the circumstances.
You gave her peace in her last moments. There's nothing to be ashamed about
The concept of “telling the truth” is awfully overrated. Being kind and considerate to people is far more important than stating blunt facts. I hold that when “telling the truth” serves no purpose and only ends up hurting other people’s feelings is much better to shut up or tell a polite lie.
Of course context is everything.
The number of rocks in his garden could be a vital element for the future of the world, a petty god could only bless people with an even number of rocks, why would he dismiss that as an element of truth, the remaining arguments make the same level of sense, and how can he assume the priorities of a god? rocks could be vital, rocks breakdown to dust to dust formed man !?!
Good points. Of course they are biased and presupposing certain truths they like are relevant to god.
To a particular community of insects, whether my back yard has 0,1 or 87 rocks may in fact be crucial to their survival. As such it is a question of significance for them. A "habitable zone" of sorts.
That’s your problem with what he presented? Did you watch the rest of the video. It’s got terrible logic from start to finish. The rocks example was the least of it!
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih no as soon as I saw the rocks example I rage quit the video....
of course I watched the video
It's fascinating to watch Paul dismantle an argument with seemingly no effort. Lol
I’m a little surprised. It seems that, in recent memory, McDowell has really jumped the shark. He always seemed to be smarter than what we’ve been seeing from him lately.
I feel you on this. I was introduced to McDowell through GM Skeptic, who showed both through statements and through the interview they did together that Sean is a good person at heart. And while I don't see anything to suggest that has changed, I still can't help but feel that his steel-manning of the athiest arguments is a little less sturdy than steel often is. If he's genuinely trying, then I'm grateful, but failure to do it correctly, intentionally or otherwise, can lead people watching to assume that they've already seen the absolute best of the athiest response, and so conclude even more strongly that they're in the right, despite the logic being inherently flawed. That flaw has simply been missed after a supposedly-thorough test. Though ultimately I still definitely prefer Sean's faulty steel-manning to the visceral bigotry of some of the worst of the group...
This is ultimately the same argument they make for an objective morality; I feel it really strongly so it must be grounded in the God I believe in.
What if you had a truth-hating, evil god? Truth seeking would still be “morally good,” because whatever is despised by the evil god must have praiseworthy intrinsic value. In this case, a truth-loving god need not exist. I’m not bragging, but it literally took me 20 seconds to see that premise one is bunk. How could they spend time discussing this?
Still gonna watch the rest of the video though… mostly for Paul’s wit and charm.
I mean, that answer is also kind of begging the question, by calling it 'evil good' presuposes that the opposite of what this god wants is moral, which is exactly the same fatal problem the 'moral argument' has.
Edit: i found the premise you pointed out.
Yep, your counter answer fits quite well with that premise.
@@Julian0101
Yeah, I made and end-run around the issue of good and evil for brevity, and the colloquial nature of the post, so I can see how it appears to presuppose something as I didn’t structure it to match their premises. But I think the logic holds - truth can be intrinsically good and morally obligatory without a truth-loving god, so long as the god which does exist despises truth and is demonstrably immoral. My framing ignores divine command theory, but they didn’t put that in their argument, so I ignored the implication of that assumption.
@Lureeality 🎶🎵
Thanks!
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they too carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
@@keithburns6602
Atheists aren’t making a claim. Atheists CAN make a positive claim regarding the non-existence of a god, but an atheist doesn’t need to make a claim in order to reject the theistic claim “god exists.” If a Christian claims that the god of the Bible exists, then an atheist can either accept that claim (if it meets the burden of proof) or reject the claim (if it fails to meet the burden). But rejecting a theistic claim doesn’t require the atheist to make a claim of their own… that’s not how propositional logic works.
I hope Sean McDowell sees this video and responds.
Let's grant his argument. A truth loving god does exist.
The description of the god Yahweh shows that it lies to its creation, tells them to have faith like a child and not to lean on one's own understanding.
The god Yahweh is not a truth loving god.
The god Yahweh does not exist
I agree with your conclusion, but I think it does not follow from the argument you've presented. Let's see if I can show you:
▪︎ A truth loving god exists.
