Atheists on Trial #1 | Alex O'Connor
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- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- A Christian attorney puts Alex O’Connor’s entire case against Christianity on trial.
The question for your consideration: In the case of Alex O’Connor v. Christianity, has Alex shown Christianity to be irrational?
Here's a second question: Has Alex proven his entire platform to be self-defeating?
Neither? Both?
You’re the jury. These questions are for you to decide. Comment with your decision! Even better if you explain your reasoning.
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0:00 Intro
3:36 "Atheism is not a position"
10:50 Burden of Trust
15:53 Kalam Cosmological Argument
22:18 Teleological Argument
28:18 Moral Argument and Argument from Reason
33:28 Alex's Channel is Self-Defeating
37:33 Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus
1:01:19 Intro to Alex's Case
1:06:30 Problem of Evil
1:09:03 Animal Suffering
1:14:42 The "Problem of God" (Canaanite Conquest, etc.)
1:34:15 Divine Hiddenness
1:42:34 Argument from Geography
1:45:57 Conclusion
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Related Articles:
“Atheism and Agnosticism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: plato.stanford...
Re Biblical Inerrancy:
⁃ "Why Don't the Gospels Match?" by N. T. Wright: www.ntwrighton...
"Inerrancy and the Resurrection," by William Lane Craig: www.reasonable...
"The Inerrancy of Scripture," on The C. S. Lewis Institute: www.cslewisins...
Re Old Testament Ethics:
"Servitude in Ancient Israel (Pt. I)," by Paul Copan: www.reasonable...
"Warfare in Ancient Israel (Pt. II)," by Paul Copan: www.reasonable...
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Related Videos:
O’Connor discusses the resurrection with William Lane Craig: • Did Jesus Rise from th...
O’Connor discusses the Kalam Cosmological Argument with William Lane Craig: • Cosmic Skeptic & Dr. C...
O’Connor debates Ben Shapiro on whether religion is good for society: • Ben Shapiro vs Alex O'...
Mike Winger’s Bible Contradictions Trilogy:
• "FULL of Contradiction...
• 13 Bible Contradiction...
• Biggest Bible Contradi...
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Fellow Christians, let me know what you think, and don’t hesitate to suggest improvements to my very new channel. I have thick skin and plenty to learn (such as how to improve this awful audio). Thanks for your great work, and may our Lord continue to bless it!
@ReasonableFaithOrg @PremierUnbelievable @CapturingChristianity @WesHuff @TruthUnites @WiseDisciple @MikeWinger @Daily_Dose_Of_Wisdom @givemeananswer @apologeticsroadshow @ApologiaStudios
Atheists, tell me why I’m wrong. And if you’d like to go on trial, let me know. O’Connor was just the first to pique my interest, but now I’m in the market :)
@CosmicSkeptic @PhilHalper1 @GeneticallyModifiedSkeptic @MajestyofReason @SansDeity
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So, what do you think? Has Alex O’Connor shown Christianity be irrational? Has he shown his own channel to be self-defeating? That’s for you to decide!
P.S. the audio is bad, I know. Better to do something good now than something perfect never-but I am working on it! The tech, although not as complex as anything God’s made, is still very new to me.
If we just watched you strawman his arguments? Then a jury would agree. If you presented his actual arguments? Your case would fail.
@ Would you mind identifying the specific strawman arguments, so I can correct them? That wasn’t my intention, and I would like to fix it if what you’re saying is true.
@@KoryRQueen I only got a few minutes in before realising two things, firstly you're misrepresenting the arguments you're responding to, secondly you're not even debating anyone so your misrepresentations are going entirely unchecked.
Your opening point about how atheism can only be strong/gnostic atheism so atheists have the burden of proof is just nonsense. You even acknowledged it yourself in examining the etymology of the word 'a' (without) - 'theism' (belief in God). That's all the term "atheism" is - I don't have belief i.e. I am yet to be convinced that a God exists - now within that umbrella term there'll be all manner of further views, there'll be people who are adament that God doesen't exist, thereby making a claim and adopting a burden of proof, there'll be people who are open to God's existance but aren't convinced yet that he does - non-resistant non-belief (Alex O Connor), then there's people like Dawkins who's outlook I'd argue is representitive of the majority of people who call themselves atheist which is the position that they believe there's no good evidence a God exists, that it's very unlikely he does exist but accept that we can never know with 100% accuracy because of the difficulty of proving a negative, especially a supernatural one.
I don't know, the whole "We don't have the burden of proof" position just seems so weak coming from people who claim to have the word of God on their side. I lost interest in watching any more because I figured if you're not arguing honestly within the first five minutes then there's little point in entertaining anything else.
@@ChuckChuckWood If you identify a specific misrepresentation, please do let me know. I prefer to steelman argumans, not strawman them. Let me know what I missed, and I'll try to fix it.
Re Burden of Proof, what do you think that burden is? And what kind of evidence is relevant to meeting it?
hey! fellow small youtuber here.
i just wanted to say i like what you’re doing here and keep it coming!
since nobody seemed to bring up anything specific to disagree with, i thought i’d just start with one of your initial claims about the origin of the universe.
You asked:
“Is the most basic fundamental reality-the thing which exists simply because it exists-is that a mind, or is it mindless? Only one of these options can be true. You can either pick one or say ‘I don’t know.’”
I’m not sure what you mean by mind in this context. If you mean a human-like intelligence with self-awareness and intent, then that’s one thing. But if you’re referring to something more abstract-like a system that processes information, self-organizes, or exhibits goal-directed behavior-then reality might not fit neatly into either “mind” or “mindless.”
It doesn’t have to be one or the other. It can be both, or neither, depending on how you define “mind.” Some views suggest that intelligence emerges from complex systems rather than being fundamental. Others argue that cognition exists on a spectrum, appearing even in simple self-organizing systems like biological processes.
So maybe reality isn’t best described as either purely “mind” or purely “mindless”-it could be something more fundamental that gives rise to both.
The inability for ANYONE to show a demonstration of anything supernatural is all I need to call it non justifiable.
Talking snakes, donkeys and bushes?
Really? Come on guys.
Crazy stuff.
What counts as a demonstration? What, to you, counts as valid evidence for a proposition in general?
@@KoryRQueen
An observable testable demonstration of the laws of nature being violated.
@@vtwin1979 You appear to be describing empirical scientific evidence. Do you run the experiments yourself, or do you take them secondhand from the testimony of scientists? How do you choose between scientists when they don't agree?
Also, miracles are, by definition, non-repeatable and therefore non-testable--as are all historical events. What kinds of evidence do you use to evaluate historical claims in general? On what basis, for instance, do you decide whether or not Galileo existed? What evidence is relevant to that inquiry?
@@KoryRQueenYou are correct that historical events are not considered in the same way as scientific considerations. However historians won't make scientific claims, a historian will say for example that Rasputin reportedly had multiple attempts on his life that failed. They would defer to scientific understanding of the nature of the claim, is it reasonable to say that Rasputin did so. Or in the relevant context a historian would say these are the issues and events around say the resurrection of jesus but will defer to scientific understanding of the likelihood of actually rising from the dead. If scientific knowledge changes then the evaluation might change but until resurrection is taken to be a serious scientific idea a historian would say this isn't really a valid historical account of what happened in the literal sense.
@ The fact that the resurrection violated normal scientific laws is precisely why it was significant. That was the point. No one ever thought resurrection was scientifically possible, which is why they took it as a sign that the Author of Science is the one who did it.
Your analysis amounts to a blanket denial that it's ever possible to violate the laws of nature. On what philosophical basis do you make that claim?
Here are issues with two things that you said in the first ten minutes of your video that I found problematic:
Atheism is defined as the lack of belief in the existence of gods or deities and can range from a simple absence of belief to an active rejection of theistic claims. There haven’t been any "recent changes" in its definition, thought your statement makes it sound as though there has and atheists are committing a Motte and Bailey fallacy.
You stated that Antony Flew "makes it clear that this is about shifting the burden of proof away from atheists and onto theists". I am not familiar with Flew's work or his quote, but it sounds like he was refuting a Burden of Proof fallacy that may have been circulating. The burden is on the person making the claim of God's existence to prove it, rather than on atheists to disprove it.
I had never heard of the motte-and-bailey fallacy, but upon reading about it, yes, that is precisely what O'Connor does.
One moment, "Atheism is not a position; I'm not making any claims" (the motte). The next, "On atheism, we expect such and such" (which can only be said if atheism now means Materialism, i.e., the bailey).
Thanks!
@@KoryRQueen Consider embedding clips or adding timestamped links of Alex’s claims in future videos to give viewers better context for your arguments. Thanks!
Your argument against Alex's argument from evil (Adam and Eve) is basically "god moves in mysterious ways" and i believe it falls short because you are basically redefining what omni-beneviolet means (all good all the time without exception). I equate it to a word like undefeated. Undefeated means never lost ever. If i was a boxer and i had a record of 30-1 could I claim to be undefeated? What if i had a very good reason for my loss? What if my loss made me an even better boxer and leads to even greater victories in the future? If my loss leads to greater victories then was it really a loss? When people say God allowing evil leads to greater goods he still allowing evil so by definition cannot be omni-beneviolet, just like if my defeat leads to greater victories would not mean I'm undefeated.
The difference between defeat and victory is much more clear-cut than the connection between love and suffering.
By your analogy, I think "defeat" and "suffering" track, and "victory" and "pleasure" track. Love would be more like "skill" under that analogy; as in, it's possible a boxer is the most skillful in the world, even if they're not undefeated, and their losses could be a means of improving their skills. But I don't think I would use this as an analogy for God's love.
Parental love is a much more useful analogy. Parents inflict minor suffering on their children (like making them clean their rooms or refusing them ice cream for dinner) out of love, knowing it will lead to greater goods.
Exercise is also a more useful analogy. Out of self-love, we inflict suffering on our bodies, knowing it will lead to a greater good.
The doctor analogy is also more useful. A doctor may inflict pain on the patient to save their life, which is a greater good.