▪︎ The god Yahweh is not a truth loving god.
▪︎ Therefore, the god Yahweh does not exist.
That a truth-loving god exists does not imply that a falsehood-loving god does not exist. Hence why I think you should rework your premises to eventually draw your conclusion from them.
Atheist logic at it's finest.
In arguments like this, I always get confused because no one defines what they mean by 'grounded'. When you say that A is grounded in B, does that just mean that A depends on B? Without B you can't have A?
I grew up in a Christian home and when I started thinking for myself, I was grounded
Did I do it right?
@@uninspired3583 best comment of the day!
In most cases, the term “grounded” is used in reference to “objectivity” (morality, truth, etc.). Something is “subjective” if it’s existence, or truth value, requires the interpretation, and is subject to the bias, of a mind. Something is “objective” if it’s existence/truth is derived from (“grounded in”) something other than a sentient consciousness. This is why theist claim that objective truth, or objective morality, is “grounded in god’s nature.” They attempt to appeal to the very essence of god in order to avoid the objection that edicts from god are no less subjective than the opinions of any other thinking agent. But all they’ve done is dishonestly reframe their position, to create a distinction without a difference, in order to avoid an objection.
If god is a thinking agent, then thoughts (the products of god’s mind) are definitionally subjective. But Christians want to claim objectivity because they perceive it as superior to human subjectivity, and they cannot accomplish this by claiming that “truth and morality are grounded in god’s thoughts/mind.” So, instead Christians claim these things to be derived from god’s nature. However, Christians acknowledge that the products of god’s mind (thoughts, wills, intentions) cannot violate god’s nature. Therefore, appealing to god’s nature is indistinguishable from appealing to any product of god’s mind. All the apologist is doing is taking the subjective standard and relabeling it as objective - they attempt to avoid reference to god’s thoughts on morality and truth, and instead appeal to the supposed “nature of god,” even as they acknowledge that god’s essence drives the mind of god… and god’s mind perfectly mirrors god’s essence. It’s nothing more than a philosophical bait and switch.
I know that’s a bit more than an answer to the question “what do they mean by grounded,” but I hope it helps.
@@briley2177 i follow.. no objections
“Grounding” is when you have an idea that’s entirely theoretical, and you need to tie it to reality somehow.
An example is the Higgs Boson. This is a particle that scientists theorised exists. They had this concept of all the particles they thought existed. It was a good “neat” model, it explained a lot. But there was no evidence that this actually was how things worked in reality. Then after years of tests in a particle accelerator they detected a Higgs Boson. This was the grounding of their idea. This is where the idea changed from “a good theoretical notion with strong explanatory power” to “a model of how things actually are in reality”.
Given the "intrinsic" weakness of the argument and assuming that McDowell & Shenvi aren't stupid, what does their promotion of it reveal about their attitude toward their believing, trusting audience? I can't think of a way that puts them in a good light but I might be wrong.
I'm sorry ... but given the empirical evidence of this video ... they are both plainly _stupid._
The dude that studied theoretical physics had to give up his career because of a brain tumour. He's clearly cognitively impaired. Possibly because of that tumour, and he has my sympathy.
They're nice enough dudes, but really quite stupid. 🙄
There's something disingenuous about claiming that simply "seeking truth" makes their religion truth. Does anyone else also disagree with the use of "Truth of Atheism"? That seems to imply a claim made by atheism, which I'd argue doesn't exist.
i keep pointing out that atheists don't exist, that i am called atheist because of someone else's belief - it's really nothing to do with me at all. i call myself a ton of things way way before i'd describe myself as atheist. but i AM hard, hard atheist. lol.
Everyone in this video has an odd conception of "truth" as being "out there" in some X-Files kind of way. Truth isn't "out" there to be sought. It's "in" language, a property of language. A statement can either be true, false, or partly both but whatever is my object just is what it is. If I say, "I am an atheist," that statement is true or false. It's true if in fact I have no belief in God/s. It's false if I believe in God/s. Atheism is neither true or false. Only my description of my mental state can be true or false. If I say, "The tide comes in, the tide goes out," that statement is true. There's no "truth" in the tide.