@KoryRQueen I the reason a doctor inflict pain to lead to a greater good is because the doctor is unable to avoid said pain in the process of healing the doctor is not omnipotent or omniscient if the doctor had the power to heal you without causing you pain but caused you pain anyway that would not be a good doctor. Either God has the power to achieve his goals without allowing suffering or he does not have the power to achieve his goals without allowing suffering you can't just remove God's omnipotence when it's convenient. Remember, the question isn't just why would God allow evil, it's why would an omnipotent, omniscient, omni-beneviolet God require evil to achieve its goals? An omnipotent, omniscient, omni-beneviolet God requires nothing to achieve its goals which then follows any evil it allows, it chose to allow and an omni-beneviolet being CANNOT choose to allow evil and continue to be omni-beneviolet by definition, just like a boxer CANNOT lose an continue to call himself undefeated.
@@KoryRQueen What if the suffering does not lead to any change for the good of that person? Then God tortured someone for nothing and then God lets them be tortured for eternity?
Better yet, God already knew the person was going to hell when he made them. Why did he even make them in the first place? Just for them to suffer in fire for eternity?
@@vinnygiggidy In that case, we simply disagree. I say that if suffering is a way to accomplish some greater good, then an omnipotent God can allow it without violating his love. Alvin Plantinga’s essay, “Free Will Defense,” pretty much killed the “Logical Problem of Evil” in the philosophical community, which is what you appear to be promoting. Atheists largely focus on the “Evidential Problem of Evil” a la JL Mackie, which is a more probabilistic approach. I think your argument is too ambitious, and most philosophers, even among atheists, agree.
@@KoryRQueen
Premise 1) an omnibenevolent being CANNOT accept the existence of evil, by definition.
Premise 2) an omnipotent being would NEVER have to accept the existence of evil, by definition.
Premise 3) a being that is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent CANNOT and WOULD NOT accept the existence of evil under ANY circumstances, by definition.
Premise 4) evil exists.
Conclusion) a being that is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent CANNOT exist, by definition.
This is my argument in a syllogism.
I believe the word omni-beneviolet doesn't allow room for evil by definition unless you change the definition of the word then that would be just moving the goalpost.
"has Alex shown Christianity to be irrational?"
Exhibit A
Christianity: 1+1+1=1
Atheist: Your honor, I rest my case.
The theodicy from greater goods/soul building is insane. At its core you are essentially saying, "But what if the evil was actually good kinda?" It can be easily flipped around with the evil god hypothesis. What if an all powerful evil god wanted to maximize evil (or suffering the distinction really doesn't matter) so the god allowed people to experience hope, love, and prosperity so that it hurt even more when people experienced despair, hate, and destitution? We would also expect to see the same world we find ourselves in. They are simply bad arguments.
Also, claiming that 'bad angels' could interfere with the 'good' angels is a really weird idea because all you have to do is ask yourself why the bad angels are on earth in the first place. They are on earth because god sent them there. Still god's doing. ESPECIALLY considering god's foreknowledge.
Additionally, calling upon the bible's theme of "turning evil into good" is odd because there is no need for it to be that way. Could god not have made the theme of the bible different? You talk about Alex moving the goalposts, but I'm not even sure you know where you're aiming.
As an aside, resurrections aren't really that miraculous according to the bible. The bible mentions at least ten resurrections, including the widow’s son at Zarephath (1 Kings 17:17-24), the Shunammite woman’s son (2 Kings 4:32-37), a man revived by Elisha’s bones (2 Kings 13:20-21), the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11-17), Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:35-43), Lazarus (John 11:1-44), many saints at Jesus’ crucifixion (Matthew 27:50-53), Jesus Himself (Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20), Tabitha (Acts 9:36-42), and Eutychus (Acts 20:7-12). Being resurrected seems like a banality of the time.
1. The "Evil God Hypothesis" is an interesting thought experiment, I agree. Ultimately, though, I think it simply shows that it's equally likely that there are evil entities at work in the world, which Christianity doesn't deny. Conversely, on atheism there's no such thing as evil, only brute facts. To assert that evil exists is to undermine atheism.
2. Concerning why God might have cast demons to earth and, in general, allowed suffering; that's precisely the question--is this enough to show that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God is incoherent? I have tried to explain why I don't think so. Saying "he could have made it differently" is just an "If I were God" argument, and I don't find those very compelling.
3. Yes, the Bible does list other resurrections. Jesus isn't significant merely for his resurrection. There's an entire narrative centered on him, of which his resurrection is a central piece, but it's certainly not the only part. The more important question for any resurrection would be what it means, and in Jesus' case, it vindicates his entire claim to divinity. Invariably, resurrection means God is acting, and if God resurrects the self-proclaimed messianic "Son of Man," that means something.
@@KoryRQueen Of course atheism recognizes evil.
1) Morality is an evolutionary response to the pressures of social living and sentience. It is how we, as a group, manage our group's existence, to maximize our gene's chances of surviving into the next generation. Monkeys demand equal pay for equal work, dolphins make alliances, and elephants grieve their dead. These are all products of evolution.
Evil is, for humans, _being unfair_ . Because we are essentially equal creatures, fairness is the root of all of our morality; and consequently, unfairness is the definition of evil. This is found in social organizations and religions and philosophies for all of history; even slave-owners expected other slave-owners to be fair to each other (defining slaves as non-human was how they escaped the requirement to be fair to them).
The Golden Rule not only sums up human morality, it predates Christianity by a lot.
2) Of course it is. If you saw a child drowning, you would put yourself in danger to rescue them. God watches and does nothing. Ergo: God is not good, or not watching, or not capable.
Consider this: if Abel was allowed to murder Cain as an example of evil to the world... why is there more? Surely a single instance is sufficient. Why do we have to have so many more murders? And if people do need constant reminders, why does it have to be real murder? Can't God have angels pretend to be innocent children and pretend to be murdered by other angels so that humans can be scared into goodness? Why do those children have to die to elevate my conscience? Because frankly, they're making a bigger sacrifice than Jesus ever did.
3) if there were other resurrections, then don't those people have as much claim to divinity as Jesus? Why did God resurrect Jesus and none of those innocent kids we were just talking about? For that matter... why did the resurrections stop the instant we got cameras and medical science?
Why do you do anything to help anyone, ever? Why are you more moral and generous than God?
@@KoryRQueen 1) please define evil, and before you answer: lot of creeps like nazis of mafia where devout christians, lot of nasty clergy as well. Or your new president 🙂2) funny, i don't find the gods-ways-are-mysterious-argument very compelling 3) if the sky falls down, that would also mean something, but only if actually occurred.
@@vincent4189 Only your first point can really be responded to, I think. Evil in Christianity is the willingness to take some benefit for yourself, even at the expense of others. Love, conversely, is the willingness to do what’s best for others, even at your own expense, and love is the highest good/virtue.
How do you define evil?
@@KoryRQueen1) that is simply not true. If you define evil as God then yes an atheist would struggle with it. The question is why do you define evil as God?
I believe that Alex has pointed out many contradictions within the Bible. He is providing proof by showing the lack of substance in the arguments that Christians make. He states time and time again that he is willing to believe in God if you can provide him evidence that God exists. People always try to justify by saying that Christianity provides so much worth in the lives of individuals, but what has single-handedly created more destruction and sparked more war than Christianity?
A question that I have always had is, "why did God create life on only one planet in numerous galaxies?" No one has been able to answer that question.
Another question is, "If God knew us before we were born and has knowledge of all of time, then why did he not predict or inhibit Adam and Eve from causing the downfall of mankind?"
Why did he outline ways in which people can enslave others?
Why do the Gospels contradict each other?
I would honeslty like to know
1. Contradictions. Alex does list contradictions, and I have a couple responses to that. First, usually what he says isn't really a contradiction. I went through a couple examples in the video. But the second point is that even if there were contradictions, they don't undermine the core resurrection facts that remain very difficult for the atheist to explain; nor do they harm the theological concept of biblical inerrancy since that's not a stiff, literalistic term. Alex just looks at those core facts says, "Something really weird happened," and I don't find that very compelling.
2. "What has single-handedly created more destruction and sparked more war than Christianity?" My first answer is: atheism (Nietzsceh/Marx and all the movements that grew out of their ideas). My second answer is: even if Christianity has caused the most harm, it has caused even greater good, and that's a normal pattern. The things capable of the most good tend to be capable of the most harm, e.g., various kinds of technology or human beings for that matter.
3. "Why did God create life on only one planet in numerous galaxies?" First, we don't know that that's true. We can't see very far, and the farther we see, the less detailed the image is. Second, if he made everything enormous to impress a sense of smallness and finitude on humanity, that would also make sense. Spiritual realities are often symbolized in the physical world, and our human smallness is a common biblical theme.
4. "Why did God not predict or inhibit Adam and Eve from causing the downfall of mankind." First, I am among the Christians who take Genesis 1-11 as mythological, establishing the core Christian worldview via the medium of mythology. "The Bible Among the Myths" is an excellent book on the subject. Second, even if they did exist and fall, I would trust that he allowed that evil because he knew a greater good would result. For instance, the idea of being "perfected by suffering."
5. "Why did he outline ways in which people can enslave others?" I detailed much of this in the video, and there are articles in the video description for more detail. But in short, "slavery" is a very loaded and misleading term in the modern west, but when we look at the overall themes (most commonly, take up the cause of the poor, oppressed, widow, foreigner, slaves, etc.) and all the laws related to slavery in the Old Testament, I have enough to trust that God was enacting laws that would push his people toward dignifying others as fellow "image-bearers," including slaves. The chattel slave trade was destroyed by Christians, for Christian reasons, and Alex's claim that it was actually the Enlightenment breaks down very quickly upon investigation.
Does any of that help?
@@KoryRQueen
The core resurrection facts?
What facts?
There’s hearsay accounts written decades later by an unknown author.
We can’t even tell how many times it was retold. And we definitely don’t have observable evidence it’s even possible.
@@vtwin1979and this guys a lawyer.
@@adrianthom2073
The problem he’s got is a Christian god is presupped with presup traits. When you make a god up with unlimited powers we can’t be surprised they get the results they want. lol.
@@adrianthom2073
Somehow I don’t think unknown authors writing about supernatural events decades after the so called events told by apparently 500 hearsay witnesses would last 2 secs in a court room.
Judge would laugh at him.
0:56 objection your honor relevance. If in 56 seconds you saying that his platform is irrelevant then unsure i wanna sit here for an hour while you work backwards. Either provide everyone evidence of the God you believe in or case dismissed.
Sorry, my friend; a case that’s actually worth something can’t be reduced to tweet-sized one-liners. The evidence is in there, but this channel probably isn’t for someone who just wants quick and punchy soundbites.
Alex’s platform is far from irrelevant, but it is self-defeating. It violates his own pleasure-based ethical system by actively turning people away from religion, despite religion being an empirically well-established means of increasing people’s pleasure and decreasing their suffering.
In legal arguments, we’re trained to always begin with a summary of the conclusion, then work backwards.
From your “debunking” moniker, I’d love to know why you think I’m wrong more substantively. Debunk me!
@KoryRQueen Hmm interesting apply. I do like punchy sound bites. Used to love long form content but it's difficult to maintain interest. I'll freely admit this. Ill even admit that your right about courts. But maybe i will make a video .... Oh wait, im busy with work and life. I also don't see the point or purpose seeing as most people don't change their mind
@ Fair enough. While likely true that most people never change their minds, when minds are changed by argument, sometimes it happens to be the mind of C. S. Lewis, Francis Collins, Alister McGrath, etc.
I do genuinely appreciate your comment. If concise is better, then I’ll see what I can do to sharpen this up. I’m very new to the RUclips world and have lots to learn. Thanks!
@KoryRQueen im sure ur video is fine ill try to slog through it for your sake. We just disagree that religion is a "good". Ive read CS Lewis and find his conclusions ... Unsupported or misunderstandings. Collins testimony of conversion is imho emotional, and McGrath i know little of. Both you and alex make long form content and I rarely watch you both. Suggestions are: make some shorts of your best arguments from this video.
@@debunkingdonkey6098 Sounds good, I appreciate you taking the time and having the discussion. Happy to unpack anything further from there!
C S Lewis prayed for his cancer ridden mother and she died. The same happened with his wife.
Is there a deduction we can derive from these events?
How can you believe in something infaillible, what can be claimed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Prove your claim or stop believing in it.
What categories of evidence are valid to you?
@KoryRQueen what convinced you there is an invisible yet all powerful being that you cannot detect? Probably your parents brought you up a christian and you never questioned your indoctrination. It is sad that an educated person like you has his mind polluted by fantasies from antiquity.
@@KoryRQueen
Seriously.
How do defend against the knowledge of scientific evidence for the laws of physics?
Nothing else in the Bible matters. The rest is mundane.
If you can’t reasonably show that the laws of physics can be violated then how do you expect someone to justify believing they can be broken?
We are talking about dead people coming back to life, walking on water etc.
And what do we have to back the Bible up with to know if it’s true or not?
The overwhelming evidence by the scientific community debunks so much of the Bible right down to Noah’s Ark.
Christian Scientist are overwhelmingly known to be pseudoscience.
@@KoryRQueen For me all types of evidence are valid, however nothing comes close to the weight of empirical evidence. For remarkable or paradigm altering claims it is absolutely essential.
@@KoryRQueen Pretend it is a court of law. If a witness talked about how they feel things happened or how they heard a story from someone, you would laugh at them. Use that as a basis.
Animal suffering:
1. Does satan challenge gods power in your mind? I thought Satan's power was only in competition with god when the free will of humans came into play.
2. Is pre human earth a battleground with Satan in your mind? Why does god allow this?
3. When sigificant challenges are mounted (like natural animal suffering) simply stating god knows more is inauthentic engagement.
4. You artifically shift this conversation to atheisim rather than assessing the christian position.
5. The unimaginable numbers of animals suffering (and then being randomly wiped out by a natural event and not even contributing to the genisis on humans) indicates either constraints on gods power, equal forces of evil, or a being that is indifferent to suffering that we humans would find empathy and compassion for.
@@JethPeter
My response to animal suffering comes in stages:
First, it is possible that I can’t give a satisfactory response to “Why did God do this?” That’s not a questions it’s reasonable for me to think I can always answer.
That said, the nearest Christian answer I can think of is that human and angel free will impact numerous facets of creation. Why does God allow this? I’m not sure. My best guess is that the suffering makes way for much of the beauty and majesty in the animal kingdom, and according to the Bible these majestic creatures end up in paradise but no longer kill each other. So, assuming God lets Satan interfere at the natural selection level, we have all these majestic creatures claw their way into existence, and then the creatures are rescued from all the suffering that made their existence possible and placed where there is no more possibility of death or suffering. Quite subversive to Satan’s plans-sort of like the crucifixion-and matches the “suffering gives way to greater goods” pattern. That’s the best I can make of the biblical data, but again, my faith doesn’t rest on the ability to answer animal suffering any more than a materialist’s faith in the natural world rests on their ability to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics.
The difficulty of animal suffering would have to outweigh all the positive evidence for Christianity, and it doesn’t.
@KoryRQueen this implies that the living beings could not have been brought into existence without suffering. I can accept the idea of greater goods from a human suffering perspective (if we value free will enough). I can't reconcile the Christian god with the needless suffering of creatures to simply spar with the devil with no free willer souls on the line.
If the god of the bible exists I feel near certain he could of created the world in all its majesty without the many millions of years of suffering that exists.
Note I am actually religious and believe Jesus was at minimum a spectacular moral exemplar and possibly significantly more. That said things like animal suffering should give everyone pause to wrestle with why this might be the case.
For me it either implies a more removed divinity (distant god), an imperfect divinity (i.e. not all powerful, or not all good), a lack of divinity, or perhaps a divinity with a different set of values and perspectives than us.
I suspect you fall into the latter camp, and I do as well. That said where this positions us feels quite different. The god of the bible, especially the old testament, is very human. I would go further and say they are a flawed human. That said the god that Jesus speaks of feels more like what I recognise from my spiritual experiences. Consciousness and love are decent analogies perhaps.
I think you're giving this a fair examination. Natural selection as the means of bringing life to its current level of complexity gave me serious problems as I was evaluating Christianity from the atheistic perspective too, and your way of thinking sounds very familiar to me from my own experience.
So, yes, I will agree that the Christian God is not on the same plane as humanity and cannot be evaluated the same way. Without believing he's any less loving, we might still think he can do things that a human simply isn't equipped to do for lack of power, foresight, knowledge, love, etc.
Concerning the millions of years of animal suffering, a couple of facts do count as what the law will call "mitigating factors," i.e., it's not a wholistic solution, but it does mitigate the harm/damage. One such factor is God's timelessness, and I don't mean he is eternal. I mean he is literally outside of time altogether, whereas we live within a linear, time-bound reality. So he isn't "waiting around" for millions of years. He can open the world book to any page, start to finish, and see it more clearly than we see our present reality.
Another such factor is the perception of pain. Somewhere along the way, animals show signs of increased consciousness and awareness to pain, but the vast majority over all those millions of years preceding us would have just had plant-like or cell-like reactions to negative stimuli without ever approaching anything like the suffering we and some animals now experience. And I've heard somewhere that even the most complex animals only have about 1/3 of the brain power to experience suffering the way humans do. Again, not to say their pain isn't still a problem worth trying to explain, but it does mitigate the harm.
One small piece, too, is an idea found in "Paradise Lost," where Eve asks Adam why so much happens outside the view of mankind, and Adam says the angels see all of it and praise God for all he has done and is doing. Something like that. So, we imagine this empty, lifeless place for all these millions of years; but on Christianity, the angels were living out an entire story long before humanity showed up.
I also agree that Jesus gives us by far the clearest view of God. The difference between us on that front is that you appear to place him in contrast to the Old Testament God (though it's worth noting that he himself claims to one and the same), whereas I use his love to help me evaluate the behavior of the Old Testament God--basically, using the clearest evidence as an interpretive mechanism for evaluating the murkiest.
Christianity, as in, belief that bible accurately depicts actual historical events of god incarnating, being killed and rising from the dead is irrational, yes. As someone who was a part of the 'devout spiritual group' myself I've witnessed hundreds of people agreeing, collectively believing and convincing others in fairy tales WAY more dramatic than touching a dead jesus, while ruining their lives in the process. People delude themselves in groups all the time. Some of those delusions grow to become religions.
"I've witnessed hundreds of people agreeing, collectively believing and convincing others in fairy tales WAY more dramatic than touching a dead jesus, while ruining their lives in the process." That is a really interesting claim from firsthand experience; would you mind elaborating?
@ Sure. Imagine a christian gathering when someone is saying "Jesus is with us" but dialed to 11 and without an expectation of what exactly should be happening.
For example: group of 100 people is sitting in circles having a conversation on spiritual topics. One of the more devout members is saying "I am flicking the pages and reading from this book in front of me and it says X (there is no book)" or "a group of higher beings is in the room holding my hand and they said A", a second also devout person is following up "yes, and it also says Y" or "those beings walk around the room interact with me and..." etc.
Literally one person like this is enough, but with at least a couple the opposition starts weighing on you really hard. Sometimes they wouldn't be speaking in affirmative and would say something suggestive that encourages a spin off. For example "I was wondering if this being would visit to us" and another one picking up "i believe it will", then "it's with us I see it" etc. People who don't believe yet would have a choice: to either publicly object that nothing like this is happening, acknowledge that it's happening, do nothing or quietly leave and don't come to meetings again. Almost no one objects, some leave, most people do nothing for the first months and then get on board with the story and start interacting with it saying that they also see and feel those things. Feeling special like this feels great, you would be convincing others that it really happened to you (you really do believe it did).
Few months to a year in, you would be sure that those things are real and would leave your spouse if they didn't believe you. It would attract lots of people, including sceptics and opposition for various reasons. Once they interact with believers, some would adopt the same behaviour outlined above, leave or continue quietly until they start believing. Years later vast majority still believes and tells stories of things that happened to the group that match in every detail. Try reading the bible and "assessing evidence" for Christianity through the lens of this experience.