@@Aliasjax Jordon Peterson would hate you. And Deepak Chopra. And all apologists for that matter. How can they possibly operate with pole like you simplifying the simple, and removing all the mystery and confusion of their wordplay with simple explanations!!
That was the smartest thing I've ever heard Inspiring Philosophy say.
My argument is this: whatever a person’s weakest link in their epistemological framework is their true epistemological standard. Most atheists say that the truth is best to believe bc either A it works or B they want to only believe true things when given the choice. So all I’m concluding so far isn’t that God exists. I’m concluding that we need to reframe the conversation to pragmatic terms and not deductive terms. Since the truth is ultimately a pragmatic tool for atheists.
If I talk to a Muslim who has a faith- based defense of truth, we can talk about faith.
Etc.
Now, we decide what is the most pragmatic view: Christianity or atheism. Answer: Christianity. For reasons we can get into if u agree with me so far.
@@keithburns6602
How is Christianity the most pragmatic view?
@@iluvtacos1231 I think we, practically, do need to concern ourselves with ontology of some things. If it is true that some harm might befall us, or some true benefit may come to us, we should act to secure the good benefit and avoid the harm. So, we can argue that Christianity allows us for the best of all these possible scenarios in this time and in the future. Because the existence of sincere and compelling claims of miracles or consciousness apart from our bodies (NDEs etc) makes the possibility of an afterlife one to be concerned about. Christianity allows someone to prepare for the afterlife while also giving them a good life here. How does it give us the best life here? Tom Holland the historian has a book you may have read called DOMINION that says (and i paraphrase) something like "In the western world we all swim in the waters of christianity, like fish unaware of water, we are unaware of how our society assumes christianity in almost everything." One example is the notion of human dignity which comes from the christian notion that we are made in God's image. Christians, if christianity is ontologically true, are secure in the afterlife through their faith. Atheists are not. If some God who only requires good behavior is real, careful christians are ok, as are atheists who are morally good. If Islam is real, christians are in trouble and so are atheists. And in this life, Christians have a good track record of bringing good change to the society, as Holland would agree. Atheists of course can as well. But really it is a push at best. Pragmatism says to be christian over atheist since it has all the benefits and none of the downsides of atheism. This analysis can go back and forth, but I am confident christianity will always beat atheism in this pragmatic regard, no matter what number of possible outcomes are discussed, both in this life and in the possibilities available for the next.
@@keithburns2768
So, Pascals Wager.
No thanks.
@@iluvtacos1231 @iluvtacos1231 Can you tell why it isn't pragmatic? I've already made a case that it is highly pragmatic. Can you tell me a better method to decide beliefs than pragmatism? *You have a burden of proof to defend your beliefs.* You seem to claim to choose based on what is pragmatic. But you aren't being pragmatic here. Or, if you are, let me know how I am wrong about that.
Hi Paul, love your work
Thank you
@@Paulogia I hope to start supporting you on Patreon (along with a short-list of others) once I'm finished with my studies and can work full hours again. Meantime, I'll keep sending the occasional PayPal tip when I can.
If you're ever interested in comparing notes on our journeys (I was raised and homeschooled in a Christian fundamentalist family in Australia 😅) hit me up.
@@Paulogia I feel morally obligated to tell you that I love your work more.
“You ought to care about what is true” is my best example of an objective moral truth.
No matter what your goal, you will be more likely to accomplish it if you know what is true.
I think you are confusing a statement of practical value ("you live a better life if you do X") with a moral statement ("you ought to do X"). Even if the practical value can be proven beyond any doubt, why would that imply a moral obligation?
Note that if you could prove this implication, you would have refuted Hume's law ("you can not derive an OUGHT from an IS).
@@dalstein3708 I don’t think I’m confused, but how we define “morality” may be a little different. I agree with Paul (33:19 ) - morality requires an “if”.