Intro your vid with what you think he thinks and calling him bitter...
That's a brave strategy Cotton lets see how that plays out.
To be fair, the leap from "I was traumatized by my Christian upbringing," "The Bible is evil and dangerous," and "Christians should stop shoving their ignorant beliefs down people's throats, including their own children's," to "I'm bitter that I was raised Christian" isn't a very big leap.
If there are any specific misrepresentations of his views you'd like me to correct, please do let me know. I'm not trying to strawman him.
My exact thoughts. Immediately knew he was not well intentioned.
@@TheSandman121212 Not well-intentioned? What do you think my intentions are?
23:55 - 28:18 I started listening to Alex O'Connor lately and watched that talk with the two of them. Alex uploaded this section of the talk in its own video titled "The Fine-Tuning Argument - Francis Collins and Alex O'Connor" for those interested.
With regard to gnosticism, I thought that this was one of Alex's worse takes. He said something similar in "Debating God With The Archbishop of Canterbury, Philip Goff, and Elizabeth Oldfield". I thought about making a video on the subject and I would have made some of the same points, but without the articulation and counter-hypothetical. Nicely put.
Thank you, David! And thank you for sharing such powerful testimony on your channel. I prayed for you and will add to my ongoing prayers that the Lord richly blesses you.
@@KoryRQueen Thanks, brother. I'll be praying for you and your ministry! May the Lord bless you as well!
Do you require proof that there are no tiny unicorns living behind my fridge until you stop believing there are tiny unicorns living behind my fridge?
To believe that, I would have to see evidence. It would be very exciting, though! I've never found evidence of unicorns behind my fridge; mine tend to hang out in the pantry.
@@KoryRQueen Why do you require evidence of unicorns living behind my fridge, but require the person who says they do not believe in god to provide evidence for absence of god? Seems special pleading for the god claim, as you seem to admit you treat other claims differently.
@@KoryRQueen Seems like I was correct in that you asking an atheist for evidence is just special pleading as indicated by the non-response.
@ Thank you for bringing this back to the top of my comment list; I'm not finding it easy to be as responsive as I would like.
To your question, any claim should be supported by evidence; otherwise it is irrational to believe it. It is not the lack of belief in atheism that the atheist needs to support, it is the materialist assumptions. Materialism is a positive claim concerning the fundamental nature of reality.
@@KoryRQueen First, to be an atheist is nothing more than not having a god belief. It does not imply materialism. You could still believe in ghosts or philosophical naturalism for example. It is utterly wrong to state that atheists are materialists, when (assuming they understand the terms used) they would for the most part claim to be methodological materialists. I assume the difference is understood. So again, what is your rationale for putting burden of proof to the atheists but not to the a-unicornist?
The absolute state of Christians. I’m a former lawyer myself, this is a ridiculous gimmick. This guy is just trying to gain specious credibility by using a legal format to disguise the poverty of his arguments.
@@davethebrahman9870 Did you have a specific argument you wanted to address? Happy to discuss in more detail.
@@KoryRQueenOK, how can you believe that Jesus was somehow divine when he makes a false prediction (Mark 9:1)?
Why do you talk of ‘materialism’ when you presumably mean ‘physicalism’? Why do you say that the God belief is the only claim in history that doesn’t bear a burden of proof? Why do you engage in well-poisoning against Mr O’Connor rather than confronting his arguments? How do you determine that the supernatural is even possible, let alone established in any particular case? How did you determine that the universe began to exist, when every physicist says that we can’t get back behind the Planck time, and therefore we can say nothing about the beginning of the universe? How is all your talk about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamicss and heat death not simply a fallacious argument ‘ad consequentiam’? How is an infinite regress impossible when we can posit a reversal of entropy? Thanks, I’ll continue after you answer these.
@ Can you see my reply? It seems to have disappeared.
@ What do you think is the best argument for God? I’m happy to show you that none of them work.
@ Why is that? Some of us think the truth is important.
Why the need to criticize atheists for using the word atheist and then explaining what they mean by atheist? You make a point in saying it's meant for debate tactic purposes and then procede to use that topic the same way.
1st, I agree that in technical philosophy, the word has an agreed on specific definition, and for that purpose, in that realm, it should be used that way for clairity.
2nd, I think the knowledge and belief distinction is more useful in everyday language.
3rd, if someone asks me if I believe in God. Why do I need to answer that I'm agnostic? Why do i need a word to say more than no. In that context, neither word seems to adequately describe my position. So I could so no, in which case I'm just answering the belief question. If I'm not a theist, an agnostic isn't the opposite of a theist. A non theist is. An ah theist is. To me, that seems only semantically different from atheist.
Therefore, I think the distinction between beleif and knowledge is more useful.
This is an argument style common among lawyers. Basically, "That's not true, but even if it is true, I still win." So, in this case: it's not true that the burden of proof is useful here, but even if it were, we don't have it, and even if we did, you've never said what that burden is. This is intended to show the layers of difficulty an atheist faces from the outset and expose why they go out of their way to try and avoid those difficulties. Then, we get to a much more useful framing because it's much more practical and unavoidable for anyone on any side of the debate: Burden of Trust, i.e., what are you betting your life on? For atheists, it's always Materialism, which is a positive claim.
As for precision of terms "atheist" and "agnostic," it's just nitpicky wordplay to say "Atheism is not a position" when every ordinary person (and, in the past, the philosophy community) who hears the word "atheism" takes it to mean a positive belief in God's nonexistence. Defining terms is fine, it just seems pointless when the common sense use of "atheism" and "agnosticism" work just fine to carry us along here.
I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
I find it somewhat frustrating to hear a talk start with defining someone else's view different than they do and then refuting that view. In a debate when this happens the two sides spend the entire time talking past each other. I find that is the case for almost all debates, which is why they rarely go anywhere.
I get that everyone wants to shift the burden of proof in an unprovable discussion.
I still think the distinction between knowledge and belief is more useful in describing how most non theists think about God.
If I were ever to debate, I would refer to myself as agnostic to avoid the topic all together. But if someone were to ask me if I am an atheist, I would say I'm an agnostic atheist. I don't know if God or anything like God exists. I don't believe in anything like God.
For the purpose of your video you wanted to equalize the burden of proof. I get that. I think your legal explanation makes some sense. I would just caution that if you want someone to change their mind you should go with what they say they believe rather than any definition of a word.
What about in a non debate setting, such as a Christian trying to convert someone? Say I'm a person who has no supernatural beliefs. How would I have a burden of proof? In contrast, it seems like the Christian would have an enormous burden of proof due to the nature of the claims and the consequences of the lack of belief. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence if they want the claim to be believed by all. The truth of any claim doesn't require any evidence but the persuasion of a truth claim seems to.
@@JosiahNemitz I think I see where you're coming from re knowledge versus belief. It sounds like the difference between (i) airtight proof (something no one has) and (ii) trust despite a lack of proof (something everyone has to do). If that's the case, we're saying essentially the same thing. Am I understanding you correctly?
One additional piece that affects debate tactics is that your debate opponent isn't necessarily your only audience. So, you may intentionally subvert your opponent's approach for the sake of the audience in a way that you would never do in a one-on-one conversation.
I do agree with you that there's a sort of practical burden at work in converting a person into or out of their worldview, including atheism or Christianity. If you wanted me to convert out of Christianity, you'd need to show me evidence that I've gone wrong; if I want to convert you away from the Materialist assumptions underlying atheism, I'll need to show you evidence that those assumptions are dubious. We begin our conversations with the assumption that we're the one who's correct, and the other person has the burden of undermining that assumption.
I do appreciate you weighing in and being willing to have the conversation. It's clear you've put a lot of thought into this.
Not exactly. I think some things we can say we know. I just don't know if the origin of all reality is one of those things.
I understand what I mean by atheist and agnostic and will use them as precisely as needed depending on the situation.
I think the way Kevin Sharp defines atheism and theism based on weakness and strength is also more descriptive of how we actually think. Him and WLC had a good debate once.
@ Thanks, I'll check it out!
'Christian lawyer'? Is that a professional title or a theological flex? Perhaps a logical contradiction? In any case, it puts your bias on full display. Trying to put atheism 'on trial' while wearing the dual hats of judge and prosecutor is as biased as it gets. This isn’t evidence-based analysis-it’s a kangaroo court of your own beliefs. Meanwhile, Alex O'Connor brings reason and clarity to the table while you bring... well, a gavel and a Bible. Yikes. This video has only furthered my belief that Christians think they are so much better than everyone around them and declare to have knowledge about secret fairytales that won't reveal themselves to everyone else.
Christian: my worldview, which is relevant to an apologetics-centered channel.
Lawyer: my career, which is relevant to how I evaluate complex questions, and makes clear the limits of my expertise.
I also presented the case as though representing my client (Christianity) to a jury (the audience). No judge.
If there are any arguments of Alex that you think I strawmanned, please do let me know, so I can correct it. That wasn’t my intention.
I also apologize for giving you the impression of being pompous. That also is unintended, but I will try and monitor my tone.
Happy to discuss any of this further.
@@KoryRQueenyes you represented your client to the jury while misinterpreting Alex with those "yays" "boos" and so on. So no opposition to call you out on your nonsense. A real justice.
To summarize your post; "I'm upset that you represent God, I hate God"
@@mikhailyaremkiv Yikes, your lack of critical thinking is on full display here. Your summary absolutely failed to capture the ideas that I presented. This is a classic christian apologist tactic - you can't refute actual arguments or logic, so you appeal to feelings/emotions and use ad hominems to make yourself feel better. It genuinely makes me feel sad for you.
@@KoryRQueen Please try to answer this question as honestly as possible. Do you genuinely feel that you gave an unbiased and fair chance to both the 'defendant' and 'prosecutor' in this video? Do you think that you were unfair to either side in any way? You seem to be patting yourself on the back a lot and telling us how amazing you are for being impartial and fair. Do you truly believe that you are in this video? Do you see any areas at all where you were unfair or where you appeal to emotion rather than logic?
Why did god design humans with a blind spot? Did he make a mistake?
@@jesusmora6336 This family of “arguments from poor design” sound to me like:
1. Did the watchmaker make a mistake if someone else breaks the watch? (Attribution of mistake to the wrong person)
and/or
2. Are we sure the watchmaker made a mistake just because there are parts in the watch that we don’t know the function of? (Assumption of mistake from ignorance, e.g., the recent discovery that the appendix isn’t just a useless vestige of evolution after all)
Does that answer your question?
@@KoryRQueenneither seems to be the case. it seems most likely to be a defect in one of our most important senses. The blind spot seems to be a defect almost by definition. I would like to hear why you think worse vision may be useful. Not to mention the deadly complications associated with childbirth without medical assistance. 1/100 preindustrial childbirths ending in death to the mother seems like a defect. What is the purpose of deadly childbirth ? This to me goes against an intelligent designer. Surely the blind spot didn’t arise due to human corruption. Thank you for your honest response. Fine tuning doesn’t do it for me either. It’s so finely tuned with a built in sun to destroy humanity in the future and plenty of menacing asteroids. I guess the better eyes without the blindspot flaw were reserved for the squids.
@@jesusmora6336
1. I didn't say worse vision may be useful. This question isolates a particular "defect" without looking at the overall tapestry. The Christian answer in general is that such defects (assuming they really are defects and not just an assumption from ignorance as mentioned above) would have been allowed if the arena in which free will is allowed ends in an overall greater good than if no free will had been allowed. Within that framework, it is assumed that anything deserving redemption will indeed be redeemed. The book of Job, for instance, spends a lot of time crying out in suffering but looking forward to a "redeemer." That's a very pervasive biblical theme.
2. What is the purpose of deadly childbirth? On atheism, nothing. It's a brute fact, and oh well, carry on, we'll all be there soon. On Christianity, it's a feature of the evils temporarily allowed in pursuit of even greater goods; one greater good, for instance, being that those children are now in paradise, and we'll soon join them there.
@KoryRQueen regarding #1: 'Someone else' didn't break the watch. The watchmaker forgot to include a minute hand when he made...every single watch that he ever constructed
@@KoryRQueenare christians unable to understand arguments?
You don't seem to understand the difference between the non believer's "l don't know" and your fallacious religious claims that you do....
You disagree that atheism implies materialism?
It does, but "l don't know it's origins" is the honest answer, rather than "God did it"
@ Materialism is a claim about the origin of the universe. Once you assume Materialism, you are no longer saying "I don't know." Materialism is as much an affirmative claim as "God did it."
The primary stumbling block I have to all the arguments for God is that the conditional statements in every argument aren't knowable, so the conclusion is always dubious.
We don't know if the universe had a beginning. Even if it did, we don't know that a God could create anything out of nothing. It may sound more absurd to say the universe began to exist without an explanation than to say a mind did it, but both are as empirically equivalent. The christisns that martial science for their arguments can't seem to get the scientists to agree with them. As a non scientist, I don't feel justified in using arguments like that when I don't understand them as well as the experts, and the experts don't agree. Maybe that's just my ptsd from YEC background and thinking I could refute science I knew nothing about.
We don't know if morality can be justified outside of our human interests. I prefer Sam Harris's way of thinking because it helped me realize that the relevant questions are easier to talk about from that perspective. Even while acknowledging that it's not self justifying.
The God morality would be less dubious if not for the bible. Assuming the biblical God. All the intuitions required to affirm that morality are diminished by what God himself does.
I can empathize with your PTSD from a YEC background. That's why I threw the baby out with the bathwater and rejected Christianity for a long time. My three brothers remain atheistic.
I also agree that one core challenge is how unprovable anything is. How do we proceed when surrounded by such mysteries, and no worldview escapes this. That's why I think the "Burden of Trust" is more useful than the "Burden of Proof" in this conversation, because we have to trust something and keep going. On what basis do we choose things? Because they're supported by the best evidence vis-a-vis other worldviews? Because they're the most beautiful? Because they make us the happiest? Some combination of these? For me, Jesus has a strong claim from any one of those angles.
Re the dubious God morality, two distinctions are important. First, there's a difference between (i) God being the only rational basis for our morality and (ii) our morality being infallible. Second and relatedly, if we assume the Christian God's existence, with all his power, love, and knowledge, then it's rational to say he can do or command things that would be wrong for us to do ourselves--and he can do them precisely because he has the requisite features to ensure that something good comes out of it in a way that we never could; we don't have nearly the power, love, or knowledge to do it. By way of analogy, a doctor can perform a brain surgery because he intends to heal the patient and knows how to do it; if I cut into someone's brain, I should be arrested. What's right for Dr. Brain Surgeon is wrong for me.
Sam Harris acknowledges at the end of his book that his moral system opens the door to moral chaos if, for instance, murderous psychopathy is extremely pleasant for enough people. I may be misrepresenting him a little--it's been a while since I read it--but if so, not by much.
I appreciate you acknowledging the difficulty of knowledge in this realm.
As far as morality is concerned. I recognize the distinction between ontology and epistemology.
The moral argument asks us to use our intuition about morality to establish the ontological ground of it. If the ontological ground on offer is God, and he undermines those intuitions then the argument goes no where. The logical structure of the moral argument is fine but the conclusions are not obvious at all. It's not obvious that God is the ground of morality. It's not obvious that for morality to be objective that God is the only ontological ground possible.
I will not attempt to defend The Moral Landscape. It just helped me change my perspective from a command morality to a rational morality. It's possible to navigate the sphere of morality from the perspective of well being without being able to justify it ontologically. His analogy of health, is a good one, I think. I don't think we need a perfect ontological justification of morality to make objective claims about morality.
Morality and its considerations only matter to people that already care about morality.
To the sociopath it doesn't make any difference how you justify morality if they don't care about morality.
Every moral framework is susceptible to the question of why is good good. Even the answer to Euthyphro that Craig (WLC) uses - "God is Good". Doesn't tell us what makes the goodness of God good. Anyone that agrees on the good can have moral conversations and give objective answers. The good itself isn't arbitrary because we are physical beings in an objective world that have a lot of interests in common. I can't tell you what you should value necessarily but what you do value isn't totally arbitrary. Because its not arbitrary we can navigate with some objectivity.
I'm sure there are models of morality that are better than Sam Harris's. The primary takeaway that I got from that book was that I could no longer talk about morality like I did as a Christian. It was obvious that without perfect ontological justifications you could still talk quite sensibly about morality. I would make the claims as a Christian like - if God didn't exist how can you say anything is wrong. When you think about any detailed case the questions are always based on whatever we already value. If we had no values we would never even ask "is this right or wrong" . Any context where you exclude the concept of wellbeing makes no sense from a moral perspective. Appealing to divine commands just stopped making any sense. Something was wrong because the nature of the action regardless of any deity. Adding a deity didn't add anything for me. Saying it's wrong because God is good is meaningless to me. If you know what the good is well enough to know if God is good then you already know what the good is. So adding God just seems superfluous.
Sure we can make excuses for the actions of God in the bible but would I accept those excuses from any other religion's deity?
There is no definition of good that makes any sense to me where God can do the things he is reported to have done in the bible. "Make it right in the end" isn't an excuse to do evil. All you need to do is ask, would there be anything that God could do that we could consider evil. If the answer is yes, then its obvious to me that some of the things he does are evil. If the answer is no then the concept of good has no useful meaning.
@@JosiahNemitz Here, you raise what was for my by far the most challenging question ahead of reentering Christianity. And it really did come down to a brutal choice: Will I trust that this God who shocks and dismays me at times is the same God that the Bible claims to be the epitome of love? Could it really be that Jesus is the same person as the God who ordered the Canaanite slaughter? I can't reconcile it. I can offer a way of thinking about it, but ultimately, you're right--one may have such moral repulsion to those episodes that there's no way past it. It just happens that in rejecting theism for moral reasons, you cut off the branch you're sitting on, and here we are again with the moral chaos. I don't like it, but that is the choice: Can I trust the God I don't understand? Has he given me enough evidence of his love that I can do that? And relatedly, is it rational to deny the existence of something complex on the basis that I can't understand how its known parts coexist?
If the Problem of God were the only question, I would not be a Christian. I have to take the Problem of God in light of the entire worldview. Every worldview has some nasty pill to swallow, and some of those Old Testament episodes are Christianity's. It would be disingenuous to deny that, and yet it remains that Christianity offers by far the best means of opposing the very things about those episodes that shock me so much (violence, oppression, exploitation, etc.). Again, to reject Christianity for that is to cut off the branch I'm sitting on.
I appreciate your honesty here. I do think we have a lot in common on our journey. I'm glad you are able to find peace with your decisions.
I also don't think that God being evil is disproof of his existence. It's just a good reason to reject the Moral Argument, at least if you want it for the Christian God.
I don't feel the weight of the branch cutting because I don't think God adds anything to the moral realm. Except maybe the obligation aspect. I don't really think that is morality, though. If you love your son because you're obligated, then it's not love.
@@JosiahNemitz Morality isn't based in God merely as obligation. It runs deeper than that. On Christianity, we are morally warped and do need to be corrected, but a morally whole person isn't merely obedient--they are living naturally in the image of God. He is the fountainhead of all goodness, we are cut from the same cloth, and to live morally isn't a mere obligation but rather becoming what we are designed to be.
C. S. Lewis's analogy for this is strong: we are one ship amidst a fleet, and morality is about (i) making sure our ship is running in a proper, healthy way and moving in the right direction, and (ii) making sure we don't crash into the ships around us. Internal flourishing, external harmony. And the fundamental Christian ethic of unconditional selfless love for all people is how that happens.
It is mind boggling to think a lawyer, who supposedly understands evidentiary standards and must employ logic to form arguments professionally, would use "burden of proof" as an argument for theism.
Prove there is a god. Any proof will do. Like, not just a preponderance of evidence let alone beyond a reasonable doubt. Any single falsifiable, tangible, replicable piece of evidence will do.