The reason you “ought to do X” depends on your goals (e.g. “you ought to do X, if you want Y”). Your goal (Y), could be “to live a better life” or it could be anything else - it’s subjective. Because goals are subjective, it follows that morality is necessarily subjective.
But because “you ought to care about what is true” applies to all goals, I think it’s a foundation for an objective morality.
35:46 I don’t think that there is any goal that could be reliably achieved without knowing what is true. Even if you claim that not knowing what is true will make you happier, you need to first know that is true.
@@MarkLeBay Are you familiar with the terms hypothetical imperative (Paul's 33:19 'if' and Alstein's 'practical value'), and categorical imperative? Usually in the this area of discussion 'objective moral truths' refer to the idea of categorical imperatives, which have no 'if' and need no practical value, they are just things you ought or ought not do for no reason beyond the action is inherently moral or immoral. I think instead of getting us to categorical imperatives, you're aiming at something more like.... a universal hypothetical imperative, or less impressively just a very broadly applicable but normal everyday hypothetical imperative. :) :)
@@MarkLeBay It would be cool if I could help you come up to a counterexample, where someone is impeded from achieving their goal by knowing truths. Hmmmm, have you heard the story about how pythagoras died, by taking an unnecessary detour around a field of beans (beans-phobia) while an angry mob was chasing him? Perhaps knowing the truth about what was planted in the field impeded his goal of escape :)
Wait. So we can just assume seeking truth is a moral obligation but we shouldn't assume human wellbeing is a moral obligation?
P1: God exists.
P2: If God exists, then God exists.
Conclusion: God exists!
Now its up to the atheist to disprove the premises.
That's a better syllogism than the one he actually made
That's very easy done in evangelical terms: Premise: "Gawd exists cuz muh baibble sez so!!!" Observation: "Yah forgot to say 'muh baibble sez so!!!'" Conclusion: "Yah no TRUE©®™ christian and wanna make us look bad and unsmart!!!"
@@soriac2357 Lol yeah it do be like that
But the syllogism he made goes
P1. If not A, then not B
P2. B
C: Therefore A
which is hella invalid
I love the way paul can break down the word salad they use, because for many, these deeper topics about intrinsic vs instrumental and the subjectivity of “good” and “bad” can get really twisty, I had to pause for a bit to process the intrinsic value vs instrumental value. A good analogy that helped me was that of a Tree falling on a deer and breaking its hind legs, that’s really bad for the deer but good for the predators that are about to get a free meal. The tree falling was neither good nor bad however it becomes good or bad depending on our perspective. Similarly, knowing the truth doesn’t have intrinsic value, it is only of value to us because we want to maximize our chance of survival by knowing how things work.
I’ve also met people who don’t really care if it’s particularly true, as long as it works for them. It can really give that effect and appeals to uncertainty after death. So on that, it’s definitely not a moral obligation, the core motivation seems to be survival and happiness. We want life after death because we want to survive, we never want to stop existing. Also they admitted that we only really care about certain truths, as with everything else, we have a hierarchy of the truths we care about. Like I probably can live life comfortably without ever seeing other planets with my own 2 eyes, there are people who really want to go and see though, seeing it really matters to them and so we have people at NASA.
He has to imagine atheists asking those questions because it doesnt happen in real life
Tldr- saying “disbelief carries no burden of proof” is like writing a memo in crayon that says “hey y’all memos need 2 b professional mkay?” !!
@@keithburns6602 how can someone prove they dont believe. That is silly
"You're reading (or listening to) my argument, therefore my argument is true."
"Survey says...!?"
SFX Buzzer, VFX Red "X"
"Oh...I'm so sorry."
I think it would be interesting to ask Neil if he knew 100% that a lie would convert someone to Christianity, but telling the truth would have them remain unconvinced, what would he do, is truth the moral obligation, or is the conversion.
Im sure we can all think of some apologists who don't believe that truth is intrinsic value or is a moral obligation, when it doesn't meet further their goals
This is a super-great question... I'm going to steal / borrow this.
Yes, someone definitely needs to press Neil on this point.