"Falsifiable, tangible, replicable." You're describing empirical evidence. That would be like demanding that I prove the existence of Michelangelo using only his artwork and removing all other evidence from consideration. You've stacked the deck impossibly against belief by excluding all evidence except the evidence that, by definition, couldn't prove the claim even if it were true. The physical world does contain evidence, though. That's why the Teleological Argument is often so effective with scientists. But even if the Christian God did exist, he is not the kind of entity you can just go grab a skin sample from. He's in a different category, and the evidence for him will not be exclusively empirical, even if some empirical evidence points to him, e.g., the Big Bang. This is what I mean when I say atheists put on blinders. Your materialist dogma filters out so much of the relevant evidence that you could never believe Christianity even if it were true.
The burden of trust?
What am I building my life around?
I'm building my life around requiring a burden of proof for claims, and it is holding up very well, thank you. I understand that's not working out for you?
5:40 objection you honour, relevance
Relevance is a very broad category in law, and evidence that goes to bias is always relevant. Every witness is evaluated at multiple levels: bias, reliability of the testimony, truthfulness, etc.
@ I meant relevance of that specific example, though I’m also not a lawyer, the fact he funded an experiment to help in the search for alien life, which you clearly brought up in an attempt to discredit is not only irrelevant to his view on a religion, but if anything should strengthen his credibility, the idea that well life evolved here, so it’s reasonable to assume it might have elsewhere in a vast cosmos is easily supported and if anything points out his commitment to discovering the truth, even if the chance of success is infinitesimally small
8:06 so does any other religion with a creation myth, so…yeah were no further to answering the actual question than we were before that statement
@thelastbrickbender2139 Can you elaborate? I’m not quite clear on what you mean. What do other creation myths have in common with the Genesis account? Do you have specific examples? And how does this undermine my Materialism-Creator dichotomy?
@@KoryRQueen Sorry maybe I wasn’t clear it’s not about what they have in common, quite the opposite, you said Christianity has an answer to the beginning of the universe, what I’m questioning is the validity of that answer, given I mean first of all there’s no actual evidence for the genesis accounts and if one was to actually take them literally, which is foolish, they’re metaphorical texts, there’re easily disproven, but even if we were to take them as is, what makes the Christian answer better than let’s say the Enuma Elisa, which genesis 1 was written in response to anyways, if Christianity wants to answer the question of the beginning of everything, that claim has to be backed up by actual proof, otherwise it’s no more valid than any other answer to the question, I could make up an answer right now, like let’s say, well the universe is actually the result of a “space race” between two opposing supernatural entities to see who could create a working blueprint for such a system in the first place and they made it out of dragons they killed and that’d he just as valid as the Christian “answer”
I’m other words, the Christian answer isn’t an answer, it’s a guess and not a particularly good one
@thelastbrickbender2139what is your evidence for this space race? Obviously you have access to the internet which means that you have access to much better resources then RUclips to examine just about all of the proposed evidence for the exclusive monotheistic religious claims of Chtistianity, go ahead and knock yourself out with as much reading as you can handle BUT the question still remains; what is your evidence for this devine space race creation theory? If the answer is; "I dont have any" and your point is that Christianity also doesn't have any evidence and is on the same level as your fictional space race fairytale, then it is obvious that you are simply playing games and shouldn't expect much, if any, interaction from those who use their minds to search for truth. There are many just like you do you understand? Those willing to learn quickly learn to look past you like a smudge on the windshield. Your spaghetti monster type of argument is as rediculous when you say it as it was the first 3,000 times we heard it.
No evidence? You don't think the Big Bang is evidence that the Bible is correct in one of its central claims, that God is the one who made everything? You don't have to think evidence is logically airtight nor persuasive enough to change your mind to still think it is, in fact, evidence.
Excellent video. Systematic, concise, and I have to say that it’s refreshing seeing the comments filled with push back, showing your channel does not exist in an echo chamber of Christians only. This is exactly what you want as an apologetic, so be encouraged
Thank you! My brothers are aggressively atheistic, so this is basically just another Thanksgiving dinner. I appreciate your encouragement!
West is digging the ground on which It standing safely.
You made it seem as if you were going to do a one on one with him rather than a critique, as your thumbnail and title suggests. Very misleading. I couldn’t care to even watch the entire video after scrubbing through and realizing this is the case. Maybe try to talk to him one on one like a REAL trial would go. They wouldn’t proceed without the defendant present, it would likely be adjourned to another date if I recall correctly from a past case I’ve witnessed in first person
I reached out to him in November trying to strike up a private conversation, but he’s very busy and popular and never replied. Still, the “on trial” was meant as a nod to legal-style analysis, not to imply this matches an actual trial.
I do apologize if this misled you or anyone else. That wasn’t my intention. I see RUclipsrs posting the face of the person they’re critiquing all the time and assumed it would be fine.
You say Alex's channel is self-defeating but i believe that it is yours that really makes more arguments against then for God.
Not only that but u answer practically all of the arguments against God with the words "Well God said and did so, who are you to question him." which is just such a dissapointment, and it's nothing else from what every christian without good arguments and good points usually do.
Understood. If you do want to address any specific topics, let me know. Always happy to discuss in more depth.
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If one ponder minutely...he shall inevitably discover,every religion is baseless...
1.they can't give solid evidence for god
2.guidelines of every scripture were determined by some past influential individuals...so to adhere them instead of inquiring," do they really deserve to be followed"is kinda being submissive to authoritative figures
3. Only foolishes rely on imaginary entities for morality
1. Define "solid evidence." What kind of evidence is relevant to you?
2. Can you elaborate? I'm not clear on what you're getting at here? Do you mean that the biblical canon is not reliable because of how it was selected, and that the same is true for other religious texts?
3. What do you rely on for morality?
@KoryRQueen 1. Solid evidence implies empirically proven, verifiable, demonstratable evidence...where religion only offers us some unreliable anecdotes
2.Firstly God doesn't exist...the concept of God and pertaining religions were created to fool people and for the sake of personal gain...every scripture was written by some dominant individuals,so guidelines and rules prescribed in scriptures are according to their subjective perspectives, unlike constitution which is written according to the opinion of majority of population
3. To rely morality and to rely on baseless imagination to vindicate morality are blatantly different.
@KoryRQueen 1. Solid evidence implies empirically proven, verifiable, demonstratable evidence...where religion only offers us some unreliable anecdotes
2.Firstly God doesn't exist...the concept of God and pertaining religions were created to fool people and for the sake of personal gain...every scripture was written by some dominant individuals,so guidelines and rules prescribed in scriptures are according to their subjective perspectives, unlike constitution which is written according to the opinion of majority of population
3. To rely morality and to rely on baseless imagination to vindicate morality are blatantly different
@@KoryRQueen1. Solid evidence implies empirically proven, verifiable, demonstratable evidence...where religion only offers us some unreliable anecdotes
2.Firstly God doesn't exist...the concept of God and pertaining religions were created to fool people and for the sake of personal gain...every scripture was written by some dominant individuals,so guidelines and rules prescribed in scriptures are according to their subjective perspectives, unlike constitution which is written according to the opinion of majority of population
3. To rely morality and to rely on baseless imagination to vindicate morality are blatantly different
"Our universe mindlessly popped into existence " - that single statement lost you every single piece of credibility you might have add.
And that was after you mentioned in a comment that atheists use word play to get their point across, while in your first 15 minutes, you have constantly used word play - the very statement i started with is a prime example.
You might think you have strong arguments, but really you just rapid fire the same tired apologist tropes, wrapped in impressive sounding words that present nothing new.
@@tonyclif1 Interesting that I could lose all credibility for simply summarizing what the atheistic writers of the Cambridge Companion to Atheism described as the single most discussed argument for God’s existence in the philosophical community (the Kalam).
The fact that you’ve heard an argument before doesn’t make it a “tired apologist trope.” You’d need to show why it’s false, especially on a subject that remains central to the conversation in the philosophical community. A tired trope would be something like “there is absolutely zero evidence for God.” That one isn’t taken seriously by anyone except pop-atheists but is evidently fun to repeat ad nauseam.
Let me know any substantive critique. Always happy to discuss further. I’m not interested in going full Hitchens-style and relying on shallow word play. Much more interested in the substance of the arguments.
@KoryRQueen I just checked the contents of the Cambridge Companion to Atheism. The word "mindlessly" does not occur even once in the 352 page document, so it seems you have done exactly as I described - repeated a tired old trope in words not used by atheists. Atheists do not claim anything like "mindlessly popping into existence". That is simply your own fallacious wording.
My point stands even stronger because of your own intellectual dishonesty I'm afraid.
@ Atheists believe a mind was involved in the beginning of the universe? Can you elaborate?
@@KoryRQueen you certainly have a way with words, trying to put words in my mouth. I'd call that way "deceptive".
So you are doing EXACTLY what you claim atheists do in playing with words - that is called hypocrisy!
You know very well what the words mean, but choose to claim otherwise because it upsets your world view if you don't.
You also very eloquently avoided discussing the whole point of my comment, and your deceptive wording, falsely including "mindlessly"
I had hoped this was an honest conversation, but your actions speak louder than words.
I'm sure your lawyer tactics are convenient, and work great in your work, but they are also intellectually dishonest.
@@tonyclif1 We’re apparently talking past each other, but I can assure you I’m not trying to twist your words, just trying to clarify what you’re getting at.
Alex’s argument about religion being linked to geography doesn’t need an argument to dismiss because it’s the generic fallacy.
I agree that it's in the neighborhood of a genetic fallacy, although it's a slightly nuanced probabilistic rendition. The atheist is asking what makes more sense. "Did the all-loving God withhold himself from almost entire ethnic groups, or did various religions crop up organically based on local superstitions. Atheism explains this better." So, not necessarily a straightforward genetic fallacy to the effect of, "You're wrong because you came from such and such a place with such and such beliefs," but again, I do agree that it flirts with the fallacy.
@@KoryRQueen How does it ‘flirt with the fallacy’? It is a straightforward observation of the fact that religious belief correlates with habitation, which is not what we would expect if beliefs were arrived at on the basis of actual divine encounters or independent evidence.
@davethebrahman9870 On atheism, I wouldn't expect religion at all. On Christianity, I expect that since people are made in the image of God, they will have an innately religious bent, even if they aim their worship in the wrong direction. Christianity predicts this phenomenon much better than atheism does.
@ Why? Why wouldn’t we expect over-active agent detection on atheism? We see it in children when they ascribe agency to trees and butterflies.
I’d like this “Lawyer” to name one case that he could possibly win based on something involving what religion call miracles?
Or how you could win a criminal case that supports a person saying a god made told me to do it?
Not that this makes any kind of substantive point, but actually if someone genuinely thinks God made them do something and they can convince everyone that they really thought so, they do win their criminal case on the basis of insanity.
Of course, this isn't analogous to, say, the firsthand religious experiences described by Francis Collins, C. S. Lewis, Thomas Aquinas, Blaise Pascal, etc. since those first-rate intellectuals show no signs of insanity and possess rigorous, world-shaping minds and would have scrutinized their own experiences as carefully as anyone they told about them.
@
Why is it insanely?
Under your belief in your god what he says is true and correct right?
So all those killing the
Amalekites because they believed they were told by god are insane also?
@ I think that's actually a good question, and it requires unpacking. I'm not sure if you watched that portion of the video, but I did try to unpack the Amalekite episode in far more detail than I could do here in the comments section. What specifically about how I handled it did you disagree with, and why? I think it's a challenging question, and always happy to explore it further.
@@KoryRQueen
I’m not saying anything about your video.
I’m referencing people who kill under the order of your god being classed as insane ( your words not mine)
Yet you believe this religion to be true.
So is it far to say then believing in your god could be a type of mental illness?
To follow what people believe he tells them in their head to murder is classed as insane and Christians believe he is perfect so which is it?
Are we now picking and choosing what he tells people is good or not?
@@KoryRQueen God very clearly mandates genocide and endorses slavery in the OT. Happy to discuss this further if you disagree.
So you imply that hear-say is evidence? You'll be laughed out of court
Hearsay is evidence. It’s just often inadmissible evidence, especially if the “declarant” could be brought in for cross-examination. This is because the court favors using the strongest evidence available to make the decision.
Is there a reason you’re so confident about how the legal process works and what counts as evidence in my field?
@KoryRQueen i specify: its anonymos hear say...
Now show me ONE case, where such has been admited. ( in a LEGAL system mind you...not some banana court or witchtrials...)
@@RoninTF2011 Are you saying the entire Bible fits within this “anonymous hearsay” category, or only certain parts? What exactly do you mean by “anonymous hearsay”?
@@KoryRQueenIt is at best weak evidence, and unprovenanced anonymous assertions are not evidence at all.
@davethebrahman9870 Before getting into answering, I am genuinely curious if you don't mind sharing: You mentioned you were a lawyer. Where did you go to law school, and what kind of law did you practice, and where?
To your assertion that the evidence is weak, that's a very broad statement, and surely you aren't saying the entire biblical corpus is "unprovenanced anonymous assertions." Did you watch the portion of my video reviewing some of the evidence around the New Testament and aftermath? Any thoughts on any specific evidence, or are we just going to hold to the sweeping generalizations?
I could speak on just about every topic presented, but I'll keep it to one issue. In the "problem of God" section, you seem to essentially recognize that the Bible contains many conflicting takes on morality- some great, and some utterly abhorrent. The obvious and natural conclusion is that, as the writings in the Bible were composed by many different authors and editors, the views of those people are reflected in their texts. And because they were independent people writing over the span of a thousand years, the views differ both with each other and from what we consider moral today.
But instead, you prefer to explain away the problems and try to make the texts conform to what you already believe to be moral. That requires arbitrary picking and choosing, and it is informed by the modern worldview you approach the text with. It can also be done in all sorts of ways, which is why the Bible can be used to justify many horrific behaviors as long as its authority is accepted.
And, by the way, that enormous element of subjectivity defeats the very desire for objective morality that you seek in doing this. The Bible can (and must, if you want to make it coherent) be stretched and reinterpreted. In doing this, Christians basically end up with what they want it to say.
I had a great fear, when leaving the religion, of becoming a moral relativist. I clung to objectivism for a while afterwards because of it. But I must stress, honestly, just how little changed when I became a relativist. The fear was entirely unjustified! All relativism does, in practical terms, is essentially require some humility from me when approaching the topic of morality. I was previously forced to introduce my own subjective views of morality, anyways, regardless of what I pointed to as its source, so not much changed. We all engage in relativism, whether we like it or not.
1. According to Christ, who self-identified as one and the same with the Old Testament God, the overarching trademark of Christ-ian morality hangs solely on two ideas: (i) loving God wholeheartedly, (ii) loving your neighbor as yourself. (With love defined as unselfish, unconditional concern for the well-being of others.) This ethic remains unchanged for all time. It is present from Genesis to Revelation.
2. Love in action will look different depending on the circumstances, but that doesn't make it subjective. You may lovingly hug your child today and stick them in timeout tomorrow, even if the child is happy about one and cries about the other. If what you're doing is intended to build the person's well-being, then comes from love, even when uncomfortable for them. You can call this relativism if you like, but the fundamental driving force of the moral system remains unchanged--only the context changes. It is not relativistic in the same sense as, say, deciding whether to accept Alex's pleasure-based moral system or Nietzsche's power-based one. Those aren't just changes by which morality applies differently in different scenarios; those are changes to the very fabric of morality.
3. It is irrational to say God is unloving or immoral for doing something solely on the basis that a human being would be immoral for doing the same thing. If he really does exist, then his vastly greater knowledge, power, and love will mean he can do or command things that we, with our limited knowledge, power, and love, should never do. This is not a difference in morality; it is a difference in role. I don't let my children stick each other in timeout or otherwise punish each other because they don't have the knowledge, love, or power that I do to handle their discipline appropriately. The gap between any given parent and child would certainly be dwarfed by the gap between God and any human. Just because the love of a parent presents differently than the love they expect their children to display doesn't mean the parent has no right to tell their children to be loving, nor does it mean the parents' morality is relative/subjective vis-a-vis their children's. They have distinctive roles and limitations.
4. Christianity predicts that nonbelievers would still have moral instincts. If everyone is made in God's image, they will have, in the words of Paul, "the law written on their hearts." The atheist is said to have innate moral instincts and to have no rational basis for those instincts--which is ironic to many Christians, because a huge proportion of atheistic attacks on Christianity are moral attacks (how could God do this?, Christians do bad things, etc.), yet the very outrage they feel while describing these things is far better explained by Christianity than atheism.
@@KoryRQueen Thanks for the well-developed response. Here are my thoughts:
1. I agree this is what the historical Jesus taught (though I do not think he actually claimed that he was God). But I do not force Jesus' teachings to mesh with other teachings in the Bible. When there is internal conflict, we should let each individual ancient author say what they are trying to say. For example, the author of Leviticus 25:44-46 obviously did not "love your neighbor as yourself" in mind, and it's borderline criminal to think that he did! He was a different person than Jesus, and he had different views. Let them be different.
2. I agree there may be a distinction between the objectivity/subjectivity of a moral foundation and the subjectivity of its interpretation and application. I certainly would agree with this on the topic of Truth (there is objective truth, but we can only approach it subjectively).
Yet for all practical purposes, the distinction does not help us with anything. It does not matter to a suffering person whether the suffering is caused by subjective morality or "objective" morality with subjective interpretation. They are effectively the same, and it is inescapable. The objectivist merely has a greater arrogance in his subjectivity because he appeals to a greater authority.
3, 4. Moral problems with Christianity are internal critiques. If our morality is indeed given by God, then the moral problems we have with Christianity and the Bible should be taken very seriously.
I do not agree that our moral intuitions are better explained by Christianity. Our evolution better explains the origins of morality than religion does. For example, most people react strongly to a crying child in front of them, but they change the television channel when hearing about a genocide in the other hemisphere, even when it is caused by their own country. It seems like God forgot to make our moral intuitions apply universally! But evolution explains this proximal morality flawlessly, as I'm sure you can realize with a moment of thought.
Why are my comments disappearing??? Probably divine intervention... 😂😂
I wish comments weren't disappearing; I've had the same happen to me on busy comments sections. I'm not deleting anything. Your thoughts are welcome here.
@KoryRQueen Disingenuous at best, clout-chasing at worst-hopefully the latter. Your “counterclaim” glosses over deeper topics and, as a result, misses much of the substance in Alex’s debate performances on such topics. Typical lawyer behavior. Still, I managed to sit through over an hour of this diatribe. Worse still, hard to encapsulate your first hours performance in the comments from the toilet
If you have any specific arguments you’d like to address, I’m happy to discuss.
This is an abusive relationship. You create absolutely everything. Everything Good is your responsibility. It can only come through you. You're always praise worthy and whenever anyone does anything good they should be greatful to you because it was only through you that they were ever able to do it. If something bad happens, even if we can't tell how it could be the creations fault. The imperfect creation you made imperfect who is incapable of being perfect, is using their free will you gave them to create all of the bad things. Nothing bad is ever your fault to any degree, it's always everyone else's fault even though they are infinitely dumber than your perfection and you created them all that way. They must repent and ask for forgiveness for how imperfect tthey are and if they ever do any good they must praise you for it.
As much as I find "If I were God" statements to be inherently silly, I am curious what you think would be acceptable pre-Creation behavior for the Christian God. On Christianity, he created because he wanted to expand the circle of creatures who could love and be loved. Assuming Christianity is true for the sake of argument, is this creation for love inappropriate in your view, or do you just feel that he should treat the creatures that refuse to love him with less harshness since they didn't choose to be put in the situation? Do you feel that his acts of love, like the crucifixion, are nullified by the acts of harshness and one's lack of choice in whether they're created?