I get so pumped for Paul vids
I work nights and was woken up early; so my thinking is stunted right now, but did this guy make an argument that, "God exists because we as people like truth, but it's still ok to lie if it's harmful to tell the truth"? I'm confused 😕 And why do I have to care if God or Gods exist? How does that impact if there is such? I am going back to sleep, that circular argument fried some of my much-needed brain cells.
You must have missed the “there’s only one question that we are obliged to seek truth on” part. Spoiler alert: the exception is god. Just like every other flawed apologetic!
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih true and of course. For me personally; I really don't care if there are any gods or god. Any seeking of truth on my part doesn't change any existence of "deities". Either they do or don't. It doesn't change how I'm going to live my life. That was quite the thing to listen to half asleep.
@@ajaxwillis3962 Yep. Any falsifiable gods have been falsified already. All we have left are unfalsifiable ones (which are usually morphed adaptations of falsifiable ones… remember when the Christian God used to be above the firmament, peering down through openings just above the clouds?). By definition, any truth-seeking you do on an unfalsifiable proposition will not falsify an unfalsifiable God. So it’s pointless. We all know if compelling evidence ever came along for the Christian God we wouldn’t have to go scouting for it, theists would be shouting it from the rooftops. They already tell their woefully inadequate non-evidence to anyone that will listen… imagine what they’d be like if they had some actual evidence!
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih Right!? What makes me shake my head about this argument is that it could be used with other beliefs too. And it's a frustrating circular reason.
@@ajaxwillis3962 That applies to most arguments for god. They, if true, get you to a vague deistic god with no properties other than “first mover”, or “necessary”, or in this case “truth-loving”. Christians either forget that they have all their work ahead of them to show it is the Christian God that exists. Or they know but hope we atheists don’t notice.
The only exception I can think of are arguments that the resurrection really happened. If find those incredibly contrived. They require broken thinking that I know the apologist would see right through if used in an argument for some other god. And the whole category feels reverse-engineered to me… chosen only because it’s the one relevant point of difference between Christianity and other religions.
I do like the modifier "for fun" when talking about torturing children. It give some people the moral high ground when it comes to children being gunned down in a school and being able to argue it's part of gods plan.
And of course it's OK to torture people if you're really, really, really mad at them, since that is what Yahweh is going to be doing for eternity.
Yeah basically if you don't worship my invisible sky wizard you get none of this snatch.
Imagine being that big of a simp.
There is no such thing as intrinsic value. All value exists only in relation to the subjective experience of a conscious agent.
Forty six-year old, gray-haired Sean McDowell goes to the barber every month and says "Do that swept-up gelled thing that was popular when I was a freshman in high school in 1999. That'll make me look hip and cool and today's kids will relate to me."
If a gel-loving god exists, it's his moral obligation to use hair gel.
It's amazing how much of these apologetics just come down to
It is intuitive that X
If X then god
Therefore god
Almost everything else is fluff to make you forget that the premise is just intuition, rather than X itself.
I'm listening to this while I work, so I might have missed something; but I would swear if he would have interchanged the word 'obligatory' with 'compelling', his argument may have worked. I think all but the most indifferent humans are curious, and thus are, if even mildly, compelled innately to seek understanding. We may flail, like Helen Keller, at first, but even the dimmest light of understanding typically brings hope and joy. (Obviously, unfortunately, even when we are bolstering our own *misunderstandings*, eg confirmation bias.) Anyhow, I think in his conceited enthusiasm he overshot the mark.
Because compelling doesn’t tie to god
His syllogism at 8:41 still wouldn't work, because it is formally invalid
From now on, I'm going to only refer to apologists as Seemstoomies. They start every point they ever have with "Seems to me..."
Perhaps I'm missing something.
Can someone tell me where in the bible it instructs on a moral obligation to search for truth?
Closest I can think of is Phillipians 4:8 which says, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
Don't know if that rises to the level of moral obligation though.
@@atticmuse3749 Thanks for trying!
So thinking about this argument, they're basing it off an assertion that everyone has a moral obligation to seek truth. Yet that moral obligation doesn't seem to be biblically stated, so it's sourced elsewhere.
Which leaves us with an assertion of something that wouldn't even seem to be originating from God, even if we were to grant the assertion.
It seems this argument is pointing in a different direction than that apologist would like.
I can say I would like it if more apologists were more focused on searching for truth, rather than the business of stretching truths to defend their faith. It strikes me that apologists would not be the first group I would point to, as an example of people morally obligated to search for truth.
It’s not biblical. I don’t think they are claiming it is. I think it’s more of “All of us seem to have a desire to know truth. The only reason I can think to explain that is God”. Similar to the “morality is written on our hearts” line of argument.
@@JohnSmith-fz1ih I guess I can follow that thought process to some degree. Though morality being "written in our hearts" seems at least somewhat supported biblically.
Having a moral obligation to God requires a sense of knowing the wishes of God. If he doesn't have that anchor to his argument, I don't think logic can safely jump that chasm.
The jump from a general desire for truth, to a moral obligation for it, is a rather big jump. One that I didn't see him support in the video. Perhaps his book has more to say on it though. But if it does, it would be nicer to have more than his "We just know" in the video.
@@stevewebber707 Even without reading his book, I can say with confidence that there is no answer to your question. There is no evidence backing up the assertion. He’s just another dishonest apologist. (I feel comfortable saying it’s dishonest because no one can write a book on a topic, and form a false syllogism and not realise the obvious problems with it (like the irrelevant premise which serves only as a false dichotomy for those not paying attention, the hidden premises needed to get from the premise to the conclusion, the complete lack of definitions for critical terms, or the poor construction by using two different assertions in a single premise).
I'm only four minutes in but this sounds suspiciously like a repackaged presup argument. And now at minute 38 they come out and just say it's a presup argument.
Intuition is evidence that needs to be explained. Very often, the explanation is something about why our ordinary experience is not adequate to distinguish between the intuitive anwser and the truth. But you've still got to explain it. Not having an explanation isn't fatal to a theory, but it is a weakness in it.
I would say it's epistemically worse to assert a baseless explanation than to not explain something we don't have the right evidence to assess.
A cup falls over, what's the explanation? One could assert it was an invisible cat. We have evidence of cats knocking over cups, and this is a cup that was knocked over. Must have been invisible.
Or, I don't know, because I don't have enough information. Was it outside? Is it magnetic? Was it balanced precariously? Without access to these answers I don't know is all we can say.
Taking the stance "must have an explanation" isn't always reasonable.
Intuition also tells you that a pound of lead weighs more than a pound of feathers, so just one more example of how intuition can be wrong.
@@HiEv001 optical illusions and magic tricks work by playing on our intuitions. So many ways it steers us wrong..
It always kills me how arguments for god just go round and round, then go nowhere. They are just patting themselves on their own back!
00:01 because it is an argument. It deserves 0 attention. Just imagine medicine based on arguments (and not on evidence)
It's not an argument, it's a conjuration! "I have arranged words in a clever way, therefore: _fiat Deus!_" If an apologist could actually create a god in this fashion, we would probably be better off to worship the apologist. 😂
I have no moral obligation to seek "truth". It's purely a matter of precticality.
That was a very good analysis, Paul. I'm glad to hear you address the epistemological aspect of this. I always argue that belief in Christianity is a display of poor epistemology. It does not warrant belief based upon what we are aware of in terms of the origins and antecedents of Judaism and Christianity.
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they to carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
The Nazis speak lies when the think Jewish people are any lesser than they are. So corrie ten boom is standing for truth when she tells Nazis that no sub human person worthy of extinction is hiding in her house
@@keithburns6602 First, what exactly is "TAG"? Secondly, those who are simply unconvinced of the existence of a god or gods do not bear a burden of proof for said position. Thirdly, I did not state anywhere that "truth must be believed". Ergo, I do not need to "prove" an assertion that I did not make. Please do not use a strawman argument.
Tldr- saying “disbelief carries no burden of proof” is like writing a memo in crayon that says “hey y’all memos need 2 b professional mkay?” !!
TAG is Transcendental Argument for the existence of God
If there is no requirement to believe truth, why ask for evidence?