@KoryRQueen Is that why God created the universe on Christianity? I don't even think it was my point. I don't think I was doing an "if I was God". My point was the relationship between God and creation in any Christianity I've ever been exposed to, is abusive. But anywho, I don't know why God would create imperfect beings that are incapable of not sinning like God, and see any other result. Doesn't seem to impact freewill if only theists existed, or if only non-murderers existed. Many non-murderers exist and they all have freewill. If I am playing the game, yes I cannot see a scenario where I would choose a Christian world instead of nothing at all. A world where not only do you have the things that go on in this realm, but people are also created and sent to fate worse than we can imagine. Nothing seems like a better choice to me if there's no other choice than that. Same way if you told me I could start a new planet with no hunger or war. Basically a Utopia by simply torturing anyone who opposes my plan within the core of the planet . Not only that, having omniscience & creating these people anyway, just to throw them into the core. Then Sacrificing myself and spending 3 days in the core to save the people if they will only acknowledge me and my loving nature and infinite mercy. If that's the only option then i'd rather not start the planet. I really am not seeing it and that's how I do and would approach it. The Christian God however idk, I haven't seen an explanation that satisfies me.
I have no idea how people can pretend that there are no contradictions in the Bible. Lets point out an indisputable example. John has Jesus arrested for a different reason compared to Mark, Matthew and Luke.
Do you think any events described in the New Testament occurred? If so, where do you draw the line? What interpretive devices do you use to reach the conclusion?
@@KoryRQueen I do think some things in the Bible occurred but because how they wrote history in ancient times its very muddy. Jesus was arrested and crucified, I agree. For what reason? I do not know. But when it comes to the Gospels, they dont agree on why he was arrested an crucified. The sources nearest to the time of Jesus dont even agree on what happened. So ill never know. There his both history and myth in the Bible. Why do the romans crucify people? For going against the state and this would have made Jesus a criminal. The Gospels dont even match up with why someone would be crucified.
Lets use 2nd Kings 3 for example. Yahweh, loses in divine warfare to another God named Chemosh. Did this happen? I dont believe in gods so I dont think so BUT when you look at the mesha stele, you can see that this event was indeed history in some form.
I reach my conclusions by learning how these culture operated in those times.
@@KoryRQueen I do think some things in the Bible occurred but because how they wrote history in ancient times its very muddy. Jesus was arrested and crucified, I agree. For what reason? I do not know. But when it comes to the Gospels, they dont agree on why he was arrested an crucified. The sources nearest to the time of Jesus dont even agree on what happened. So ill never know. There is both history and myth in the Bible. Why do the romans crucify people? For going against the state and this would have made Jesus a criminal. The Gospels dont even match up with why someone would be crucified. I reach my conclusions by studying how these cultures operated during their time.
@@KoryRQueen I do think some things in the Bible occurred but because how they wrote history in ancient times its very muddy. Jesus was arrested and crucified, I agree. For what reason? I do not know. But when it comes to the Gospels, they dont agree on why he was arrested an crucified. The sources nearest to the time of Jesus dont even agree on what happened. So ill never know. There is both history and myth in the Bible. Why do the romans crucify people? For going against the state and this would have made Jesus a criminal. The Gospels dont even match up with why someone would be crucified. I reach my conclusions by studying how these cultures operated during their time.
@@KoryRQueen I do think some things in the Bible occurred but because how they wrote history in ancient times its very muddy. Jesus was arrested and crucified, I agree. For what reason? I do not know. But when it comes to the Gospels, they dont agree on why he was arrested an crucified. The sources nearest to the time of Jesus dont even agree on what happened. So ill never know. There is both history and myth in the Bible. Why do the romans crucify people? For going against the state and this would have made Jesus a criminal.
This guy is like Shapiro, he talks like a firehose.
im an anime scaler from WiS community,and im new to religion debate or what u called it,
and i think God does exist but not worth to be worshipped nor he even interested in human affair,all the religion were fall under appeal to faith as historical interpretation claim couldnt assert a strong evidence of God existence to be the same within the holy scripture of Christianity faith.
I list all the X attributes that described within the christianity faith holy scripture
X is christianity God
X is omnipotent
X is omniscient
X is Omnibenevolence (Positive description)
X is All forgiving (Positive description)
X possess every positive description tha made by human intellect and language.
X is Ineffable
X is immutable
X is incomprehensible
X is indescribable
(The Father attributes ,in short 4Is)
Question:
1.If X is represent all good,therefore it contradict the nature of 4Is
we assert that the nature of X is something that beyond linguistic and intellect,but we also assert positive description within X attributes,thus negates the 4Is essences
2.if X is Omnipotent,X doesnt require to be worship as it seem useless action to X,X capable to do anything that seems does not even require our faith to mantain X own existence and power
3.X is Omniscient,so X predicted every evil deed that X own creature did with the ability of freewill,therefore punishing it seem to be useless as X already foresee the consequences of freewill within X creation
4.X action seems to be contrast with his own positive attributes,such as commanding the genocide of Canaanites,Amalakites etc
5.Questioning the ethical judgment based on Christian faith: If the Son of X sacrificed His life for humanity's sins, then justifying ethical judgment for humanity seems redundant, as the price for those sins has already been paid.
Why do you believe God exists?
Do you think God's existence has any relevance to how we conduct our daily lives. Why (or why not)?
@KoryRQueen First, don't dodge the question that I asked u
Second, I believe in the relevance of religion and faith as the foundation of theistic life because theism is based on religious principles that serve as a moral compass to guide human decision-making.
Third, I believe in God's existence because quantum fluctuations do not exist independently within the void of nothingness; they must have a cause, which led to cosmic inflation. Creation, therefore, implies causation. I have explored various philosophical interpretations of God's existence, such as the concepts of the uncaused cause, the unmoved mover, and the contradictions within existence .I have read with numerous anime, books, and games that explain God's existence as an independent and unrestricted entity beyond the boundaries of language and intellect. Examples include The Root in the Nasuverse, which represents the ultimate non-dual reality, and The Creator in Umineko, an entity that transcends all conceptual restrictions, existing simultaneously within the duality of truth while governing the cosmology of Umineko.
@@KoryRQueen can U answer me
Can ya answer the question above
Sure:
1. Our inability to adequately describe God with human language does not demonstrate God's incoherence; it demonstrates the limitations of language. Wittgenstein did an excellent job of laying out those limitations in many other settings; it's not just a God thing.
2. God's most central feature is love. Christians do not say he "needs" worship; we say he created us to love and be loved.
3. Just because an evil act was predicted does not mean the action wasn't free. The relevant question to whether punishment is deserved is whether the punishable act was freely chosen.
4. The inability to understand God's reasoning for something is not the same as showing him to be incoherent. We cannot reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics; and from this, we rationally conclude that we cannot fully understand our universe. We do not rationally conclude that our universe doesn't exist. If this is true about the universe, it would a fortiori be true about the God who made the universe.
5. Yes, that is the essence of Christian salvation. Jesus is seen as a sort of "Passover lamb." Whoever trusts him falls under the aegis of his sacrifice.
How do you tell if the Bible IS inspired by a God?
You’d have to evaluate the evidence: Did the predictions come true? Does the proposed lifestyle really work and, relatedly, what is the cultural impact? Is a coherent message surviving across multiple individuals, times, and cultures?
Not an easy question to answer, I agree.
@
So are you suggesting that just because something survives for a long time that makes it god inspired?
@
Wouldn’t you need to confirm a god exists first?
Do you agree plenty of people have believed a lie and died for it?
I have numerous examples.
@@vtwin1979 I’m afraid I’m unclear on how you derived that suggestion from what I said.
The common denominator in all people who stop being agnostic and start choosing one of these 2 world views is selective skepticism. Your weak explanation of the problem of God and the biblical inerrancy problem by covering the excuses and then claiming we can't make reasonable claims about this old mysterious stuff on the hard problems is selective skepticism to favor the choice you made. You're still agnostic you've just chosen to have selective skepticism.
In that sense, everyone is agnostic. That's why I think the Burden of Trust is more useful. Since we're all agnostic, what are we going to bet on? Attempts to explain God's behavior are very likely to be weak because they're tantamount to me trying to explain why a brain surgeon makes the cuts and prescribes the meds that he does. At some point, I just have to trust that he knows what he's doing. But my faith is based on the overall case and its overall probability vis-a-vis atheism or any other world view--not on shoving God's eternal mind into my finite one.
It's still worth acknowledging that you put aside your skepticism once you decided to trust God. If someone doesn't trust God then the answers to all these questions remains dubious. Don't expect them to be any more persuasive then they were when you were still questioning.
For instance, only people of faith believe that there aren't contradictions in the bible. Its not as if the work arounds are obvious and the contradictions aren't. Just because you can force reconcile something doesn't mean its not a contradiction. Everyone who doesn't believe, and some who do, can see this.
Just like the mistakes of any other holy book are easily found by the people of a different holy book.
I sometimes wish I could be a Christian again but it would require me to have amnesia about all my questions.
I can't chose my beliefs
I can't trust in God if I don't believe he exists.
@ I can't agree with that I put aside my skepticism to believe in God. I remain immensely skeptical, especially after my legal training. It was skepticism that led me into atheism, and skepticism that led me right back out.
I stuck hard questions to the Christian fundamentalists in my life, their answers came up woefully short, and I rejected Christianity.
I then stuck hard questions to the atheists in my life, found their over-confident answers every bit as half-baked as any religious fundamentalist, and so rejected atheism for a much better Christianity than I began with.
Skepticism remains a dear friend, and many of my views are within the philosophical framework of "skeptical theism."
It's not on RUclips but if you keep doing these videos you should do one on the The Outsiders Test for Faith by John Loftus.
I can understand your journey and frustration with trying to find those answers. I spent several years in deep exisostential anxst. I would try to understand a view from multiple perspectives and it seemed impossibly overwhelming to find an answer. At some point I stopped looking because there seemed to be no answer that I couldn't find problems with. I still think that, but I have started thinking about this stuff again the last couple years.
Archaeologist Israel Finkelstein in the Bible Unearthed the exodus and conquest did not happen.
Fellow agnostic archeologist William Dever took Finkelstein to task for his over-confident assertions, like the one you just made, like the ones O'Connor routinely makes.
I simply don't agree.
I'm happy to discuss any specifics.
Omnipotent God could fix the sound in this video. Still, good content, thank you.
@@hermannsorgel Agreed 😅 - better to do something good now than perfect never, but yes, the #1 thing I had better figure out is the audio tech. I’m very new to the tech side of things. Thanks!
O.o beautiful
Thank you!