Love it. I enjoy these videos a lot more than dragged out discussions if Apostle A taking a shit in the woods in 20 AD is historically accurate.
"Torturing children *for fun*..." tells me right away that they do not understand the concept of absolute morality. "For Fun" puts a condition on it, making it subjective. Even if they try to correct themselves, it's too late. I dismiss their argument, as it is based upon a flawed understanding of the premise.
And that’s overlooking the really, really obvious flaw that when someone asks why torturing children for fun is wrong they are asking an epistemological question. They are seeking a justification for the claim, instead of just relying on our intuitive subjective feelings. So when McDowell dismissed the whole question by saying anyone asking it needs to get psychological help he was being disingenuous. Asking for grounding/justification for a claim is not the same as murdering a bunch of kids for fun then saying “What?” as if you did nothing wrong.
And I have a rule when listening to apologists… if they have to be completely disingenuous and deliberately miss the obvious in order to make their point, they lose the benefit of the doubt in my mind. I consider them dishonest.
Reverse the grandma scenario. If the grandson believed that she died a quick and painless death. Would it be beneficial to tell him the truth in that, she suffered a horrible and agonizing death.
I cannot believe how satisfying it is to have that Christian at the end just explain that the presupposition argument is _not_ taken seriously. Thank goodness, finally _a_ believer who realizes that it's _not_ remotely convincing to an atheist and gets that it's laughed at, that it's a joke! Yes, it is! It's unbelievably unconvincing when you hear someone present you with an argument that begins with 'Okay so before anything you need to agree that I'm right'.
The existence _of_ this deity is the _entire_ thing being discussed, _starting_ by assuming they exist _is, not, convincing._
This misses the point. TAG is meant to show atheists that they too carry a burden of proof also. Prove the truth must be believed. The degree to which you support that claim is your true epistemological standard.
@@keithburns6602 ...How on Earth does TAG put a burden of proof on atheists? The argument starts with an assumption that a god exists, that's exactly the problem with it.
@@Cellidor Sorry for the delay. Well, if an atheist cannot say WHY to believe what is true, then they cannot use concepts such as "burden of proof" to back up their view. "Christianity does not meet the burden of proof. It may not be true." I would ask... why believe only what is true. Well, now it is your turn to say why you believe only what is true. I have heard atheists give several good answers. "Believing in true things works." Ok. So, really, the standard this person has for making decisions is if it works or not. So, if a lie would work equally as good, it can also be believed. In this case. Now, what is your reason for believing that which is true?
@@keithburns2768 So just to clarify and make sure we're not talking past each other, this is the format of TAG I'm referring to, is this the same as the one you're using? (or just being devil's advocate for, I'm not sure which):
1. God is a necessary precondition for logic and morality (because these are immaterial, yet real universals).
2. People depend upon logic and morality, showing that they depend upon the universal, immaterial, and abstract realities which could not exist in a materialist universe but presupposes (presumes) the existence of an immaterial and absolute God.
3. Therefore, God exists. If He didn't, we could not rely upon logic, reason, morality, and other absolute universals (which are required and assumed to live in this universe, let alone to debate), and could not exist in a materialist universe where there are no absolute standards or an absolute Lawgiver.
@@Cellidor No I am making a somewhat different argument than the video. I am saying that deductive has no place in this conversation until someone establishes that only true things can be believed. If we allow that false things can be believed, then you need a reason to reject christianity other than "there is no proof."
The truths he is obliged to seek can never be found because there is no proof of their existence.
Nice job Paulogia. Neil Shenvi is an example of how emotion, whatever its source, can overwhelm reason and lead to the sort of wishful thinking that we refer to as religious faith.
His wife is a christian vixen and loves when he makes her scream jebus's hokey name.
Neil's eyebrows went into Shapiro attack mode. 😂
Yeah if you argument is " we just know it's true deep down" and I can use that with any other deity than it's not much of an argument.
i love how they are arguing that lies are good sometimes saying there's utility of dishonesty. While also arguing for truth as super important.
So whcih is it? lies are the best or truth is the best?